[My ex-husband] may feel uncomfortable with my treatment of him, but this memoir isn’t about our life together but our life apart at a time when we wanted to be together.
A hazy memory of riding caged in the back of a police car.
Two shadows in the front seat, the county sheriff and a female escort, jabbering. I, cargo, to be delivered from the Woodbury County courthouse to the Cherokee Mental Institution.
Outside, the Iowa landscape bleak:
Cloudy and cold, condensation and frost riming the windows, piles of dirty snow dotting the countryside.
Inside, hot and steamy.
Still, I shivered, my teeth chattering. Please turn up the heat!
But cargo has no voice.
For all the importance of this drive–then and now–I remember little, except for one question:
Am I really crazy?
* * * * *
FromI, Driven: memoir of a teens involuntary commitment("Prologue")
After spending a chilly night in Jeff’s old Valiant, I check into the YWCA.
My roommate is kind of cool, though she guzzles a lot of beer. She looks a bit like Mom--hell, she reminds me of Mom, right down to the red hair, globs of eye makeup, glazed half-closed eyes, languid hands clenching a large brown bottle and lit cigarette, lipstick stains on the filter.
“Hey,” she says, as I step into my new (temporary) digs, a large sunny room with five beds. “I’m supposed to have this room to myself.”
I shrug. “This is where the front desk told me to go.” I show her my key.
She sizes me up. “Well, then, pick a bed,” she says, apparently deciding I must be okay. “But not too close. I can’t stand snoring. I’m Jane, by the way.” She doesn’t offer her hand.
Still in her robe, though it was well after noon, Jane sits lotus style on her bed, pen and cigarette in the same hand, a letter in front of her on the spread. “I’m writing to my daughter. She’s 13.”
Jeff follows behind me with my trunk. I point to the bed furthest from Jane, and he flips the trunk on top of it. He kisses me on the cheek. “Well, I gotta go,” he says, looking slightly uncomfortable. “You get settled. I’ll pick you up later.”
“Okay,” I say, gripping his arm.
He edges away.
I release him--he escapes through the door.
As I unpack a few things--enough for a couple of days--Jane, with the straightest face I’ve ever seen on a drunk person, says, “Okay, house rules of the Y-W-C-A.” She raises her beer bottle into the air. “No drinking and no smoking. Got that?”
I’m not quite sure what to say.
She bursts into laughter, a chain smoker’s hacking cackle. She reaches into a cooler beside her bed and pulls out another beer. “Here,” she says, pushing the bottle toward me. “I won’t tell, if you don’t.”
I take it and pick up the bottle opener on her stand and uncap it. “Deal.” I take a swig.
“You got man trouble, I see.”
“Nope.”
“He sure flew out of here.”
“He’ll be back.”
Jane nods.
My relationship with Jeff will work out--it just has to.
I wake up at 6:00 a.m., ready by 7:00. I splurge and take a taxi to the bus station, there by 7:30--this is one bus I don’t want to miss.
I’m not angry with Mo and Dee--well, maybe a little with Mo, but only because she was so ridiculous the other day. I wish they understood that this is something I have to do and would do eventually anyway. I’m not running away to get even with them for the Cherokee bit--
I’m running to my new life.
Once, when I was four, I ran away from home. I wanted to be in the movies, and I thought that one had to run away to do that. I was not angry at anyone--it was just something I had to do. Hours later, when Dee Dee and Uncle Dude found me wandering around in the dark, they snatched me from the street, and slid me into the car.
It was deep into an Iowa winter. I wore only a red snowsuit; they must have felt relieved to find me alive and okay.
I bawled and pitched a fit; I was so angry with them for thwarting me. They just didn’t understand I wasn’t running away to leave them but to find something else.
I would come back.
Obviously, I was too young back then, but I’m not too young now...
I show my ticket to the agent and check the footlocker at the desk--fortunately, no one questions my business. I sit and wait.
Dead time, but, nonetheless, necessary.
At 8:45, Dee Dee, alone, slips through the station door.
Oh, oh.
Dee Dee spies me and slides toward me.
Before I can even open my mouth, Dee says, “Before you say anything, just hear me out.”
“Okay.”
“I’m not going to stop you from going.”
“That’s good.”
“I just want to make one more plea--”
“My mind’s made up.”
“You’re breaking our hearts--”
“I’m sorry about that--”
“No, you’re not--you wouldn’t be leaving if you knew how much this was killing us.”
“I have to go.”
Dee Dee sighs. “Stay a few months, get a good job, save up some money--think about what you’re doing.”
“I’ve had several, longmonths to think.” Like I’m going to fall for that ploy again. “I’ve made up my mind.”
“You know, your grandmother was going to call Cherokee and report you as a runaway, but I told her it wouldn’t do any good.”
“Thanks.”
“She might still do it. Once she’s decided something, you know how she is.”
“I know.”
“I was hoping to reason with you.”
“Dee Dee, I’m leaving in a few minutes.”
“I see. You know, you’ll always have a home back here.” Dee pauses. “If you ever need a bus ticket back to Sioux City, just call.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
“I despise Jeff Brown with all my heart; he has only one thing on his mind--”
“It’s time for you to go,” I say, turning away.
Without another word, Dee Dee disappears, through the crowd and out of the terminal.
(Greyhound bus)
This is Jennifer Semple's actual bus ticket receipt--what a packrat! __________________________________________________________________
The bus has just pulled out of the station, and we’re headed out of town, toward Des Moines, where I’ll pick up my next connection to York, Pennsylvania: a long journey. Des Moines, Chicago, Pittsburgh. York.
Selected pieces from the most recent version of the memoir.
2. Illustrations and Relevant Embedded Videos
I have very few photographs from that time in my life, so the illustrations are symbolic and artistic representations, which should not be interpreted literally. In 2005, when I wrote the first draft, embedding video clips was in its infancy, and so was my ability to embed them. But this is 2008, and I'm catching up with the YouTube revolution!
3. Out Takes
Text that appeared in various drafts but (for various reasons) was cut. The most important out take appears here--proof positive that I have been living on borrowed time for 39+ years.
In the first draft, I had added "news clips" to the text. During revision, I deleted most of them, but, now, have decided that they belong on this site.
5. New Text
I added this category--just in case something important is not covered in 1, 2, 3, or 4.
...The world as it appears to me is my creation, and for it I must assume responsibility. Given, as the bricks out of which I can build a universe, is a chaotic kaleidoscope of colors, shapes, sounds, moods, hopes, fears, joys, pains, ideas, movements...Out of this anarchy, I organize a world for myself. I subdue the disordered shapelessness into a world by choosing one out of an infinity of possible structures.
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