Dead-end streets

Walking naked through People's Park, Jody West felt like a princess. A pregnant, 16-year-old princess encircled by enchanted friends who, between puffs of marijuana, rubbed and gazed at her rounded belly as if it were a crystal ball.

Now and then, she pressed her Walkman headset against her stomach to give her baby a heavy-metal lullaby.

Street life at its finest.

Briefly she could forget the endless panhandling for midnight meals of cheese popcorn and instant cocoa. The constant quest for a safe place to sleep: couch, campsite, bed, basement, bridge or bathtub. The scruffy street people whose identities change so often that reality and fantasy merge. In a few days, she vowed, she'd leave it all, have her baby and start the happy family she had craved when she fled her unhappy one a few years earlier. Her daughter would never know the turmoil that had scarred her own childhood, never know the chaos of the streets.

That was two years ago, and the happy life Jody imagined has yet to arrive.

When she left home at 13, she tumbled down the rabbit hole into an underworld many people never notice. Pedestrians might glimpse an outstretched palm, hear a voice pleading, "Spare a quarter?" Or they might spot hungry kids eyeing the lunch bags shoppers tote through the downtown bus plaza.

But it's easy to miss the teens napping or shooting drugs on Spokane's brushy riverbanks, or the kids huddled like a pile of puppies in dirty blankets beneath downtown bridges.

Perhaps 200 kids live on Spokane's sharpest edge -- sleeping on the streets or couch-surfing (street parlance for bouncing from home to home) or taking up with predators masquerading as guardian angels. They are determined runaways and kids abandoned by abusive parents -- joined now by summer warriors, who will return home at first frost.

Some, like Jody, try to put down new roots. But roots seldom take hold in the underworld.

Cindy West remembers 3-year-old Jody crying when her bed was packed, sobbing as their Iowa home became a speck in the rear window on the way to Washington.

How, over the next decade, did that little girl become a kid who couldn't stop moving?

Jody's parents watched her problems mount amid family upheaval that led to divorce. Bill West, the father she adored, got hooked on pain killers after a motorcycle crash and overdosed on Christmas Day.

"I was pretty good till my parents started fighting," remembers Jody. "Then I was mad at the world."

The Wests separated when Jody was 12. Her dad says he stopped calling after he was imprisoned for faking identities to get painkillers. Jody felt abandoned, left with two older brothers and a mother she wasn't close to.

"If there's any blame to be doled out, I need a big bowl," Bill said.

"Jody was seeing me O.D., do horrible stuff, get in crazy fights with her mother."

Cindy West worked three jobs to support the family, and Jody felt more alone than ever. "She felt like I didn't spend any quality time with her," Cindy said. "I didn't have time to do anything."

Jody ran away but returned within days. She stole clothes, cut her arm at Glover Middle School, persuaded a friend to stab her knee with an X-Acto knife. Her mother checked her into Sacred Heart Medical Center's adolescent psychiatric unit and learned that self-mutilation was Jody's way of expressing her pain.

Weeks later, Jody became every parent's nightmare. She didn't storm from the room like so many kids do, slamming doors and threatening to run away. At age 13, fueled by anger, pain and a longing for adventure, she did it.

While her former classmates studied science and math, Jody learned survival skills.

Street kids taught her which bridges offer the best accommodations. Post Street has a stunning view and the river drowns traffic noise. Monroe means leaping a barricade and sliding down loose gravel, but the hum of traffic lulls you to sleep. Maple, too noisy, is a last resort.

Jody memorized her new friends' rules of the road:

• Don't let anyone into your world till you know them.
• To know them, get them drunk, sit back and listen.
• Avoid fights; never throw the first punch.
• Don't squat with kids you don't trust, or else guard your backpack by making it your pillow.
• Don't get attached to anything you can't carry on your back.

She learned how and when to use drugs: acid, crank, heroin, meth, mushrooms and marijuana. Meth quashed hunger pangs when she couldn't find food; marijuana ensured she finally ate again. Acid turned the dangers and loneliness of street life into an amusing cartoon. The scariest people looked sketched on a fake backdrop by a warped artist.

Drugs sometimes got the best of her. Once, she twitched uncontrollably, doing "the dead fish dance" after taking too much crystal. After another binge, she emerged from a hotel room unsure how many days had passed.

Every day, at 4:20 p.m. -- national pot smoking time -- Jody learned that savvy teens befriend someone who'll share their stash. At a riverside hideaway kids call 420 Flats, they smoke until everything seems right.

Jody used drugs freely, learned to deliver for a cut. She didn't feel addicted to drugs but began to suspect she was hooked on the streets.

Life was easier once she learned to spange (to beg for spare change, or panhandle). Best to sit by restaurants and play on the conscience of well-fed diners. Or near bars, where patrons grow more generous with each pint.

Jody wasn't always left to fend for herself. Melanie Wilson, whom she'd met while hitchhiking, was thrilled to give her a place to stay. Wilson could empathize, she said, because she was a former street kid with a harsh childhood.

She was still mourning her kids, taken by state social workers who believed she wasn't ready to be a mother and didn't protect her children from abuse by others.

Wilson was just 10 years older, but Jody called her "Mom." The two sat up late talking about boys and sex, played dress-up when Jody stole prom gowns. Wilson nurtured Jody's dream to be an exotic dancer, certain the cheering men would boost her self-esteem.

"She may put up a little bit of an argument, but she does want somebody to tell her what's right and what is wrong," Wilson said.

Jody found a substitute dad, too. A man named Dean earned the role after he listened to Jody's troubles and treated her to spaghetti topped with ketchup and mustard. Street kids who showed Jody the ropes became brothers and sisters. They spray-painted their name --the Rat Pak -- on buildings and underpasses.

Jody worked hard to fit in. And to stand out. She shaved her head. Pierced her body 37 times. Had her street name, "Li'l Bitch," tattooed on her arm, along with gang slogans. Wore skirts so short and shirts so tight Wilson had to shoo away middle-aged men.

Jody also spent time in juvenile detention as she built a record that includes theft, malicious mischief, and a dangerous weapons violation for carrying a dagger.

Occasionally, she returned to home and school, but she fought with her mom and left again. Cindy West filed runaway reports, and Jody was returned from California, Illinois and Ohio. She smelled so bad that West rolled down the car windows while driving her home.

Jody was living at home when, at 15, she got pregnant. She still smiles at the memory. "I'm like, give me a baby. I'll be happy for a couple of days."

She was torn between wanting a child and dreading the routine a baby requires. Jody hoped she could handle it.

She knew she'd get over the breakup with the baby's dad. And she figured the child would be healthy: The tranquilizer overdose occurred before she was pregnant.

This baby, she told herself, would be healthy and happy and would always love her back.

Don't worry, Jody told her mom as she left home once more. She'd return before giving birth. After one last fling.

Spokane's street population is up, says Rick Albin, a police officer stationed downtown. In the past, he said, "If we'd see little Susie on the street, we'd grab her and help. Now, we can't. There's too many of them."

Police are torn between keeping kids safe and chasing them away when store owners complain they scare customers with panhandling that borders on extortion.

Albin points out kids he fears will fall victim to predators or drugs.

"High risk to be dead...high risk to be dead," he repeats.

"These kids don't have a lot of hope for surviving the future. The streets will beat them up or they'll be institutionalized."

Marilee Roloff, who oversees the Crosswalk shelter for street kids, believes at least 200 are on Spokane streets or living in dangerous situations away from their families. Many have problems with learning, depression, substance abuse, sexual abuse, domestic violence or, frequently, parents who abuse drugs and alcohol. Some are kids who hang on the street by day, go home at night.

Crosswalk spends about $325,000 a year to feed, educate, shelter, clothe and counsel street kids. Sometimes the center helps kids graduate from street life to college on scholarship donations.

Only eight to 12 kids sleep at Crosswalk each night -- about half what the downtown shelter can handle. Some don't know about Crosswalk; others stay away by choice. Some Rat Pak members saw the shelter as a rule-laden last resort for wimps who can't make it on their own.

Lynn Everson, who runs the needle exchange where Jody swaps used syringes, believes most of them choose the streets over homes that are abusive and unsafe.

As a society, says Everson, "We really feel sorry for those children when they're little. We're irritated with them when they're teens, and when they're adults, we have no sympathy at all."

Unfortunately, while society is in its irritated phase, the kids often are taken in by sexual predators disguised as saviors, Everson says.

"Adolescents are perceived by our society to be bad, that they don't want to follow the rules, that somehow they'd want to go out and perform oral sex on someone old enough to be their father or grandfather rather than go take the garbage out."

It's hard for people in functional, happy families to imagine the horrific things that go on in other homes, Everson says. "The things that happen to children are unimaginable to most of us."

The walk-in freezer in the Helen Apartments is called the "torture chamber" by residents. In a pending case, investigators allege former apartment manager Stanley Pietrzak tortured and killed a young woman, then burned her remains in the building's furnace.

But long before the basement room got its nickname, Jody stayed there.

That's where her dad found her, several months pregnant, when he returned to Spokane. "I was in shock," said Bill West. He was also too late. Jody refused to go home and stay.

She waited until she was nine months pregnant -- days after her naked walk through People's Park -- to return home to slap up Winnie-the-Pooh stickers. When beautiful, red-haired Anastasia was born in May 1998, Jody was ecstatic. Three women she called Mom were there, along with Dean, her street dad, and her new boyfriend.

The joy didn't last.

"I get shell shock from staying in one place too long, and that's bad," said Jody. "I went from going out at 3 a.m. and spanging all night to sitting in a house. All. Day. Long."

She moved Anastasia five times during the next year. She began adoption proceedings, but Anastasia's father didn't want the girl adopted.

Eventually Anastasia went to live with her dad in Deer Park. Just for six months, Jody told herself. Just until she can settle down.

She promised herself she'd visit often. "I want her to be with both of us, to know she can come to me or her dad anytime she wants," she explained. "I want her to tell me everything, when she starts her period or gets her first boyfriend."

Then the baby's dad filed for a protection order against Jody, saying she threatened to kidnap Anastasia.

Jody's tug-of-war between parenting and partying intensified. "It's nice, because I get to play, do whatever I want. I have this thing pulling me out, and this other thing pulling me back." Months would pass before she'd see her daughter again.

Jody was distracted by love. She'd met Steve Akre, a man who sold hemp necklaces on the streets, three months before Anastasia was born, and they were still together.

When they weren't fighting, she and Steve planned their fantasy future. They'd find a minister who'd let them exchange marijuana pipes in place of wedding rings. They'd get jobs and get Anastasia back.

Yet when Steve, 22 and sick of the street scene, moved to Bonners Ferry, Idaho, last winter, Jody couldn't settle down with him. Instead, she hitchhiked back and forth.

In Idaho, she babysat for the couple Steve lived with. She watched four kids, ages 4 to 7, while the others worked. They called her "Aunt Jody" and admired her pierced tongue. She braided their hair, got them off to school, taught them card games.

In Spokane, Jody hung out at the STA Plaza, exchanging gossip and tips on life skills. Is there really a street-kid serial killer? (No.) Will peeing on your pot plant repel deer? (Hmmm.) Can you really get state aid by pretending you're crazy? (She'd find out.)

The plaza was her living room, Jody joked, complete with a waterfall and private security.

She circled the building, looking for buddies: a man who asked Jody to strip in exchange for meth; a stoned man who massaged her back with olive oil from a stolen bottle while wondering aloud why he'd lost custody of his son; "street wives" with whom Jody had occasional sexual relationships.

Sex on the streets is shared like drugs -- often, and with many people. Jody tells of street-kid group sex and the time, at age 15, when she agreed to be wrapped as a birthday gift -- one free night of sex -- for someone's husband.

With this crowd, Jody felt the belonging she'd always craved.

"This dysfunctional family is better, because you can get by with anything," she said. "No one's going to send you to your room. You don't get grounded."

In March, when a pregnancy test came back positive, Jody sobbed in Wilson's arms, terrified and elated.

"I'd love to have a baby," she said. "It'd be really hard right now, but it'd be perfect if it was a little boy. I'd have a little girl and a little boy."

But she worried about the acid she'd taken. "I've fried seven times in the past two weeks," she said.

Sharp cramps sent her to the doctor again. She'd lost the pregnancy.

A few days later, she tossed a penny into her living room waterfall and made a wish. If it comes true, someday Jody will have a healthy baby boy.

Nothing seemed right after that. Anastasia still lived with her father. Steve was in Bonners Ferry. She wasn't pregnant.

One April day Jody walked through the bus plaza, dark circles under both eyes. Her arms were bruised with syringe marks, and the meth high was long gone.

Jody was hungry but too tired to spange and too antsy to sleep.

Nothing sounded fun.

Her childhood baby sitter happened past, told Jody she was married with house, car and kid. "I had the kid first," Jody replied. "Now I have to get everything else."

Would she ever? After five years of constant cruising, Jody began to doubt it. She'd heard the warnings: Stay on the streets too long and they snag you like flypaper. By the time you want a real job, you haven't the clean clothes or skills or confidence to try.

Jody was tired and disenchanted. The Rat Pak had disbanded. At 18, she felt like she'd lost her childhood.

"I don't think she remembers what it's like to have something solid," said Jody's dad. "It's fictitious in her mind. That's the sad thing about her on the streets. That's what's become solid."

But some days, Jody looked at young runaways high on drugs and adrenaline, and she wanted to smack them for giving up their families.

"I wish I could just go downtown and `poof' everyone back home," she said, waving her cigarette like a magic wand.

Desperate for a change, Jody decided to go for a "crazy check"-- convince doctors you're mentally ill and win free food and insurance for life, the rumor went.

She was afraid to go to Sacred Heart Medical Center alone. So Jonny Cox, a 25-year-old couch surfer and convicted sex offender who says no one will let him forget it, agreed to go along. He'd try to admit himself, too, he said.

Outside the emergency room, the pair picked through an ash can for one last smoke.

Inside, Jody coached herself: "I just have to keep in mind, I'm nuts. I need help."

She told her story to a man with kind eyes. Depressed since her daughter's been gone. Distraught since losing her pregnancy. Can't seem to pull out of it.

When Jody wasn't admitted, she was both offended and relieved:

They didn't think she was crazy.

She didn't wait to learn Cox's fate.

After a month with Steve in Bonners Ferry, cabin fever won out again and Jody hitchhiked back to Spokane. "I was staying high," she said, "but not high enough."

While in Idaho, she'd missed her brother's wedding and a friend's funeral. No way did she plan to miss Anastasia's birthday, just days away.

On the way to Spokane, Jody picked up a pink stuffed bunny for her daughter, a new glass marijuana pipe for herself. But before celebrating, Jody had another mission.

Her fly-infested bedroom at Wilson's house reeked of cat urine and feces. Dirty dishes covered filthy countertops. Her shoes stuck to the kitchen floor.

Goodbye, second mom.

Jody found a new home with Dave Frye, a middle-aged cabinetmaker and convicted counterfeiter who'd been taking in street kids for years. She'd stayed with Frye before. Now he had a nice Spokane Valley condo, and he told Jody her daughter could visit anytime.

As it turned out, Jody didn't get to spend Anastasia's second birthday with her. Instead, Jody and her mom met Anastasia and her father at NorthTown Mall, where they planned to have the toddler's picture taken.

Jody didn't know that her relationship with Anastasia had changed, officially and dramatically. A month earlier, a court commissioner had awarded full custody to Anastasia's dad. The line reserved for Jody's signature read, "Did not appear."

She would find out in a few weeks, when she'd angrily complain she didn't receive notice of the hearing.

But now she met her daughter at Sears, shyly handed Anastasia the pink stuffed bunny. When her daughter looked back blankly, Jody said, "She's like, I do not know who you are." Then, "Look! She's got a full set of teeth!"

No openings for photos today, so they went to Clark Park, where Jody had played as a girl.

Just like then, Cindy West stood at the bottom of the slide while Jody climbed to the top. But this time, a giggling, red-haired girl slid between them, again and again and again.

For a sunny hour, three generations connected. And then it was time to go. Anastasia wailed from her car seat while Jody waved goodbye.

It'd be nice to think she's crying for me, said Jody. But it's just that silly slide.

Someday, Jody said, she'll give her girl a happy home.

Jeanette White graduated from Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville in 1988 with a bachelor's degree in journalism and a minor in psychology. Her professional career has included: Crime, education and general assignment reporting at The Tampa Tribune in Tampa, Fla., from 1988 to 1991. Medical, education and crime reporting at The Spokesman-Review in Spokane, Wash., from 1991 to 1999. General assignment feature writing at The Spokesman-Review from 2000 to present. Jeanette's articles and projects have received numerous regional and national awards.