Having a Parent in Jail - Taboo Tuesday #13

When I was about five-years-old, I remember my mom pulling me aside -- her eyes set by a hard-lined brow, her tone grave. She meant business. 

I matched her expression -- ready for some real shit to go down.

"Quinn, I need to explain something important."

From a very young age I recall keeping a little folder in my mind for vital things adults told me -- things I should remember. This was a folder moment.

"If you're ever getting arrested -- don't argue with the police. Just go along with what they're saying, even if they're wrong. It's okay if you go to jail, you tell the truth in court. We'll get you out. Okay?... You promise ?"

After that conversation, it didn't matter where I was -- in my kindergarten desk, hanging from the monkey bars, on my nap mat -- I felt damn ready for when the pigs busted in.

It may surprise you to learn, however, that this kernel of wisdom was minimally relevant to the next thirteen years of my life. 

Where all the jail be at?

...Much like other advice my mom gave me in the next few years:

"If a cop tries to breathalyze you, refuse it. That's within your rights. Demand that they give you a blood test instead, gives you more time."

"If someone's shooting at you, run in a zig-zag-- not a straight line! You're easy pickings that way."

"If you get kidnapped, act like you're crazy. Just scream and kick and talk about nonsense things. They'll let you go."

Ain't nobody wants to steal a crazy person.

Child Quinn thought the world was a lawless dystopia where not even the cops got yo back.

The thing my mother probably failed to take into account was that I was a little white, sane girl with money.

She only had "white" and "girl" in her favor, and that apparently wasn't enough. 

It was hard to blame her though. As a mom, you teach your kids to avoid what's dangerous. 

My mom knew jail as a dangerous place -- whereas I know Sprinkles Cupcakes to be a dangerous place.

It's all relative.

I'm told one of the first times my mom got arrested was when I was an infant. She apparently taken me to the doctor for a check up, and when the doctor left, she walked around the office filling her pockets with various implements-- you know, gloves (presumably to blow up like turkey balloons later), wet wipes (for rib eating), syringes...

The doctors thought this was unacceptable, and so they killed the party by calling the cops. Todd came later and sprung us.

But I'd already seen the hard life.

Over the next ten years, mainly, she got arrested for a myriad of reasons. 

Here are some of the things I learned that you are apparently not allowed to do:

1) Steal a doctor's prescription pad and write your own prescription, even if it's just for your drug habit.

2) Steal many other things, from your friends, stores, and/or strangers.

3) Drive under the influence of drugs and/or alcohol 1 - 4 times.

4) Fight with a police officer.

And various other equally wholesome activities.

As  a result of these hobbies, my mom was frequently in and out of jail during my childhood. It started from such an early age, however, that I just thought it was normal.

I figured that most moms were in jail some of the time. It was just like a mom thing, you know, like baking cookies, sewing the holes in your pants, or suicide.

Who's with me?

Initially I didn't feel weird about it -- it was troublesome that she wasn't around, but it wasn't shameful. It just... was. We didn't think differently about her when she was in jail -- it was a long trip. She was still loved us in spite of circumstances.

I vaguely remember being in preschool and my mom was supposed to be incarcerated for something like a year. Before she went, she wrote 365 letters to BOTH my brother and I.

That comes out to... 730. Ha! Did it.

She gave them to Todd to give to us, one a day. In each letter she talked about how she was happy and safe, how she missed us... and in every single one was a tiny Abba-Zaba.

It was all very nice, I just remember opening each letter and being disappointed every single time it was an Abba-Zaba.

Because that is THE worst candy you can give to a child who can taste.

Regardless (we've established my mother didn't always make the best decisions), it meant a lot. We never forgot her, we never stopped loving her.

Then school started and I quickly learned that you can't tell people your mom is jail, because people are very close minded about the whole imprisonment thing. They would either think I was lying, they'd become scared, or they'd make fun of me. So... I just didn't tell them.

The very worst reaction people would have, though, was that when they would meet my mom, they weren't nice to her.

And I'm like -- bitch, she didn't steal your rubber gloves to make into turkeys, sheeeit. 

I just pretended like it didn't happen. I'd tell people the nice things about my mom, and leave the rest hidden with all the extra Abba-Zabas.

We were fortunate, in that my mom's particular issues with the law subsided along with her illness when I was a teenager.

It's a weird thing to talk about because still... it feels kind of normal. Jail was just that shitty timeshare she would occasionally book. 

I wasn't the person who was most affected, maybe because I was so young. I didn't have to do anything. Probably asking my brother, my father, or my mom (although good luck getting an answer) would yield different results.

I remember when we were in elementary school, and my mom had lost her license because of all the DUIs -- which, I absolutely admit, not her finest work.

So every day for ten years or so, she picked us up at the bus stop. And that sucked. 

Then, suddenly, several years in... she started driving her car again, sans license. 

She was still a little crazy and had spray painted a shoebox pink. She then filled it with like... ten half used cosmetics then stuck it in her trunk. Her plan was that if a cop DID pull her over, she would just tell him she was a Mary Kay salesman and that she needed her car for work. 

Impeccable.

While I will spoil the story and tell you, thank god, we never did get pulled over -- my mother was a constant wreck looking for cop cars possibly tailing her. Every ten seconds we were driving she would ask: "Is that a cop behind me?" With utter panic Every. Single. Time. For years. When it got dark, it got worse, because she'd be glancing back every two seconds.

Finally my brother -- at the age of like ten, found a way around it. He told her not to worry because cop cars had to have round lights, while all other cars had square lights. My mother -- though a PhD, and WAY smarter than I've ever been -- was a very gullible woman. She believed him, and after that we didn't hear about her fears nearly as often.

That's one example of how it affected him in a way it didn't affect me. I thought everything was normal. He recognized there was a flaw in her thinking, and he felt like he had to be the adult and step up and rectify it. That's way more stressful.

Then I can't begin to imagine what my dad was thinking during this time. What do know is that when she was in jail, he did ask for full custody... but we still saw her every day. He felt like it was important that we see our mother and know that in spite of her illness, in spite of some of her actions, that she wasn't a bad person. I'm very happy to have been offered that opportunity. 

I'm also very glad -- as selfish and horrible as it is -- that my mom was an educated white lady.

Because let's be real -- my mom did some shitty things. But after she went to jail for the umpteenth, with some admittedly serious work, she picked up the pieces of her life again and became quite successful. I  don't know that could have happened if she wasn't an educated white lady.

I'm thankful she wasn't a casualty of racism, power abuse, or fear. No one is predisposed to be scared of a 5'4" blonde woman.

Except my boyfriends! Zing!

None of the guards were very cruel to her -- I don't know, but it probably helped that many of them had white mothers, wives, daughters who looked like her. When she got out, people were largely sympathetic, at least some were. She got work again. People weren't reticent, for the most part, of having her around. She could rent where she wanted. When she was driving without a license, she went years without someone pulling her over.

And yet her crimes were worse than lots of folks who face much scarier realities.

I have no idea how the fuck some people come back from that who aren't afforded the luck my mother was.

And for all of her bad choices, it worked out in the end. Neither of her kids ever did anything into trouble. No sir, I don't even like jay walking -- nuh-uh, I've seen first hand what crossing the line can do. Still, of course, I didn't listen to her lessons. That was some crazy shit.

No, all that caution she tried to instill in me about cops kind of back fired. Getting arrested with her, I found cops to be magical beasts who gave you tasty snacks from vending machines and little sticky toy lizards.

So I definitely feel for the good ones who, in recent days, have to struggle to keep the peace... but man do the bad ones piss me off -- and those who support them. The people who claim fearful actions, abuse, murder are justified because of the victim's history.

I maybe don't know a whole lot about law, but I can tell you that you don't know shit about someone's history from a rap sheet or a photograph. Certainly no one deserves to die unfairly at the hands of someone who is supposed to protect you and give you sticky lizards.

People aren't bad, they just do bad things sometimes -- I imagine it goes for both cops and robbers. 

Let's just hope that when someone does do a bad thing, they don't have a gun in their hands.

---

That's it. There's my rambling preaching for today. Tune in next week when we talk about how a lady tried to shank my mom in jail and a group of white supremacists saved her.

Awkward.

JK I'll probably talk about something important... like periods.

Tweet