Bruce Wagner - I'll Let You Go

Mac’s familiar surroundings, never so wonderful, were now a lonelier haven than she could bear. Except for Cindra, the children Amaryllis had befriended earlier had long since cycled or recycled out — to hospitals, foster families or residential homes (or just plain AWOL); even counselors had moved on, never to be seen again. Favorite volunteer grannies vanished, through attrition born of old age. Against her nature, Amaryllis began to harden. She frowned and sassed through the days, and if our orphan had been a shark, she would surely have eaten a mosasaur with the same consuming indifference that Dézhiree noshed a lunchtime sandwich. Rarely anymore did she seek comfort in the Box of Saints; and went hours without speaking. She huffed air freshener with the new girl, Kristl, and grew antagonistic with staffers. For a few days she proudly sported her very own one-on-one.

At night in her bed, it didn’t take much for Amaryllis to imagine the babies already in Mrs. Woolery’s satanic hatchery, outfitted in his-and-her helmets, rocketing into walls or drooling on urine-soaked futons. More than once, standing before the backdrop of unfinished mural or empty Streisand pool, she came close to enlisting Kristl on a Tunga Canyon search-and-rescue. Her fearless friend was up for anything.

“Did your CASA tell you where they were?”

“She said she would.”

“They’re probably waiting to see if you act out. You know: they’re not quite sure you’re worthy of knowing where those babies are. I could find them — it’s not even legal , keeping you separated.”

“How? How could you?”

“I could find them anytime ,” said Kristl smugly, as if talking to a cretin.

Freshly fourteen, blond and sinewy, with nacreous glued-on fingernails and bleachy crosshatched suicide scars at the wrists, she was of the sorority of children of the damned (Crissie Fits of Tunga Canyon, naturally, included) fondly named after Godmother Meth: a veritable Kristallnacht.

“I could find out when we leave.”

“What do you mean?”

“We’re getting out ,” she whispered.

“When?”

“Field trip on Monday. Huntington Gardens.”

“Where’s that?”

“Don’t ask so many questions. Do you want to go or not?”

“I have court,” Amaryllis said timorously.

“Court is bullshit!”

“Lani said the babies’ll be there. The judge can put us together.”

“That is so much bullshit . You are such a fucking victim! You’re too old . They’re never gonna put you with your brother and sister.”

Amaryllis chewed on a nail. “Are you going to run away by yourself?”

“I don’t know,” said Kristl haughtily. “It looks like it, since you’re such a pussy — and you better not say anything.” Pause. She seemed to be thinking. Then: “If I find out where they are, will you go?”

“If you find out?”

“About your brother and sister! Are you retarded?”

“But how—”

“I’ve done much harder shit. Will you go?”

Amaryllis solemnly nodded her assent. “Did you hear what Dézhiree said at group? ‘Yesterday is history, tomorrow is mystery, and today is a gift — that’s why we call it the “present.” ’ Don’t you love that?”

Amaryllis Kornfeld, albeit in exhausted, febrile state, had first been brought to children’s court for the legally mandated hearing that took place within seventy-two hours of her placement chez Woolery.

Earlymae dressed her up, restoring color to her cheeks with rouge.

Intake and Detention Control had already prepared the petition. Adjudged to be abandoned without provision for support (as the whereabouts of parent or parents was deemed unknown), the girl was thus declared under WIC300(g) to be a dependent child of the Court. Facing the bench, Mrs. Woolery threw a tanned, turquoise-jeweled arm protectively around the shoulder of her “Dillo”—the fact was that she couldn’t be paid until the newbie was formally recognized by the system. So: on a scrubby hill in Monterey Park, hard by the sheriff’s headquarters and impoverished fields of the defunct Sybil Brand Institute for Women, a judicial referee sat on high, surrounded by his partisans: stenographer, attorneys, social workers, dependency investigators, clerks and bailiffs. Counsel and CSW were dutifully assigned — due diligence search for parents ordered — stuffed animals proffered — tears wiped away — beleaguered child swept back to Canyon.

That was then. Now that she has returned to court, the author is compelled to freshly set the scene.

It is September, though the buildings of which we speak are anything but autumnal. They possess the artificial palette and gallingly “whimsical” tubular outcroppings popular to the aforementioned IMAX aesthetic, and proudly tout their child-friendliness. Yet no stylistic fillip, not even a swooping superimposed Bilbao, might quash the collective misery of its legion of disenfranchised guests. A plethora of female attorneys in black hose and shabby miniskirts pass through the weapons’ detector, pagers vibrating in purses with the subtlety of lawn mowers. Adorning lobby walls are the homespun crayon-drawn murals and bland archival photo histories characteristic of such institutions. A vast downstairs holding pen is for charges bused in from group homes and residential-treatment facilities; nearby cells, hidden from view, are for parents in custody, most of whom attend their doomed progeny’s hearings in plastic cuffs. Not infrequently, a lady lawyer will mistakenly interrupt one of her inmate clients in the middle of a bowel movement. There are no provisions for privacy.

Four floors of courtrooms, each with dockets of, say, forty cases per day. Outside, families await the bailiff’s call — slovenly or nodding off, some incongruously overdressed (white chiffon and wedding lace) and overly made up; young moms’ flaunty tatts peeking from shoulderless black sheaths, the latter being all-purpose “special occasion”-wear donned at funerals, graduations or dance clubs. Before they can be heard, the unfortunates must pass through an anteroom of bustling, indifferent attorneys, then sit themselves down on hard pews. Posters ring the courtroom ( 102 Dalmatians, Muppets from Space, Toy Story 2 ), as do fuzzy animals perched on high like in carnival booths waiting to be dispensed. Lawyers pore through the contents of murrey-colored folders bound by industrial-strength rubber bands — no one ever seems to find what they’re looking for. Each towering packet (an eight-year-old in the system since birth might have a 275-page file) is eventually passed to bailiff, clerk, judge. When the music stops, the case is ruminated, then summarily ruled on; the band strikes up, packets again borne aloft and gravely scrutinized before coming to rest. Eager blackboard scrawlings and erasures chart the abbreviated pilgrim’s progress of FA (father), MO (Mother), MI (Minor), PGM (Paternal Grandmother), MGM (Maternal Grandmother) — as “contests” revolve around the room in ragged circles, we note the urgent shuttlecocking of stuffed animals, yapping of translators, wider suppression of tears and the bailiff’s squelching of some would-be guardian’s occasional tacky, tattered outburst. Like bad bones, dates are set, reset and set again, requests brokered and broken, patience lost and sagely regained. With closed eyes we hear the murmur of de facto mothers and decertifications by the FFA; of PRCs, dispos and adjudications; of demands for interviews concerning existence or identity of fathers; of failed grades in parenting classes and noncompliance with court-ordered neurological exams; of pleadings for monitored weekend visits with discretion to liberalize; of termination of parental rights …