Florida Crime Diary 
Makin’ Babies

1,933 words

Editor’s Note:

Thomas Goodrich is a crime writer, and when he is not writing heart-wrenching accounts of Allied war-crimes (Hellstorm: The Death of Nazi Germany, 1944–1947 [Sheridan, Colorado: Aberdeen Books, 2010]) or Indian atrocities, his restless eye scans the South Florida newspapers for reports on local outrages which may have wider import.

Most white couples around here screw around and screw around and pretty much party their adult lives away, and then one bright morning in their mid-thirties they wake up with brainer hangovers and a cold shudder sweeps over them.

“Like, wow! Is this all there is?” they think to themselves after this, the 3,333rd drunk of their drinking career. “Like, what are we gonna do when we are, you know, like when we are all old and wrinkly and stuff, you know, like when we are 40 or so? Who’re we gonna have to like, you know, like take care of us and stuff when we really get old and crappy and can’t move, or whatever?”

So, that day and that night the startled couple gets right to work on their baby-making, determined to have ten or more in a year or less. But surprise . . . that wild jailbreak of spermatozoa that were once so hard-charging and feared for their unerring marksmanship back in the teens and twenties now can’t even find the target egg, much less score a direct hit; indeed, that female bull’s eye, once as big as a harvest moon, has now shrunk to a mere mote of molecular minisculity. And so, frustrated from all sex and no rabbits, the white couple now eagerly seeks to adopt a white baby. Then, when that wait of weeks turns into months, then years, the desperate couple even tries to buy a Russian baby for a bazillion rubles. But no, the Ruskies are themselves too busy imbibing vast quantities of Wodka to actually think about babushkas and kids.

Meanwhile, the blacks and tans of these United States of Surveillance cannot even give their hordes of kids away. As minority moms seemingly squeeze out chillun like white moms squeeze out cookie dough, the few that do get adopted are but a trickle compared to the demographic tsunami roaring down right behind. For these kids, these kids whose mothers’ child-rearing skills begins and ends with concocting the most tangled and ridiculous names imaginable, little D’Rondarius and little La’Shaneekwa either grow up quickly and become a scourge to society, or they don’t grow up at all.

Down at Miami the other night, cops responded to a call at an apartment in a crap-hole complex and there they found a three-year-old child just wandering the building, no visible means of support. When they did finally find the unit responsible for her well-being, the place was void of human life forms. Other than a stinking rat’s nest, no “parents” on the premises, and no parents as of this typing.

Not to be outdone, up at rival Tampa, a 22-year-old Latina went out one night this week for a much-needed break from her grueling profession of being a prolific baby-maker, crack addict, and party perra. She figured that her four kids—8, 6, 4, and 2—could shift for themselves for a few. A “few” in this case were days and cops were waiting when this loving “mother” returned, no doubt with another taco in the toaster.

Also in Tampa, some “mother” thought she might stop her infant’s constant crying, not by rocking it, or soothing it, or feeding it, or caressing it, or singing to it, but by dangling it over the balcony by its feet. The theory, I suppose, was that if the brat was going to wail and fuss anyway might as well give it a REAL reason to wail and fuss. Thus, holding the baby by its heels twelve feet above the asphalt, our amateur psychologist engaged in the “total immersion” approach to child-rearing. Alas, didn’t work. Not only did the kid continue to squall but the little black thing began turning purple.

When a cop finally rode to the rescue on his chariot pulled by only the swiftest of snails, he asked the murderous mom what in holy hell she thought she was doing by pulling a “Michael Jackson” like that?

“I was mad and I was making a point,” said the woman matter-of-factly. “I can do what I want with my baby. Nobody can stop me.”

The cop begged to differ. Placing some jailhouse jewelry on her wrists the boy in blue took the three-peat abuser off to the calaboose where, at the very least, the woman would get some relative peace and quiet.

No mention of what became of the crying infant so perhaps it was allowed to simply wander away and roam the neighborhood like a wild animal, as most toddlers in that section of town already do.

Sterilization? The possibilities are endless. . . .

Meanwhile, a woman up in Jacksonville — I will not denigrate the word “mother” by calling her one — was unloading booze and smokes from the car last week when her toddler simply wandered into the street. Not only did the child wander into the street, the seventeen-month-old crossed the street. Not only did the tot cross the street, but the little boy walked onto a neighbor’s yard. Once there he saw something large and furry. He wanted to see the thing close up and touch it. He did. A few seconds later the child was promptly killed by the Rottweiler. The dog was chained to a pole in the front yard. The tot, like a rag doll, was torn to ribbons. And really. . . .

. . . what kind of “mother” lets her tiny toddler just wander into a street? And really. . . .

. . . what kind of people, what kind of neighborhood, what kind of city, what kind of society, would allow a vicious (there are no other kind, apparently) Rottweiler to be staked out in the front yard? And really. . . .

. . . staking out a hundred-pound killing machine like that on the front lawn? The owners might just as well have chained an alligator or a man-eating tiger to their front porch. At the very least, the owners should be charged with negligent homicide; at best, out-and-out murder.

Closer to home, a Port Charlotte mother decided to make a day of it when she invited her teen daughter and friends along while she burglarized a home. Seems the owner of the place had recently kicked the bucket and the mom reasoned that if she didn’t break in and steal everything, someone else would. Adding some family quality time to the business operation was just icing on the cake because, after all, love and sharing are what mom’s are for, right?

Well dang it, after nosy neighbors spotted this hard working crew loading the loot into the back of a truck, sure enough cops showed up and rained on this fun-filled family outing. Turns out that this delectable damsel, this mom–as short and squat as she is sneaky and stupid–has a rap sheet as long as she is wide. Certainly one of the most misnamed drug-addicted thieves anywhere, Enchantra Love Meade is anything but enchanting, loving or sexy.

Up at the “Railroad Death and Dismemberment Capital of Florida,” Lakeland, nothing new from the homeless-headless hobo world except that little Chauntasia Gardiner is now five months old forever. No, the child did not die on train tracks as virtually everyone else up there seems to do. Nope. Chauntasia’s ma, Tavishia, or Tamisheika, or Tai’Kwanisha, or whatever, just let the child starve to death. Lame excuses were proffered about confusion in mixing baby formula or reading food instructions or whatever alibis pop into an empty head, but the fact is that the kid weighed less when it died than it did when it was born. It seems that the same vagina which squirted out the child spent way more time trying to come up with a clever name for the baby than it did in feeding it. Pretty clear to this old city boy that the child is better off dead than being “raised” by something almost too ignorant to breathe much less make babies and keep them alive.

Clearly, the women listed above are nine parts vagina and one part mother; “mothers” made mothers merely by a lucky spum shot on an unlucky egg. No, being a mom implies more than spreading one’s legs and dropping a frog every year and then wailing and sobbing in front of the cameras when that kid whose name you barely remember is killed in a drug deal and you standing there blubberin’ and blamin’ society for his ratty life and his violent death and after the news folks vamoose you rushing back in to catch the last half of Oprah. Being a mother is about love and sacrifice in good times and bad; it’s about being something greater than yourself and transcending your own selfish wants and needs; it’s about giving it up to save what you made; in a word, it’s about an instinctual impulse as old as time to defend your offspring to the death, if necessary. Clearly, those mentioned above are just oxygen thieves and space wasters, makin’ babies and makin’ more problems for themselves and for the world.

Enter Brandi Bookamer of Daytona, Florida. Brandi, 27, did what a real mom does. She did it instinctively cause that’s what real moms do. She gave it up. Brandi was prepared to give that last full measure to protect her chick.

Walking with her six-year-old daughter on a rural road near Daytona at dusk recently, Brandi was horrified when she saw not one, not two, not three, not even four, but five pit bulls running her way! Five loose pit bulls–looking for something to maul, maim, and murder–a mom and her daughter walking alone. Perfect. By the intensity of their eyes and the speed in their steps, it was clear to Brandi that the creatures were going to attack. Brandi didn’t even think.

“Run!” she screamed to her daughter, “Run home. . . . Run! Run!”

The frightened child did as her mom said and ran as hard as she could toward home.

Meanwhile, as she saw her daughter fleeing, the mother turned about to face the blood-thirsty beasts and draw the entire attack upon herself. What happened next must have been a terrible sight to see. What man would not have wished to be there to help her, with a loaded pistol, a machete or a simple club?

Later, when the EMT arrived, they found that Brandi was “barely moving.” The woman was drenched in blood and completely shredded. The dogs had left her for dead. Incredibly, although she was covered with dog bites and gashes, none of the wounds was fatal. The paramedics were stunned that Brandi survived such a vicious mauling with her life. That’s the good news. None of that good news, however, was due in any way to the low-life loser who allowed this herd of four-legged meat-grinders to pack up and swim free as sharks in the neighborhood. But I am angry, and I digress. . . .

Brandi Bookamer proved beyond all doubt that she was a five-star mother; not just in fun times, or when the cameras are rolling, but in bad times when there is no help in sight. In that true moment of terror and fear when a mom needs to step up, Brandi did. Who of us would not be proud to say, “That’s my mom! She laid her life on the line for me! My mom is the greatest mom in the world and I will always love her!”