Take a second look

When I was thirteen, I became a ward of the child welfare system. My foster parents, Patty and Eric, had three kids of their own: two boys and a girl, plus three foster kids, all boys. All the children were under the age of eight, except for one of the fosters, a teenager who was away visiting relatives. This house full of rambunctious children was a dramatic change from my quiet life with a soft-spoken mother who loved opera and theatrical recordings of Shakespeare.

There was one thing that was very familiar: the culture of smoking. This was the 1960s and my mother had smoked 3 packs a day of unfiltered Camels. From her fingernails to the first joint, her index and middle fingers were permanently tinted amber. It was reassuring that both foster parents enjoyed this familiar habit, albeit to a more amateur degree than my mom.

In my second week, as the kids and I were getting ready to play dodge in the back yard, the 14-year old foster returned. Mike was quick to join us. When it was his turn, he aimed the ball at me so that it landed in an embarrassing place. Shocked and humiliated, I ran inside, hot tears pooling in my eyes. Mike followed full of apologies. He said he thought because I was a foster kid, well, it would be okay. He promised never to do it again and to please, please come back outside. I did and he was as good as his word.

Soon Mike saw me as his naive little sister. Fine with me, I’d always wanted an older brother. On the nights he worked at the drive-in movie, I would wait up for him to come home. Even after school started, I waited until all hours, eager to hear stories about all the characters that populated this world of drive-in movies.

Babysitting also became a regular feature of summer. The pay was $1.00 a night but this was an era when anyone could buy cigarettes out of vending machines for 25 cents a pack. Despite being raised by a smoker and always surrounded by them, I’d never had any interest in taking it up until Mike. One night I smoked an entire pack waiting for him. I was quite proud of myself. No one noticed our midnight contributions to the living room atmosphere.

This was also the summer I attempted to buy my first bra. The local five and dime sold them in flat rectangular boxes and I totally had to guess at the size. The first time I wore it, I walked to the five and dime, accidentally saw my profile in the store window, and was horrified. It looked like someone had strapped B52s to my chest. I scurried home and stuffed the bra back in the box. It was ages before I made another attempt to purchase such an alien artifact.

Mike’s lady friends would have had no such problem. As an avid sci-fi reader, I had plenty of adventurous women in my pantheon, but the girls in Mike’s world were adventures of a different sort, more film noir, the kind of sirens Bogart and Mitchum would fall for, but never hesitate to put behind bars. I was fascinated. 

Saturday was date night for the foster parents, and that meant I was babysitting. As a rule, I made fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and green beans for the kids’ dinner. It was one of the few meals my mother cooked from scratch, so it was my go-to meal. Fortunately the boys loved it. The two-year old girl was way too much of a diva for me to tell. As a tomboy, I had no clue as to what made girly-girls tick. It was late by the time everyone was tucked in and the house had gone quiet. Finally, I was in my favorite part of the day: curled up in the living room with the television on, waiting for Mike.

It was highly unusual for the Department of Social Services to call at night. When they did, it was typically for an emergency placement. When I told the lady the foster parents were out, there was a long silence. When she came back on the line she ordered me to close and lock all the windows and doors. When I asked why, she said Mike had stolen money from the drive-in and was on the run. He would be desperate because he knew his next stop would be detention. That didn’t make a lot of sense to me. Why would a kid on the run, run home? Besides, I was deeply offended that they considered Mike dangerous.

When we hung up, I went around the house checking all the windows and doors to make sure they were…unlocked.

When Eric and Patty came home and heard what happened, I was gratified to hear she shared my indignation. In no uncertain terms, Patty told the caseworker that Mike had lived in her house a year and never stolen one thing. He was a good boy who made a mistake and he was welcome to return to their home. I don’t think I realized at the time how much hearing her defend Mike meant to me. 

I don’t know why he would steal money from the drive-in and take off. Maybe he just wanted his own life, one he could control, and even a kid knows you need financial independence to do that.

I never saw Mike again. When caught, he was locked up in a home for juvenile delinquents. The decision of the court wasn’t just based on what Mike did, it was also what his caseworker recommended. With a CASA, there would have been someone to present his side of the story. Someone to bring Patty’s testimony to the court. She knew Mike far better than the caseworker.

Without that depth of information, Mike was just another foster kid. And foster kids are labeled so much that we label ourselves. Just like Mike labeled me when we first met. The difference is that Mike took the time to take a second look and make a different decision. I wish the system had done the same for him.