Criminal That I Am (13 page)

Somewhere in the midst of considering all of this, I notice a dull pain at my side. I ignore it so that I can focus on obsessive thinking. After a while the pain grows sharp. I take two Aleve so that I can go back to obsessive thinking. After around an hour, I am keeled over in pain and realize something may not be right.

I call my brother and give him my symptoms. He is at a loss and says that if the pain is increasing I should go to the emergency room.

It is a Friday evening in New York City, and the emergency room is teeming with disease and disorder. My pain has reached a level where all I can do is cry. I have a brunch appointment the following day with my ex, and so I call him to see if he'd rather go to the emergency room instead. He kindly sits with me for fourteen hours while we await a proclamation of the cause.

I have not seen him since before Cameron's case began. “How have you been?” he asks earnestly.

This question makes the pain even worse.

A nurse gives me an IV of fluids and an injection of Dilaudid. I am instantly covered in a blanket of bliss, adrift in a space where there is no such thing as criminal charges. I lie on the hospital cot with a huge Cheshire grin, oblivious to all sources of pain, professing my love to the nurse who checks in on me every hour.

The following morning, the verdict is reached: there is a calcified stone in my left kidney trying to escape through my ureter. The resident on call asks me if I've ever had a kidney stone before. I have not. Has anyone in my family had a kidney stone? They have not. Do I consume extraneous amounts of sodium and/or creatine? I do not. She is stumped.

I wonder if my fear of impending public urination has caused my entire renal system to cease proper production. I do not mention this to the doctor.

She discharges me and refers me to a specialist. I say a wistful good-bye to my IV and we leave. Within an hour or so, the pain—all of it—is back.

A few days later, I stumble to New York Presbyterian's Kidney Stone Center to find out why I have developed a kidney stone without apparent cause. An endourologist considers my medical history in depth and asks me a series of questions that he says touch on burgeoning areas of kidney stone research. He calls in two of his young medical fellows to discuss my case. The three men discuss my renal health at length. One fellow is based at the computer, looking at my electronic medical records. The other holds a manila folder contain
ing my X-ray and checkup details from earlier that day. They seem to forget that I am sitting there. After a while, I forget that I am sitting there, too.

The specialist sighs loudly. He discovers that I am still in the room. His face changes expression as though an idea has just occurred to him. “Have you been under any significant stress as of late?” he asks.

I consider the events of the past ten days. “Yes.”

“Severe stress?”

“Yes.”

He looks at me as though I should explain.

“Well, I recently found out that I am the target of a criminal investigation.”

At this, the two other doctors stop what they are doing and look at me. The medical fellow who is holding the manila folder closes it.

The specialist has a look on his face that can only be described as relief. “Yes, well, I think this mystery has been solved.”

Indeed it has. I have not had a kidney stone since.

On my way out of the hospital, the elevator stops on a lower floor. A large sign proclaims it to be the hospital's pediatric cancer unit. I am still putting these words together in my head when two pretty tween-aged girls enter the elevator, each donning a knit beanie on her bald head. They are decked out in skinny jeans—extra skinny, as both are disconcertingly thin—and glitter nail polish. I observe them as they giggle to one another and discuss what kind of snack they intend to purchase from the concession stand downstairs. When they exit the elevator, they link arms in a manner that suggests they are BFFs—best friends forever—whatever the duration of that forever might be.

I watch these girls for a moment before heading to the subway. I will sometimes find myself thinking about them during my case. This is not because they somehow make me grateful for my circumstances or because their cheery disposition in the wake of something so awful provides me with perspective. I am far too self-involved for any of that. I think about them because they remind me of the logic of my circumstances. It is common sense that bad acts would beget bad consequences, that a perpetrator of crimes would find herself at the center of a criminal case. But there is no amount of logic that can explain what I
see in the elevator that day. There is something reassuring in knowing that my misery is a product of my own making.

N
ot long after my trip to the hospital my mother arrives. To be on the safe side, I ask her to come after my proffer session. This way, I don't need to tell the government that I've told her anything, thereby possibly subjecting her to questioning.

At first it feels like any other visit. This is probably because neither of us wants to acknowledge the existence of my case. Instead, as we normally do, we cook and work on various home projects while watching my mother's favorite television channel, HGTV. My mother has already seen most of the programming but likes to personally narrate it to me in case I miss something.

She is particularly taken with the reveal at the end of each home makeover program, how the ugly before becomes the beautiful after. As we watch, I find myself wishing that I, too, could be completely made over into something new in forty-five minutes, not including commercial breaks.

The programming reaches its end, and we turn off the TV. Now, I think, is when my mother will ask me about my case. But she has put on her pajamas, pulled out one of my magazines, and does not seem to be gearing up for any big conversations.

I sit next to her on the couch. “Mom,” I say, “aren't you going to ask me what I did?”

She looks up. “I thought you would tell me when you want to.”

I explain to her what I've done in broad detail, although I deliberately leave out the specifics about the balloon and Cameron's anal cavity.

“That's it?” she says incredulously.

“Well, it's kind of a big deal.” I explain to her the three possibilities for the resolution of my case. By this time, I am numbed to the stakes involved, so I am blunt about the possibilities.

“What if you lose your job?” she asks me.

“I guess I'll just have to get another one,” I say.

“But what if you lose your license?” she presses.

“I suppose I'll have to do something else,” I say. I don't have better answers than these.

My mother will later tell me that the most chilling part of this conversation is the calmness with which I speak. How inured I am to the possibility of losing so much.

“I am going to pray for you,” she reassures me. “I don't think God will let any of this happen.”

I give her a hug. I'm relieved to have told her but also feel bad that she has to hear any of it. Had I thought of her in the moments when I was deciding to break the law, I don't think we would be having this conversation.

We go to bed. She insists on the couch, and I go to my bedroom so I can lie on my bed with my eyes wide open. After a while, I decide to get a glass of water. Although the living room is squarely between my bedroom and kitchen, my mother is a deep sleeper, so I know I will not wake her.

But when I poke my head into the living room, I see that she's not asleep. She is sitting up on the couch, looking out the window, crying.

I freeze at the sight of her, abruptly turn, and then tiptoe back into my bedroom. I don't know what to do with what I've witnessed. I shove my head under the pillow, hoping this will somehow erase what I've just seen.

Under the pillow, I think about how for all of her impossible expectations and Baathist directives, for all of her relentless pushing into a life I didn't particularly want to live, the only thing my mother has ever wanted for me is a life of choices. Now I've managed to choose so wrongly that I may have made all of my good choices fall away.

Of all the repercussions of what I've done, it is the image of my mother, her back to me, her shoulders gently shaking, that is forever frozen in my mind. Every time I think of it, even now, I ask myself: What kind of piece of shit makes her mother cry?

F
or the remainder of her visit, my mother and I do not talk much about my case. We certainly don't discuss the fact that I saw her crying.
Instead, we resume our daily diet of television and cooking and crafting and pretend that everything is as it always was.

But I notice that as we are reorganizing the contents of one of my closets, she is eyeing me for quite a while. This usually means that an interrogation is looming.

She brings it up casually, as though making conversation. “So,” she says. “It sounds like there was something going on with this Cameron.”

The first rule of my mother's interrogations is to always play dumb. “What do you mean?” I say. I'm careful not to look up from what I am doing, as that might arouse suspicion.

“It seems like actually you love him.”

I knew this would never get past my mother. If the federal government could come to this conclusion, my mother probably got there sooner, even without subpoena power.

I decide to go with what is the most true. I take a deep breath and conjure up the strength to look her in the eye.

“I guess so.”

The look on her face is one that I haven't seen since I was a teenager, when I attempted to leave our home wearing immodestly cut jean shorts and a pair of surreptitiously purchased thigh-high stockings. My mother, having sniffed out my escape, was waiting for me at the foot of the stairs in staunch stance, a barrier between me and the front door.

On that day, my mother said nothing. Her look was enough for me to scurry back up the stairs and change. That was the last time I ever saw the stockings; when I returned they were gone, perhaps sent away to a sanctuary for slutty attire.

Today, when I don't cede ground, my mother's look changes to one of incredulousness. And then she says what I know she will say:

“But he didn't go to college!”

This response is as irritating as it is expected. My mother subscribes to the Iraqi philosophy, coined some thousands of years ago, that an individual's worth is based on his profession. She adheres to a strict doctrine that I call the List: doctor or lawyer or PhD. End. Anyone who is unable to check an item off the List—Nobel Laureates, for example, Pulitzer Prize winners, technology moguls, world leaders—belongs to a nebulous category of “other.”

This is a backward principle for reasons that are self-evident. But for me, it has always been particularly senseless for the additional reason that my mother, a college-educated homemaker, does not pass her own muster. Sadder still is that this is an outcome she readily accepts, that she agrees she offers less to society than someone who practices podiatry or chases ambulances.

And so while there is in fact a valid reason why Cameron did not finish his college degree—he decided to move to New York to pursue acting and music—for me to justify anything against the List would presume its validity. And because my mother is not on the List, and because I am facing the real possibility of being kicked off of it, I have no interest in doing this.

Instead, I say: “He's a drug dealer, Mom. You don't have to go to college for that.”

Her face displays a level of shock that if not directed at me would make me burst out laughing. I bite my lip to contain the urge and wait for her response.

She stares at me a moment longer and then starts laughing.

“You are really an idiot, Jennifer.”

I laugh, too. Unlike the List, there is nothing to argue there.

When it's all over, my mother and I will have many more arguments over the things that I've done, the majority of which will not culminate in laughter. One of us will say: “You have fucked up your life.” Another of us will say: “Maybe you should get your own life so I can fuck mine up in peace.” There will be arguing and intermittent yelling. Periods of détente. Tearful apologies. Then more yelling.

This particular argument is among one of the more pleasant ones that occur. And while these are certainly easier to endure, in the final analysis each and every one of our battles leads me to the same inexorable conclusion: if you truly want to test the bounds of your parent's unconditional love, I highly recommend getting arrested.

T
he days of summer pass and there is still no response from the government. My attorney calls me regularly to clarify various factual issues and discuss contingency strategies.

Though I know he is only doing his job, I hate hearing from him. I gain a fuller understanding of Kafka's Josef K., his continual incapacitation by thick, stale air whenever he is confronted with his criminal case. I gather this is a physical manifestation of the weight of the law bearing on his chest, slowly suffocating him. In my case, the law has migrated south to my stomach, causing it to curl so much that I keep a wastebasket by the phone should I feel the need to vomit when my attorney calls. I use it on more than one occasion.

Each day I do not hear from the government is agony. And each day I must speak to my lawyer is also agony.

By the end of August, I am supposed to begin teaching at a new law school, and classes are about to start. I have to make a decision as to what to do. My lawyer calls Some Prosecutor—Female Prosecutor has left the U.S. Attorney's Office, and with it my case—to see if I should go forward with my new job or if the direction the government plans to take would make this ill-advised.

“That's up to her” is Some Prosecutor's very helpful response.

I ask my lawyer what he thinks I should do. I do not want to abandon my new job but also don't know if I should teach while all of this is hanging over my head.