Street Dreams

7

Located smack in the centerof Hollywood just east of the famous Sunset Strip, Mid-City High connoted glamour to the uninitiated, but in fact, it was a dispirited school in a depressed area. It compensated for its age by being big-blocks long with intermittent patches of green lawn. The flesh-colored pink stucco building was constructed with lots of curved walls and glass-block windows-fashionable architecture in the ’40s and ’50s. Some of the exterior was painted with patriotic or ethnic murals, other parts held smudges of unwanted graffiti. A couple of smog-tolerant palm trees and clumps of banana plants rounded out the picture of old Los Angeles. I jogged up the twenty-plus steps leading to the front entrance and pulled open the brick-colored doors.

I was no stranger there, having been sent before by the Department to deliver the “earnest” drug talks with the students. Last year, I also manned the LAPD booth with George Losario on Career Day. We were deluged with working-class teenage boys interested in excitement and power. The biggest problem for most of them was the high school diploma required by the Police Academy. The dropout rate at Mid-City was substantial. George and I used the opportunity to encourage them to stay in school.

Quite a few of my colleagues had more than the requisite high school education. Some had A.A. degrees from community college; others had B.A.’s. I had a master’s from Columbia. It made me an oddball with the other uniforms as well as an object of suspicion. I was working really hard to overcome prejudice and had met with some success. I wasn’t complaining, and it wouldn’t help if I did.

The hallways were crowded and sweaty with adolescent hormones and nonstop activity; school was now year-round in the L.A. unified district. Noisy, old, tired, Mid-City was only several miles away from the cultured Hollywood Bowl Amphitheater, but light-years away from the West L.A. area, where the privileged often eschewed the neglected public institutions in favor of posh private schools. I had to hand it to my stepmother. Though Hannah was an outstanding standardized-test taker, Rina wouldn’t ever dream of sending my half sister to a privatesecularschool. Instead, she elected to send her to a privatereligiousschool-a seat-of-the-pants Jewish day school. She prized religious studies above all, and in return for her faith in God, she was rewarded by not having to worry about entrance exams and interviews for my ten-year-old sister.

Jaylene Taylor held the title of Girls Vice-Principal. She was tall and big-boned with a broad forehead, long equine teeth, and dark eyes. She wore a beige blouse that sat over navy slacks and sensible flats. When I told her why I was there, the dark eyes narrowed and her mouth screwed up into a distasteful look.

“I can’t just hand out names of our students. Everyone has rights, even minors.”

Not technically true, but now was not the time to get legal.

“Besides,” Jaylene continued, “you don’t want pregnant students, you want girls who were formerly pregnant. You know the dropout rate we have with pregnant girls?”

“I bet it’s high.”

“Skyscraper high. We’ve got all these state-mandated testing-program requirements.Ourmain problem is getting the students to show up and put in the hours to graduate. Academics?” She stuck out her tongue. “What’s that?”

“I went to public school.”

She threw me a sour expression that screamed:Look where it got you!

“All I want to do is talk to them, Ms. Taylor.”

“They’re scattered, Officer Decker.” She was regarding me with contempt. Or maybe that was contempt at life in general. “We don’t run a school for wayward teen girls who can’t say no.” Under her breath: “Although sometimes it feels that way.”

“Don’t these girls have special classes?”

Her laugh was mirthless. “They have an entire major. It’s called Household Arts, although you don’t have to be pregnant to declare it as your area of study.” She rolled her eyes. “Diaper changing 101.” A sigh. “It’s not that bad. And I suppose it’s a lot more relevant to the girls than Shakespeare.”

“I would thinkRomeo and Julietwould be very relevant to a teenage girl. Relevant as well as romantic.”

“Your assumptions are predicated on their being able to read.”

I stopped being adversarial and resorted to pleading. “Ms. Taylor, the mother dropped her infant in a Dumpster like garbage. Maybe if we canimpressupon these girls that there’s no reason toeverhurt their babies, that there are ways to give up infants that are legal and anonymous, then maybe we can save a life in the future.”

“You don’t think wetellthem?”

“Of course you do. But there’s nothing like a real-life case to illustrate it. You know, kinda bring it home anecdotally.”

She twisted her mouth and glared at me. Then, abruptly, her face softened and I knew she relented. “We offer a fourth-period prenatal class for pregnant girls who are excused from regular gym. I suppose hearing it from an officer won’t hurt.” She eyed me with suspicion. “It would have helped if you had come in your uniform.”

“I’m doing this on my own time. If it’s a big success, I’ll go through official channels next time.”

“All right. Let’s go. Don’t get your hopes up. And don’t believe everything they tell you. These ladies are notoriously good bullshitters.”

There were twenty-three girls, none of them married, and in most cases, the boyfriends were peripheral. Most were from broken homes, and none had any money. What kind of future did these girls have? How were they going to support their children and themselves without becoming a statistic on the slippery slope downward?

I tried to speak to them without condescension, lecturing with passion and honesty. But after the first couple of minutes, I had lost 90 percent of the attention in the room. Their restless eyes went to the wall clock and skipped around space. They regarded their long, polished nails; a couple of them refreshed their mouths with generous lipstick applications; several girls pulled out copies ofTeenmagazine and thumbed through the pages as I spoke. So I concentrated on those who still deigned to make eye contact with me.

I started off with the laws concerning infant abandonment. If the child is dropped off in front of a police station or at a hospital, the mother will not be prosecuted if she has given birth within twenty-four hours. And even if the child is abandoned, the mother can still escape prosecution if she makes herself known within seventy-two hours. There was no reasoneverto discard an infant.

When I brought up last night’s case, I detected a whiff of interest from some of the girls. Just a whiff, though. Mostly, the girls continued to shuffle their feet, clear their throats, and watch the clock. Ten minutes before class was up, I asked if anyone knew of a desperate pregnant girl who might be the mother. I told them that the mother needed psychological help and medical attention. Surely they could understand her emotional position. I directed my pleas to a girl sitting in the second row, left-hand side. She wore a sleeveless russet tent dress, the hemline resting against smooth thighs. She had round brown eyes and long, straight blond hair that reached her shoulders. A pretty little thing, even with the butterfly encased in a heart tattooed on her left shoulder. Her right shoulder held the name CARISSE done in florid script.

Her eyes took me in, although as soon as the bell rang, she was out of her seat, her books pressed against her ample bosom and oversize belly. I called out the name etched in blue on her skin. She turned around.

“Can I talk to you for a moment?”

Carisse waited.

I said, “You seemed to be paying attention… focusing on what I was saying-”

“I’m gonna be late for class.”

“I’ll write you a note.”

A swish of the hair.

“C’mon,” I prodded. “Help me out. You know who I’m talking about?”

“No.” A shake of her head. “It’s not like I know every knocked-up girl in the city.”

“Okay, so you don’t know her personally. But maybe you’veseena girl who fits the picture?”

Carisse shifted the books in her arms. “Not too far from here… maybe… a couple of blocks east… maybe more.”

“Yeah?”

“At a bus stop at night. It’s not far from where I live. I seen this girl sittin’ on the bench. She never goes on the bus, and I never seen her comin’ off the bus, either. She just sits there. Like, I’m not saying she’s homeless. And I’m not saying she’s preggers. But she is fat and dressed weird. Just sittin’ on the bus bench, readin’ the same book. I haven’t seen her for a couple of weeks… maybe longer. I was wonderin’ if like… you know, something happened to her.”

“Like what?”

“Hey, you’re a cop. This far east… it ain’t Beverly Hills, you know. Lots of hustlers and lots of poor slobs.”

“Hey, Carisse, I know who you mean.”

I turned to the sound of the voice. This one had short black hair, white foundation, and black lipstick and eyeliner. She wore a black dress that fell past her knees. Her boots disappeared under the ragged hemline. I thought the Goth look was long gone, but I guess I was wrong. She stuck out her hand. “Rhiannon… like the witch in a Fleetwood Mac song.”

Carisse rolled her eyes. “It’s really Roseanne-”

“It’s whatever I want it to be,be-ach.”

“Hold on!” I broke in. “Let’s keep it friendly.”

“Fine!” Rhiannon clutched her books to her chest and regarded me with wounded eyes. “I think I seen her, too. That homeless girl. She carries a purse made outta shells.”

Carisse nodded. “Yeah, that’s the one.”

“I didn’t know she was pregnant.”

“I’m not saying shewaspregnant, only that she was fat and was readin’ this book.”

I said, “Do you remember the title of the book?”

Carisse shook her head. “You know, she didn’t look like she was really readin’ it. Just like… looking at the pictures.”

“Why don’t you think she was reading the text?”

“ ’Cause she was moving her lips as she went through the book… like turnin’ the pageswaytoo fast. And mumblin’ as she turned the pages. Like talkin’ to herself.”

“Can you describe her?”

“She had a pink face and she was fat,” Carisse told me.

“She was Caucasian, then?”

“Yeah, she was real white… like pink.”

“Something’s wrong with her.” Rhiannon twirled an index finger next to her temple.

“And she talked to herself?” I repeated.

“I dunno,” Rhiannon said. “Never got that close.”

“Like I said, she mumbled,” Carisse told me. “She dressed weird, bundled up in layers of clothing. You could tell she was hot. She was sweating. Her face was covered in sweat… kinda piggish looking… real pink, you know.”

I nodded encouragement. “Eye color, hair color?”

“Blondish hair,” Rhiannon volunteered.

Blondish hair. For Rhiannon to have noticed blond hair at nighttime, it must have meant that the woman was very blond. Also, it meant something else to me: that the woman’s hair was relatively clean. Even blond hair gets dark when it’s dirty and greasy. Neither girl mentioned anything about her smell, usually the first thing people noticed when dealing with the homeless.

“And you haven’t seen her for a while?”

“I haven’t looked for her,” Carisse said. “You asked me for ideas, I gave you some.”

“Thank you. You’ve both been very helpful.” I gave each of them my business card. “If you see her again, you’ll give me a call.”

Rhiannon squinted at the card. “ ‘Cyn-thi-a Decker.’ ” She looked at me. “That’s you?”

“That’s me.”

“How long have you been a cop?”

“Two years.”

“So you’re still, like, new at it?”

“I’ve been around,” I told her.

“You like it?”

“Very much.”

“So, like, what does it take to be a cop?”

There was the long answer. Being a cop for me meant a passionate desire to help people and a fierce determination to seek justice. It meant courage, fortitude, physical stamina, and a tolerance for long, lonely nights. It meant having a clearly defined sense of self, a scrupulous honesty, and comfort with alienation. It meant wrestling with demons in nightmares that sometimes come true. It meant all those things to me, and a lot more.

But I gave her the short answer. It takes a high school diploma and a warm body. Oh, and if you have a clean record that always helps, although it’s not mandatory.

What’s a misdemeanor drug possession between friends?