03/15-16/99
Tonight I watched a story on Dateline about this 17 year old girl who had a baby in the basement of her
parents suburban home. Maybe she was scared of what her parents would think,
maybe she didn't want to cramp her style; she wrapped her newborn child
in some towels and shoved it into a garbage bag. She ended up getting
convicted of manslaughter and got 8 years. During the interview with the
parents they kept saying that if only she had come to them, they would
have done something to help-anything. All she had to do was ask.
They were, after all, her parents.
I am currently broke and after the show
I scrounged around the apartment for $2.99 to buy a pack a cigarettes.
After two hours, I managed to come up with enough money but it was mostly
in pennies so I decided to go to the Pathmark on Monument to change the
money into dollars and quarters. I don't have any license plates on the
car (no insurance. registration, etc.) so I know the risks involved with
driving, but I need that smoke. So it set out down Lincoln Drive paying more
attention to the rear-view mirror than to oncoming traffic-watching for
the police. Along the way, I narrowly missed killing a young mother
and her son crossing the windy road; something I would have easily seen
had I not been concentrating elsewhere.
If I had run into the mother and son, and perhaps
killed them, and somehow eventually gotten convicted of vehicular manslaughter,
I could see my parents on Dateline: If only he had asked for the money
to get his license plates and insurance... and they would be right
. They probably would have given me the money. In retrospect. But I honestly
can't see them giving it to me now. Which is why I won't ask.
That little girl knew better. So do I.