I’ve never been in this particular no-man’s land although I’ve spied the simmering landscape from the freeway. So much of Phoenix looks this way with the weed-choked lots and mounds of used tires.
“I don’t see any tents,” my husband declares. He lowers his head to better peer through the passenger window.
We are searching for Tent City, the Maricopa County Jail. Heretofore, circus tents and sheet-covered card tables have been the only cloth structures in my sheltered little world. I read that the vast canvas correction facility offers negligible shelter from the summer heat. Our daughter is paper-skinned, spoiled, an insignificant piece in this huge jigsaw of incarceration. I can only hope that her curved and straight edges are a poor fit. She insists that she took all of the required classes for a Driving Under the Influence violation three years before, that she’s been wrongly accused.
It’s the time of year when clouds of steam rise from hosed sidewalks. If I wanted to, I could make sun tea in the backseat in the time it takes to fill my gas tank. I think of the Israelites. They beseeched Moses after only three days in the desert. “Why did you bring us out of Egypt to kill us with thirst?” He in turn brought his troubles to God who instructed him to strike the stone at Horeb. He did as he was told and out gushed a torrent of cool, clear, water. Just strike a rock and voilà! It should be so easy. Believe it and it will happen.
A pediatrician once labeled me an “obnoxious, over-zealous, mother,” leaving “Jewish,” unsaid but implied, just because I insisted that a tick be removed at the hospital. This child was nursed for eighteen months, Montessori, Kindergym, ballet, Hebrew, and gymnastics, were only a sampling of the mandatory enrichments. I practiced active listening when she needed to be heard and studied algebra and geometry with more vigor than the first time around. I spent a month’s salary on SAT preparation. How can this be happening? Our daughter insists that it’s all been a terrible mistake. As she waits in front of a flickering television screen somewhere in the mysterious city of tents, well-tended offspring traverse the globe in search of the finest graduate schools for careers in liberal arts and science.
“Oh God,” I moan. “I can’t take this. Let’s go home. We’ll see her in ten days when it’s all over with.”
“Whining doesn’t help matters,” my husband says as he navigates past the endless rows of numbered aggregate structures. The granite signs announcing “Department of Corrections” rise like tombstones in the flesh-toned gravel. “Maybe we can do something to get her out early, but even if we can’t, she’s going to get through this fine. And she’s not a criminal. Immature maybe, but let’s try to be a little more positive. Okay?”
Oh, if only it were so easy! As he lowers his head to peer sidelong through my window, I wonder if this experience will hasten the ebb of hairline.
“We’re looking for two-seven-eight-five-three-four-six-six Madison.” He pins the paper to the steering wheel with his thumbs. “The instructions say to park in the strip of spaces along the side of the building. As soon as we enter, all wallets, watches, and jewelry are placed in a locker.”
“Neato.”
I’ve been struggling not to dwell on a particular incident from our daughter’s childhood. Was she eight or nine? I can’t quite remember, but it was when I was a Camp Fire Leader readying cartons of candy for the annual sale. She begged with heart and soul to store the bounty in her bedroom. I agreed and stacked the cardboard crates next to her desk. Several weeks later, when it was time to determine how many boxes had been sold, I came up eight boxes short.
“I didn’t eat any, not a single one! I hate Mint Patties! Carmel Clusters make me puke!” she sobbed, tugging at the sides of her face with her fingertips.
So I entered her room at midnight with a flashlight, and while she slept nestled among her pink-tailed ponies, I searched. The stream of light lit up the glassy eyes of teddy bears, the multi-colored spines of picture books, and Barbie’s splayed legs. In the far reaches of drawers and closet, I gathered enough hard evidence for a jury trial.
“I didn’t do it! Why don’t you believe me?” She sobbed the tears of the innocent even when presented with the incriminating wrappers. This emotional display made me wonder if there could be another explanation other than the fact that I had spawned a child with an uncanny ability to lie. My husband was certain that a friend had pilfered the candy, that it was more an issue of coercion or best-friend loyalty.
She never confessed, not then, and not in all the subsequent years when uniformed candy sellers knocked on our door, or when we walked by the Girl Scouts selling their wares in front of the supermarket. There were no chuckles in recollection, no giggling confessions as a teen. The incident was never introduced into the Family Story Hall of Fame. I had long since given up finding an explanation about a misdeed that took place fourteen years in the past.
“Two-seven-eight-five-three-four-six-six Madison. We’re here!” My husband cheerfully announces as if he’s turning into the Home Depot parking lot on a mission to buy a new gas grill. He parks and we hold off the inevitable for five more minutes as we guzzle enough water for a half-mile trek.
“Okay. This is it.” He sets his empty bottle in the cup holder.
“I’ll wait out here,” I say. “I don’t see any tents.”
“Are you wimping out?” he asks.
“Maybe.”
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