Lost Then Found

So my son Marlon has completed his football season and now is trying out for basketball. His school lets out at 2:20p and the walk home is 5 minutes, 10 max. When he has sports he has practice and gets home around 4:15p no later than 4:30p.


A little bit about my Pooty (Marlon). He is my good boy! He never gets in trouble and is not a very social guy. I do not know how to explain him. He's gorgeous and talented but just so even-keeled that 95% of the time you can get no emotion out of him, which in turn makes him easy to deal with. He is the teenager that still wants a kiss from mom at carpool, opposed to the one that wants to be dropped off a mile away out of every one's view. No mood swings, no emotional roller coasters, no tantrums, no attitude etc. Easy Peasy! But about 5% of the time he's an ass. If you compare that to the ratio the remainder of the family acts like an ass which is about 30%-60%, He's a dream child. He is the family snitch. He tells me when shit goes down that I did not know about, like what his big bro is up to when I m not around etc. I can always count on Pooty.


Back to the story,  I arrived home Tuesday around 5p. I immediately looked for Marlon. I wanted to know how tryouts had went. The RA told me "Marlon's not here." The RA can be lazy sometimes. So I said to him "You mean he's not in the living room? I'm sure he's here." "I haven't seen him" he says. "Well I'm sure you didn't look in his room" I say. I enter Marlon's room. He's not there. After checking all the other rooms it becomes clear that he never came home. Hmmm I thought. He must still be at school.


I head on up to the school house just to be certain. There are two cars in the parking lot and none in the pick up area. Usually if there is a sports event there are cars lined up in the pick area up and down the street, No cars. Odd I thought, I headed for the gym. The doors were locked. I tried a few other entrances to the school, all were locked. No signs of life in there. I wondered had the teenage bug finally bitten my son? Is he off somewhere he has no business? I began to drive around town, checking all the teenage local hang out spots, the park, ice cream shop, the BBall courts, the routes to and from home. This was all just for show because I knew my Marlon would never go off somewhere and not tell me. After checking all these places to no avail and the suns setting I started to panic a bit on the inside.

 I went back up to the school and checked again just because... well there was no where else to look. I drove around the school a few times when I spotted an older lady with a school badge. I approached her and asked her if there were kids still in  the school. She said no, definitely not all the kids had gone. I explained that my son had BBall tryouts and had never showed up home and I was concerned because I could not find him. I asked  her if she could go with me into the building to look for him she said no she couldn't. I then asked her if she knew which car the coach drove and if it was the one parked in the lot because if so then I could relax a bit and know that maybe he was with the coach. She claimed to not know.She seemed quite disinterested and informed me that no one except her and two janitors remained in the building. She pointed to a guy standing in front of the building, "there is one now and he's leaving but you can double check with him if you'd like" she said, obviously eager to get going.


So I ran over to him and asked him the same barrage of questions that I had asked the helpful teacher lady.  He told me  that BBall  tryouts  ended at 4pm. It was now 5:40p and he himself had cleaned the gym and no one was there. He said all the kids left by 4:30p. Now I panicked. I drove home 100 miles per hour, ran into the house and asked RA "did he come home?"  RA, unimpressed at my panic simply said no. I ran through the house looking under beds and in closets screaming his name. See sometimes just to annoy me Marlon will hide from me. After I searched the last spot and realized he wasn't there I began to cry. I ran outside again. I hopped into my van, crying now uncontrollably in a sheer panic. I had no idea what to do where to look. I am a big watcher of Nancy Grace and every night I am absorbed with watching stories on how teenagers get kidnapped, killed etc.


Also our surrounding neighborhoods has started to go down a bit and had gang activity. I kept thinking maybe he was walking home and got jumped or stabbed or any other of the thousands of deaths that occur to kids every day. I thought maybe it had started to rain and someone offered him a ride and that's it. He's gone and no one knows anything. I cried helplessly as I drove around and around the school. I searched ditches, wooded areas, anywhere I could think he may have been. I did not want to call the police because I knew once I did it was a sure thing. I had lost my son. I called his dad and screamed to him that it was his fault this happened b/c I have one of our teens on my cell plan he had agreed to add the other to his and had not done it yet. So my baby was out there with no way to call me. He had no clue why I was crying I tried to explain but he couldn't understand me with all the sobbing so I hung up pulled over cried like hell. I then decided to go to the police station 3 blocks away.


My other son Michael was in the van with me so he said "Mom, I really think you are overreacting. I'm sure he's fine, He's  probably at the school." "No!" I screamed at him "No one is at the school! Two people that work there told me that!" "Mom, He tried again "let's just try one more time. He's gotta be there Marlon' would not just not come home." "Exactly." I said and cried harder as visions of my son injured and scared maybe even dead popped into my head. "It's on the way to the police station, just try once more. Let me look around" he says. So I did. This time when we approached the school there was another worried mom standing out there on her cell phone. I told my son to go ask her if her son hadn't come home too? I could not because I was a blubbering snotty mess from the crying. Then another car pulled up and another. Each car was like a ray of sunshine peering through the clouds.


The end of it is he was in the school building with 58 other kids and a coach! Now a few things to say here. Apparently he had told me while I was ironing, cooking, probably on the phone and doing laundry that he had to stay later that day. I just missed it entirely. Also the people that worked there assured me he was not there. I'm sure if you have teens or even was a teen  at some point you are thinking.. lady chill out. It is not that uncommon for a teen to take off for a bit or not come home. And you probably think I was overreacting. And maybe I was had it been your kid. But my kids are kept on a tight leash and do not go anywhere unless I have scoped the place out and preapproved and then made clear expectations on when they should return. My Marlon would never, ever do something like take off and not tell me. And I was right, he didn't. Guess what I'll be buying Marlon for Christmas?