The Men in Black

      

 

 

 

The Men in Black

A Memoir

Written by Teralyn Evans

Prologue. 3

Chapter One: Nick-Knock. 4

Chapter Two: The Clinic. 7

 

Prologue

 

 

I remember the sky was gray, a dreary time in February. Everything was quiet, in that sense of routine kind of way.  Dad was at work, like he usually was in the morning.

 

Nothing seemed out of place; but it would take only a moment, a single nick in the routine fabric of our neatly-knit lives, for our entire world to unravel.

Chapter One: Nick-Knock

 

It was a normal day when they came; the men in black suits, with their gold-badged buddies following behind.

 

My mother was at home, busy with laundry and her last bundle of joy. My brother, sister, and I were just getting up from our naps, warned to not wake the baby with our impending play.

 

Business as usual in the house of ours; Dad was at work, like he was meant to be at this time of day. It was a generally happy time for a child, age five. I remember playing with a plastic baseball bat, and seeing a soccer ball on the floor, just about the time we heard the banging on the door. I can't remember what our house smelled like right then, but it was probably laundry sheets. There were six people in our family, one of whom was a baby, so my mom was always doing laundry.

 

I had to put proper pants on, while my mom looked out of our front room window to see who was at our door.

 

There were a bunch of men outside; Men in black suits with ties, and men who wore officer uniforms. When my mom opened the door, she said that dad was at work, but they looked for him anyway.

 

I remember that the officers were looking everywhere, even in our backyard, while a mean-looking man talked to my mom. Being five, my understanding of the conversation was mostly taken from the facial expressions.

 

            What are you doing? Why are you here? Who are you?

 

Those were the words that my mothers face screamed so loudly above the words she was actually saying to the man. One of the men, the quiet one who didn't say much, told her that we had to leave with them.

 

That was when the 'uh-oh' alarm sounded off in my head.

 

The really tall man made me angry. He was smiling at me, while I watched my mom stand there and cry. Did he think it was funny to make her sad like that? It wasn't even a nice smile. It made me want to kick him in the shin, or hit him with my plastic bat. I knew that would only get me in trouble, though.

 

My grandma came to help my mom, because she didn't know what to do. She told mom that we had to pack; we were leaving with those mean men.

 

I remember hugging my mom while she filled my 'I'm going to Grandma's' suitcase. It was blue, and had a little girl with blonde hair on the front of it. I didn't like that my mom was sad, or that we had to leave her.

 

The baby was a month old, to the day, but they still took him away. My sister was nearly one, my brother was edging towards three, and I was making my way to five. The eldest of the kids and even I couldn't understand what was happening.

 

I remember how my brother and sister cried when we got into the men's white van; it had a huge gold badge on the side of it, just like the officer's uniforms. I remember how the baby slept blissfully through the whole commotion. I remember how I couldn't comfort my brother or sister, I couldn't tell them it was okay, because I didn't know that it was.

 

That was the day the men in black took us away.

Confusing.

 

The one word that could sum up that entire day for me was, confusing. I was five years old, and I’d never left home overnight for anything other than a sleepover at my grandmother’s house. And these men, who I’d never seen before in my life, were telling me I had to leave with them.

 

I don’t remember crying that much over it to begin with. I remember being quiet, though. I don’t think I really knew how to handle what was happening. It was like something out of a Law & Order episode; except we didn’t have an Olivia coming to the rescue.

 

Have you ever seen a foreign film, with no subtitles? The feeling you get when you don’t understand something that seems so important to those around you, but you can’t figure it out no matter how hard you try- That was the feeling I had.

 

When I watch our old home videos, I seemed like a happy kid, even after the whole fiasco. My siblings didn’t seem to be depressed or scarred, but I chock that up to the fact that our parents made sure we knew it wasn’t our fault, and that by God’s grace, we didn’t experience many things that would have a serious negative impact on us.

 

The three men, who spoke to my mom that afternoon, were social workers. The tall man was Mark Gagan; even years after the event, we saw him driving his fancy car down the highway a couple of times.

 

The quiet man was also a social worker; he was the one who drove the big white van. I don’t remember very much about him, except that he wore a white shirt instead of a suit.

 

And the last man was an intern named Rodney. I still don’t understand why he would attend a field job in such a sensitive case, when he obviously had no professional training in the area.

 

Unfortunately though, not even half of the story has been told.

Chapter Two: The Clinic

 

The drive in the big white van seemed to be going through placed we’d already seen before.