double-digit kid,” she says, and pats the seat beside her.
Grandma keeps on, talking now about how we need a new table, “spruce the place up.” She moves her hand across the scarred wood. “You should start saving up, Jo. This old thing reminds me of the Santa Cruz house after the fire.” She winks at me. “And that, Bird-day Girl, is another story.”
gloss
I ’m writing a letter to my brothers. I barely know where I’m sending it to, and it almost feels like I don’t even know where I’m sending it from. Part of me wants to write to those kids they were on the Ridge, their heads barely out of Mama’s oven and being put back in it, and say that Mama’s different now and they should come back more often, and say that Mama’s different but she still needs saving. But instead I write to them where they are now and say things that come from where I know they want me to be.
Dear Ronnie,
Thank you for the lip gloss you sent for my birthday. I like the chocolate-flavored one the best. I bet Tracy picked it out and I hope you’ll tell her I really like it. Mama wrapped it for you with a silver bow and left it for me this morning to open before school. Later on we had cake and ice cream and Grandma came over and she called it my Bird-day about a thousand times. Did she sing Happy Bird-day to you when you were little?
I just wanted to say that I liked your visit and you should come back more often.
Please tell Win and Gene and Bob I said hi when you talk to them because I think you talk a lot to each other. You can always call here too, and talk to me, and I’ll take a message for Mama.
Maybe when you come back you’ll bring my little cousins. I can babysit while you and Tracy go out. I’ve read the Child Care section of the Girl Scout Handbook about forty times, it’s under “Health and Safety.”
Love,
Your sister, R.D.
clipped
THE COURT CALENDAR
Tuesday, March 31, 1970
Superior Court
Joann Ruth Gilbertson, 26, of Santa Cruz, who pleaded guilty to possession of marijuana last October, was sentenced to three years’ probation. No fine was imposed, financially speaking, but emotionally, this family will find themselves in the red for generations. This is especially true when considering that the family’s hopes of a brighter future went out with the flames that were overtaking their home when the marijuana was found. Why the SCPD showed up during the fire is not clear, but the community is grateful that the police had no other pressing business that evening.
the girl scout laws
T he Fourth Amendment hangs from the doors of the scariest houses on the Calle, makes its patriotic protest against unlawful search and unlawful seizure from homes that never came close to lawful in the first place. Homes whose wiring and plumbing are gutted for quick cash from the junkman, whose windows shatter forever against the duct tape that still holds the shards in place, whose inhabitants are known by their burnt fingertips, their bruises, their long sleeves in summer. All that’s left inside the houses is the paranoia of the users who haunt them, waiting for the cash that won’t come until the next first or fifteenth. These are the folks who tape the Fourth Amendment to the front door believing its promise— The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects— will keep the police out and their secrets in. These are the folks who think that because a document is sacred it means the police won’t read between the lines and decide that the lines obviously being measured out on glass and countertop are enough for probable cause. These versions of the Fourth Amendment are blurry, handwritten, and hard to read, they hang weary from front doors and gates by thumbtack and nail, shudder there and flip in the wind, now against searching, now against seizing, but for all its ink and big ideas, the Fourth Amendment burns just like anything else:
10-14-69 HOME VISIT
HENDRIX, Johanna
Grandma keeps on, talking now about how we need a new table, “spruce the place up.” She moves her hand across the scarred wood. “You should start saving up, Jo. This old thing reminds me of the Santa Cruz house after the fire.” She winks at me. “And that, Bird-day Girl, is another story.”
gloss
I ’m writing a letter to my brothers. I barely know where I’m sending it to, and it almost feels like I don’t even know where I’m sending it from. Part of me wants to write to those kids they were on the Ridge, their heads barely out of Mama’s oven and being put back in it, and say that Mama’s different now and they should come back more often, and say that Mama’s different but she still needs saving. But instead I write to them where they are now and say things that come from where I know they want me to be.
Dear Ronnie,
Thank you for the lip gloss you sent for my birthday. I like the chocolate-flavored one the best. I bet Tracy picked it out and I hope you’ll tell her I really like it. Mama wrapped it for you with a silver bow and left it for me this morning to open before school. Later on we had cake and ice cream and Grandma came over and she called it my Bird-day about a thousand times. Did she sing Happy Bird-day to you when you were little?
I just wanted to say that I liked your visit and you should come back more often.
Please tell Win and Gene and Bob I said hi when you talk to them because I think you talk a lot to each other. You can always call here too, and talk to me, and I’ll take a message for Mama.
Maybe when you come back you’ll bring my little cousins. I can babysit while you and Tracy go out. I’ve read the Child Care section of the Girl Scout Handbook about forty times, it’s under “Health and Safety.”
Love,
Your sister, R.D.
clipped
THE COURT CALENDAR
Tuesday, March 31, 1970
Superior Court
Joann Ruth Gilbertson, 26, of Santa Cruz, who pleaded guilty to possession of marijuana last October, was sentenced to three years’ probation. No fine was imposed, financially speaking, but emotionally, this family will find themselves in the red for generations. This is especially true when considering that the family’s hopes of a brighter future went out with the flames that were overtaking their home when the marijuana was found. Why the SCPD showed up during the fire is not clear, but the community is grateful that the police had no other pressing business that evening.
the girl scout laws
T he Fourth Amendment hangs from the doors of the scariest houses on the Calle, makes its patriotic protest against unlawful search and unlawful seizure from homes that never came close to lawful in the first place. Homes whose wiring and plumbing are gutted for quick cash from the junkman, whose windows shatter forever against the duct tape that still holds the shards in place, whose inhabitants are known by their burnt fingertips, their bruises, their long sleeves in summer. All that’s left inside the houses is the paranoia of the users who haunt them, waiting for the cash that won’t come until the next first or fifteenth. These are the folks who tape the Fourth Amendment to the front door believing its promise— The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects— will keep the police out and their secrets in. These are the folks who think that because a document is sacred it means the police won’t read between the lines and decide that the lines obviously being measured out on glass and countertop are enough for probable cause. These versions of the Fourth Amendment are blurry, handwritten, and hard to read, they hang weary from front doors and gates by thumbtack and nail, shudder there and flip in the wind, now against searching, now against seizing, but for all its ink and big ideas, the Fourth Amendment burns just like anything else:
10-14-69 HOME VISIT
HENDRIX, Johanna
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