starting over with memoirs
On Being Partners in Crime
(OR)
On Being Gato and Livly
intro:
"I sat facing Kat on a wooden bench that was joined to the wall of the Juvenile Detention Center of the Lower East Side Precinct. Her right wrist and my left, cut by the cool metal rings that enclosed them, the other side cuffed to the metal bar which we leaned on. The room was a blanched white and a large wooden desk sat in the corner opposite the door. We were a little scared because they cops had mentioned Juvey and a little amused by the whole situation at the same time. We talked and laughed about how when our parents had been called her mom had thought it was a prank call and it’d taken them five minutes to convince her it was real. Going over in our heads, we tried to figure out how we’d gotten there. The previous day had been the last real day of school, all we had left was a field trip and end of the year party. It had been a friday afternoon, the demise of a week consumed with finals and we were finally done with ninth grade. In celebration we’d bought six dubs at lunch from a skeezy senior named Josh who’d dated a girl in our grade earlier that year. We were standing in the crowded sandwich place as he casually slipped the six green, ace of spades baggies into Kat’s bag and she slipped him the one-hundred dollar bill she’d stolen from her step-dad, Hank. A smooth and sketchy transition. The following events were both embarrassing and cliché.
The next day we went shopping at Urban Outfitters on Broadway with a few friends. We’d been in there earlier that week when we’d gotten out of school early and she’d stolen a necklace with such ease and precision. I wanted earrings so I asked her to take some for me. I was trying on jeans under my skirt in a corner as she dismantled the cardboard holders from the earrings, slipping two pairs into my bag and one pair into hers. I stood in line and bought the jeans as she tried to figure out how to take the last pair. When I exited the line it was a rushed movement as one of us forced the last pair into our bag and we headed for the door. A man stopped us, walking towards us and telling us to turn around. “Go back,” he said, “just keep going back.”
He took us to the back of the store where a few employees forced us into two wooden chairs at a wood table and sat opposite us requesting the merchandise, searching our bags, asking us questions, and handing us paperwork to fill out. Inside Kat’s red purse sat her glass pipe and all the weed we’d bought, minus one bag we’d smoked the previous afternoon. Our hearts started racing, when they found it in a hidden flap. They said they’d called the police but they wouldn’t tell them about the weed. When two stout cops came jingling in, the ring leader of the employees jumped to snitch on us. “Look at what she’s got in her purse,” he said. They asked us how old we were, I replied fifteen and Kat replied fourteen. They didn’t believe me, “no way,” one said, “you’re at least twenty.” I retrieved my student I.D. from my wallet and shoved it into one of their hands but they still gave disbelieving smirks. Each cop took one of us, told us to place our hands behind our backs as they cuffed our slender wrists and began leading us out of the store. “Are you embarrassed now?” My captor asked me.
“No,” I replied in a venomous tone. They lead us out of the store and made us wait on the curb of the busy sidewalk beside a vendor for ten minutes, though we didn’t know why. They asked us questions as car horns blared in the traffic jam of the filthy street. We stood our ground, refusing to let them scare us, thinking we were really cool. Finally a cop car pulled up with two new cops and they told us to get in. We sat jammed in the back seat on the dark, callous plastic seats and watched Soho and the Lower East Side blur by out our windows. The two new cops said nothing to us, only talked to each other and played the radio. As we drove to the precinct, Baba O’Reilly came on as The Who sang about Teenage Wasteland. This made us laugh. We’d just been arrested for shoplifting, found with a large quantity of marijuana on us, accused of being dealers, and as we sat in the back of the cop car, all we could do was laugh."
(OR)
On Being Gato and Livly
intro:
"I sat facing Kat on a wooden bench that was joined to the wall of the Juvenile Detention Center of the Lower East Side Precinct. Her right wrist and my left, cut by the cool metal rings that enclosed them, the other side cuffed to the metal bar which we leaned on. The room was a blanched white and a large wooden desk sat in the corner opposite the door. We were a little scared because they cops had mentioned Juvey and a little amused by the whole situation at the same time. We talked and laughed about how when our parents had been called her mom had thought it was a prank call and it’d taken them five minutes to convince her it was real. Going over in our heads, we tried to figure out how we’d gotten there. The previous day had been the last real day of school, all we had left was a field trip and end of the year party. It had been a friday afternoon, the demise of a week consumed with finals and we were finally done with ninth grade. In celebration we’d bought six dubs at lunch from a skeezy senior named Josh who’d dated a girl in our grade earlier that year. We were standing in the crowded sandwich place as he casually slipped the six green, ace of spades baggies into Kat’s bag and she slipped him the one-hundred dollar bill she’d stolen from her step-dad, Hank. A smooth and sketchy transition. The following events were both embarrassing and cliché.
The next day we went shopping at Urban Outfitters on Broadway with a few friends. We’d been in there earlier that week when we’d gotten out of school early and she’d stolen a necklace with such ease and precision. I wanted earrings so I asked her to take some for me. I was trying on jeans under my skirt in a corner as she dismantled the cardboard holders from the earrings, slipping two pairs into my bag and one pair into hers. I stood in line and bought the jeans as she tried to figure out how to take the last pair. When I exited the line it was a rushed movement as one of us forced the last pair into our bag and we headed for the door. A man stopped us, walking towards us and telling us to turn around. “Go back,” he said, “just keep going back.”
He took us to the back of the store where a few employees forced us into two wooden chairs at a wood table and sat opposite us requesting the merchandise, searching our bags, asking us questions, and handing us paperwork to fill out. Inside Kat’s red purse sat her glass pipe and all the weed we’d bought, minus one bag we’d smoked the previous afternoon. Our hearts started racing, when they found it in a hidden flap. They said they’d called the police but they wouldn’t tell them about the weed. When two stout cops came jingling in, the ring leader of the employees jumped to snitch on us. “Look at what she’s got in her purse,” he said. They asked us how old we were, I replied fifteen and Kat replied fourteen. They didn’t believe me, “no way,” one said, “you’re at least twenty.” I retrieved my student I.D. from my wallet and shoved it into one of their hands but they still gave disbelieving smirks. Each cop took one of us, told us to place our hands behind our backs as they cuffed our slender wrists and began leading us out of the store. “Are you embarrassed now?” My captor asked me.
“No,” I replied in a venomous tone. They lead us out of the store and made us wait on the curb of the busy sidewalk beside a vendor for ten minutes, though we didn’t know why. They asked us questions as car horns blared in the traffic jam of the filthy street. We stood our ground, refusing to let them scare us, thinking we were really cool. Finally a cop car pulled up with two new cops and they told us to get in. We sat jammed in the back seat on the dark, callous plastic seats and watched Soho and the Lower East Side blur by out our windows. The two new cops said nothing to us, only talked to each other and played the radio. As we drove to the precinct, Baba O’Reilly came on as The Who sang about Teenage Wasteland. This made us laugh. We’d just been arrested for shoplifting, found with a large quantity of marijuana on us, accused of being dealers, and as we sat in the back of the cop car, all we could do was laugh."