Indoor Camping: Fixing Up the Fixer-Upper

Sunday, November 28, 2004

Limits

We’ve been talking to the General for years now about the fate of kids who do not observe curfew. Curfew around here is midnight if you’re under 18. If you are out past midnight and you’re under 18, standard procedure says you take a ride to the Juvenile Reception Center.

The Officer has his own discretion. If you’re respectful and polite, you normally would get a ride home. If you’re belligerent and difficult, you go to J.R.C.

If you go to J.R.C, you’d meet with a juvenile counselor. They subtly introduce you to the juvenile justice system. They explain that curfew is a violation. They ask, “Why you were out?” “Did your parents know where you were?” Usually the parents don’t. It almost always involves a lie. The most common lie is, “I’m spending the night at my friend’s house and other plans materialized.”

You’re held for four hours. Your parents are called and you’re picked up at that time. You get charged with curfew violation. It’s a juvenile violation so it’s usually dealt with informally. If your attitude is good, the charge might be dismissed. If not, you go to court and you’d pay a fine or do community service.

One of the things the General complained about to our counselor, Jim, was that we didn’t punish her enough. “I’ve tried to ground myself twice,” she said. “They trust me too much.”

“It’s a double-edge sword,” Jim said. “You want the comfort of limits, of knowing you’re being loved by parents placing limits on you, but you don’t want to go through the pain that comes with limits. Do you want them not to trust you?”

“No,” she said.

So we trusted her.

Cheyenneh, the General, and her friend Jessi stopped by at 11:45 pm last night. They told us hours before they were at their friend Nicci’s and were spending the night. We were surprised to see them at all.

Charlie noticed Jessi ran up to Cheyenneh’s room without saying anything. “That’s weird,” he said. “She always says ‘Hi, Charles,’ and exchanges pleasantries. I noticed she glanced over with a suspicious look, and then looked down while going upstairs.”

Cheyenneh was different, too. She was unusually solemn, now that I think about it. Not her usual gregarious self. She talked quickly and efficiently and seriously. She didn’t smile. “We’re just going to Nicci’s now,” she said.

“Make sure you’re there by midnight,” I said.

They both left very quickly without saying anything we could hear.

As long as they got to Nicci’s in the next fifteen minutes, we figured they were fine. We had no reason not to trust them, so we eventually went to bed.

Then a little after two in the morning, Charlie woke up for no apparent reason. He noticed a police car in front of the house with its headlights on. He saw a faint silhouette of a young girl in the back seat. He staggered to the front door, half asleep.

“Glad you answered the door,” one of Charlie’s favorite Officers said. “I was headed up to the J.R.C.”

“What’s up?”

“I have someone in the back seat for you.”

“Who?”

He shined his flashlight into the car. “It’s Cheyenneh.”

“Where did you find her?”

“She and her buddy Jessi were at the Junior High parking lot in the company of a U of O kid, sitting in his car. It looked odd at the Junior High at 1:30 in the morning. There wasn’t any frost on the windows, so it looked suspicious. I thought they might be vandalizing the school.

“I rolled up without them knowing. They weren’t drinking or smoking dope or anything. The College kid was in the driver’s seat. Cheyenneh was in the passenger seat. Jessi was in the back.”

“What in the hell was she doing in there?”

“She said it was a High School friend of hers that graduated last year. He was leaving and they wanted to say goodbye.”

“I’m very tempted to have you take her to the J.R.C, but I’d have to drive out to pick her up,” Charlie said. “I’ll take her.”

He told me later he was grateful it was this particular Officer who found them. “He was once a School Resource Officer,” he said. “He has a reputation of being wonderful with kids. I wasn’t feeling wonderful about a particular kid at that moment.”

Cheyenneh comes to the door crying. “I’m sorry,” she said as Charlie closed the door behind her. “The Officer was an ass and was calling us idiots,” she said.

Charlie said he felt particularly less wonderful hearing this. “We’ll talk about this tomorrow.”

He went back outside to talk to his colleague. “How was her attitude?”

“She had a really good attitude,” he said. “She wasn’t smart or anything. She was scared sh*tless.”

“I’m sorry you had to do this.”

“To be honest with you, I was falling asleep until I rolled up on them. It gave me something to do.”

Jessi called as soon as things settled down. “I know you don’t want to talk to me,” she told Charlie, “But I have Chey’s cell phone.”

“Okay, bye.”

Jessi called again this morning, early. “Is Chey awake yet?”

“No.”

“Please wake her. It’s important. I need to talk to her now.”

“Okay,” I said. I gave the sleeping General the phone and left.

She’s still asleep. She doesn’t know she’s been demoted to at least Colonel, maybe even Sergeant. I can’t wait to tell Jim our counselor about inflicting the pain that comes with limits. Cheyenneh has no idea how much less fun it is to be grounded by your parents, instead of yourself.

(Thanks, Charlie, for your help writing this. I'm sure Cheyenneh thanks you, too, for different reasons. That is, if she ever gets up.)

A little help? [] 11:49:37 AM