Olivia's Walk

          Today is the day and Olivia is frightened. Terrified would be a better word because it's more powerful. I am so terrified that I can't breathe; can't see; can't smell or taste. I am Olivia, or what is left of me...

          My journey starts almost twenty-five years ago. It was my eighteenth birthday - a day that will forever be in my mind. My parents had rented one of those open top buses like they have in England, and my party was in the upper level of the bus. Downstairs, my parents, grandparents, siblings, cousins and other family friends rode and enjoyed the tour of the city. Twenty of my school friends and I rode up top and spent our time yelling, dancing, jumping around and generally acting like fools. We had the music cranked up and someone who must remain nameless had liberated their parents' liquor cabinet of several full bottles. It was quite a party.

          While the more sedate party enjoy the tour from below, my friends and I are getting very drunk. It was a really stupid thing to do, and I swear we didn't plan for that. But none of us had ever drank anything stronger than Koolaid or pop so the liquor hit us quick and hit us hard. The more we drink, the stupider - is that a word? I don't know, but it fits. Anyway, the stupider we get. Then someone threw up their stomach contents all over the floor. It might not have been so bad, except there were too many of us up there, in a tightly confined space, none sober, and right then, the bus went around a sharp corner to avoid an accident that occurred just in front of it. Our bus was going a little too fast for the curve, and although it didn't turn over, all of us were thrown down on the floor - in the vomit mess.

          When we get ourselves upright again, we notice Neal is not there. How could he have disappeared? We decide we imagined he was along, because he was always with us, and continue our drinking. But now we are all covered in vomit and liquor and out of our senses. We've been on the bus for about four hours and the ride is coming to an end.

          Now the bus ride is over. We are parked, and the police are here. I am too drunk to figure out what is going on. My family is angry, afraid, and embarrassed. And Neal really is missing from our group. People are screaming, crying, running, and I am trying to figure out what it all means. My blonde hair is matted, full of vomit, and in my face. My makeup is smeared from kissing my boyfriend. My blue eyes are full of tears I can't cry. What is happening to me? Why am I in handcuffs? Why are the police talking to me about rights? Will somebody please stop this spinning in my head?

          * * * * *

          I wake up to find myself in a barred cell - alone. I am still covered in vomit and filth. I start screaming, and finally someone comes to see me. It is a male, some kind of officer, I guess. He looks like my dream date, Patrick Swayze. So I call him Patrick, which seems to be okay with him. He tells me to be quiet, and I will be booked in and cleaned up in a little while. So I sit down to wait.

          Patrick comes back and has a female with him. Girlfriend? Wife? I am jealous, wondering why he would pick her over me. After all, he's my dream, and she's definitely not his type. She tells me we are going to the shower and then through the booking process. Booking process? What is this? Jail? Or a nightmare hangover? Surely not jail! Why would I be in jail? I just turned eighteen today - or was it yesterday? Why would I be in jail?

          It's no joke. I really am in jail, having been booked in and read my rights - again. I ask to see my parents. I am taken to a room with glass windows and telephone receivers but no dials. My parents are on the other side of the glass. They pick up a receiver. I pick up a receiver. They are crying. I am being charged with manslaughter, along with a couple of other friends who were at my party. Neal apparently fell off the top of the bus in this sharp turn, and got run over by a truck that was behind us. He is dead. Dead? I can't believe it. But when I look at my mom's face and see her tears, I begin to believe it. When I look at my dad, he looks funny - all pale and sweating. Suddenly, he falls to the floor and my mother screams. I stand there and watch ambulance people take my father and mother away.

          Patrick takes me back to my cell, and tells me my father has had a massive heart attack and was pronounced dead at the hospital. So now I am a murderer of my friend, and of my father too? It is too much to take in...

          * * * * *

          It takes almost a week before I get a preliminary hearing. It is done by camera in an empty room in the jail. I plead not guilty. Now that my father is dead, my family has no income. My mother has to find a job to be able to pay the bills and raise my siblings. So I have to have a public defender. Patrick tells me the way it all works, and I am grateful for this small kindness.

          * * * * *

          Almost two years go by while I wait for my trial. I learn to live in jail, alone in my cell. I am allowed to read, to write. I sleep a lot, wishing that when I awake, I will find it is all a bad dream.

          My trial is over. I was found guilty for my part in Neal's death. As the party hostess, I should have stopped the liquor usage. I should have stopped the bus and made the person remove the liquor. That person was also found guilty. This is a nightmare and I can't wake up. I am going to prison for twenty years without early release.

          * * * * *

          Prison is another nightmare. It's too far away for my mom to visit weekly what with her job and her care of my younger brothers and sisters. And she's got to bear this burden alone - without my dad. It's all because of me. I find myself writing and spending more and more time alone. I don't associate with the rest of the girls in my cell. They think I'm stuck up. Not true. I am afraid. I am lonely. I am alone with my guilty conscience. At first, my friends wrote me cards, but they didn't know what to say, and after a couple of months, I don't get any mail except an occasional letter from my mom.

          Ten years of "good behavior" and I get to work in the kitchen part time. Well, it's better than sitting in my cell all the time. We get an hour a day out of the cell - outside if it is nice, in a fenced in yard, inside in the common room the rest of the time. So working in the kitchen scrubbing huge pots is a relief. I still don't talk unless I have to.

          I think working in the kitchen is going to help, but it doesn't. It reminds me of home, family, friends, and the mess I've made of my life. I sneak a knife from the sink and cut my wrist. But I do it wrong because I don't know how. Guards take me to the infirmary to be stitched up. Then they take me to a padded cell - alone. But that is okay. At least there I am not reminded of home. I stay in the cell for a long time. A doctor comes once a week to see me. Not a real doctor, but a shrink - a head doctor. I don't talk to him, and every week he goes away and says to try to think of something to talk about when he comes back.

          But it doesn't work. That doctor really tries, but I just can't deal with my problems and my life. I don't want to live, but I'm not ready to die, either. That would be too hard on my mom, I think. She's had enough trauma for one lifetime.

          More time passes. I don't get any better, but I don't get any worse either. They put me back in a cell with other girls. No job this time. I just write and read.

          Today is the day. Olivia is frightened. In fact, I am terrified. I am being released. My birthday was last week. I turned 38. My blonde hair is streaked with gray. My blue eyes are dull and lifeless. I have to wear glasses now. Too much reading and writing, I guess. My Patrick would not recognise me, if he saw me. I haven't seen my mother in a couple of years now. She was diagnosed with cancer and has been in and out of hospitals.

          I change into some clothes they bring me. I don't know or care where they came from. They are certainly not new, and they don't fit real well, but that's okay with me. I just don't care.

          I walk out the front door of the prison, and there is a car there at the curb. Some people are standing there looking at me. I just walk on past. "Olivia?" one calls. "Olivia? It's me, Olivia. Don't you know me?" I turn and look. In the group is an old woman, thin, wrinkled, gray-headed. I take a long look. The tears begin to roll down my face, and all the emotion I have hidden for twenty-five years wells up inside me. "Mother? Oh, God, what have I done to you?" Blindly I walk out into the traffic...