"Hello, this is Officer Adamski with the Chester Police Department. Is this Matthew Layton?"
"Yes, yes it is. Is everything okay?" Matt asked.
Matt and I had just walked in the door from going out to dinner and a movie. We saw Star Trek, then went out for burgers at Ruby Tuesday. We came home and my sons had a couple friends over and we were just chatting about the movie when the phone rang. Who would be calling at 10:30 at night I wondered? It's never good news.
"We have your brother Francis here on suspicion of DUI. You'll need to come get him." the officer stated. "Uh, okay, do you have an address?" Matt grabbed a pencil. "It may take us awhile, we're about an hour away." Matt said frankly.
"What in the world is he doing in Chester? There's nothing good in Chester. I cannot believe this." I said. I was annoyed after just coming home from having a pleasant evening out, then having to go bail Frank out. Not to mention, it's embarrassing to me for my children to hear this and know their uncle is arrested and for their friends to hear. I can't always bring it up, but so many times I just wished we hadn't gotten involved in Frank's life, but at the same time I wonder what would have happened to him and where he would be if we hadn't.
Matt and I talked in the car on the way there. "I'm not Frank's wife or his mother, and I'm getting tired of feeling like both. You know, if Kat won't sign those divorce papers and hand over Frank's settlement money, then she can start taking care of him. I feel like dropping him off at her house. We have to ask her to pay alimony, they're still married and he should be her responsibility, not ours." I stated. "In sickness and health." Matt agreed
"What would you do if it were me?" Matt asked playfully. "Uhh, if it were you? You'd be in a nursing home by now, buddy." I giggled. "You mean you wouldn't change my Depends?" Matt laughed.
"I don't do windows . . . or Depends!" I retorted.
We got off the exit of route 476 at Chester and followed the GPS to the police station. It was 11:30 at night and the streets looked like total mayhem. There were gangs of thugs crossing in the middle of streets not even looking out for traffic. There was another gang of scary looking individuals walking down the other side street. It just looked completely lawless to me, and very frightening. "Oh my gosh, let's just get out of here as fast as we can." I said to Matt. There were a series of one-way, hilly, curvy, narrow streets that were like a maze before we finally found the police station. We pulled into the station parking lot and went inside. There were two cops at the entrance. We introduced ourselves and Officer Adamski came over. He said "He was going the wrong way down a one-way street." Matt and I look at each other and silently thinking that this is not actually surprising since we almost did the same thing. "He said he was lost. He seemed confused, so I asked him to get out of the car. I proceeded to perform a field sobriety check on him and he failed each one. I asked him to say the alphabet backward, and he could not do it. Then I asked him to walk heel-to-toe for nine steps then turn and come back. I had to repeat the instruction twice before he attempted it and then he took fifteen steps before I had to tell him to come back, then he proceeded to run back toward me." "Oh my God, I don't know what to say. We're having him evaluated for some cognitive problems, but we don't know what's wrong." Matt said. "We've taken a blood sample and we'll process it through the mail so you can take him now." Officer Adamski was actually nice. It seemed he thought Frank was DUI, but wasn't being a jerk about it. Then the other officer opened the door and Frank came through. He looked tired and disheveled. I just looked at him with disapproval and he shook his head at me, kind of in shame and frustration. "C'mon Frank, let's go home." Matt said.
After we got in the car, Frank said, "I went to the Phillies game tonight. I sat at the bar and ordered a beer and I was talking to this guy all night. I only had one beer, I swear. I left in the eighth inning to get a jump on traffic. I was going down Broad Street, I was near where . . . your son lives . . . you know by . . . umm, Temple. Then I got lost. I ended up in here and that's what happened." "You weren't at Kat's house were you?" I asked skeptically because, I'm not that good at geography, but I don't know how you start out at Citizens Bank Park and end up in Chester. Chester is actually closer to Kat's house.
"No, I was feeling kind of sad, so I went to the game, and then I got lost." Frank said again.
"It's okay Frank, don't worry." Matt said. Frank actually did look really bad. I guess the stress of not knowing where you are and getting arrested took it's toll. He didn't say another word the next hour until we dropped him off. I don't know if he was asleep or just numb. He shuffled into the house with barely a word of thanks or a goodnight.
The next day Matt tried to get Frank's car back from the tow truck driver. It was Sunday and he could see someone was in the office in the parking lot, but the man inside said they were closed and he would have to come back on Monday to get the car back. Matt tried to argue that if they are charging a daily rate to leave the car there, we should be able to pick up the car or not be charged for the days that the office is closed. The guy said, "Come back tomorrow, what don't you understand about closed." It seems they are open to accept newly towed cars, but they're not open to get your car out. Matt had to go before work Monday morning, park the car on the street, then go back later with me and pick it up. Four hours of driving back and forth because Frank loved the Phillies.
We called an old friend of Frank's, an attorney, to deal with this new issue. Guy Newman is a big, tall friendly man with a brilliant head of snow white hair. He reminds me of Leslie Nielsen in many ways. "Hey Matt, just wanted to let you know that Frank's blood alcohol came back 0.02. They won't drop the charges though, they're sending it out for narcotics now. That might take a little while."
We had just gotten the Social Security psychologist's report back. His diagnosis was Aphasia. It actually felt good to be able to call it something. We actually embraced it. We ordered bumper stickers, stickers for his car window, pamphlets to hand to the police if Frank ever got stopped again, everything we could think of. The trouble was Frank couldn't remember that he had this condition and would not remember to hand anything out. We looked up the definition in Wiki, it says "speechlessness is the disturbance in formulation and comprehension of language. This class of language disorder ranges from having difficulty remembering words to being completely unable to speak, read, or write. The most common brain injury that causes aphasia is stroke."
"Guy, tell them that Frank has Aphasia and that's why he couldn't follow the directions for the sobriety test. Maybe then they'll drop the charges." Matt suggested.
"I'll give it a go, but they're being hard-asses for some reason. I'll let you know." Guy finished. In the end the narcotic test came back negative also. They never put out a warrant, but they wouldn't drop the charges either. I guess in case it happened again, they wanted it on his record.
In the end we were left with an ethical question. Is is appropriate to continue to let Frank get behind the wheel? When he's lost everything he had, could we take one of the only things he had left, his freedom? If we did take away the keys, who is responsible for him then? We certainly are not in a position to provide for him 24/7 when Matt and I both work and have a family to take care of. In the end, we felt we had no choice but to keep letting him drive and hope we're not sorry.
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