Jimmy and the Grateful Dead show I never saw

Needless to say, left to my own devices I got an early start on all those coming of age rituals that my eleven year old counterparts would not be so bold as to take part in. My best friend at that time was two years older that I, and had a brother that was a year older than her. We started out drinking in the garage after her mom went to sleep, and ended up doing naughty things with boys in just about no time at all. My best friends brother was the only person who wanted to show me any attention. We would talk about our parents and the injustices we had to endure. We wrestled a lot. So when you catch your daughter wrestling with the neighbor boy, take appropriate action. We would just cuddle sometimes and before long I was the only girl in the sixth grade who had gone ’all-the-way’. I felt special and better and smarter than all those girls I went to school with. I knew so much more than them. I was cool. It didn’t stay a secret for long. I told my mom one day, over lunch. She was more surprised than I think she had a right to be. She called the police and turned him in cause he was three years older than me. He couldn’t be alone with kids until he was 18. He was a kid himself. It wasn’t fair . We met secretly a couple times under the bleachers ( ha ha, seriously, though) and talked but after awhile quit talking. He was my good friend, and I felt very sad and guilty. They treated him like a rapist or something. He was older, and should have had better sense, I guess, but he was just as starved for positive attention as I was, so we were similar creatures with similar needs. I wanted to grow up too fast, though. I always felt like people ignored me because I was a kid. Didn’t value my existence or something. Anyhow, I became a pretty wild and promiscuous child from that point. I think my mom felt like it was already too late to prevent the worst, and as long as I kept taking my birth control and didn’t get arrested, I was on my own. It’s a wonder that I didn’t end up pregnant or incarcerated, but really, as wild as I was, I wasn’t stupid and only found myself in a couple dicey situations. Nothing too traumatic. I got used to being in charge of me. I want to write something here about Jimmy. Jimmy, a.k.a. Space, was my mom’s boyfriend for a couple of years. He lived with us. He was a space cadet with a heart of gold. He was thoughtful in a bumbling way, and he loved us all. Jimmy worked at a nursery supply manufacturing place and rode his bike eleven miles to work rain or shine. He bought us school clothes and gave us some money for our pockets (we only ever got food stamps from mom). He treated us all very well. When the nursery job ended (I don’t know why) he got a job with his brother 45 miles away in Portland, making cabinets. We would drive up and see him every weekend and he would take us all out to eat. He noticed if I did something new and dorky with my hair and said it looked nice. He was that kind of person. Kindness was his trademark. When he started working in Portland my mom started hanging out with a different crowd. She was using more and becoming resentful that Jimmy was always gone. He had a problem with cocaine and I remember her being angry that he spent all his money on it once. They started fighting a lot when he did come home. The last time I saw Jimmy he showed up at the house late at night. My mom had left somewhere but had told me not to let him in if he came because she thought he was on drugs (how ironic, mom). He banged on the door and wanted me to open it. I was kind of afraid…not of him, really, but of what he might say about my mom that would undoubtedly be true. I didn’t let him in. He said it was cold and he had no way to get back to the city and I still didn’t let him in. He slept on the porch all night without a blanket. I feel nauseated just thinking about it. I don’t think of it often. I should have let him in. He loved us. I wish I could find him and make him a part of my family. He deserved better.Meanwhile, my mom hit the bottom. She was using and selling meth to pay the rent, and by this time, I knew what she was up to. She had been busted for possession of marijuana after running a yellow light and was on probation. Now my mom was the only dreadlocked, Volkswagen driving momma in the whole county, so when they got a chance to pull over the van with the ‘bad cop no donut’ sticker, they thanked their lucky stars. She had to go and take a u.a. for her probation officer one day and told me that if she was not back in two hours to clean out all of her stash and paraphernalia from her bedroom, lest her p.o. decided to do a home visit. Sure enough, I had to clean it all out and put it in my own room. Mom spent two days in jail for a dirty u.a. We were partners in crime. Weird, huh? When I was 13, we went to Las Vegas to see the Grateful Dead. This was , in her mind, I think, a coming of age ritual for me. She knew I was smoking weed and partying and up until that point she had made it clear that I’d better hide it from her. The funny thing was that I was only allowed to smoke pot; mom was totally against me doing anything else- even smoking cigarettes. Even after we got to the point where I could just walk right into her room and borrow her bong, I still got grounded if she caught me smoking cigarettes. I wonder how she rationalized that. This trip to Vegas was the first time I smoked in front of her. It was also the first time I took the rap for her. This guy Jaime was driving her V-dub, frying on acid, when we pulled into a small town called Alturas, California at about 1 a.m. He came to a flashing red light and stopped….then he just sat there, watching the light blink. Mom told him, “You can go now” but he only sat and stared. Then a honk came from behind. Just a nice courtesy honk. He continued to sit. Mom and the two other guys with us start yelling at him to go go go. The car honks again. It seems like an eternity , but Jaime finally goes. Then the lights begin to flash. We had a cop behind us. They pulled us over and my mom said, “tell them that my bag is yours”. I believe that the cops knew better, but the good little actress that I was, I got written a ticket for possession of more than an ounce of marijuana, possession of illegal prescription drugs, and get this- intent to distribute. They then released me to the custody of my mother. People might get the impression that she is some kind of terrible monster. I used to think that myself, but now I know that she is only a person, and she had her own lessons to learn. She had been with my dad since she was a kid, and had never been in charge of her own life. Sounds like an excuse, I know.