Alyssa Mayer was four months pregnant the day a police officer showed up at her motel room in Kingston, New York. It was late afternoon in August 2013, the sun dragging toward the Catskills on the west side of town. Earlier that week, her boyfriend, who’d been sleeping at her place since he found out about the baby, had missed a curfew check. Both of them had recently gotten out of prison on parole, and weren’t supposed to be around anyone else with a criminal record. With the authorities looking for him, they could both get in trouble. So they’d packed some clothes and driven to a Super 8 and hoped for some idea of what to do next. Mayer was going out to pick up a pizza when she ran into the officer in the hallway.
She and her boyfriend had grown up together around Kingston. The area had been a manufacturing center for IBM until the company started laying of workers in the early 1990s, around the time Mayer was born, leaving not much more than strip malls and fast food joints, along with rising crime rates, in stretches of the Hudson Valley. After Mayer’s parents split up, when she was a toddler, her mother worked two jobs and would return home seeming distant. Mayer spent a lot of time at her grandmother’s house and, later, on the streets in the rough part of town. In high school, she moved in with a cocaine dealer she met one day at a gas station. He bought her new clothes, manicures, anything she wanted. By the time the relationship ended, she was making sales of her own.
In 2009, when Mayer was 18, she fronted six grams to a friend who had just gotten out of prison. He told her he was broke and needed to make a quick deal. As it turned out, he had already made one with the local narcotics team. Some time later, the cops kicked in the front door of her apartment, and she ended up with a three-year felony sentence.
Denne historien er fra July - August 2015-utgaven av The Atlantic.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent ? Logg på
Denne historien er fra July - August 2015-utgaven av The Atlantic.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
Allerede abonnent? Logg på
The Dark Origins of Impressionism
How the violence and deprivation of war inspired light-filled masterpieces
The Magic Mountain Saved My Life
When I was young and adrift, Thomas Manns novel gave me a sense of purpose. Today, its vision is startlingly relevant.
The Weirdest Hit in History
How Handel's Messiah became Western music's first classic
Culture Critics
Nick Cave Wants to Be Good \"I was just a nasty little guy.\"
ONE FOR THE ROAD
What I ate growing up with the Grateful Dead
Teaching Lucy
She was a superstar of American education. Then she was blamed for the country's literacy crisis. Can Lucy Calkins reclaim her good name?
A BOXER ON DEATH ROW
Iwao Hakamada spent an unprecedented five decades awaiting execution. Each day he woke up unsure whether it would be his last.
HOW THE IVY LEAGUE BROKE AMERICA
THE MERITOCRACY ISN'T WORKING. WE NEED SOMETHING NEW.
Against Type
How Jimmy O Yang became a main character
DISPATCHES
HOW TO BUILD A PALESTINIAN STATE There's still a way.