Jobee Kirstine has every convenient excuse not to go to school or to earn respectable grades or even to stay out of trouble. He could blame any shortcomings on a lengthy checklist of troubles at home.
An alcoholic mother in and out of prison. A father in prison for nearly half of his son's life. His older sister in prison. Drug and alcohol abuse and domestic violence in his home. Frequent moves from house to house, one step ahead of bill collectors.
JoBee, a thin, dark-eyed teenager who speaks softly and rarely, has seen much of life's hard side. He was once taken on a high-speed chase by his father with the police in hot pursuit; he called his mother from the car and told her what was happening with such calm that she thought he was kidding.
"JoBee has seen a lot that he won't talk about, probably things I don't even know about," says Lisa.
JoBee missed most of his sophomore year because his family was on the move so much. He stayed home to watch out for his mother and her battles with the bottle and to care for younger siblings, getting them up and ready for school.
His home life was a recipe for failure, but JoBee has risen above it. He pulls B and C grades while completing both his current course work as well as makeup work for that lost year. Earlier this year, Jordan School District presented him with a plaque honoring him as "Most Improved Student" at Hillcrest High.
Ask him what motivates him, JoBee shrugs his shoulders and says quietly, "To make a better life for myself."
This is Lisa Berry's story, as much as it is JoBee's. Lisa is JoBee's mother. She has dark hair and sad eyes and tattoos emblazoned on her back, chest, face, arms — "Crazy Girl" — and the backs of both calves — "City of Commerce" (the nickname of her native Los Angeles). Her daughter's face is imprinted on her back and her prison number is on one arm. Tears are tattooed by one eye — also for her daughter.
"There's no end to our story," Lisa says, staring at the floor. "I wish there was. You could make a movie about our lives."
Lisa's father moved his family to Utah to escape the gang life of East L.A. That's when Lisa's troubles started. She eventually took up with a man who would become the father of three of her children. The union was stormy, to say the least, and she found solace in drinking away entire days. Now 42, she has two more children by different men, one of whom also wound up in jail.
Her mother took care of her children while she drank and partied and went off to prison for traffic and drug violations, which wasted the better part of a decade. Now Lisa is taking care of her daughter's children while she sits in prison. She shakes her head at the irony.
"Now I know what I put my mother through," she says.
She is worn out, but having her daughter's two babies these past 19 months has forced her to go sober, she says. They are two of the five children under her care. JoBee baby-sits the babies and younger children when his mom needs help.
Somehow, the boys in this family have cut their own paths. Lisa's oldest son, Anthony, works for a bank and is doing well. Joey, a year younger than JoBee, went from straight F's in school to A's.
"I'm shocked at how well they're doing," says Lisa. "It's probably because they see how we were living."
JoBee will complete graduation requirements this year, but probably not in time to graduate with his class. Just the fact that he goes to school at all is a victory.
"We celebrate him, because so few in these situations pull it off," says Karen Brown, a Hillcrest counselor. "You see it over and over, kids falling into the same traps as the parents. JoBee has kept it together."
JoBee, an aspiring mechanic, hopes to open an auto repair shop with his father, who is scheduled to be released in October. He receives encouragement in letters from his sister and father in prison. "They tell me to get good grades and not to do what they did," says JoBee.
For her part, Lisa, trying to undo some of the damage, has been active in overseeing her children's schooling. "I respect her," says Brown. "She's met with me twice. She's really trying. She wants a better life for her kids."
Doug Robinson's column runs on Tuesdays. Please e-mail drob@desnews.com.