Hot Child In The City August 25, 2007

I grew up in a house where newspaper articles neatly covered the front door.
 
In the off chance you’re picturing a house with a front door enshrouded with yellowed pieces of newspaper, fluttering in the wind, I should clarify that the articles were placed on the inside of the door. The neighborhood council of our immaculate gated-community would surely have had a fit at the sight of a door in their perfectly-mowed-lawns subdivision adorned with something as atrocious as yellowed pieces of newspaper, God forbid.
 
These newspaper articles weren’t of achievements that had made it into the local paper, they weren’t of current events, and they weren’t the latest U.S. News rankings of top undergraduate institutions and medical schools. Those went on the fridge next to the paper on which I received an A, with my dad’s note Next time you do better! You try A++! He failed to understand that A+’s, let alone A++’s, were no longer handed out after 5th grade.
 
The articles that decorated the inside of our front door were about young girls who had been raped, kidnapped, and murdered.
 
Sometimes, on my way to volleyball practice, I’d catch a headline that read unidentified girl found in park. If I were so lucky to go watch a movie with my friends, I’d glimpse scratches indicate prolonged abuse before leaving my house. The most fundamental lesson my father wanted his daughters to remember before leaving his house was that if we let our guard down for even an instant, we could become Nancy Thomas, 7, last seen at Crosstown Shopping Mall or Jessica Moore, 23, reported to be seen leaving local campus party with tall, Caucasian male, please call (xxx) xxx-xxxx with any information.
 
It didn’t matter that we lived in a town of a few thousand people in Michigan, 50% immaculate gated-communities, 50% golf courses, 100% WASP, where the worst crime to occur every year was the toilet paper defilement of someone’s yard. My dad always had a retort ready when I’d begin my 17th attempt at reassuring him I’d be perfectly safe at the local Applebee’s with my friends.
 
“You think you safe? Wendy Gleason, 27, think she safe and then she get found in trunk of beat up car!”
 
“That happened in New York and I think she was a prostitute.”
 
“Why you think she be prostitute? She be prostitute because she have father who let her go everywhere all the time and now you think she having fun? You think if she knew what happen she go to the Applebee now?”

 
I hated how overprotective my father was and I played the part of fucking pain in the ass with the best of them because I knew I’d never be Wendy Gleason, 27, found dead in the truck of a beat up car because no teenager ever thinks that something bad will happen to them. Teenagers think they’re fucking invincible, and to our luck, for us fortunate ones, we escape all of it with nothing more than some bruised egos and memories of a bad hangover from the party that served all that jungle juice.
 
Of course, such memories are very limited for me because my house was a prison and my father the warden, albeit a nice prison, probably the kind of prison stayed at by Martha Stewart, but a prison nonetheless. It didn’t help that I got all the invites to all the parties all the time. It only led to more frustration. And to my fucking awe today, High-School-Senior Me began sneaking out of the house. A lot. I can’t believe the fucking balls I had to do that because I shake right now thinking about what would have happened to me had my dad ever caught me. Or maybe I can believe it. I was desperate.
 
Once out, I hardly did anything worse than sleep over at someones house until I could come back at 7 am, accoutered in running clothes, pretending to have finished an early morning run, almost hoping my father would see me because I knew I’d hear him tell me you run early by yourself is very good, I like and you keep doing. Sneaking out was one thing, but sneaking out at 1 am and then trying to find a party to go to was near impossible. My home town was not that cool.
 
Possibly the most significant sip of alcohol I ingested before college occurred when I was four years old. I tried to drink from my father’s glass, confusing the liquid inside for apple juice. Okay, daughter, you drink and tell me if you like. My father had been sitting with one of his friends, and they both laughed uproariously when I immediately spat out the sip I had taken. This memory makes me really like my dad. And when I have kids, I’ll let them take sips out of my glass too – it’s a hell of a good way to ensure they’ll stay away from beer for a while anyway because to a four year old, beer tastes worst than black jelly beans and you know you didn’t go near black jelly beans as a kid.
 
It’s not that I wouldn’t have drank alcohol had I been given the opportunity, but I wasn’t ever allowed the opportunity. So I arrived at college not only excited to get away from the complete tyranny of my father but to enjoy every single thing I wasn’t allowed to during high school. And when I have my mind set on something, I make sure I accomplish it. My dad taught me that much.
 
Recently, someone who went to my college told me that during our freshman year, he had heard about me. That girl in McCarreck Hall who’s always drunk. Exact words. I actually had the humility to feel embarrassed. Not for drinking a lot because everyone drank a lot freshman year, and I sure as hell drink a lot still. But I certainly didn’t know what the fuck I was doing freshman year, and I played the quintessential obnoxious lush at the party/club/bar who doesn’t know how to hold their liquor and makes a stumbling ass of himself because I didn’t know how to hold my liquor. How could I? That’s what I imagine you learn in high school. And even though every kid goes through a drunken awakening to alcohol and all its fucktastic awesomeness during his freshman year in college, I went through it more severely than most.
 
So I felt embarrassed. Because freshman year wasn’t pretty. Publicly vomiting for hours in the communal bathroom and even one trip to the hospital that we later learned wasn’t entirely my fault due to a drugged drink at a frat party I had attended earlier that night and I praise the Holy Father that nothing worse than a $800 ambulance ride came out of it. So even though it may not have been entirely my fault, it was my fault. Because I didn’t know better. And I didn’t know better, because I grew up locked inside a large immaculate home that looked perfect from the outside. So maybe that was my dad’s fault.
 
I don’t know what the right answer is. I certainly don’t think parents should be allowing their kids free reign to do whatever they want, especially when you hear stories about middle school kids throwing sex parties and you see 14 year old girls wearing outfits that even I have the decency to not wear in public – at least not when it’s daylight and a Wednesday [unless I’m making the Walk, Cab or El Ride of Shame, which is an entirely different story].
 
When I hear about parents who knowingly let their high school kids get drunk at home, I’m not sure what I feel but it’s not approval. If you told me that a high school kid got drunk by sneaking into his parents’ liquor cabinet, I’d say more power to them. Have to learn at some point how much a hangover hurts after pounding too much hard liquor the night before. But a parent, most likely trying too hard to be cool, letting their kid invite their friends over and mixing up the party punch themselves? No, it just has to send the wrong message. Parents aren’t supposed to be cool. Not at that age. They probably aren’t supposed to be raging authoritarians either, but they sure as hell can’t be more concerned with being your “friend.” Not at that young age.
 
During my sophomore year in college, my family came to visit me during Parents Weekend. I was nervous at the prospect of seeing my dad and for him to see the wild mess of a dorm I called home. Not being able to do much else, I cleaned the fuck out of my dorm room. My family arrived, my dad stood in the middle of my room, gave a disapproving scowl and then he sat on my bed.

 
“Why … what I sit on?”

 
He reached under the blanket and drew out a Miller Lite bottle.
 
I think I died on the spot.
 
What brought me back to life? My dad started laughing. Laughing. The man who frowns when I eat too many cookies because I’m proving that I’m too weak to say no to chocolate? you too soft! you need DISCIPLINE, laughed. All he said was, “Okay. I know. You in college now. You growing up. But still you be careful.”

 
It was beautiful. And utterly fucking right.
 
That’s the thing about him. He makes me so angry and feel so hurt and sad that I get frightened by how badly I feel. But then I’m reminded of how cool he can be. And I think about how he and my mom put up newspaper articles on our front door because they were so scared that no matter how hard they tried to keep us safe, they knew that you never fucking know what can happen to your kid when they leave through the front door, and they wanted us to know that so that we’d at least be that much more careful. I think about how much someone has to care to be that scared.
 
He chastises me now for living in a big city far away from home. Well, he chastises me for a lot of things, and living in a big city is one of those things. For someone who couldn’t even allow his daughter to go to a football game on a Friday night for a few hours, I’m sure it makes his world go round that I now live hundreds of miles away with – gasp – no adult supervision. Well, other than my own, I suppose, and I’d hardly call that adult or much of any kind of supervision.
 
During a recent phone conversation, he again approached this topic and began lamenting about the evils of big cities. He ended the conversation, “Daughter. I hate you living in big city far from home. And doing nothing! Not law school. Nothing! Why you waste time? I think you must come home. *Deep pause.* But if you not come home, read newspaper. You read newspaper and find story about girl who get killed. You remember what happen to loose girl who not careful?”

 
And I do remember. I make a lot of poor decisions. A lot. On a fairly consistent basis. And I find myself in a lot of situations that normal, good girls probably stay far away from. I’m more careless than I should be. But I know for as reckless as I behave, there’s usually a voice inside my head that tells me the difference between when something is fucked up crazy and when something is too fucked up insane bat shit crazy get yourself the fuck out of this situation right now. Maybe my crash course in unsupervised mayhem that was college allowed me to get most of my unabashed thirst for the crazy out of my system and learn a thing or two. Maybe I have Wendy Gleason, 27, found dead in a parked car, to thank.
 
Or maybe it’s my dad who deserves the credit. And if that’s the case, I’m going to need a drink to process that information.
 
“Oh. And daughter–”
 
“Yes, Father?”
 
“Have you heard this song Hot Child In City? I hear some song about a hot child in car today and I get worried.”
 
“Um, yes,” I said, taken aback.
 
“Do not be Hot Child In City. You be hot child, and then you ruin respect. And then you become dead girl in car trunk. Now when you go to law school?”