1 ● THE
FIVE HEADED MONSTER OF EXCELSIOR
MAY 15 1982 ▪Fifteen years old
Three minutes ago, I was in the living room snuggled under a blanket with Sherman, my stuffed elephant.
The house is quiet, and feels unusually cold.
There is a note on the table to my brother: “We’ll be back in a few days.
Here is money for pizza.”
Grabbing my pad of paper and pen I write, “Mom, where you going?” and walk outside. My parents stop me at the front steps, cornering me in the entryway. I show Mom the pad.
"Not me,” she says. “We.”
Flipping to the next page of the notebook, I cover it with a giant question mark.
"We are all going." Her voice is cold, factual, devoid of emotion.
I hold out the notebook and tap on the question mark.
"We are all going to check out that school in Colorado."
"No!" I try to scream, but laryngitis prevents my fury from being audible. As I write the question, “Why?” on my pad, my dad grabs my arm and says,
"Karen, get in the van."
Shaking my head no, I turn to run back into the house. They grab me, one on each side, and start pulling me towards the van. I scream but little sound comes out. The van door opens and my mom’s friend, Diana, is sitting in the back of the van. Despite my best fight, they win. I’m trapped in the van and as we back out of the driveway I yell at Diana “Fuck you, bitch!” My voice is barely a whisper. She hears me.
Crawling under the pile of blankets and pillows on the floor of the van, I try to escape the cold and them. We are all happy to pretend I am invisible under the blanket; I curl up in a ball and wish they would never find me. I take out an earring and prick away at the skin on my wrist.
Kids in school sometimes do the “eraser dare”—rubbing an eraser back and forth across their skin to see who stops first. Eventually the skin rips open and I heard people have bled out because the skin has been rubbed too thin to stitch. I pray it’s true, it's all I've got. My parents will think I've gone back to sleep. I will be dead before the blood seeps out from under the blanket.
My wrist burns. It's raw but it doesn't look anywhere near ready to open up and bleed out. I try to stab the vein with the earring, puncture it a few times. Nothing works. If I had a razor blade, two quick slices and this could all be over. The van’s tires continue rolling, creating distance between me and everything familiar.
I peer out from under the blankets. My dad has joined my mom in the front seat. Diana is still sitting in back with me. I could get up and launch myself out the back door before anyone had a chance to stop me. But what if I didn't die? What if I only broke a few bones? That wouldn’t stop them from taking me to this boarding school. And what if I did permanent damage, left incapacitated and dependent on them forever? What if I am left without even having the option of suicide? My mom always says, “Suicide is never an option,” but I think about it all the time. I had a thousand miles to think of nothing but suicide, or escape.
We travel two days for my parents to leave me somewhere none of us have ever seen.
Our destination is a big, red brick building, the word “Excelsior!” written in bold, black letters down one of the glass entry doors. Inside, a teenager is at the front desk, but before we make it to her post we are intercepted by a beefy woman wearing men’s blue Dickies work pants. She looks like the female version of our neighbor who works for the probation department. Ms. Dickies leads us to a huge, proper conference room where several other adults are waiting. The brawny woman sits on the edge of her seat; I’m not sure if she is uncertain she will fit between the arms of the chair, or if she is naturally on edge. There are ashtrays on the table. I grab one of my dad’s Marlboros and his lighter as we sit. The adults begin to talk, intentionally leaving me out of the conversation, like I’m a little girl;- they don’t want me to understand what they are saying, but know they can’t spell out the undesirable or complicated words in front of me. I want to look at the pamphlets my parents are flipping through, but they don’t pass them over to me. Doesn’t this involve me? What’s with the secrecy? I decide to force my way into the conversation.
“My best friend attends boarding school in Ojai Valley; it seemed like a pretty cool place when I went to her graduation.”
The adults look at me funny—like I’m missing something. My parents stand when they are invited to take a tour. I’m told to wait where I am with Ms. Dickies, my unofficial babysitter.
This woman in man’s clothing isn’t making a big effort to talk with me. We sit for a few minutes before I realize my dad’s taken his cigarettes. As I get up and head to the van, the big babysitter asks “What do you think you’re doing?”
“I’m going to the van to get my smokes. My dad took his.”
“No, you aren’t,” she barks.
“The van is right outside, be right back.” I step out of the conference room and the door closes behind me.
Alarms scream from speakers in the ceiling, people are running, there is commotion all around me. I never make it back to the door that reads “Excelsior!”
I’m surrounded by people I don’t recognize- none of these faces were in the conference room, except the Dickies lady who isn’t visible, but I can hear her massive voice barking orders. My parents aren’t anywhere around; they don’t come when I scream for their help. I am taken down, one person at each limb and another at my head. None of the people restraining me have uniforms or badges- how do they have any authority or reason to do this? As they drag me down a hallway, I writhe and scream for help and bite at hands that grip tightly at my wrists.
“Stop Biting!” they say,“Calm down!”
“Let me go!” I reply. “Who the hell are you?”
Voices yell for me to be quiet. My vision fills with bright lights and unfamiliar faces, I randomly notice panels missing from the dirty drop ceiling. Bodies block my periphery; I can only see upwards, like I’m falling into a well- or hell.
“Where are my parents?” Nobody answers; they are like a five-headed monster working in unison to drag me down. It’s as if they planned this all along and have done it a hundred times before.
They toss me onto a mattress and the last limb of the five-headed monster locks the door behind them. Typically such a soft, innocent sound, but this time the lock is keeping me prisoner, rather than protecting me from the monsters outside. That click was the sound of my freedom stolen. The room immediately shrinks.
The door that locked between the monster and me has a rectangular window about the size of a shoebox. I hit it hard and it doesn’t budge. I’m trapped. I can’t believe my eyes because my mind is confused. Looking but never seeing, I can’t grasp this reality.
All the walls are white, not padded with soft squishy quilt stuff like you see in movies or read about, instead lined in ugly Formica so if you ram your head into the walls they give way just enough to not cause any “real” damage. The plastic is white with flecks of gray and gold. A design left over from the 1960’s- too ugly to be cool or vintage- it looks cheap and dirty. This Formica wainscoting runs the perimeter of the room and is a little taller than me; a five foot 14 year old. Assuming most of the prisoners kept in this room are about my size only makes this place more horrific to think about.
Hard plastic caps the top of the Formica. No matter how hard I try, running my finger over the length of it, walking in circles around the room again and again, there is no way to dislodge a piece of the endless plastic with no beginning. Eventually I give up on my idea to somehow break a piece off to hurt someone, or better, myself.
The mattress on the floor is naked in the barren room like a sacrificial altar; no pillow, sheets, box spring or frame. I lie down and cry into it. I beat the shit out of it. I yell and curse at the world from that stained, lumpy mattress- but hours later, no one comes.
In the movies, when people are trapped in jail, there are always bars on the window. As a viewer you have plenty of time to fabricate elaborate plans on how you could defeat those bars; they are always wide apart, fragile, accessible to your allies in the outside world. The window in this room doesn’t have bars, but wire mesh, thick as a #2 pencil. The screening has spaces open no wider than ¾ inch square. The most you can push through that cold metal lattice would be a Starburst candy and you’d have to take the wrapper off and utilize its pliability. If I did manage to squeeze the candy through, it would fall two stories to its death.
Looking out the window to the weird industrial area below, I see a few girls around my age, get into a van with an adult and drive away. I hope they are escaping but they don’t look to be in a hurry. Electric shock à la “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” comes to mind. Are these kids now like zombies, shadows of what they once were? If this is a boarding school, like my parents said, where are the horses, the ceramics classes, the other kids? There are no sounds of happy school children frolicking in the distance. I watch out the window and listen carefully and never see the girls return in the van.
Every hour or so, someone looks in through the mesh enforced window in the door.
I yell “Where are my parents?”
They ask “Do you need to use the restroom?”
If I say yes, 3 people are on guard to escort me across the hall and lock me in the bathroom. There’s nothing in the bathroom to devise a spectacular James Bond/MacGyver escape. No windows or mirror, only a sink and a toilet. I unroll long strips of toilet paper and twist them together, wondering how many layers it would take to make a rope strong enough to hang myself. Only moments later they are knocking on the door telling me to hurry up or they are coming in. I am escorted the few steps back to the room and the door is locked behind me again. After a few trips to the bathroom, my entourage is reduced to one escort. They know I can’t escape and they can see that I am starting to know that too. It reminds me of that term I’ve never liked — “breaking a horse”.
Eventually someone brings food in on a beige partitioned cafeteria tray. I can’t imagine ever enjoying food or even eating again. At the end of the day another meal is delivered. When that tray, still full, is removed, I am given a blanket and pillow. My parents haven’t come to say goodbye or explain themselves. As the evening starts to suck the sunlight from the room I have to consider the idea that my parents aren’t faking; they won’t be coming back to get me. Why hasn’t anyone come to explain my fate? No pamphlets with guidelines, no campus tour, no crudely made orientation film. I am blind and unknowing.
I am a fucking victim. When Jack kicked me and cracked my ribs I was able to make sense of it. He had a reason. I could fight back. It was one against one. No one is hugging me now and saying they are sorry. I want comfort from my parents; I want a promise that things will be better.
My mom and dad obviously don’t love me- they discarded me here with the monster and might be halfway home already. I think of Jack and how much he loves me; how he never demands anything of me. I could do or be whoever I want; his love for me is unconditional. He loves me no matter who I sleep with. My parents couldn’t love me because I slept with him. Jack is probably thinking of me right now, looking at my initials tattooed on his arm, I fall asleep certain of his love for me.
My nightmare is I am kidnapped and locked away. I wake to the horror that this is my reality. I swear tears are coming before I am fully awake. My face is wet, did my crying wake me up? Sweat covers me and I’m chilled to the bone. On a mattress, flat on the floor, I may as well be on a raft in the middle of the ocean. A loud scream rips from my throat, so much bigger than I expected because I feel so small. I scream again and it makes me feel stronger. I revel in my voice and feel like I have launched some small attack on my captors. An adult I’ve never seen before comes in and stands over me. My verbal attack has ended. She doesn’t have to explain, she wins the moment she used a key to get in.
“You’ve just earned a zero for your behavior,” she announces.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” I ask kindly.
“And another one for language.” She adds to my punishment, and confusion.
“What are you keeping score for?” I truly don’t know. “Zero plus zero is still zero”
“And another one for attitude”.
She is creative and attentive, I’ll give her that. Sometimes I know when to shut up and I’ve decided now would be a good time. This old chubby face that hasn’t worn a smile in a decade, would happily pull the pin out of another zero grenade. She seems genuinely disappointed that she can’t bomb me again as she backs out of the room and locks the door.
I cry. I cry through all the clichés: I cry a river, an ocean, til there are no more tears, til I can’t cry anymore. I cry until my face hurts, my head hurts, my heart hurts. It’s possible if I stop crying I will completely turn to stone and become rotten and evil like the monsters that have me caged. My tears are the only thing they don’t have control of.
(In my mind Johnny Thunders commiserates with me. I can hear him singing)
♫ It doesn't pay to try,
All the smart boys know why,
It doesn't mean I didn't try,
I just never know why.
Feels so cold and all alone,
‘Cause baby, you're not at home.
And when I'm home
Big deal, I'm still alone.
You can’t put your arms around a memory
So don’t try. ♫
Anonymous adult, number who-knows, arrives with a saccharine smile and another tray of beige.
“You may as well take that with you. I don’t want it.”
“If you don’t eat some of your meal, you will get a zero,” she says, still smiling.
“Fuck you! What are you going to do then? Lock me up or take away my food?”
It feels good to yell some more; I’ve decided anger is more comfortable than sadness. At least anger gives me energy; sadness sucks the life from me. I stare at the tray of food on the floor and listen to the door lock behind me, the Clash song “Clampdown” playing in the background of my mind.
♫ Let fury have the hour,
Anger can be power,
Did you know that you can use it?
The voices in your head are calling,
Stop wasting your time, there’s nothing coming,
Only a fool would think someone could save you. ♫
The passing of time is marked by the sound of school bells in the distance, and the rotating trays of beige in my cage. I try to communicate telepathically with Jack to tell him I love him. I try to send messages through the bond I am supposed to have with my mom to come and get me out. I don’t know if anyone is listening. No paper to write or draw and clear my head, no music to soothe my soul. The sun rises and falls, while strangers look in and check in and lock me in. Food is delivered and removed. Blankets and pillows arrive and depart like soft friends, I wish they could stay and visit longer. Sometimes I can hear the sound of the T.V. from another room, but not enough to decipher any words. I can make out the sound of other girls’ voices but I don’t know how many. Occasionally I catch a glimpse of a girl my age looking through the little window in the door, but they walk away the second I look up. The only thing worse than trying to fall asleep after being in a room all day by yourself is waking up to another day in that same room. My life is on a tape loop.
Random adult, number whatever, comes in with breakfast. This time she leaves the door open behind her. She knows my spirit has been broken and I’m not going to try to escape anymore.
“You have been in T.L.C. for three days. Don’t you want to come out of this room?”
“I don’t even know what T.L.C. is, and how can I come out of this room when you people keep locking me in?”
“T.L.C. stands for The Learning Center and you are here with other high risk girls. If you behave yourself, you can come join the group today, maybe even go to the cafeteria by the end of the week.”
“At risk for what?”
“For running, for destructive behavior and for negatively influencing others”. She has an explanation for everything, none of which make sense to me.
“How do you know all this when you don’t even know me? I’ve been locked in this room for days.” I don’t know why I attempt to explain myself to them. As if convincing them they made a mistake will result in being sent home.
“It took five staff members to bring you in here, so you are obviously a flight risk.”
“I was only going to get my cigarettes!”
“You aren’t allowed to smoke in T.L.C.” She delivers a sinister Cheshire smile, knowing she isn’t making any sense. She doesn’t have to.
“I wasn’t in T.L.C. I thought I was in a conference room at a boarding school. I am two days drive away from home. I don’t have any idea where I am. Where would I run to?” It would be great if her answer included a bus schedule and fare.
“When you are prepared to behave, you can come out of the room and take a shower, and meet the other girls in the unit.”
It hasn’t been explained what “behaving” means, other than to quit hitting the walls and cussing out the people in charge.
Down a narrow hall is a bathroom with one shower stall in it, folded clothes and a clean towel are stacked on a stool. The woman who escorted me says “I’ll wait right here” stands in the doorway and turns her back to me. I undress quickly and get in the shower, It feels good to stand under the warm water; I haven’t had a shower since my parents threw me in the van over six days ago. For a moment, with my eyes closed and the water running down my neck, the situation feels almost normal.
After the shower, I’m escorted past the room that has held me in isolation, and into the dark, sad, gloom of the T.L.C. common room.
There is one double locked door on the opposite wall, and no windows. No means of escape as far as I can figure at first glance. Three girls momentarily assess me and then go back to staring at the T.V. tucked into the left corner of the room. I do my best to avoid eye contact with them, and survey the room instead. There is a faded orange and brown chair upholstered with something the texture of burlap, left over from the early 1970’s. Along the entirety of the wall an ugly black vinyl couch sits arm-to-arm with a chair. There's barely enough room to walk between the couch and a low coffee table. Beyond the coffee table is a bookshelf cluttered with books and board games. Judging from the condition of the boxes, it’s unlikely the board games have all their pieces or that game night is a common occurrence. On the right side of the hall doorway a big desk clearly defines the space as their turf; none of the kids are allowed on that side. One staff member has 40% of the room. The four of us girls in T.L.C. have the other 60%.
I sit in the only open space available next to a Mexican girl maybe two years older than me. She’s only a little bigger than I am; with long thick brown hair down the middle of her flannel clad back. She has a baby face with jet black eyes: cold and lifeless like a doll. There is no delineation between the pupil and iris.
“I’m Jeanette. Probation violation.”
“K.P.” I say, unsure of what other clarifiers I should provide. Below one of her black armor eyes is a tattoo of a tiny number 13.
“I like that tattoo.” I can’t imagine ever tattooing my face, but it seems to suit her, the tattoo looks like a beauty mark.
“Third gen. East thirteen”
“I have no clue what that means. I’m not from Colorado.”
She just laughs and shakes her head. I notice that she has three dots tattooed on the space between her thumb and pointer finger.
“What’s that?” I ask, pointing to her hand.
“Mi Vida Loca.”
“What does that mean?”
“My crazy life. My mom is in lock-up for parole violation, we should get out at the same time.”
I can’t tell if Jeanette is happy or sad about this. No matter what her face, body or words say, her eyes hide all emotion. That is her superpower; she will always keep people guessing. Those eyes make me afraid and in awe. She is only 16 years old, but I would guess the staff is a little afraid of her. Yes; “My crazy life”.
“Why is your hair so short and yellow?” Jeanette asks.
“I’m a punk.”
Our conversation is interrupted by the adult du jour who tells me one of the ways for me to “behave” is to not identify myself as “Punk Rock”.
“But she asked me about my hair.”
“You will need to find another way to answer.”
How can Jeanette sit here and talk about her crimes, her tattoos, her gang affiliation, her probation, her mother’s criminal activity ‒‒ and the only control over our conversation comes when I mention punk rock? How can music, an art form, be so much more offensive?
How can I be worse than her?
“I heard it took five staff to drag you in here.”
“How did you get put in here?” I asked.
“I got bussed here after court.”
After we talk I’m aware of the most important difference between Jeanette and me: her family would have her back if they could.
When the girls leave T.L.C. to go to the cafeteria and then to school, I’m left with a yearning for company that may never be satisfied after so many days in solitude. It’s like someone pulled the scab right off of the wound. The adult left behind to guard me talks about what's on the other side of the door: Several dorms called cottages that house other girls. Eventually when I “earn the privilege” to leave T.L.C. they will “place” me in the appropriate cottage.
“What do I have to do to move to a cottage?” I want answers.
“We have to see a change in you.”
“Like what? What kind of change? What can I do?”
“It's nothing specific. There is no formula, it's a process.” They don't have the answer, they don't know what they want, it’s all bullshit.
I’m given a notebook and a weird little felt tip pen, slightly longer than my index finger.
“You can go back to your room now and start writing.”
“Start writing what?”
“For the remainder of your stay here, you will write in a journal for 30 minutes a day. In addition, you will complete an autobiography as soon as possible, so we can get to know you better.”
Yeah, so, I wrote a BOOK!
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