Book: Tease

I am more than half way through my autobiography and am grateful to my manuscript consultant, Betsy Warland, for her expert editorial guidance along this journey.

This is the first chapter.

© Copyright 2011 Rosemary Keevil
Copying and Distribution Prohibited

Higher Ground

Knock Knock Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door

Bob Dylan (Avril Lavigne’s rendition)

September 27, 2005

“What time is it?” my sixteen-year-old mumbled as the third degree light blurted on exposing a single bed tucked in the corner, and a plain, brown dresser tossed at random against one wall, and some scribbled notes in a messy pile on the floor. The air was still. Stale.

She squinted in the bright shock and confusion.

“It’s four in the morning, Dixie.” I sit beside her, hold her right cheek in my hand and lean down and kiss her forehead.

“What are you doing here?” A hell of a good question.

“I’m taking you to another place, sweetie.”

“What State is it in?” Also a hell of a good question. She had already been to Hazelden Centre for Youth and Families in Minneapolis, Minnesota. After ten days of cutting her arms with her ballpoint pen and sleeping away the days, the Centre notified me that it was “not equipped to handle her needs.” They recommended this place, Roger’s – a Psychiatric Hospital in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin – basically a loony bin for teens.

But this 70’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest style joint, could not handle my daughter either. She kept running away. I don’t know how you run away from a lock-up, but if anyone is going to figure it out, Dixie will. Now the loony bin was giving her the boot!

“Utah.” The sound of if even surprised me.

“I don’t like Mormons. Are they caring?” I died inside, I sure hope so.

“Do they do the 12 steps?”

“Yes, dear…” relieved I could offer up something – anything – positive. This asylum type place seemed rough for my youngest child. I had to quickly fortify myself with a summary of her downward spiral in the last six months, the “Fuck you, bitch. Fuck you, bitch. Fuck you, bitch.” The trying to break into the house and smashing the office window; The middle of the night calls from her 21-year-old alcoholic girlfriend; “A taxi driver beat up Dixie;” “Dixie is drunk in the ditch at Whistler talking about suicide;” “Dixie’s been raped;” “Dixie has been arrested;” The phone calls from the West Vancouver Police. My daughter, officially Known to Police.

Pause, breathe. Ask God for help.

“We have to gather your stuff, Dixie.”

She rolls over towards the wall. I set my hand on her shoulder.

“We have to gather your stuff.”

We wait a minute. I rub her back gently.

“Dixie.”

She rolls back.

She struggles up wearily, shuffles to the bathroom with a slight limp in a complete surrender to the utter lack of privacy.

I stare at my youngest child. Long, straight, brown hair all topsy–turvey. Skin greasy — a teenager. Those dark eyes puffy but still, as always, deep and exotic. The Broomhilda nurses and their male cohort rummage through Dixie’s three small drawers, jamming her crumpled belongings into the largest, bluest, plastic garbage bags I have ever seen. She is wearing her sweats–cum pjs.

“I need shoes.” It’s an order to her guards.

“They’re already packed.” Head honcho Broomhilda grunts. Dixie slips on her flips.

“Where’r my crutches?” My mind jolts. Crutches? Will this destroy my carefully strategized plan? How can she go to this next placement without the full use of all her limbs? Is that possible? I start to catastrophize. Will I have to go back to square one? But this is square one. The hospital will not keep Dixie and I, sure as heck, cannot keep her.

“Crutches?” I plead for an answer.
“From the cornfield,” acknowledges Broomhilda number two.

Dixie’s daring escapade in the cornfields was the straw that broke the back of the Roger’s head psychiatrist. He phoned me on a Tuesday morning and informed me:

“This is an emergency situation. You need to arrive here by Thursday and take your daughter somewhere else. We cannot keep patients who insist on running away.”

Silence.

“I’ll give you a name of an educational consultant who lives in Seattle. She will be able to help you with options.”

“Can we stay in a hotel?” dreams Dixie out loud. Can we stay in a hotel? Some dreamy memories: Wickaninnish Inn on the dramatic west coast of Canada to a tented hotel amongst the lion roars in Samburu, Kenya … and that room with the view of the pyramids in Cairo. Even the more drab locales were spiced up with room service and a movie on the hotel TV.

“No dear. Actually, you are flying in a few hours. You’ll be with two people, Ruth and Steve. They seem like good people.” Does the clarity of my delivery mask the meek me lurking inside?

The entire entourage; three Broomhildas, the male orderly, Dixie and myself float en masse down the cavernous, sanitary, hallway. Head Honcho covets her chunky keychain and unlocks a door. We step forward three feet. Rattle, rattle, door number two opens.We shift down a smaller hallway and stop again. Rattle, rattle, clunk – the dead bolt is released.There is yet one more barrier from the outside. Once we are permitted through this fourth door we feel the cool September air of the ominous dark night. Stop abruptly and cram together on the surprisingly puny porch. No more clanging kegs. Flapping noises from the massive, blue construction tarps covering the red, brick sides of the big, old mansion. Slight rustling of leafy maples cushioning the entrance way.

The escort service (Ruth and Steve) taking her to Duchesne, Utah, is waiting on the circular drive with the van running. Headlights exposing the edge of the cornfields, where Dixie was found and tackled by the cops. I was advised that this was the method used to transport the whelps to their wilderness sentence which could last months.

Suddenly I am consumed by doubt. I need to reassure myself that I am doing the right thing. I review my carefully crafted plan. The educational consultant who had been recommended to me by Roger’s  turned out to be crucial in guiding me through the maze of options for troubled teens. Lana’s expertise was in matching the youth to the facility. I had placed a call to her after having been given the final word from the head psychiatrist at Rogers. Lana quizzed me intensely for three hours. I downloaded everything about Dixie’s upbringing including the sordid details of my drinking and using and, of course, the sordid details of Dixie’s recent demise. Lana quickly determined that what Dixie needed was a strict wilderness program, not to be mistaken for a boot camp. Dixie was to be transported by people trained in taking these youth, usually by airplane, to their placement. This, as a rule, happens in the middle of the night, so as to have the element of surprise working in the favour of the adults.

I stare at Dixie’s suitcases and overflowing blue plastic bags scattered on the asphalt around the escorts, Ruth and Steve.

“We forgot to explain. The Second Nature Wilderness Program doesn’t allow any personal items. It’s all provided, even thermal underwear.” That she will need. It’s not getting any warmer in the Utah wilds.

Dixie had no time to react. She was in the centre back seat of the vehicle and, although my feet were on the pavement, my body was leaning into her — with the open car door on my back pressuring me to go – caressing my baby’s cheek. She clutched her only possession – a clear baggie containing her toothbrush and toothpaste.

“Good–bye baby. I love you.”

The generic van pulls away into the darkness. I am standing there amongst my youngest child’s belongings, junked on the driveway.

The Broomhildas offer to store her stuff. “Ah, no thanks. I’m outa here.” I’ll figure something out. I always do. I have to get myself and this excess baggage to the Milwaukee airport.

Pause. Breathe. Deeper. Ask Him for help.

© Copyright 2011 Rosemary Keevil
Copying and Distribution Prohibited