The State of Children

On Tuesday two students ambush a Denver high school, killing 15. On Wednesday I go to stay with a friend’s 16-year-old daughter while my friend vacations in Mexico. Watching the news as I pack some things, I try not to relate the two concepts in my mind, but I can’t help it. It seems an odd coincidence that, at the exact moment many parents are questioning their own abilities, I have a chance to jump in and play mom.

Megan is a good kid. She is the product of a sloppy divorce tidied by a young doting mother and extensive counseling. She is extremely mature, forced to become an adult companion before her time. But she’s also 16. I seem to forget this when I’m around her, slipping comments into the conversation that I later deem inappropriate. Then again, I think, like she doesn’t hear this stuff all the time.
When I get there after class Wednesday night, a boy is urinating in the dwarf pine at the top of the driveway. He is dragging his khakis up his hips by the time I slam the car door and throw my bag over my shoulder.

“Shit, dude,” he spits. “I thought you were the fucking police.”

“In a Ford Explorer?” I sneer. I glance sideways into the house. I see more kids, sitting, standing, smoking.

“You never know, dude.” He follows me inside.

I’m still trying to figure out if this situation bothers me when Megan tackles me at the door.

“Alissa! We’re leaving in like an hour. Don’t worry. Meet my friends.”

Names of the pierced and peroxided bunch fly by my ears as I take inventory. Ten kids, Tanqueray on the counter, various beers on the table, a boy strangling a bottle of High Hill whiskey, cigarettes scattered over the back porch. This is okay; this is manageable. I fix myself some nachos as a skinny girl rasps on the phone next to me.

“If I call you in tomorrow, I need someone to call me in,” she rattles. “Wait, I’ll ask Megan’s babysitter; she’ll do it.”

Do what? Does this mean they’re not going to school? I mentally slap myself for being so unhip. In the last month of classes, school became an option, not an obligation, right? We all did it at least once. I couldn’t really blame them. I slide my nachos out of the microwave and go to the fridge for a drink. Maybe to be the cool babysitter, I grab a Dos Equis and head outside.

That night I’m listening to the kids trying to be quiet as they arrange themselves in elongated heaps on couches and carpets and wondering if their parents think they’re here. They never did leave, which was probably better, considering the empty bottles of liquor nestled against car keys. And Megan had finally informed me that she wasn’t going to school tomorrow, nobody was. Just because. I think about the kids at Columbine High School in Littleton. They aren’t going to school tomorrow because there might be another bomb or two stashed in there. They aren’t going to school because God knows how many of their friends lay dead or dying. I wonder how many of the kids here told their parents they were scared to go to school and instead they were going to Megan’s to talk and watch movies. I wonder how many kids didn’t have to tell their parents a damn thing.

I talk to my mom for an hour that Friday while I’m slicing watermelon for a friend’s barbecue. She tells me about my high school’s reaction to the murders: they had an assembly, they sent home a letter telling the parents how concerned they were for the students’ safety, they set up a hotline for reporting suspicious activity. All in all, it’s just unsettling, she says. It makes her think about which kids could be this hurt, this angry, and what could set them off. Did I know anyone who I thought capable of doing this in high school? I say I didn’t think I had. You know these kids, she says, they have no accountability, no restrictions. Nobody watches them.

“Anyway,” she says. “How’s Megan?”

I lie.

My senior skip day had been a glorious Friday in May. We met early in the morning at McDonald’s, orchestrating the beer run, the rendezvous points. There was something exhilarating about sitting in my friend’s topless Jeep Wrangler at 8 am, the whole day in front of us to waste on Bud Lights and Camel Reds. The plan was to meet at Karen’s house later; her parents were out of town, but she had to make sure everything was cool with her older brother first. Tiffany’s parents were always gone; the girls would go there in the meantime.

As we flew through the humid morning, the thrill of the sin we were committing made me shudder. My parents are very smart people, and very good parents. They always knew where I was; even when I lied to them, they knew. They could smell a beer, a cigarette lingering on me when I said goodnight to them at their bedroom door. So I gave up trying to trick them. I never skipped class, did my homework, always came home on time, wasn’t allowed to spend the night out. But I had these moments, these lapses where the hours would unfold before me, where I could see the opportunity to be drunk and stupid and not get caught. I always took advantage of those freedom sprees.

At Tiffany’s, we draped our bodies over patio furniture and sucked on our cigarettes. We were skinny and sunburned and helplessly naive. We partied hard, secretly drove drunk and swore we were fine; some of us were virgins, some of us had tried pot. For the most part, I think we were good kids. We definitely weren’t the bad kids. They were cloaked in black, weighted with chains, huddled behind the dumpster at school. They did hard drugs. They ran away from home and got pregnant. Some of them hurt people, broke windows, robbed cars. We lied to our parents, we left our houses in anger. But we had always gone back.

Megan is frantic when she calls me on my cell phone while I’m sipping my second glass of wine at Kellye’s barbecue. Her ramblings finally lead me to this: somebody threatened to rob her house and she got scared and called the police. Somewhere in the story there’s also a stolen credit card, a lost house key and some guy who’s been harassing her. And she called her mom in Mexico. Shit.

Worst case scenarios flash through my brain as I surge up the streets, scenes that would have never crossed my mind days ago. Was it the guy pissing in the pine tree? Does he have a gun? Is he already there with her? Oh my god. I try to shake these visions, but--do killers spend the night at houses where the parents aren’t home? How could I have let this happen? I should have seen the clues. Weren’t they talking about guns? Would they kill for drugs? I can’t believe I’m thinking these thoughts. Am I really doing this? They’re just kids!

When I get there, Megan is fine, the house is fine. We make the call to her mom together, telling her we’re fine, everything’s fine, just a miscommunication, I’m apologizing all over myself, babbling with adrenaline, a little overdramatic from the wine. I collapse after we hang up and look at Megan. She’s watching Sportscenter. Not a sign of guilt, fear, anything. Then I get it. Police, danger, deceiving parents: kind of the perfect night for a 16-year-old. I want to grab her and force her ice blue eyes to tears. Look what your stupid friends have done to us! I want to say. What the hell is wrong with you guys? Why don’t you care? I watch her stolid stare. But I can’t say a word to her.

A tremendous crash propels me forward, and for a moment I forget where I am. It is Monday, 4am, and suddenly silent. I slither off the mattress, stepping delicately on the springy hardwood floors into the kitchen. Redheaded twin boys are standing by the refrigerator, their eyes blank and blurred, as if a giant pink eraser had smeared across their faces. The Tree Urinator sits up on the couch, doubled over in throaty laughter at the sight of me. And Megan and Raspy Voice lie sprawled on the carpet, visibly stoned and oblivious to the chaos.

“What the hell is going on here?” My half-sleeping brain spits out words before I can think.

“Dude. Dude, we’re getting cereal,” Redhead One scowls.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” My mouth catches up with my head. Now I’m brave.

“Dude, our friend got arrested.” Redhead Two chimes in.

“And that would necessitate you being here because--?”

“Dude, chill out.” Tree Urinator’s eyes close and his chin juts out when he talks.

“Dude, what the fuck?” Redhead One, or maybe Two, is searching his pockets for something. “Dude, you took my liquid G!”

“What the fuck, dude? I didn’t take your shit!” The Urinator’s chin pokes out farther.

“The fuck you did!” Redhead is pissed.

“Fuck you! Shut the fuck up!” The Urinator’s voice elevates, and I step back. Megan and Raspy are sitting up. It’s a screech now, a high-pitched wail, with an edge to it, and it scares the hell out of me. “I didn’t fucking take it, you prick!” His voice peaks and he jumps up. Flashes of newscasts, of children running out of school with their hands shielding their faces, of yearbook photos of killers. I am scared of this kid; I am scared of a 16-year-old child.

“Get out.” I am surprised by the growl in my voice. They look at me.

“Get the fuck out of this house. All of you.”

More blank stares. Have they ever listened to anyone?

“You are not welcome here. Leave. Now.”

“Alissa,” Megan is next to me, tapping my arm. “Tracy can’t leave. She’s kicked out.” She lowered her voice. “She’s pregnant.”

“Sorry, dudes.” My voice is louder and clearer. “You all have to go home.”

On a Today Show segment, I am told to look for warning signs in my child. Skipping school, heavy drinking, drug use, violent tendencies, certain music choices, clothing choices, friend choices--I basically hosted a party for crash-course kids this week. I return Megan to her mother on Tuesday. We beam about our time together, and I leave, disturbed. I was used this week. Manipulated by a 16-year-old. In some retort to my feeble teenage rebellion, I was the parent who looked the other way. Megan got a green light this week, a “please pass go” to continue her lifestyle. And what would it take to shake her out of her wild-eyed view of the world? Maybe just one comment, just one “no, you can’t.” Instead, I let her go. I let her down.

It’s not enough just to be a good parent anymore, either. The massacre in Colorado proved that to me. The bad kids get angry, the good kids get lonely, and somehow they slip through the seams. But sometimes, sometimes, they burst back to the surface, angry, vengeful, hateful. And even if you are the good kid, the one who makes curfew and turns down crystal meth and hurries through the halls with term papers and geometry books, even then there are things that can hurt you. When I went to high school, we were worried about a fistfight in the parking lot, getting caught going out to lunch. These kids are going to school with semi-automatics and pipe bombs. And they’re not even scared. To them, it’s exciting.

I saw high school through the eyes of today’s 16-year-old. I saw her friends, I saw her alcohol, I saw her drugs. But I didn’t see any alternatives. When Megan skipped school, nobody called to see where she was. Nobody asked her if she had been ill for two days or upset or confused or angry or alone. Nobody was watching her, checking up on her, making her accountable. Not even her mother really cared if somebody was watching her.

After all, she hired me.