All These Things I've Done

  I nudged Simon Green. “Aren’t you going to say anything?” I whispered.

  “We’re listening right now,” Simon Green whispered back. “I’ll talk more after I’ve heard everything.”

  The prosecutor continued. “I’m sure you know that the father was notorious crime boss Leonyd Balanchine, which probably suggests that Anya Balanchine is rather well connected—”

  “Excuse me, Your Honor,” I said.

  The judge looked at me for a moment, as if she were trying to decide whether or not to discipline me for interrupting. “Yes?” she said finally.

  “I don’t see what my family has to do with me. I have no prior record, and I haven’t been convicted of anything yet. If I were sent to Liberty Children’s Facility, this would pose an incredible hardship for me.”

  “Do you mean missing school?” the judge asked.

  “No.” I paused. “I’m sort of responsible for watching my sister. My grandmother is sick, and my older brother’s health is …” What was the best word here? “Delicate.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” said the judge.

  “What Ms. Balanchine describes is exactly my point,” the prosecutor interjected. “This ailing grandmother is the girl’s sole guardian. If you allow Anya Balanchine back to her own home, it sounds as if she’ll be entirely unsupervised.”

  The judge looked at me, then at Simon Green. “Can you speak to her home situation?” she asked Simon Green.

  “Uh, I’m sorry … I only got on this case today and … and …” Simon Green stammered. “My expertise is more criminal law, not family law.”

  “Well, I need more time to think and to find someone who does know something about this,” said the judge. “In the meantime, I’m going to send Ms. Balanchine to Liberty Children’s Facility. Don’t worry, Ms. Balanchine. It’s just until we get everything sorted out. Let’s meet back here in a week.”

  The judge banged the gavel, and then we had to leave the courtroom.

  I sat down on a marble bench outside the courtroom and tried to come up with my next move. I heard the prosecutor say something about arranging my transport to Liberty from here.

  “I’m sorry, Anya,” Simon Green said to me. “I very much wish I’d had more time to prepare.”

  In a way, it had been my fault. If only I’d kept my mouth shut about needing to take care of Nana, Natty, and Leo! By mentioning my situation, I’d only made things worse. In my defense, it really hadn’t looked like Simon Green knew what he was doing. Someone needed to say something.

  “Anya,” he repeated. “I’m sorry.”

  “There isn’t time for that,” I said. “I need you to do a couple of things for me.” There are people I need you to call. Mr. Kipling will have the numbers. There’s a woman named Imogen Goodfellow. She’s my grandmother’s home-health-care worker. Call her and tell her that she needs to stay at the apartment full-time. Tell her that we’ll pay her time and a half for the extra hours.

  Simon Green nodded.

  “Do you need to note this somewhere?” I asked. I could not have had less faith in this man.

  “I’m recording it,” he said, removing a device from his pocket. “Please, continue.”

  Daddy would never have stood for recording conversations, but there wasn’t time for me to worry about that. “Scarlet Barber goes to school with my sister and me. Tell her that she needs to accompany Natty to and from school.”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Finally, I need you to call my brother, Leo. Tell him that I don’t want him to take the job at the Pool because I need him to watch everyone at home. I doubt he’ll put up an argument but if he does, tell him …” I could see the prosecutor and a social-worker type walking toward me and I lost my train of thought. There wasn’t much time.

  “Yes?”

  “I don’t know what to tell him. Come up with something that makes sense.”

  “Yes, I can manage that,” Simon Green said.

  The social worker came up to me. “I’m Mrs. Cobrawick,” she said. “I’ll be transporting you to Liberty.”

  “Ironic name for a jail,” I said, making a semi-joke.

  “It’s not a jail. Simply a place for children in trouble. Children like yourself.”

  Mrs. Cobrawick was one of those overly earnest types. “Yes, of course,” I said. Jail was where I’d be going later if they tried me as an adult and if I didn’t manage to get acquitted of poisoning Gable Arsley. I nodded toward Simon Green. “I’ll be hearing from you?”

  “Yes,” he assured me. “I’ll come see you this weekend.”

  I watched as he walked away. “Mr. Green!” I called out.

  He turned.

  “Please give Mr. Kipling my best wishes!”

  And then it happened. My voice broke on the word wishes, and I started to cry. Nothing else could make me do it, but somehow the thought of Mr. Kipling in the hospital made me feel lonelier than I’d ever felt in my life.

  “There, there,” said Mrs. Cobrawick. “It won’t be so bad at Liberty.”

  “It isn’t that—” I started to say, but then I changed my mind. At the very least, my passing display of weakness hadn’t been in front of anyone I knew.

  “I always find it’s the hardest cases that shed the most tears,” Mrs. Cobrawick commented.

  Let this Mrs. Cobrawick think what she wanted. Daddy always said you only explained things to the people that actually mattered.

  VIII.

  i am sent to liberty; am also tattooed!

  MRS. COBRAWICK AND I RODE the ferry to Liberty Children’s Facility. The view from the boat did not necessarily encourage me: several low-rise gray concrete structures, bunkerlike with few windows, surrounded a pedestal. Atop the pedestal was an enormous greenish pair of women’s feet in sandals and the bottom of her skirt, both made of what I’d guess was aging copper. I think my father had once told me some story about what had happened to the rest of the statue (maybe it had been scrapped for parts?) but at that moment, I couldn’t remember it, and the torsoless woman seemed ominous to me. There was something inscribed on the base of the pedestal but the only words I could make out were tired and free. I was the former though not the latter. The whole island was surrounded by a chain-link fence, which, I could tell from the coiled structures at the top, was electrified. I told myself that I wouldn’t be there long.

  “Back when my mother was a girl, Liberty used to be a tourist attraction,” Mrs. Cobrawick informed me. “You could climb up the woman’s dress and the base was a museum.”

  What hadn’t been? Half the places in my neighborhood used to be museums.

  “What you said back at the courthouse? Liberty is not a jail,” Mrs. Cobrawick continued. “And you shouldn’t think of it as such. We’re very proud of Liberty and we like to think of it as a home.”

  I knew I should probably keep my mouth shut, but I couldn’t help replying. “What’s the electrified fence for then?”

  Mrs. Cobrawick narrowed her eyes at me, and I could tell my question had probably been a mistake. “It’s to keep everyone safe,” she said.

  I didn’t comment.

  “Did you hear me?” Mrs. Cobrawick asked. “I said, the fence is there to keep everyone safe.”

  “Yes,” I replied.

  “Good,” Mrs. Cobrawick said. “For the record, it’s polite to show some acknowledgment when a person’s answered a question you’ve asked.”

  I apologized and told her I hadn’t meant to be rude. “I’m tired,” I explained, “and a bit distracted by what’s been happening.”

  Mrs. Cobrawick nodded. “I’m glad to hear that. I was worried your rudeness was a sign of poor breeding. I’m well versed in your background, Anya. Your family history. It wouldn’t come as a surprise to me if you lacked certain refinements.”

  I could tell she was baiting me, but I wouldn’t take it. The boat was docking at the island, and I’d be quit of this woman soon.

  “The truth is, Anya, your stay he
re can be easy or it can be difficult,” she said. “It’s completely up to you.”

  I thanked her for the advice, making sure not to sound sarcastic.

  “When I heard about your situation this morning, I specifically offered to transport you myself, though normally such responsibilities fall well below my purview. You could say I had an interest in you. You see, I went to college with your mother. We weren’t friends per se but I often saw her on campus, and I’d hate to see you end up like her. I’ve found that early intervention can make a world of difference in borderline cases.”

  I took a deep breath and bit my tongue. I mean I literally bit it. I could taste the blood in my mouth.

  The boat had stopped, and the captain called for everyone going to Liberty Children’s Facility to disembark. “Well,” I said, “thanks very much for taking me over.”

  “I’m coming in with you,” she said.

  I had assumed she worked at the court, not at Liberty, but, of course, this had been foolish of me. I wondered how she had known that I’d be sent to Liberty, considering how quickly the hearing had progressed. Had my fate been decided before I even arrived at court that morning?

  “I’m the headmistress here,” Mrs. Cobrawick told me. “Some people call me the warden behind my back,” she added with a strange smile. “Though don’t you go being one of them.”

  Once we were off the dock, my hostess led me to a concrete room marked CHILDREN’S ORIENTATION, where a skinny blond girl in a lab coat and a man in yellow coveralls were waiting for me. “Dr. Henchen,” Mrs. Cobrawick said to the blond girl, “this is Anya Balanchine.”

  “Hello,” Dr. Henchen said, looking me up and down. “Do I process her as long or short term?”

  Mrs. Cobrawick considered the question. “We’re not entirely sure of that yet. Let’s say long term to be on the safe side.”

  I have no idea what short-term might have been like, but long-term orientation was one of the most humiliating experiences of my life to that point. (NB: This is foreshadowing, dear readers—more and deeper humiliations to come … ) “I do apologize, Miss Balanchine,” Dr. Henchen had said in a polite if curiously emotionless voice. “In the last several months, we’ve had a rash of bacterial outbreaks so, in order to avoid this, our intake procedure has become rather intense. Especially for long-term residents who will be exposed and expose themselves to the general population here. This won’t be very pleasant for you.” Still, I was unprepared for what came.

  I was made to strip and then I was hosed down by the male attendant with scalding hot water. After that, I was soaked in an antibacterial bath that stung every part of me and then what I’d guess was a delousing solution was placed in my hair. The final part was a series of ten injections. Dr. Henchen said they were mainly to protect against flu and sexually transmitted diseases, and to relax me, but, at that point, my mind was elsewhere. I’ve always been able to do that—separate my brain from the awful thing happening at the moment.

  Whatever they gave me must have knocked me out because I woke up the next morning in the upper bunk of a metal-framed bed in an extremely stark girls’ dormitory. My arm hurt where they had repeatedly injected me. My skin was raw. My stomach, empty. My brain, fuzzy. It took a moment to even remember how I’d gotten here.

  The other inmates (or whatever term of art Mrs. Cobrawick had invented for us) were still asleep. There were narrow windows—not much more than slits—along the sides of the room and I could make out a bit of predawn light. Of my many concerns, the most immediate was breakfast and what it would consist of.

  I sat up in bed and took a moment to establish that I was wearing clothes as, last I remembered, I had been naked. I was glad to find that I was clothed. A navy-blue cotton jumpsuit—not particularly stylish but better than the alternative. In sitting up, I became aware of an odd pain on my right ankle, almost like a fire-ant bite. I looked down and discovered that I had been tattooed. A tiny bar code that presumably linked my person to my nascent criminal record. (This was common practice. Daddy had had one, too.)

  An alarm went off, and the room became chaos. A stampede of girls charged toward the door. I got out of bed and debated whether or not to follow. I noticed that the girl in the bunk below me wasn’t joining the frenzy so I asked her what was happening.

  The girl shook her head and said nothing. She held a notepad toward me. The notepad was suspended from a leather cord that was tied around her neck. On the first page was written My name is Mouse. I am mute. I can hear you but I will have to write my reply.

  “Oh,” I said. “Sorry.” I didn’t know why I was apologizing.

  Mouse shrugged. The girl was certainly tiny and quiet—Mouse was a good name for her. I’d guess she was about Natty’s age though her dark eyes made her look older.

  “Where’s everyone going?”

  Shower room, she wrote. 1 x per day. H2O on for 10 sec. Everyone at once.

  “Why aren’t you going then?”

  Mouse shrugged. I would later learn this was her all-purpose way of changing the subject, especially useful when a subject was too complex to be expressed concisely. She let the notepad drop and held out her hand for me to shake, which I did.

  “I’m Anya,” I said.

  Mouse nodded and picked up her notepad. I know, she wrote.

  “How?” I asked.

  On the news. She held up her pad, then wrote some more: “Mob Daughter Poisons Boyfriend with Chocolate.”

  Wonderful. “Ex-boyfriend,” I said. “What picture are they using?”

  School uniform, Mouse wrote.

  I’d been wearing school uniforms as long as I’d been going to school.

  Recent, she added.

  “By the way, I’m innocent,” I said.

  She rolled her dark eyes at me. Everyone here’s innocent, she wrote.

  “Are you?”

  Not me. I’m guilty.

  We hadn’t known each other long enough for me to ask her what she had done so I changed the subject to matters more pressing. “Anywhere to eat in this place?”

  Breakfast was oatmeal. It was surprisingly edible or maybe I was just hungry.

  The cafeteria at the girls’ reformatory was pretty much like the cafeteria at my high school: i.e., a hierarchy of seating with more influential cliques/gangs occupying the “better” tables. Mouse seemed to be gangless as she and I ate alone at what must be said was the least desirable table in the place—back of the room, as far away from the windows as you could get, next to the garbage. “Do you eat here every day?” I asked.

  Mouse shrugged.

  Aside from being mute, she seemed normal enough. I wondered if the reason she was alone was out of choice or because the others were ostracizing her on account of her handicap or simply because she was new to Liberty like me. “How long have you been here?”

  She put down her spoon to write 198 down. 802 to go.

  “One-thousand-day sentence. That’s a long time,” I said, though this really was an idiotic comment to have made. One look in Mouse’s eyes and you could see exactly how long a thousand days was.

  I was about to apologize for having said something so daft when an orange plastic cafeteria tray hit Mouse in the back of the head. A bit of oatmeal spattered onto Mouse’s hair and face.

  “Watch yourself, Mouse,” said the girl holding the tray. The sarcastic voice belonged to a tall, rather striking (in both senses of the word) girl with long, straight, black hair. She was flanked by a corpulent blonde and a petite, but sturdy girl with a shaved head. Shaved Head had a series of tattoos where her hair should have been. The tattoos consisted of words in a rather mesmerizing, swirling, paisley design.

  “What are you looking at?” Shaved Head asked.

  Your amazing tattoos, I wanted to say, but I decided against it.

  (Aside: Seriously, though, you can’t tattoo words on your scalp without having the reasonable expectation that someone might try to read them.)

  “What’s wrong, Little
Mousey? Cat got your tongue?” asked the one holding the tray.

  The blonde replied, “She can’t hear you anyway, Rinko. She’s, like, deaf.”

  “No, she can’t talk. There’s a difference, Clover. Don’t be ignorant,” said Rinko. She leaned over so that she was up against Mouse’s cheek. “She hears every little thing we say. You could talk if you wanted to, couldn’t you?”

  Mouse, of course, said nothing.

  “Aw, I was trying to see if I could fool you,” Rinko continued. “There ain’t a damn thing wrong with that tongue of yours. But you’re just sitting back, aren’t you? Judging all of us, thinking you’re better when you’re really the lowest of the low.”

  “Baby murderer,” hissed the tattooed one.

  Mouse didn’t move.

  “Aren’t you gonna write me a love note?” Rinko said, pulling the pad that hung around Mouse’s neck.

  “Hey!” I yelled. The group looked at me for the first time. I switched to a more humorous tone and said, “How can she write you a note when you’re holding her notebook?”

  “Look, Mouse made a pretty new friend,” Rinko said. She studied my face. “Hey, I know you. You should come sit with us.”

  “I’m fine where I am, thanks,” I said.

  Rinko shook her head. “Listen, you don’t know how it works around here yet so I’ll pretend you didn’t say that. Mouse ain’t your friend, and you’re gonna need friends around here.”

  “I’ll take my chances,” I said.

  Clover, the blonde, lunged toward me. Rinko waved her hand, and Clover obeyed. “Leave her,” Rinko demanded. “You and me are gonna be great friends,” she said to me. “You just don’t know it yet.”

  After Rinko and company were out of earshot, Mouse wrote me a note: Don’t be stupid. You don’t owe me anything.

  “True,” I said. “But I don’t like bullies.”

  Mouse nodded.

  “You know, even though you’re small, you should still try to defend yourself. Those kinds of people prey on people that they perceive to be weak.”