Bebe Moore Campbell (17 page)

She didn’t resist. Trina got into the front passenger seat of the car and buckled up her seat belt. In between the giggling, she sang. Bethany sat right behind her. I watched the traffic and Trina, but I couldn’t do both at once. At the second red light I heard a sound.
Click, click.
The seat belt.
Bam!
The door. Trina running, getting smaller and smaller.

The back door opened, and Bethany sprinted after her. As I watched, my car stood in traffic, not moving, cars around me blaring their horns. Finally, I parked and waited for Bethany to come back, hoping that she wouldn’t be alone. Loud rhythm and blues blared from the radio. Vintage Al Green just added to the confusion.

“Make me wanna do right. Make me wanna do wrong.”

I visualized Bethany tackling Trina to the ground. Had a crowd gathered to watch the fight? A heat flash rose up and began exploding as little pinpricks of moisture erupted all over my body. I got out of the car, just to feel the air on my face, and peered up and down the block. Bethany trudged resolutely toward me. My child had been swallowed up by the Los Angeles night.

We rode around for half an hour. Nearly eleven and Crenshaw was slow but not deserted. Steel shutters had come down on the furniture and wig stores hours ago, but the fast-food joints and video stores, the liquor store that took up an entire corner, were still open.

It was easy to hide out in LA, so much space, so much indifference. People were used to the bizarre here, the pre-rehab antics of stars in trouble. A pretty girl with too much makeup, too much cleavage, talking fast, not making sense, would attract attention but not the kind that would result in someone coming to her aid. In Atlanta, people were always watching, at least in Southwest, where close-set houses squeezed lives together and somebody’s grandma was always sitting on the porch. There the word would have spread like the dope man’s phone number.

The neighbors had certainly talked about my mother. I remembered a sweaty summer night filled with stars and lightning bugs. The porches that lined our block were filled, the people driven from their hot homes to the cooler night air. Heavyset matriarchs and sedentary patriarchs sat on wicker chairs enjoying their iced tea, the faint breeze. Then from our house two bodies spilled from inside onto the porch and the street. My mother—hair done, tight dress and high heels, red lips and powdered face—ready for action, for a night of drinking. Ma Missy—do-rag, housedress, house shoes, grim face—hell-bent on stopping her. What a diversion they were as their arguing suddenly escalated. Ma Missy raised her open palm and
whack!
Right across my mother’s face. Suddenly the entire block had a focus, and every breath was heavy with judgment.

“You ready to act like you got some sense?”

By that time, Ma Missy had my mother on the ground. But the ultimate answer was no. My mother jumped up, pushed Ma Missy, and ran down the street.

“I’m a grown woman, Mama. Do whatever the hell I want to do,” she called, then cut butter all the way to the waiting car.

In the morning as I walked to school the children, ones I thought were my friends, fell silent as I approached. My best friend, a girl who lived two houses from ours, put her hand in mine; I found the gesture annoying and tried to pull away, but she was determined to stick by me and wouldn’t let go. At the end of the school day, though, I took the long way home by myself.

I THOUGHT OF MY MOTHER AS BETHANY AND I DROVE, MY mother clean and sober, her resilient demons finally vanquished. Her words on the telephone replayed in my mind. “It’s your mother.” That phrase was so seductive, so powerful. “It’s your mother.”

I let Bethany off in front of her car. Bethany smiled. “What are you going to do?” she asked.

“I’m going to wait until Trina meets the criteria for a hold, and then I’m going to try to get a conservatorship.”

“Listen to me. Mental illness is in my father’s family big-time. My dad has schizophrenia. His father committed suicide. His sister had bipolar; out of her four children, two are ill. I’m telling you: Fuck a hold. Fuck conservatorship, which could take months, years to get. Do you want your child to be well, to be safe?”

That word again. “Bethany—”

She wouldn’t let me speak. At the base of my skull a punishing headache was being born. Maybe that’s why everything Bethany said seemed to have an echo, why her words overwhelmed me. I tried not to listen, but Bethany was so loud and I felt so weak. I couldn’t summon the energy to ignore her. The night in front of me was a long horror. My house would be dark and quiet, my bed like a prison. Trina wouldn’t be back until she came back. I knew I’d never revoke the bail and have her arrested again. I didn’t have Orlando. I didn’t have Clyde. If Bethany stopped talking, I’d be alone with my aching head, my weak body that couldn’t fight off undue influence.

“I want you to meet some people,” she said.

12

BETHANY GOT LOST ON HER WAY TO MY HOUSE THE NEXT day. She called me from her cell phone three times, and each time she was farther away than the last. The first call was from Crenshaw.

“There’s all these guys standing on the sidewalk, and they have, like, T-shirts hanging from a wire fence. Where the hell am I?”

“You went too far south,” I said.

“What is this pie they’re selling? Bean pie? I’m getting one.”

“Turn around and make a left onto Stocker.”

She called back to tell me she’d just passed the biggest liquor store she’d ever seen in her life. Maybe she stopped in, because she went right by my house. Her next call was from Slauson.

“I’m in the parking lot of Seven-Eleven,” she said.

“Stay there. I’ll come get you.”

When I pulled up beside her, she had all the windows in her car rolled down and she was sitting in the front seat smoking.

“I bet you think I’m an idiot,” she yelled. That cracked her up. I could see her laughing in my rearview mirror as she followed me home.

“What is this neighborhood?” she asked, as soon as we got to my house. “It’s fabulous. Look at that view. Amazing.”

“View Park.”

“I never even heard of it,” Bethany said. It was the first time I’d seen her enthusiastic about anything other than creating a ruckus. She stood in my driveway, gazing at the downtown skyline. nodding her head up and down, her expression one of amazement, as if something fantastic had jumped out of the woods and startled her. “So did you find your child?”

“Not yet.”

“Let’s go,” she said.

Bethany’s car was a junkyard on four wheels. There were newspapers and magazines, empty hamburger cartons, crumpled bags that had held French fries or potato chips, candy bar wrappers, crushed soda cans, several purses, two pairs of athletic shoes, a dirty jacket, and tufts of fur, lots of fur. The stale cigarette smoke went right to my head, and I started sneezing immediately. She didn’t apologize, just told me to dump everything in my seat onto the floor, which pretty much left me with no place to put my feet. Bethany was oblivious to my discomfort in more ways than one. She’s a weirdo, I thought to myself. And I was a fool for being with her.

She drove west to Santa Monica, parked her car, and then we walked several blocks to the beach, sitting down on a bench that faced the water. All around us people jogged and skated, bicycled and walked. Stretched out like an endless ribbon was the calm, predictable Pacific.

“I thought we were going to a meeting.”

“We are,” she said. “See that guy over there by the wall? Walk over to him.”

“What—” I stopped. Not twenty yards away, a man with a baseball hat pulled low over his eyes was standing by the wall. I hadn’t expected some clandestine secret-password FBI kind of scene. Bethany saw the doubt in my eyes. She looked around and gave me a shove.

“Go,” she said.

The man started talking as soon as I walked over. He sounded like John Wayne in an old Western. I looked down at his feet, expecting to see boots and spurs, but he had on sneakers. If he knew how to rope a steer, it didn’t show in his face.

“My name is Richard. My son is twenty-two. He has bipolar with borderline features.” He spoke quickly, faster than the Duke would have. “I tried to get help through the usual channels. Nothing worked out. The kid would act out, terrorize the family, tear up the place. I’d call the police, and my child never fit the criteria. When they did place my kid on hold, it was never long enough. I found friends, people willing to take a risk.”

“What?” I couldn’t concentrate.

He didn’t look up. “Don’t ask any questions. Just let me talk. The friends told me about a place where I could take my kid. At this place, there are psychiatrists and mental health workers who don’t abide by the rules. They have a different take on mental illness. They believe in intervention. They don’t believe in the hitting-rock-bottom theory. They helped me save my kid’s life. My kid is taking his medication, going to school, doing well.”

“I—”

“The people who helped me can help you too. That’s all you need to know for now. It’s been nice talking to you.”

He walked away.

Bethany had the bean pie on the bench when I sat down beside her.

“I should have gotten a knife or a fork or something.”

“Who the hell was that?” I asked.

“I can’t tell you any more than he told you. But the people he told you about help people like us.”

“What do you mean, people like us?”

“People with mentally ill family members who are fed up with waiting for the system to act.”

“Who is that guy? What people are you talking about? What is this all about, Bethany?”

“If you’re interested, you can come to a meeting.”

“Interested in what? I thought that
was
the meeting. What the hell are you talking about?”

“Listen to me, Keri. There are people in the world who don’t believe in the way this country deals with mentally ill people. And they can help us.”

“How? How do they help us? Can they get my kid on a hold? Can they help me get conservatorship? My kid is missing. Can they find her?”

Bethany shook her head. “That’s not how they do things. They’re way outside that box.”

“If you can’t tell me any more than that—” I rose.

“You got a radical problem, you need a radical solution. The Weathermen. Symbionese Liberation Army. The Panthers. Civil rights movement. They didn’t wait for the system to give them what they needed.”

“Well,” I said, “here’s the thing: When radical white people get tired of being radical they get to be state senators, or they write books, or if push comes to shove they can move to Oregon and hang out for thirty years before the FBI finds them. Radical black people get killed.”

Bethany stared at me as though fire were shooting out of my mouth. Maybe she was pondering what I’d said, or maybe she was just trying to figure out how she could eat the pie without a knife and fork.

Minutes later, we were both scooping up bean pie with our fingers.

“Nobody’s going to get killed. But there are some risks involved, as with anything that’s worthwhile,” Bethany said. “I never thought about things being more risky for black people, but I guess that’s valid.”

Between us, we finished off nearly half a pie. Afterward, we were quiet, just sitting and looking at the ocean.

“I figure whatever this group is doing is illegal. Right? You’re snatching people who are over eighteen and forcing treatment on them. Does that about sum it up? Come on, I’m not stupid. What do you do, shove the kids in the trunk and take off in the night to parts unknown?” When she didn’t respond, I continued, “I can’t get caught up in anything like that. Period.”

Bethany nodded. “That’s what I said at first.”

“Are you involved?”

“Are you in or out?” Bethany said, imitating the lines from a movie trailer.

“So you’ve already done whatever it is that this group does and now you’re recruiting?”

“I’m not recruiting, I’m trying to help you.” Bethany sighed. “Angelica is in a very scary state. She finally crashed. She was pure mania for so long, and then she just crashed. She’s in the midst of a terrible depression. It’s a good day if she brushes her teeth. Very scary.”

She stopped talking and put some pie in her mouth but didn’t chew it.

“It’s awful watching her go through this. I have to get her some real help, and I can’t do it alone. Are you in or are you out?”

She looked at me, and I stared back at her. She was willing to trust a bunch of radical strangers with her child’s life. What would it feel like to be that daring? I envied Bethany her ability to invent an option, even if it was a crazy one. Me, I followed the rules, even when they made no sense. I cleared my throat. “I’m going for conservatorship.”

13

BY THE TIME CLYDE RETURNED MY PHONE CALL, TRINA HAD been AWOL for nearly twenty-four hours. For some reason, when I spoke with him, I wasn’t furious. His absence was work-related, of course, some celebrity golf tournament he’d agreed to host. When I told him that Trina had been arrested and was now missing, he was speechless. When he could finally speak, he seemed dazed.

“I’m so sorry,” he said. “I just didn’t realize.”

“If she calls you, please—”

“I will,” he said. “And if she—”

“I will.”

During that day, as customers searched through our racks, I called the Office of the Public Guardian six times before I finally reached Herbert Swanson. I had found his business card inside a zippered compartment of a purse I hadn’t carried for months. Conservatorship would give me the legal right to place my child in a locked facility, to force her into a place where she would receive her medication regularly. The Office of the Public Guardian was charged with helping people get conservatorship. Listening to him, a picture formed in my mind of a man with a telephone growing out of his head, a silver motor tied to his back, zooming from meeting to meeting. Sitting at my desk at the store, I filled him in on Trina’s background, the progression of her illness, and the recent events that had led to my call.

Eight months earlier, when the Office of the Public Guardian’s representative had come to the support group meeting, Trina had just left the hospital and was beginning the partial program at Weitz Center. The night that Herbert Swanson gave his presentation was the first evening I’d left Trina alone in the house since she’d come home. I was a little distracted, listening to him outline the legal remedy for the mentally ill who were out of control. I remembered leaving early that evening and rushing back home to find my daughter calmly watching television in my bed. I snuggled in beside her, grateful that I would never need the card I’d taken, because my bad times, Trina’s bad times, were behind me. Now every molecule in my body was paying attention to Mr. Swanson.

“Where is your daughter now?” he asked when I’d finished.

“I don’t know. We were on our way to the hospital last night and she jumped out of my car. I haven’t heard from her since.”

He made a noise that meant Wow! or Good Lord! or something like that. “And you want to go for LPS conservatorship?”

“Yes.”

“It’s a pretty difficult proposition without your daughter being on a hold.”

“What do I have to do?”

“First of all, she must be evaluated by a psychiatrist who is on staff at a designated hospital. I can send you a form to give to the doctor. Once it’s filled out, you mail it to my office with a request for an LPS conservatorship. The court will then give you a hearing date. Your daughter will have to be personally served with the papers, because she has to be present in court.”

So simple, so straightforward. So impossible.

“Mrs. Whitmore, if I were you, I’d try to get her placed on a hold. Once your daughter is in the hospital, everything will be a lot easier. The psychiatrist there can do the paperwork.”

“What do you think I’ve been trying to do for the last month and a half? Every time I call SMART or the police, they refuse to take her. Somehow she manages to pull herself together when they arrive, so she doesn’t fit the criteria.”

“You’re going to have to lower your voice, Mrs. Whitmore.”

“Sorry.”

“Mrs. Whitmore, if your child is as sick as you say she is, there will come a day when she won’t be able to control herself. Really, it’s easier to get an LPS if your daughter is in the hospital on a hold.”

“But how—”

“If your daughter has a psychiatrist who is on staff at one of our hospitals, talk with him about supporting you in getting a conservatorship. Establish a relationship with the SMART people. Be persistent. When you finally make the call, tell them where you wish to have your daughter taken. When she gets to the hospital, call us. You’ll get a court hearing. And then it’s up to the judge. I wish I could speak with you further about this, but I’m late for a meeting. I want to warn you, Mrs. Whitmore. There’s no such thing as miracles. Mental illnesses can transform people. You may not be able to get back the daughter you have. You may, as the saying goes, have to learn to love a stranger. Good luck.”

RONA WAS WAITING FOR ME WHEN I PULLED INTO MY DRIVE way that evening. She was seated inside her car, reading a magazine. The night before, she had called to remind me of the appointment she’d made a month earlier. She’d lost more weight, enough for the skin around her mouth to fall slack, enough to remind me that other people had problems even more urgent than my own.

“Trina,” I called as soon as I stepped inside. No answer.

Rona had trouble getting onto the table. Her left arm was swollen, and her legs seemed to be stiff. When she was settled, I ran my hand over her shoulders; she flinched, which told me that she expected pain. My touch became lighter and lighter. After a while, her skin seemed to loosen beneath my hands, and her breathing regulated into an almost silent purring. Midway through the session, she fell asleep, waking up moments after I’d finished.

“Girl, I feel so much better. Chemo is a bitch.” She laughed, struggling to sit up. “Did you send in your reservation?”

“My reservation?”

“For the reunion in October. I’m going,” she said in her soft, wispy voice. “I’m definitely going.”

“My life is a little up in the air right now,” I said.

Rona looked at me for a few seconds, then started laughing. Miniature rusty wheels began rolling in her throat. The sound clanked and cranked its way to the surface. Tiny, joyful spasms erupted from her. Such unexpected happiness from a shaking bag of bones.

“I can relate to that,” she said, and laughed some more.

THE NEXT DAY, I REPLAYED IN MY MIND MR. SWANSON’S marching orders for LPS conservatorship and tried to reach Trina’s psychiatrist. Dr. Bellows wasn’t at his office, and we played phone tag nearly all day before I finally faxed him a quick note describing Trina’s situation and asking for his cooperation on my decision to get conservatorship. Around four o’clock, I drove to his office, where he was in practice with two other psychiatrists and two psychologists. At the sign-in window, a young Latina handed me a clipboard and asked me to add my name to what was a very long list. Every non-Latino physician in Los Angeles had a Latina working in his office. The object was for her to bring in her family and friends, thus expanding the practice to a population that might not have been reachable otherwise. In Dr. Bellows’s office, there wasn’t one seat available in the reception area.

From time to time, other doctors appeared behind the window, but I didn’t see Dr. Bellows until two hours had passed. That’s when I glimpsed him through the partially opened door that led from the waiting room to the treatment areas.

“Hey, just a moment, ma’am,” the receptionist called, when she saw me going toward the doctor.

Dr. Bellows looked startled when he saw me. With so many faces in his life, so many names and sad stories, mine didn’t register immediately.

“Keri Whitmore, Trina’s mom.”

He nodded.

I spoke quickly, filling him in on what had been going on with Trina. Thirty seconds, max. “I’ve been calling. Did you receive my fax. Will you support me on conservatorship?”

He hesitated. Looked in another direction. The receptionist appeared behind him.

I spoke even faster. “Because if you aren’t willing, I need to know.”

“Miss—”

When I looked at her, the receptionist stepped back.

“You need to calm down,” Dr. Bellows said. To me.

“I’m calm,” I said, facing the doctor. I turned to the receptionist. “I’m calm.”

“Miss—”

“Whitmore!”
I heard myself in the absolute silence that followed. “I’m sorry. Didn’t mean to scream. So sorry.”

The assistant eyed Dr. Bellows. Everything around me seemed to slow down. Dr. Bellows whispered that he remembered Trina. He promised to fill out the papers whenever I got them to him and to testify on my behalf in court. He apologized for taking so long. He asked me if I’d heard of my support group, and I told him I was a member and attended the meetings from time to time.

“We all need a little help sometimes,” he said. “Take care of yourself.”

The doctor glanced at the receptionist, who took my arm in a firm grip and led me back into the waiting room, where people sat up straight and alert, averting their eyes when I passed.

MY HOUSE WAS QUIET WHEN I GOT HOME, BUT THERE was evidence of chaos wherever I looked. Pieces of a broken cup lay shattered on the kitchen floor. The refrigerator door was flung open. Waste floated in the guest bathroom toilet while water ran in the sink. Somebody was speaking loudly, rapidly behind a closed door. The phone line in Trina’s room was lit up.

I flushed the toilet, turned off the water, closed the refrigerator door, and began picking up the broken pieces but then stopped. My fingers felt cramped and sore. My back hurt.

I called Clyde. “She’s back,” I said.

“How is she?”

“The same.”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Sorry about the way I am. It’s only that if I stop moving—”

“I know,” I said.

In my bathroom, soaking in the tub, door locked, I reviewed my to-do list: The countdown for conservatorship was on. I had a psychiatrist who would sign the papers whenever Trina was brought in. All I needed was another seventy-two-hour hold.

Standing outside Trina’s door, I could hear her talking on the telephone to someone. Her words were racing. Stay inside tonight, I thought. Call people, talk fast, scream sometimes. Be safe.

A long time ago, one of the speakers at the support group told us we shouldn’t let our relative’s illness become our lives. But Trina
was
my life, and I didn’t want to learn to love a stranger.