Dissonance - Chapter 35

It wasn’t our best set ever, but I got through it. The audience seemed to respond the same as always, but they were also used to us by now, so maybe that made it easier to ignore the lower energy level. Marco disappeared as soon as we finished, saying he was going to go start loading the van. I think he still felt embarrassed about almost being talked into backing Dad’s plan to talk me into dropping out of school and then finding out he was also planning on changing the agreement where we all got paid equally. I hoped he might finally look at how poor his decisions had been, and would have a come to Jesus moment, but Marco had never shown any ability for self-reflection, and I wasn’t going to hold my breath that it would start now.

Kat definitely knew something was up, but I managed to deflect her suspicions by claiming I was annoyed about my car being smashed up. I probably should have confided in her and I know she would have listened if I told her my problems, but she had enough going on and I didn’t want to burden her with more. Besides, as much as I appreciated Kat, I needed advice from people more experienced than either of us. All through the gig, Chef’s words were bouncing around in my head, and I was starting to second-guess myself. I could care less about Dad, but I worried about Mom.

She might have abandoned me, but she was a victim in this too. Both Chef and Mrs. Phillips had said how hard it was for abused spouses to get out of their relationships, and I’d seen firsthand how it affected her. Just thinking about going into court and declaring that she was an unfit parent made me start to feel bad. In spite of how mad she made me, I still loved her.

What I needed was adult advice. Surprisingly, Mrs. Phillips was up and sitting at the kitchen table when we got home. She was the person I wanted to talk to, but it was after midnight and she was usually asleep when we got home from a gig.

“Go ahead and go up to bed, Katherine. I need to talk to Charlie.”

“Okay,” Kat said, giving me a concerned look.

Kat wasn’t an idiot. She might have serious emotional issues, but she was also the smartest person I knew. Mrs. Phillips wouldn’t be waiting up in the middle of the night for me over some busted windows. She gave me a concerned look, and I made a face that I hoped said, ‘I’ll talk to you about it later’. After one last look, she went up the stairs, leaving me and Hanna’s mother alone.

“Come sit down,” she said, pointing at the chair next to her at the table. “Chef called me a few hours ago and told me what’s going on. I know that might violate your trust, but he thought you needed someone else to talk to.”

“No, he’s right. I was planning on talking to you about this in the morning.”

“I’m so sorry Charlie. I know things have been bad with your parents, but I hadn’t realized they had gone this far.”

“It’s okay. I was keeping it to myself because I felt like it was something I could handle. It wasn’t until I almost really hurt Dad that I realized things were so out of control.”

“I thought you dislocated his elbow?’

“I did, but I was an inch away from maybe killing him. I mean it, it was really close. If I hadn’t realized what I was doing, I would have.”

She frowned. I hadn’t told Chef that. We’d gotten sidetracked on the whole emancipation thing, and then it had been time to go set up for the gig, so I never got around to it. Hearing that someone almost killed their father was a big step from ‘I’m having problems with my parents.’

“You stopped yourself. That’s what matters. I don’t want to make light of it, and I think you should talk to Chef Tang about what happened. It might be time for you to stop training with him if you’ve gotten to the point of being able to … do that.”

“I know,” I said.

I’d considered that already. Chef had only taught me how to defend myself, but it was a very short step from defense to offense. The only thing that kept it defensive was the person's mindset, and I was starting to realize I might have too much anger to keep myself under control.

“That being said, you had to defend yourself. I’m never a proponent of violence, but if he did try to hit you, he left you little choice. You can’t beat yourself up because of it.”

“He didn’t push me into hurting him, I pushed him to try to hit me. I knew nothing good would come of talking to him, but I went there anyway, and then said everything I could think of to make him mad enough to react. I wanted to hurt him.”

“Have you thought about getting into therapy yourself?”

“No. I mean, yes, but I’m already stretched to the limit, and I don’t want to pull back on my music. The label is already starting to think I’m having a problem dealing with this, which is something they’re concerned about when signing a minor. I need to keep it together if I want to keep my contract.”

“I know music is important to you, Charlie, but you have a lot of your life ahead of you. You can always make another go at music, but you don’t get a second chance at this. If you push yourself so much that you’re too tired, or stressed, to control yourself, you might do something you can’t walk away from. Your music career would still be over, and so would the rest of your life. Not to mention what doing something like that can do to your mental well-being.”

“I know. I’ve thought about it, but no. I want this. If I give everything up, I’m letting Dad win.”

“Don’t think about it like you or he are winning or losing,” she said. “Life isn’t a race to see who gets to the finish first, Charlie. We only get one go at this, and once your turn is over, it doesn’t matter who gets more money, or more famous, or more stuff. I’m not saying you need to give up music, but I want you to think about all of your choices. Emancipation is one choice, but if you put the music aside until after you finish high school and maybe college, that would defuse the entire situation. You’re very good, Charlie. I think you can have success again if you put everything on hold for now.”

I appreciated her confidence in me, but I knew she was wrong. She meant well, but she didn’t know the music business. There were a lot of amazing, talent performers out there who’d never make it out of local bars and karaoke. Getting a record contract was as much about luck as it was skill. It’s why so many people went on those singing shows. It allowed them to get enough exposure for someone in the industry to take notice of them.

I’d been wildly lucky. I just happened to make friends with someone who got me a job at a place with live music. I’d just happened to meet a musician who showed me the ropes, taught me how to play on stage, and even took me to my first gigs. At the same time, I just happened to have a music teacher who used to be a professional musician and who was friends with a major producer, who was nice enough to come listen to me. He just happened to introduce me to a major recording artist, who greased the wheels enough for me to get my shot.

The number of stars that had aligned for me to get where I was boggled my mind. I had a better chance of winning the lottery than for all of those things to fall into place a second time. I wanted this so bad I could taste it, but I wanted to do it my way, and I knew I couldn’t put everything on hold and just try again later. It was now or never.

“No. I appreciate your input, and I have thought about that, but I have worked too hard at this to give it up. It’s the same reason I don’t want to just drop out of school and go back to homeschooling. I worked really hard to learn how to be a student at a real school and to catch up enough so I could graduate on time. I’m not about to drop all of that just because Dad sees me as a walking bag of money. Doing the best for your kid is what being a parent is all about, and Dad only sees how he can benefit from my hard work. He’s not a parent. He’s a leech. I’d be better off without him than with him.”

“Okay,” she said, seeing I was getting worked up. “I’m not telling you shouldn’t do it. I just want you to think through all of your options before you do anything.”

That’s what Chef had said too. Everyone was so dead set on making sure I wasn’t making rash decisions, they wouldn’t give me a firm yes or no when I asked if I should do something.

Of course, to be fair, the thing with Dad had been a pretty strong sign that maybe I was prone to rash decisions.

“I know. I really do. And I am thinking about it. Right now, I just want advice on what I should do.”

“This isn’t the kind of thing either Chef Tang or I can tell you to do or not. We can try and guide you the best we can, make sure you know all of your options and that you’ve given them all enough consideration, but you have to be the one to make the decision. Otherwise, in ten years you’re going to look back on this and think you were pushed into doing one or the other. This is a huge life decision, and one that will come with a lot of regrets no matter what you chose.”

“I know. I really am taking time to think about it.”

“Good. If you need to talk, or just want to say what you’re thinking out loud, I’m here for you. And if you decide this is really what you want to do, I’ll support you. You don’t have to worry about where you’ll live or how you’ll fend for yourself. As long as I’m alive, you’ll have a place to stay. You are a very special young man, and you’ll always have a place in this family.”

She leaned over and gave me a hug. That was what I needed. I’d lost my own mom to Dad’s narcissism and temper. She hadn’t hugged me since just after he came to town and the conflict started, and I missed it. I needed a mom, and I was glad if I didn’t have mine anymore, at least I had a surrogate.

“How about we call Mr. Eaves on Monday and talk to him?” she said, letting me go and sitting back down. “I still strongly urge you to not make a decision yet, but I think it would be helpful to get all the information on how this process actually works, what we need to do, and what happens after.”

“Okay.”

“And Charlie, at some point we need to start addressing your anger. I know it’s not the most important thing right now, but if you really did get that close to seriously hurting your father, then you’re in a dangerous place. I know you have a lot of people challenging you, and that’s the moment self-control is the most important. I’m going to talk to Chef Tang about what you said. If you do keep training with him, I think your training needs to start focusing on de-escalation and self-discipline. I don’t know if that’s something he can do, but it’s a skill you need to learn. You’re as capable of derailing all your dreams as your father is.”

“I know. Honestly, it scared me. I’ve let my impulses get the better of me before, but I’ve never lost control like that.”

“Being scared by it is a good sign, and it means you can fix it. If you enjoyed it, or if it didn’t bother you, then I’d really be worried. I’m serious though, situations like that can get out of control very fast. You’re old enough that you can be charged as an adult if you seriously hurt someone, especially once they find out about the training you’ve been doing. And we both know the county DA isn’t your biggest fan.”

“I know.”

“Okay, enough lecturing. You’ve had a really hard day and need to get some rest. I called Emmett when I got off work and he already fixed your car, so we can go by the school and pick it up in the morning. Are you going out with Sydney tomorrow?”

“She has a practice for next week’s competition at the time we’d be able to go out, so we’re going to wait and go out next week. She said she might try to come by to see us practice and stay for the first part of the show.”

“Good. We’ll call Mr. Eaves on Monday. To be clear, that doesn’t mean we’ll start the process then. This is just to ask questions and find out what’s involved. I still want you to spend at least a week thinking about what you really want. And stay away from your parents for the time being. You might be under control now, but this kind of thing doesn’t go away that fast.”

“Yeah, I had planned on it.”

“Good. Okay, off to bed.”

I didn't feel better after we talked, but I appreciated that both she and Chef wanted me to think about these things before I did them. I really needed to work on my impulse control, and they both knew it. Even though I felt I wasn’t going to back down from this, they were right. It was too big of a decision to make without thinking it through.

***

Monday afternoon I rushed home from school. Mrs. Phillips made sure she was off work early and was there waiting for me. She must have sent him a message or talked to him already, because normally I had to wait a few minutes, or sometimes longer, to talk to him, but this time we were put right through when we called.

“Hello Charlie,” he said as soon as he picked up. “I understand you’re having some trouble.”

“I am. Did Mrs. Phillips explain what was happening?”

“She did. Is she on the call?”

“I’m here,” Mrs. Phillips said.

“I’m sorry, but I need to ask you to get off the call. Although this is a preliminary meeting, attorney-client privilege can affix once I start gathering information that might be sensitive, and you being on the call breaks privilege, since you aren’t his legal guardian.”

“Am I even allowed to talk to you without a legal guardian?” I asked. “As a minor, I didn’t think I could sign a contract, so how can I hire you to be my lawyer?”

It hadn’t occurred to me until this moment that there might be a reverse loophole that would make it impossible to actually hire a lawyer to get emancipated, since I’d need one of my parent's signature, which they’d never give.

“Normally, no. However, emancipation hearings are a very gray area, and the court has some latitude. They understand that your parents wouldn’t sign a contract for legal representation, and allow a third party to contract me to represent you. Even though someone else is footing the bill, I’d be representing you, not them. They would not be a party in the suit, so they wouldn’t be my client. Which is why having them in the conversation would break attorney-client privilege.”

“Ohh.”

“No problem,” Mrs. Phillips said. “I’ve spoken to Chef Tang already and we’ll take care of that end of things. Just have your office contact us about getting a retainer or whatever set up, and the contract in place.”

“I already spoke to Chef this weekend, and we took care of that this morning.”

“Good. Charlie, I’ll be in the other room if you want to talk after.”

“Okay,” I said, as she got up and walked into the other room.

“Take me off speaker, Charlie.”

“Okay.”

“Now. A couple of ground rules. I know Mrs. Phillips and Chef are helping you, and I encourage you to use that support structure, but anything you tell them could end up being on the record during a deposition by your parents, if they go that route. I’m not saying to not be candid or not talk to them, but I want you to understand neither of them have any privileges with you the way a religious leader, doctor, or I would. If you tell me something that I think could be problematic, I may instruct you to not tell anyone else outside of being asked directly in a court or under deposition. This isn’t illegal and it’s important you listen to me. The thing that sinks cases more than anything else is clients speaking when they shouldn’t.”

“I understand.”

“Good. Second rule. You must be one-hundred percent honest with me. I can’t represent you if I don’t know what the other side might bring up. If I know about it, I can work on it. If I don’t know about it, we could be blindsided. I don’t care if the answer is embarrassing or if you are just shy. You need to tell me everything when I ask about something.”

“Okay.”

“Good. So, I understand this call is just to find out what’s needed for emancipation. I’ll explain that in a second, but I’m also going to ask you questions to determine if you even meet the requirements for emancipation. If you do and you understand the process and what the potential outcomes are, we can go from there.”

“Okay.”

“Good. So, how do you get emancipated? North Carolina requires a couple of things. First, you have to be over the age of sixteen and you have to have lived in one county in the state for at least six months. We know both of those are true, so that’s the easy one. Next, is in regards to the quality of parental supervision or support. Your parents don’t have to be negligent per se, but they do have to be shown to not offer up sufficient supervision or support as part of their parental responsibility.”

“What does that even mean? How can you not be negligent but not provide sufficient support.”

“It’s a gray area and a lot of that is left up to the judge to decide. This is a civil matter and happens before a family court judge. We have to convince him that your parents are not only not upholding their responsibility, but they are actively making it more difficult for you. It’s very subjective, and family court judges, as a whole, tend to believe in the effectiveness of even a dysfunctional home over a minor being on their own. So the lack of support must be egregious enough to convince them to break their bias.”

“My dad beats my mom, has beaten me in the past, and has tried to hit me as recently as Friday.”

“Spank or hit?”

“Hit. A few weeks ago he slapped my mom and then tried to kick her in the ribs, until I stopped him. Even before that, he would slap and even punch her from time to time.”

“While that’s good to set a pattern, we need to talk about what he’s done to you specifically. Domestic violence against a member of the family is generally not enough to get a different member emancipated. For the context of this, we care about what has been done to you specifically.”

“He’s hit me before. I was much younger, since he went to prison for a few years, but Friday he tried to hit me. Closed fist. To the face.”

“Have you ever hit him back?”

“I didn’t hit him, exactly, but I have defended myself. When he tried to kick Mom, I smashed his face into the fridge, and when he tried to hit me on Friday I dislocated his elbow. Is me defending myself going to be a problem?”

“No, but I need to know the exact facts of any situation, because parents are reasonably allowed to claim domestic assault by their children, and they could try to paint you as a violent youth explaining anything that happened as their attempts to deal with your aggression. I’m aware of the things that happened earlier this year and late last year, and if their attorney is even halfway competent, they’ll definitely bring those up as a way to frame you in a specific light. In criminal cases, prior acts usually can’t make it into court, but in something like family court, they want the whole picture before they make judgments.”

“Is that going to make this impossible?”

“No. We just have to be prepared to mount a defense for each one. When we do decide to file, I’m going to need you to sit down and write out, in detail, every fight you’ve been in that you can remember, going back as far as you can remember, with as much detail as you can give me. That especially includes any episode with your parents, even if you weren’t directly involved and any time you and your father got into a physical altercation.”

“Okay.”

“This step is the hardest one to prove, since it’s very subjective, so it’s the one that will take the most work. The rest of the steps are more of a checklist than anything else. You’ll have to show a need to contract, which can include marriage, in your own name, since the ability to enter into a contract is one of the main reasons children ask for emancipation. If it was just a broken home, the court would prefer to put you into the foster care system or with a court-appointed guardian, like they did your friend Katharine. The only reason you need to be emancipated is because you have the need, not want, but the need to operate as an adult.”

“I have my record contract, and it’s one of the reasons I need emancipation. My father has been causing problems with the label, including changing the terms of the contract I’ve agreed to with my bandmates and trying to take me out of school so I can tour full time.”

“Good, that will go to show his lack of parental support and a record contract easily fulfills that requirement. Next, you need to be able to show your employment status or ability to support yourself without help from your family or the state. That means, you have to be able to live without anyone else paying your bills. I’m assuming your record contract and everything surrounding that is enough to cover that?”

“Yes. I already pay most of my money to my parents to help pay their bills. That’s another problem. Even with me giving most of my money to them, my dad has still been pulling money from my account to buy guitars and stuff.”

“Again, that’s good for us. Although not a requirement per se, the court will definitely take notice of a parental need for the earnings of the petitioner. If your family wants to keep you as a dependent because they need your money, or worse, want it for non-essentials, it furthers our case that they aren’t upholding their duties as your legal guardians. You also have to show you have a safe living arrangement available, again, without aid or support of your parents.”

“I’ve been living with Mrs. Phillips since the first time Dad got physical after coming back.”

“While it would be better to show you were able to provide for your own living conditions, don’t rush out and get an apartment or anything. This will do. Besides, if the court thinks you’re doing things simply to seem more in line with the requirements, they’ll take that as a strike against you. The fact that you moved out well before filing for emancipation works in your favor, since it shows it wasn’t premeditated. It also shows that the problems have happened for a while, and you’ve already taken reasonable steps before involving the courts.”

“Okay.”

“That’s it. The ability to contract, the ability to sustain yourself without government assistance, and a stable living arrangement are the main ones to show you are eligible to be emancipated. The rest is just to show that the emancipation is warranted. Besides showing the poor quality of parental supervision and your rejection of that supervision, you have to show that the extent of the discord in your family is irreconcilable or that remaining under their supervision threatens that supervision.”

“That’s easy. I’ll never reconcile with Dad, but I do still hope to have some kind of relationship with my mother. That can’t happen until he’s no longer able to keep trying to destroy my life. So if I meet all those, what happens next? We tell the courts that and they decide if I get emancipated.”

“In short, yes, although it’s not that easy. We’d file a petition for emancipation with the court, which begins the process. A copy of the petition along with a summons is then served on your parents, and will include the time and place of the hearing. Your parents will then have thirty days to file written responses to the petition, which means the court proceeding will probably happen somewhere between six weeks and two months after we file. You’re lucky in that here family court takes these kinds of proceedings seriously, and moves them up early in the docket. Other cases regularly take a year to get before a judge.”

“So it can be two months until anything happens? Do you know the kind of damage Dad can do between now and then?”

“It’s the way the process works, Charlie. As your guardians, your parents have legal rights as well, and the court gives them time to exercise those rights.”

“Is there anything to stop them from causing more problems while we wait? Dad has access to both the band bank account and my personal bank account. He could really screw me over if he wanted to, not to mention make it hard to pay the rest of the band, which would kill us.”

I could just imagine Marco’s response if I suddenly stopped giving them their cut of any of the label’s payments to us. Although we had to pay off the advance on our contract, it looked like it was doing well enough that we’d start getting checks from our cut of sales as soon as next month. I knew Dad knew about that, and would be eager to start taking a piece of it. The checks were made out to me, but as a signer on the account, Dad could deposit them into the account and then pull all of the money out. If I did like Chef suggested and waited for a few weeks to make sure this is what I wanted and that I’d considered the ramification, it would be Christmas before anything happened.

“Not really. We could petition CPS to have you removed from their custody, but that would create a whole new mess and make it infinitely less likely you’d be successfully emancipated. Once you made it into the foster care system, the courts just assume you’re sorted out.”

“I don’t want to go into the system. I have to be able to perform, sign contracts, and everything else. The label won’t accept a rotating door of foster parents as my guardians.”

“Yes, which is why I think you have a good chance of being emancipated. The biggest thing most kids who try this run into is that they can’t enumerate specific reasons why they couldn’t just go into foster care or a group home. You can.”

“If we do all this, what are my chances?”

“Sixty-forty.”

“Sixty-forty? I thought you just said I had a good chance. A forty percent chance of failure is terrible.”

“It’s good for this. Most cases I’ve seen don’t even hit the fifty-fifty range. Courts are extremely hesitant to take away a parent’s responsibility and even more hesitant to allow a minor to legally become an adult. You’re wanting to climb the Mount Everest of family petitions. You will have the burden to show with a preponderance of the evidence that emancipation is in your best interest. Sixty-Forty is as close to a sure thing as this kind of case gets.”

I didn’t love the sound of that. This might be one of the things Chef meant when he said I needed to understand the ramifications. If I did this and the petition was denied, things with Dad would get infinitely worse.

“What does ‘preponderance of the evidence’ mean?”

“It’s a fancy legal way of saying it’s more likely than not, as opposed to criminal cases, where most are determined on as being ‘beyond a reasonable doubt.’

“Fine, sixty-forty. So once we get to court, what happens?”

“We will present our petition, evidence, and witnesses, who your parents will be able to cross-examine. They will be able to do the same thing. The court will then weigh all of the evidence and the testimony and could decide then and there that reasonable cause exists, deny the petition, or order additional investigation like physical or psychological examinations or appoint a juvenile court counselor or the county Department of Social Services to further investigate the allegations.”

“If I have to talk to a psychiatrist, would my parents have access to what I say?”

I’d been involved enough in Kat’s treatment to know how invasive the sessions were. I normally didn’t keep secrets from Mom, but no one wanted their every thought put under a microscope. I had a lot of fears about Mom and her inability to leave Dad, and I worried that if she knew I doubted her that much or some of my thoughts about her, it might tank my relationship with her permanently.

“Yes. In cases like this, both husband-wife and physician-patient privilege are generally waived if needed as evidence for the hearing, and the only way their side can determine if they want to ask for those privileges to be waived is to see the evidence. We could ask the judge to keep it from them and make the determination himself, but there’s no guarantee they’ll agree to that.”

“Will they order that kind of examination?”

“There’s no way to tell. It’s basically at the judge’s discretion. If we slam dunk it enough where the judge thinks no amount of additional evidence will change the outcome, then no. If not, then there’s no way to tell. We’re not claiming recent abuse, since you’ve already said your father hasn’t actually been able to lay a hand on you, so I doubt they’ll go for a physical, but a psychological evaluation is very possible.”

Not that it mattered. If it was going to happen, it was going to happen and the alternative was to leave everything as it was and try to wait out the year and a half until I was legally of age. Which wasn’t an option at all.

“Once the judge has all the evidence he feels he needs, he makes a decision on the four qualifications. Were all the parties before the court given sufficient time and notice to apply and file answers? Have you shown an adequate and lawful plan for providing for your needs and living expenses without government assistance? Did you knowingly seek emancipation and fully understand the ramifications of it? And finally, is emancipation in your best interest? If the answer to any of those is no, the court denies the petition and you remain in your parents’ custody. If the answer to all of them is yes, the court will enter a final decree of emancipation, after which you will be able to make contracts in your own name, sue and be sued, and transact business as an adult, and your parents will be relieved of all obligations and legal duties as your guardians and be divested of all rights with respect to you. Most importantly, this decree is irrevocable. You cannot again become anyone’s dependent. You’re own your own from then on out, with one small caveat. You are still eligible for any property inherence that might come your way, and you will be expected to uphold any parental support requirements. Although those don’t apply in this instance.”

“Parental support?”

“It’s the legislature’s attempt to keep the elderly off government support. If your parents are unable to work and don’t have sufficient ability to support themselves, and you have a reasonable ability to provide support, you are required to do so. Technically, it’s a class two misdemeanor if you don’t, but I’ve never heard of anyone being charged with it. So if you are emancipated, you still have to pay to support them once they are physically or mentally incapable of supporting themselves, which doesn’t apply now and, considering your parents’ ages, won’t apply for quite some time.”

That was good information and I’m sure Mr. Eaves was just covering his bases, but that was a problem for future me. If I didn’t do something about this soon, I wouldn’t be able to support anyone, including myself. I made a decision that I was sure both Mrs. Phillips and Chef would disagree with and probably would think I was being rash or impatient again. I actually didn’t say anything for a long time while I wrestled with it in my own mind, making sure I wasn’t making a huge mistake. Every time the answer came back the same.

“Charlie?” he said when the silence stretched on.

“I know this call was just to find out what was needed for emancipation, but I can’t let this situation stretch out until Christmas. Dad has control over everything, and my entire future is on the line. I can’t change this. What do I need to do if I want you to file right away.”

“Are you sure? Have you thought this through?”

“I have. This situation isn’t going to get any better.”

“Well, Chef’s already paid for the initial retainer and given us the go-ahead to work on your behalf whenever you decided, so we can start whenever you say go. It won’t happen tomorrow. It will take a few days to write up the petition, and you and I will have to go through the allegations one at a time, so I can include as much as possible. We’ll probably be able to file by the end of the week if everything goes well. Once we do, the thirty-day timer starts, and your hearing will be late November or early December at best.”

December was so far away, I couldn’t imagine what Dad was capable of doing between now and then, but I couldn’t think of anything else to do. Waiting wasn’t going to change anything and it would be next year before I could get clear of him if I waited. I’d been mentally ready for this ever since Chef told me about it but now that the moment was here, I felt crushed by the decision. I was still going to make it, though.

“Do it,” I said, my voice cracking a little.