to face some harsh reality.
Allie was 20, young and ambitious. In this great big world, there was so much out there waiting for her to explore. She wasn’t anywhere close to settling down. Louis Vuitton handbags, Gucci wallets, Chanel jewellery, the glamorous Hollywood lifestyle was what she was after. All of her previous rich boyfriends were able to supply her with top designers’ brands, meals at high-end restaurants, and rides in expensive vehicles. I was a broke artist who was in and out of court.
It took me a great deal of effort just to save up for that Valentine’s Day present. For other guys, this kind of purchase was a trifle—something they could do any day of the week. Allie realized that I wasn’t going to be able to lavish her with gifts and struggled to see reasons that she should stick with me. I was living in a shallow world, and I was seeing the fruit of it.
I recommended sincerely that she try a different style of living to gain a different perspective towards life. After considering my suggestion, she was willing to give it a try.
“What’s wrong, baby girl?” I picked up the cushion Allie had thrown to the floor.
“I’m bored! I’m not happy! I don’t like this life!” She was acting particularly petulant that day.
“Okay, okay, just chill. What do you want? You just got your Gucci wallet. You were very happy the other day, weren’t you?”
“That was the other day! Today I’m not happy. I need new things. I need to go shopping!”
“Really? Do you really think more new things would make you happy? You have received many new things before, and how long did the happiness last? Listen, you don’t need more new things. What you need is a new way of living.”
“What do you mean?”
“You need to have a purpose to live for. Going from party to party to get drunk does not give you a healthy purpose. When you wake up in the morning, you still have to face the problems of this world. I’ve been there. As a matter of fact, it nearly ruined my life. I went from being an honour roll student to a kid with failing grades. You see, music saved me. It gave me a purpose and a goal to strive for. It gave me the energy to keep moving forward. You need to find your art like I have so you’ll have something to commit to yourself too.”
“My art? Oh, I’ve always loved drawing. As a kid, I used to draw comic book characters and dreamed of publishing my own comic one day. I still have some of my old drawings around. Let me find them!” She ran to her closet and dug out some boxes. There was a folder filled with her drawings. Her eyes lit up with passion as she explained each of them to me.
“These are beautiful. I see it in you. You should become an artist. You need to share your inner world with your drawings and artistic endeavours.”
“Now that you mentioned it, I actually did some research before. I wanted to go to the Emily Carr Institute of Art and Design.”
“That’s great! What’s the holdup? You should do it!”
“But … I haven’t even finished high school yet—”
“No problem; finish it! That should be your goal. It’ll give you purpose and energy. This is good!”
“What … really?” Allie looked skeptical.
“Come on, trust me. Your mom would be so happy to see you have a goal in life. And it’s your dream too. One day when you see your dreams come true, you’ll be so happy. It’s the kind of happiness that ‘new things’ won’t be able to give you.”
“Wow, really? I want that. Okay, I’ll give it a try.”
“Now you have some work to do. Don’t worry, you’re not doing this on your own. I’ll do whatever I can to help you get there.”
In order to get into Emily Carr Institute, she needed to finish off her high school diploma. We tried out different adult schools, but it was literally impossible to get her up in the morning. I kept a tube of tennis balls in my trunk. When she didn’t answer the doorbell in the morning, I’d toss tennis balls at her bedroom window until I’d see her groggy eyes peering out with some combination of affection and resentment—mostly the latter. By the time she was finally dressed, classes were usually over.
We eventually decided that night classes were the way to go. The ensuing challenge was homework. With the intention to create a distraction-free study environment, I assumed many of her daily errands, including taking care of her dog—a white toy Pomeranian. Little by little, I slowly became Allie’s personal assistant and general domestic. Even though it wasn’t at all easy, I was thoroughly invested in making a respectable career woman out of her somehow.
In addition to arranging for Allie to attend adult high school, we found a student who was already studying at Emily Carr to be Allie’s personal tutor to help her prepare an admission portfolio. She had to spend at least 12 hours per week over eight months to learn all the different techniques required to create the twelve required projects. This was the toughest challenge of the process because each project was a lot of work—something to which she was not accustomed. The projects were a kind of mandatory rehabilitation from the laziness she’d developed after dropping out of high school. I would see glimmers of hope and some change in her behaviour, but because I was the primary motivator, she was prone to relapses of indolence. It was too easy to party, exploit her looks to get what she wanted, and generally be a “taker.” She desperately missed the fun and attention she garnered at parties.
A quarrelsome relationship was the last thing I needed in the middle of my long and emotionally draining trial. I’d go to trial all day long, only to find myself in an all-evening-long battle with Allie. I was no longer “living the dream” with my high-maintenance girlfriend. What started as a fairy tale had turned into the most stifling, frustrating, and unfulfilling relationship I had ever had, fight after fight, insult after insult. I should have ended the relationship months before, but something inside me just wouldn’t give up. I wasn’t ready to let it go, but circumstances soon forced the matter.
_______
The final chapter of this love story was not the making of a Disney feature. It’s very difficult to date from behind bars. One evening prior to receiving my sentence I was watching an episode of Prison Break with Allie. In that episode, a prisoner was meeting his girlfriend in the visitation room. He was so happy to see her, but the feelings were not being reciprocated. She told him that she was pregnant, and while the guy was jumping up and down cheering, she delivered the cruel news that he was not the father. He went crazy, and the prison guards swarmed him and took him back to his cell. The cigarette in my hand dropped into the ashtray. This could easily be me.
After my sentencing, it was nearly impossible to maintain the relationship with Allie. After all, I could no longer function as her personal assistant. When she needed me to help her solve problems, I wasn’t there. Whenever she wanted to talk to me, there was no way for her to call me. When she wanted to cry, there was no shoulder to lean on, and vice versa. My going-away gift for her was to pen the admission essay required for her portfolio submission. I spent days doing the research and putting the essay together while she slept beside me on the couch. While I knew I should not spoil her to this extent, I wanted her to have a better future than the one she was headed for.
After a year of hard work, it finally paid off. Allie got accepted by the Emily Carr Institute a month after my imprisonment. I had a sense of achievement for keeping my promise to get her there. After so many failures, this made me feel useful, though in retrospect this was not a
