I laughed at her and asked, “What am I supposed to do? Where am I going to go? I have no one! I’m lucky Rita lets me stay with her.”
“It’s not luck. It’s her selfishness and greed letting you stay there so she can force you to deal for her. Living there is dangerous and you have to leave. I don’t know where you’ll go, but we’ll think of something. Your mother almost got you killed and Rita is going to finish the job if we don’t get you out of there.”
“I’m not attached to her by any means, but I have no where to go,” I explained.
She reached her tiny hand across the desk and laid it on top of my much larger one. “Don’t worry. We’ll think of something,”
35 Simple Humanity
Claire
I was not going to let Jessie’s grandmother get him killed. I spent the rest of the day racking my brain, thinking of a way to get him away from Rita’s dangerous hold.
Everything I thought of required monetary resources he didn’t have and, because I was at a total loss for what to do, I resorted to the only choice I had-my parents.
I walked into the house after cheerleading practice with a mission. I was going to get help for Jessie and I would resort to whatever I had to in order to get it.
I found my mom in the kitchen preparing dinner. I walked into the kitchen and stood looking at her. She turned around to look at me and saw the tears in my eyes.
“What’s wrong, Claire?” she said with a concerned look on her face.
“It’s Jessie.”
“Did something happen to him?” she asked as she put her oven mitts on the countertop.
“Mom, Jessie can’t keep living with his grandmother. She forces him to sell drugs in exchange for somewhere to live. He doesn’t want to do it, but he has no where to go. He has no family to take him in. He’s stuck there with her until he finishes school and she’s going to get him killed if he has to continue selling drugs for her. Three guys jumped him last night and beat him up really bad. They busted the back of head open and his face looks like dammit. I don’t even want to see what his body looks like under his clothes because every time he moved today, he looked like he was in so much pain. You were his counselor. Surely, that places some kind of responsibility on you to help him. If not, simple humanity alone places some kind of responsibility on us to help him.”
She bit her lip, then said, “Claire, what do you want me to do?”
“I want you to do whatever it is you’re willing to do for him, whatever it is your conscience tells you that you must do,” I pleaded with all of my heart.
Something I said spoke to the humanity in her and I felt my heart begin to beat out of my chest when she said, “I need to talk to your dad about this. I can’t make a decision like this without him.”
I ran to her and threw my arms around her, squeezing her tightly. “When will Dad be home?”
“He told me he would be home for dinner, so I suspect within the hour, but you know how an hour can turn into two or three with your dad.”
I spent the next two hours pacing the floor waiting on my dad to come in from work. When he finally walked through the door, I propelled myself on him, wrapping my arms around him. “Well, what have I done to provoke a reception like that?”
I looked up with tears in my eyes and he said, “What is it, Claire?”
My mom called out from the other room, “Claire, let your dad get in the door and we’ll discuss everything over dinner.”
I backed off my dad and let him close the door from the garage. Although I was dying to tell him everything, I didn’t say a word because my mother had told me to wait.
I anxiously helped my mom prepare our plates and we sat down at the dining room table. “Well, the two of you have me a little nervous about what’s going on.”
My mom started, “Claire brought some things about Jessie to my attention today I was unaware of, but I’m going to let her tell you the whole story.”
I started at the beginning and told my dad everything I knew about Jessie since my mother was still bound to not talk about him or his situation. I started with his childhood and the incident that killed his mother along with him almost being killed. I told him about Harley and Ozzy and how wonderful they were thanks to the raising they had by Jessie. I concluded the story of Jessie’s life with his current situation and how he would be dead before graduation if we didn’t do something to help him get away from his grandmother.
My dad looked shocked by the details of Jessie’s horrific life. “Claire, your mother and I need to talk about this without you. Go upstairs and we’ll call you down after we’ve made a decision.
I went to my room and paced the floor. Five minutes turned into twenty and twenty turned into sixty. Before I knew it, I stood in the middle of my bedroom floor ready to have a full blown panic attack when my mom came to my door and said, “You can come down now.”
I inhaled slowly and deeply because I thought I might be ready to pass out, but I followed my mom down the stairs and sat in the chair across from my parents sitting on the couch.
I heard the thudding of my heart in my ears and it almost overpowered the sound of my dad’s voice, but I managed to hear, “This was a hard one for us to make a decision about. Jessie’s life has been an utter tragedy, but we see so much potential in him. He’s highly intelligent and athletically gifted and we have no doubt he will go on to do great things if he is given half an opportunity. Now, here comes the hard part.”
I felt my heart stumble as I waited to hear the part I didn’t want to hear-the part where they told me they couldn’t do anything to help him.
“There is no debate about the need for him to leave the home of his grandmother and it needs to be as soon as possible. The debate comes in on what we do with him once we get him out. Helping him get a place to live by himself doesn’t seem like the right answer because we have some concerns about how passionately you feel about him. We can tell you to not go see him all we want, but in reality, that’s not going to happen because we know you love him. We think putting him in a place with no adult guidance could be setting you both up for a situation you aren’t ready to handle. You’re not adults, even if you think you are, and you’re not ready to make adult decisions about having sex and we know that’s where it would lead if you were given the freedom.
I felt myself turn every shade of red as I listened to my dad talk about Jessie and I making the decision to have sex. This was soooo not what I was expecting to hear from them.