The Call

I'd seen the number come up on my phone. Even though it began with an 877 prefix I knew who it was.

I stared at the phone for several long seconds before answering. The automated voice prompted me to push one to accept the call, the collect call, a call from the jail,  a call from my son with autism.

I was present when he was born, I watched as his 15 yr old birth mother cried in agony as he was taken from her arms and placed into mine. That was nearly 22 years ago.

His voice was weak, scared, and trembling. I had been searching for weeks for my child, the one that's lived, by choice,  on the streets for close to three years. I'd even found a site that is a data base for unidentified bodies. I fearfully studied each drawing, and every marking on the bodies they held. I was afraid, I knew he had no ID, no cell phone, and I had a new number that he didn't have. No one would be able to contact any of his family members if something happened to him.

Then I searched the jails, and finally I found where he was being held. I went through miles of red tape to get my phone number to my child. The next day he called. My heart broke. I called the attorney, that really didn't give a shit, I called the mental health facilitator trying to explain my son's mental conditions, I tried everything to explain how to approach him, how he could react, how fragile he could be one minute, and how destructive the next. I could find no one that would/could help.

I heard the fear in his voice tonight. He goes before a judge tomorrow afternoon. Most likely he'll be held 20 days, far too many for a young man with his mindset, and much too long for his mom. My only consolation is that he has a bed, food, and isn't in the weather.

As I spoke with him, I know his heart is sincere, he wants to do well, he wants to succeed, but with his emotional state that's difficult for him to achieve.

I wanted to hold him in my arms, I wanted to dry his tears, I wanted to make everything ok, but reality tells me something entirely different. My greatest fear for my son is that he's destined to live on the streets, arrested time after time, and perhaps deciding it may be easier for him to live in jail than in society.

How, exactly, does a parent walk that fine line? The line of knowing what is right, or going with our hearts? He was dealt a hand of cards he didn't ask for, and for that his future is unsure.

A person on the street would think my son is an incredible boy, and he is, but there's another side they know nothing about.

Tonight my heart cries. It cries for my son's fear. It cries for his future. It cries because I know there's not a single thing I can do to change things. I can't bear to imagine him in a cell, caged as an animal, while at the same time I firmly believe if he is guilty of something he needs to pay the consequences.

I'm not quite sure how either of us will sleep tonight knowing tomorrow he goes before a judge, that knows nothing of his disabilities, and what his decision will be.

Tonight he and I will both have tears welling in our eyes and droplets running down our cheeks. They will continue until he stands in front of a man tomorrow that hasn't a clue as to my son's disabilities.

And then my phone will ring once more.

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Homeland Security, Pistols, Ammo and Hives

A week after my father’s funeral in Texas it was decided that I would take his truck back with me to Oregon. I flew my oldest daughter into DFW airport so that she could make the long road trip with me.


When we left Texas, my brother had loaded my mother's .38 revolver (the one she never got to shoot before she died) with hollow points for me. I have a concealed handgun license, so no biggie to carry it with me in the truck. Karli and I were on our way. We were looking forward to being on the road alone with no distractions to keep us from reflecting on losing my father and her grandfather so soon after my mother had been killed.

When we were about 600 or 700 miles into the trip I looked into the bottom part of the console, the place my dad had used as a cooler, and it was filled with ammo. Cool. My brother took care of me and we'll be just fine on our trip.

Well not so fast cowgirl. Karli and I were on the road to Las Vegas VIA the Hoover Dam. There was a traffic advisory so we tuned in to the suggested station and learned that all cars were subject to thorough searches due to tightened security at the dam because of terrorist threats.



Then I remembered that I had a loaded handgun and a shit load of ammo, and my CHL was in my other wallet..........in OREGON. Who would have thought that I would have needed it at my Dad's funeral?

Then the realization that I have an Oregon driver's license, I’m driving a truck with Texas plates that belongs to a man I claim is my father that died hit my square between the eyes. By this time Karli is so freaked out that she's getting hives and she's in a complete panic. Beads of sweat were beginning to form around her forehead and make their way down around the curves of her face.



I called my brother to ask him to look up the concealed gun laws in Arizona and Nevada. Well they both have reciprocity with Oregon....if I had my CHL on me.

Joel said to unload the gun and put it in the in the back of the truck. Cool. Well not really. About that time 2 highway patrol cars pulled up behind us. Karli's about ready to crap in her pants now. She's visibly trembling and wanting to know if they'll hold her as an accomplice or let her go. I told her that she's only as good as the company she keeps. In other words, if I go down, she goes down! There was no way we could stop and put the gun in the covered bed. We kept going.



We finally pull up to the check point after what seemed like hours.  I push the gun into its case and push the case a little further down between the seat and the console. The officer saunters up to the truck and tells me that I need to get out of the vehicle. Well, Holy Freaking Shit! We're going to jail.



He asked me to open the bed cover of the truck so he could search it. My hand was shaking so much I could hardly get the key in the lock. He pokes around for a few seconds and then tells me I could go. I walk back to the front of the truck, get in and leave before he could change his mind. I look at Karli; she's crying and scratching hives like crazy. She'd be a terrible criminal thank goodness! She was gasping for air between sobs and said that she was sure that he was going to cuff me and with our luck we'd be on COPS or Inside America's Jails.

We make it through the check point just fine. But then I got to thinking. Here I am with a hollow point loaded .38 and, like I said before, a crap load of ammo. There were no dogs to sniff around for explosives, the cab wasn't searched and I'm thinking....."What the hell? It's THAT easy for a terrorist to get to the dam? That's not making me feel so safe!"

In the officer's defense, Karli and I do not fit the terrorist profile, but then again aren't we the type that the extremists are trying to recruit for their cause?



After a few miles on the road Karli’s hives had diminished and we made it to Vegas just fine.

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