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First-Hand Experience
"My name is Andrew Bridge. I'm a lawyer -- your lawyer," I said to the pale, thin boy in front of me, who looked about 13 years old.He lived at the Eufaula Adolescent Center in Eufaula, Alabama, which I was visiting in the mid-1990s as part of the discovery process in a class action lawsuit against the facility. His parents had committed him to the care of the state, but for several days, the boy had been down in the basement, in isolation. I'd been startled to find him sleeping on a bare mattress, cold and alone. In a review of therapy and progress notes, our clinical expert concluded that nearly 30 percent of the children were disciplined in this way, banished to the basement at some point during their stay.
It had become my life's work to improve this child's circumstances -- and that of many other kids like him. I, too, had lived under the care of the state. I remembered the loneliness, the fear, the deprivation. I thought of how I'd meet a lawyer or social worker for the first time. So, tell me about yourself … I hear you're good at school … Your foster parents and I are proud of you … I'll call you. I wanted these children to be treated more thoughtfully. I wanted their physical and emotional well-being to be of paramount importance to the adults charged with their care.
"Why did the staff put you down here?" I asked the boy.
"I wouldn't get out of bed before school," he replied.
Had his parents visited him? They hadn't, though his father had called. "And your mom? What about her?"
"She won't tell me, but I know she wants me back."
Serious family troubles had landed him here, but his living conditions seemed cruel and unusual -- hence the lawsuit and my work on his behalf. Veering off the usual lawyerly script, I asked, "Is there anything you want? Is there anything you need me to do?"
"Would you tell my mom I'm sorry? That she can come see me now?"
I had no idea who his mother was. But my presence that day helped him get moved back into the boys' dorm, and he was later taken to another facility (Eufaula was closed in 1996).
Whatever had happened between this boy and his mother, I knew he would never forget her -- as I had not forgotten mine.
"Please Don't Hurt My Mom"
With dark hair, and eyes to match, my mother, Hope, was attractive and fun-loving. She was smart and said that I was too. But the demons of mental illness began cutting her down in the prime of her life. Sometimes voices spoke to her. She couldn't hold a job. We'd been forced to scrounge for food in Dumpsters.
One Saturday morning in 1970, when I was seven, I walked down the wide, empty sidewalks of the Los Angeles neighborhood where she and I had lived for two years. The local deli owner used to smile whenever I came in by myself. I'd hand him cash or a promissory note from my mother, and he'd give me a pack of cigarettes for her. This time, he was distant.
Perhaps a stranger had stopped in and asked about me. Maybe the owner was afraid that selling cigarettes to a child had gotten him in trouble. Whatever the reason, he refused to sell me the pack.
I began walking back to the motel where my mother and I were staying when a county sheriff's car swung around the corner, keeping pace behind me. I crossed the street. The car followed me for more than a block before finally pulling up. The deputy rolled down the window.
"Are you Andy?" he asked.
I stood motionless and answered, "Yes."
"Get in," he said. I opened the back door and obediently did as he said. As the car approached the motel, I saw my mother out on the sidewalk, barefoot. She was arguing with a well-dressed woman -- a social worker, I learned later.
The deputy parked. Forgetting me in the backseat, he ran out to protect the woman from my mother, who was now screaming, inches from her face.
My mind raced. Please don't hurt her. Leave her alone.
"Where Are You Taking Me?"
The deputy grabbed my mother's shoulder and shoved her away, but she returned with greater rage. When he grabbed for her again, I raced to protect her. She reached out and wrapped her arms around me.
For a few seconds, we stayed like that. Then the social worker yanked me into her car, and the deputy descended on my mother, pinning her facedown on the sidewalk.
My head rang. Please don't hurt her. Leave her alone.
As the social worker drove away and tried to comfort me, I wondered who had betrayed my mother and me. Was it our former landlord, looking for unpaid rent? Was it my school, when I failed to arrive for second grade? Each time I asked a question, the social worker replied with an ill-fitting answer.
"Did the police take my mom?" I wondered.
"Priscilla will be fine," she said.
"Can she sleep at the motel tonight?"
"Priscilla will come to see you soon."
"Did the policeman let her get her clothes?"
"Priscilla can take care of herself."
My mother hated her first name. She insisted on using her middle name, Hope, and no one who knew her and cared for her used any other. A small point for an adult, maybe. But I was seven years old, beginning a long trip, and only the words Mom and Hope mattered to me.
Los Angeles County had no place to put me other than an enormous holding facility for children called MacLaren Hall. As the social worker drove me to the forbidding cinder block compound, she outlined a well-rehearsed set of tasks. First I would go to MacLaren. Then I would go to a temporary foster home. After that, I'd go to a long-term foster home. Finally, I would return to Priscilla.
I only had to wait and count each step: one, two, three, home. Things didn't happen quite that way.
For several weeks, I lived a nightmarish existence at MacLaren -- banished to an isolated cell at one point over a misunderstanding about how and when to use the showers at night. Then I was driven to the Los Angeles County criminal court building with a bunch of other MacLaren kids. I was unsure why I was there until I saw her.
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