Bruce Wagner - I'll Let You Go

Kristl shook her mortified head.

“Do you think that’s easy? Do you think anyone can get a real estate license? They just hand them out like candy? Here, Tina! Here’s your license! You are free now to go and sell yourself a mansion! I wish. One mansion and I could buy a house. I was doing business , Kristl; that’s why Mike had to come. You love your friend so much but not enough to say she was with you. Why didn’t you say you were with your friend when you called? Huh? Huh? The only reason I’m here — the only reason, Kristl Ann — is because I know how loyal you are to your friend, because I raised you like that. And that’s a nice quality. But I was doing mother-fucking business , do you understand?” Back to Amaryllis: “Excuse my language. I don’t usually talk that way, but sometimes the situation demands it.” To Kristl: “Do you know what kinda bills I have to pay, Kristl Ann? With your daddy in the penitentiary? He can’t help , I’m telling you. He may want to, but he can’t , OK? So it’s on me . And, honey, you do not want to see your mama back in that jail either, believe me. I know she’s your friend and she’s real cute, but I can’t be an accessory! Do you know what an accessory is? Because what you two have done is committed a crime. MacLaren Hall is an institution , and to leave an institution without permission as minors is a crime . They put their trust in you not to do that. They’re not all bad people. Some of them care; I know they do. ’Cause they weren’t all bad, even in jail. There’s always a few rotten apples, but there’s people who care, too. People that help you. Did you think I could just walk out of Central if I felt like it? It is not a perfect world. Do you think I could walk out of New Beginnings or wherever just because I didn’t like the way the sheets smelled? Or the food? Or because they made me mop the damn floor? No, I couldn’t . Because they gave me a trust and that is a sacred trust. And you know what? As far as the law stands, you may as well have robbed a bank and I’m the getaway.”

“Mama—”

“ That’s an accessory, OK? I can’t be that for you, do you understand, Kristl Ann? Do you ever want to come home?”

“Yeah.”

“I didn’t hear you.”

“I said yes .”

“That didn’t sound like someone who wants to come home. That sounded like someone who doesn’t give a shit about their mom, who’s risking her freedom to pick up her daughter and her daughter’s friend , who the mother doesn’t even know —”

“Mom, I do want to come home—”

“Well then, act like it! And don’t violate a sacred trust! We have a sacred trust — mother and daughter. Do you remember when you and Dakin were with me on a trial basis? And we had the dispo and they said you could stay with me? How happy you were? I worked my ass off for that! Do you think it was fun for me to go to school at night and hear some fucking fool who’s probably molesting his kids tell me how to parent? Well it wasn’t! But did I walk out? No I didn’t. I maintained a stable home, Kristl Ann! I peed in a bottle for those people, OK? I did that for you . Would you and your friend pee in a bottle for me ? Do you think that’s fun?”

Kristl laughed and Amaryllis smiled and so did Tina, but then she got mad again.

“When someone says OK you can keep your kids, but first you have to go pee in a bottle and take these classes at night … when you’re already tired because you have to work during the day — then they turn around and say, Hey, we’re takin’ your kids away anyhow! Because your daddy paid a visit and he wasn’t supposed to! I didn’t ask him over. I ain’t no fucking p.o.! I ain’t no police, either. What’d they expect me to do, handcuff him? Citizen’s arrest? The man like to kill me. Hell, I’m afraid of that man. And he shows up and what am I supposed to do? I told the judge that, I told the lawyer that, I told the social worker, hell I stood on a street corner and shouted it. Do you think anyone gives a shit? Your father stayed on the porch, do you remember? For thirty minutes! You were there. It was totally supervised, do you remember? Thirty uninvited totally supervised minutes on the porch and that’s enough to take my kids away? And the Court of Appeals agreed with me, did you know that? I never got any damn reunification services, I got family maintenance . The law says there’s a difference between maintenance and reunification, a big difference! They say I already had my eighteen months, and that’s a crock . But you are not going to blow this for me, Kristl Ann! Everything I worked for to put this family back together! I am not going to let it happen! I have business , Kristl Ann, I have business at home and now I can’t even go back — and all because you got it in your head to shit on a mother and daughter’s sacred trust. You can’t just waltz in and make me an accessory! They will not give a real estate license to an accessory! I’m doing you and your little friend a major fucking favor here and I want points for that, do you understand? Kristl you answer me— ”

“ Yes yes yes, I understand! All right? OK? Take your fucking points, all right? Goddamnit! You can have your points! Fucking take them take them take them!”

It was dark by the time they reached Topanga — another canyon. Kristl convinced her friend it wasn’t anywhere near “Tunga,” but only after Tina and her boyfriend concurred.

Amaryllis lay in a moldy sleeping bag on the open-air tabernacle of the deck. There were tons of insects, and the sound of animals was all around. The sky was a puddle of black ink and the discrete brilliance of galaxies confounded her. An old mangy dog, no bloodhound indeed, sniffed at them but couldn’t be bothered.

Mike had his little girl with him. She was about four and slept outside with the runaways. She had a talking doll called Amazing Amy. Mike said the doll had a computer chip, so it always knew the time. At eight o’clock each morning, Amazing Amy said she wanted breakfast and if you tried to give her a little plastic pizza slice that came with the set she’d say, “Not pizza for breakfast !” Mike said there were sensors embedded in the pizza slices and in Amazing Amy’s mouth, too. Sometimes she got a temperature and asked for aspirin. If you gave her pizza instead, she got mad. Mike said she cost $90.

The girls got up early and whispered awhile. Amaryllis asked if her mom was really going to call MacLaren, and Kristl said probably not, but if she did, it wouldn’t be before noon. She never got it together before noon. Kristl said that maybe they should split. Then she said maybe her mom wouldn’t snitch if she had “business”—if her mom was busy with business, she might not have time to deal with anything else and it would probably be easier to just let them stay in the Canyon and help with chores instead of hassling with driving them all the way back to El Monte. But Mike would have to agree, because it was his house — Kristl said Mike was on parole too, so that probably wouldn’t happen, because he would get in trouble if anyone found out two underage AWOLs were staying at his house. He’d be an accessory, big-time. Amaryllis asked what parole was, and Kristl said it was when you got out of jail but still had to live by jail rules.