Crime & Punishment:

CLOVER

   I should have gone to jail, many times before... Growing up, I was always a punk of a kid. My friend’s loving mothers were leery to let their daughters hang out with me. I, the devil child, got their precious angels into trouble. Whispers— well, it’s no wonder. Just look at the mother.  I should have been eye rolling, my feet shuffling, tilting my guilty head down and out. But being wild was easier than being embarrassed. More fun too. Back then, I felt invincible.

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   My earliest memory of getting caught in a crime was at age five. The block I lived on in Ferndale, Michigan had a gang of kids that would hang out in yards until the streetlights came on. I was one of the youngest in the group, always trying to act older than my age.

   Before the streetlights started buzzing, the Chaldean cool kids, Chris and Kristal, told me it was “Devils Night.”

   What’s that? I asked.

   Tall, fair skinned Sarah laughed. She fluttered her gangly fingertips over her head with eyes big and wide.

   It’s the night when witches and demons come out!

   I looked at my best friend, Christian Katy; the only kid my age. At any moment now, we’d hear her mother whistle and Katy’s pudgy legs would have to clamber down the block for dinner.

   I’m going home, this is wrong, she said.

   Kristal dug into the ground she was sitting on, and flung a clump of rooted grass at me.

   Chicken?

   Her thick-shaped brother Chris started making “bock, bock” noises, bobbing his head.

   Stop it! I whined, chucking a fist full of dirt while aiming at Kristal’s gap tooth. She spat some sharp Chaldean words I couldn’t understand.

   Before we knew it, the sky was turning grey and our dirt fight had turned into a mud flinging mess.

   Aw, god. My mom’s going to kill me! Chris wheezed.

   Yah, we better get going brother— bye!

   Skinny Kristal wound her wiry arm around her brother’s and bounced off down the street. It was just me and the blonde, giant “stick girl” left.

   Hey Sarah…

   Hu?

   You know what would make this really fun?

   Uh, no. What?

   We should mud a witch!

   She started laughing.

   You mean Mrs. T?

   Yah! That mean ‘ol witch is gunna get it… you said it’s devil’s night, right?

   Sarah studied me with a shy eye. She shook her head and just watched me as I grabbed a bucket from the sandbox at home, brought it back and then piled it high with thick brown goop.

   The sky had turned into a deep, velvety blue by the time Mrs. T’s grey car was covered in mud cakes. The streetlights were screeching loud. The car was bombed solid. Mrs. T burst out of the screen door and we tried running, but we were caught mud handed: me the guilty do-goer, and Sarah by association. Our parents were called. They made Sarah and I wash the car in the creepy dark, under the halo of a street lamp, as Mrs. T barked at us until suds made the paint shine. She told us she should have called the police for vandalizing, that we were meddling kids who needed parental supervision. Our parents didn’t hear it longer than Sarah and I did, though. Mrs. T never spoke to them again; she was always the unpleasant witch of the neighborhood. Nobody liked her.

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As I got older, my mud fingers turned sticky. At age nine, I got caught at CVS with a Hornet’s jacket stuffed full of stuff: Lisa Frank stationary, candy, stickers, a soda… etc. I was with my two friends, tiny Casey and Austrian Serena. They both made it out ok, but I didn’t. Even still, their parents didn’t let us hang out much after that. The police were called but they didn’t press charges because we were all so young. I kept stealing though. It peaked during high school years.

I had these two best friends, “Godzilla” Rebecca and “midget” Danielle. We were expert lifters. We even went to Old Navy and stole matching messenger bags to put our stolen stuff in. I had the purple bag, Rebecca a pink one, and Danielle had green. Our specialty was alcohol. In Michigan, you can buy beer and wine anywhere— drug stores, grocery stores, liquor stores, some gas stations— you name it! Hell, with the right black person by your side (and a few extra dollars), you can even go into a liquor store on 8 Mile at sixteen and get whatever you want. Rebecca, Danielle and I would hit up all the local drug stores; the two CVS’s, Rite Aid, and the Foodland grocery store to get our fix. Usually, we took bottles of Arbor Mist, but any bottle fit perfect in our vinyl messenger bags. We’d go back to Danielle’s basement bedroom and get loaded, often peeing in the laundry room sink to avoid going upstairs and seeing her parents.

We didn’t get caught until we started acting stupid. Getting drunk on wine in the Church Sanctuary during Youth Club was a no-no, but we did it. Going back to the same store three times in one day for cosmetics was risky, but we didn’t care. Doing a solo steal and getting caught by a store manager stuffing a bottle into a bag should have made me stop, but he let me go with an “I don’t ever want to catch you in here again,” so that made me feel more invincible than ever. It wasn’t until getting caught taking bras and CD’s from a Wal-Mart during a Christian youth concert outing that we were forced to cool our operations down. We told the church bus to stop because we needed to buy “feminine products”… what? It counts.  Much to the embarrassment of the church, the police were called and my friends got banned from Wal-Mart for the next ten years; I, as the ring leader, got banned for life.

After that, Rebecca and Danielle had to stay away from me for a while. My dad went through my room and found all of the things he didn’t buy and was furious. He threw out everything but the clothes I had and banished me to the vacant, second floor apartment again. It was the second time he made me live up there alone when I was bad. Church didn’t work. I wasn’t “reformed.”

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Somehow, no matter how many times I got caught stealing and the police were called, I never got time. It was a joke with my friends that I was so lucky, I should get a four leaf clover tattooed on my ass. I stopped stealing things though. The last time I almost got arrested for stealing, at fifteen, I had forced open a pad lock and was taking from the stash of five cent returns and piling them into a shopping cart, from behind a restaurant called Romano’s to get money for weed. The cops were called and I gave them a faulty police report.

   My name’s Silvia Ramano. My mom’s outta town in Florida, I lied. You’ll have to take me to my Aunt’s house for custody. There’s no one else.

   The cop escorted me to my Aunt Kathy’s house (who’s close friend was a can of Genny). Aunt Kathy answered the door after a few louds knocks, half in the bag.

   Meghan? I’s that you?

   No! It’s me, Silvia.

   Ma’am, do you know this young girl? She was caught stealing and needs to be put into the custody of an adult or else we’re going to take her in for the night.

   What? Why’s you do that Meghan? Where’s your moth’er?

   No, it’s me Silvia Aunt Kathy.

   Ma’am, do you know this young offender or not? I’m going to have to—

   I was smart enough to push my way into Aunt Kathy’s apartment and shout back, ‘Goodnight!’

   Yahsure. She can s—ay here t’night, she said.

   You’ll have to take her down to the station in the morning to fill out the paperwork. Goodnight.

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   If I was ever to go to jail it would've been back then for petty larceny. I was lucky enough that I wasn’t sixteen yet, or else I would've spent the night in jail. The boy I was with did. His name was Devin Booth and he had pins in his earlobes, a slime green Mohawk atop his shaved head, baggy Jinco jeans and olive skin to die for. He was my homeless boyfriend who my mom (not in Florida) hated. That was the last time I got caught for stealing, but it still took me another three years to stop and put away the sticky fingers for good. After my mom died, I sobered up my life real good; became a “straight-edge.” But her death was more than sobering. I also didn't want to become a statistic. Many children of incarcerated parents repeat the pattern and get jailed themselves. But even more than that, I wanted to make my mom proud. If I had continued down the same path I was on then, I’d probably be in jail, on welfare, uneducated and a single mother, or dead now. Sure, my mom was all of those things, but she was also made for more. She was talented, compassionate, and never truly loved by anyone the way that she deserved. I’m trying to give her the life she never had. I’m her daughter. I’m her life too. 

                                                  —Meghan Lynn Lords