Birthdays of a Princess (2 page)

Chapter
3

Macintosh hated dealing with teenagers, couldn’t stand to see them
piss it all away because of drugs or simple stupidity. But he figured this case
to be fairly straightforward once all the media hype had died down. Interview
her, write the report, hand it over to the judge. Nothing to it. Get it over
with as fast as you can, and get on with your life. He opened a new file,
grabbed a coffee, and stepped out of his office at the Graveley Street VPD
station.

His partner was waiting for him outside.

“Listen,” Harding said, “if you want, I can do this by myself.”

Macintosh was tempted. The final stage of his career shouldn’t be
wasted on a junkie. But what the hell, you take what life—and the Sergeant—throws
at you.

“Can’t let a dumbass like you ruin a cut-and-dry case.” He shook his
head, forced a smile and stepped into the plain, brightly-light interview room.
He pulled up a chair. Harding hovered in the background.

“State your name and address, please,” Macintosh said to the
shackled and handcuffed girl, clad in an orange jumpsuit.

She didn’t react.

“I don’t have all day. If you don’t cooperate, I’ll have you locked up
and throw the key away. All the same to me.”

The girl didn’t move.

He looked at her more closely. Sitting behind the steel table, it
was hard to judge her height, but she was very young and small and skinny. A
fragile orange bird. Pretty in a way, with soft round features, smooth and not
yet painted by life. She wore no makeup. Her dark hair was cut boyishly short.
It seemed to him that she had made a concentrated effort to achieve a certain
mediocrity. Macintosh remembered his daughter. My God, how she had loved dressing
up.

He shook the thought off.

“Don’t make it harder on yourself. We’ll find out who you are sooner
than you think.”

The girl continued to stare a hole in the table-top, barely
blinking.

The detectives studied her in silence for a while, hoping to
unsettle her that way. She didn’t seem agitated, as could be expected from a
person having committed a serious crime resulting in bodily harm. She also
didn’t suffer obvious withdrawal symptoms, and she certainly wasn’t in awe of
her surroundings. Her shoulders were straight, her hands lay folded in her lap
to comfortably accommodate her cuffs, and her face was a mask.

“How old are you?”

No reaction.

Macintosh shook his head and motioned Harding to follow him. The
detectives left the room.

“That’s a bummer,” Harding said as soon as they had closed the door.
“She’s got no ID on her.”

“Ah, don’t worry. I bet she’s been doing drugs, probably on the
Eastside. She’ll be in the system.”

“What are we gonna do with her?”

“Nothing. Let her stew in there. Eventually they all get bored.”

It didn’t take very long to identify her. Somebody saw the footage
on TV, recognized her and called in with the information. Her name was Tiara
and the caller said he knew her mother, Melissa, who, as expected, lived on the
fringe of the Downtown Eastside. The caller hadn’t known the mother’s last name
and couldn’t give an exact address, but he had seen both of them a few times in
his corner shop.

“I hope for her sake she looks younger than she actually is,” Harding
said.

Macintosh only shook his head. “Can’t imagine her being over
eighteen. Not a day over sixteen, if you ask me.”

Chapter
4

They are so transparent. Those detectives are watching me from
behind the mirrored wall, I’ve seen it often enough in movies. Won’t catch
me
cracking under pressure.

I’m not a murderer. Even if I killed that bitch, I don’t think I’m
guilty of anything. I feel no remorse because my intent to kill wasn’t born out
of hatred or driven by a lust to kill. It wasn’t a bad thing. I know that I did
it because I
had to do
it
, same as a mother has to wipe the snot
off her child’s nose. There’s no other explanation for it. I did it to cleanse
a filthy spot from the surface of my being. I hope it has been a clean swipe
and I’ve gotten rid of the slime covering my soul. It doesn’t make me a
murderer, but if I haven’t succeeded and she has survived, I can’t even be
called a decent cleaning lady. The slime will still be there, suffocating my soul.

Other than this, I can’t give them anything, so I might as well shut
up altogether. I fold my hands and start to breathe deeply. I can sit here
forever, staring at the table. I have learned to sit quietly and be obedient. I
have learned to bob over an ocean of minutes and hours in an imaginary boat.
Far, far away I float, until I see no shoreline, not behind me and not in
front.

If I just concentrate on the floating, I drift and dream along, not
thinking of anything in particular. Usually it takes only a little discipline,
but today it seems to be a lot harder.

The room around me changes color. Grey becomes sea foam turquoise
and white. The air-conditioner noise transforms itself into an ocean breeze.
Damn it, I’m drifting into Galveston. But I don’t want to go there. I want to
hang out in no-memory land. It scares me to think of the town I grew up in—going
back seems dangerous, even if it’s only in my thoughts.

But how else will I remember?

I close my eyes and try to project the turquoise ocean picture back onto
the silver screen behind my eyelids, far away and slightly out of focus, so I
can blink it away quickly.

Nothing happens.

Beautiful, threatening Galveston stays at a distance, kept at bay by
the fading image of the faceless bitch. I wonder where my strawberry flavored
urge to destroy her came from.

A door opens and I can feel one of the policemen come back in again.

“I’m Detective Macintosh,” he introduces himself this time and turns
on the recorder.

A little curious, I look at him. He is slightly overweight, quite old.
At least fifty. What’s left of his hair is salt-and-pepper—a lot more salt than
pepper—and curls outward like the dry bark of a birch tree. Bad hairdresser or just
bad hair day, I can’t say for sure.

“You spend too much time in your office,” I say.

“What?” Vertical furrows carve darkly into his leathery yet
pig-colored skin.

“You’re so pale.”

“My complexion is the least of your problems,” he says. “State your
name and address.”

I can feel the antipathy he hurls toward me. The guy is wired. He
has bottled up too much excess energy and is ready to implode. I guess he hates
his job, or his life, or both. His mouth is a thin line. He doesn’t give a
damn, not about me, and not about anybody else. I like that. A lot. I don’t
want people around me get all touchy-feely.

“You’re the policeman. Figure it out.”

“We know already who you are, Tiara,” he says with a brief twitch of
his upper lip, like a smile gone wrong.

I look away.

“Your mother Melissa will be contacted shortly, so don’t give me any
crap.”

Good luck with that one, a great help she’ll be.

Chapter
5

When the doorbell rang, Melissa expected the police but it was only
her mother.

Louise’s face was ghostly white and drawn. She looked like she had
aged ten years since their last meeting, which had been only a few days ago.

“Melissa, did you see it?”

Her mother was a head shorter and half of her in volume, but had the
same face, the same gestures and the same movements. This carnal miniature of
hers barged in and headed straight toward the kitchen.

“I came right away.” Louise put the kettle on and pulled fresh mugs
and tea bags from the cupboard. “God, I can’t handle this. My heart!”

Melissa sat at the table watching her.

“It was her, wasn’t it?”

Melissa nodded.

Her mother didn’t even look at her. “I always knew it would come to
this!” followed by: “It had to come to this!!!” and rounded off with: “Mark my
words, this is only the beginning.”

Melissa sighed.

“You should never have gone down there. Don’t say I haven’t warned
you!”

Melissa sighed again, heavier.

“You could have had that job at the elementary school, it was as
good as yours. A steady job! How could you throw your whole education away, all
that studying for nothing, as if it hadn’t cost me a bundle!”

Now Melissa could feel the familiar anger rise, but this time despair
reduced its fire to a barely smoldering heap of ashes.

“Stop it, Mother. You’re not helping.”

“What do the police say?”

“They haven’t contacted me yet.”

Louise put on an indignant face. “What? Why not? How can they
not
speak to you? You’re her mother!”

“Maybe they don’t know who she is.”

“Don’t be ridiculous! They’ll ask her for her name. This is
unacceptable—”

“Mother!”

“I’m just saying. You’ve got to call them right away—”

“I don’t have their number.”

Louise brought the filled mugs to the table and sat down.

“Then call 911.”

“No.”

“You must. They need to know.”

“Leave me alone and stop meddling.”

Louise stared, sniffed. Tears welled up.

Melissa envied her mother. She herself had no tears—it was all too
sudden. This fury on the TV, how could this be her daughter?

“I’m sorry,” Louise said.  “But look at it my way, if you hadn’t
left me, if you hadn’t run away with that man, you wouldn’t have had to suffer
so much.”

As usual, her mother had it all wrong.

“If Mike hadn’t died,” Melissa said, “nothing like this would have
happened.”

“But he did die!” Louise said. “And you had to bring her up on your
own. And now look what came of it.”

The women withdrew into silence, each one in her corner of the ring.

Melissa sipped her tea. How could her life have derailed so badly? Where
had
it gone wrong? Was it when she packed her bags to join her new love
in Texas? Or was it when she lived with his sister Gracie at their family home
in Galveston, while he had to go fight a war on the other side of the world? Or
was it when she had found out that she carried his baby? No, she had been happy
then. It must have been when she was told of his fatal accident, so unfortunate,
so unnecessary. That was when she had felt most vulnerable. That was when she
had needed her mother most.

“You weren’t there,” Melissa said. “You have no idea what I’ve gone
through!”

“I know, honey. I’m so sorry. I would have come much sooner if I’d known.”

“You knew perfectly well I’d just lost a husband! You never called
back!”

“Can’t we just leave all this behind?”

“I’m not the one who brought it up.”

Louise looked lost. “You’re here now. You’re back home.”

Melissa turned away from her mother and stared out the window.

“Then how come I don’t feel welcome?”

Louise got up to make fresh tea. Twelve long years of silence had
dragged them down to a level where communication was difficult at best.

Chapter
6

Their machinery is well oiled—they bring me before a judge the same
day I’m arrested. This time I stare at a hole in the wall. The judge orders me to
be held in custody until my mental fitness is established, which—he points out
with a weary voice—is normal procedure.

They transport me to prison. It has a fancy name, the Burnaby Youth
Secure Custody Center, but it’s a prison all the same. A place for people like
me: dangerous to the public but too young to be thrown in with adult offenders
who’d make mince-meat out of us aspiring criminals.

BYSC is a modern, low rise brick building, from what I can see
through the window slit of the prison van. The driver reverses into a loading
bay; shutters go down, then they open the van doors and let me out. Two
security guards assist me down the steps and into the building, making sure I
won’t slip and hurt myself and tell a lawyer later on they roughed me up.

I arrive at a processing area and am asked to stand in front of a fishbowl
counter. The guy behind the bullet-proof, convex glass asks my name. I say
nothing. He shrugs, doesn’t give a damn, has difficult customers all the time,
I guess.

They usher me to the next room. Three different security guards,
female this time, unprotected—brave heroines of the system—take my cuffs off
and unshackle me, watch me undress, ask me to shower, and then they let me
decide which color sweat suit I want to wear. There are four different colors
in the Center which help the staff categorize their ‘residents’ (yes, I’m told
we are residents) and normally the inmates, oops, sorry, residents, can’t
choose, but as I’m transferred to the Inpatient Assessment Unit for my mental
fitness tests, it doesn’t matter what color I wear there. I choose green.

The IAU is like a hospital. My room is big enough to accommodate a
bed, a desk and a chair. Suddenly there is peace around me. Silence. I stretch
out on the mattress, hands behind my head, very pleased with myself, at least
for the next little while. I’m still a bit worried I might not be able to
transport myself into a dream world. If I can’t control my thoughts, I’ll fall
into darkness with a concrete block attached to my legs which drags me deep
into murky inability, incapability. Depression.

I just want to lie here and savor the sweet memory of my outburst,
but being unable to remember any more than the action itself drains all
pleasure out of it. On top of that, a new feeling seeps into my satisfaction, a
dark and intense feeling of hostility. Every fascicle of my nervous system
carries one simple but powerful message to my brain: I hate her. My brain is suddenly
swamped with pure, unadulterated rage.

I hate that bitch I hate that bitch I hate that bitch.

A guard comes in, takes me to another room where I’m interrogated by
a psycho-doc who pretends to have ‘my interest at heart’. He asks me all sorts
of questions so he can better understand me. He says it’ll help my case.

I answer every question with: “My name is Princess Tia and I refuse
to answer any questions.” I think this reaction is more commonly used in war
movies, but who cares.

The psycho-doc takes it in stride. This guy is smart. He even
looks
smart. Middle-aged, swinging either way, depending on your perception of age. I
decide he is young, even with his hair, beard and all, so grey it’s shining
white. He isn’t like anybody I have ever known until now. I think of a dove
when I watch him move his hands with soft swings to underline a mellifluous
comment.

 “You don’t have to say anything if you don’t want to,” he says, “but
if I were you, I’d think it over. It’s totally up to you, but it might be in
your own interest to cooperate with me. It’s your life.”

Now, fool that I am, that got me hooked. Before I can stop myself I
say: “My life is over anyway.” God, I sound whiny.

He closes his notebook, gets up. “If you say so.”

He is at the door already.

“They told me it might be murder.”

He stops.

“You don’t remember?”

“I lost it.” Suddenly tears well up. I’m so ashamed to cry in front
of this strange man. I’m terrified he might come closer, put his hand on my
shoulder.

He stays where he is.

“The court has asked me to offer an opinion if you are fit to stand
trial or if you are NCRMD. I won’t be able to help you if you are
non-disclosive.” When he realizes I don’t understand his jargon he clarifies:
“The court wants to know if they can put you on trial or if you are
not
criminally responsible due to a mental disorder
.”

“So that’s what it stands for.”

 “You’re quick.”

“Criminals don’t have to be morons.”

“Since you’re so clever, you better try to remember what you’ve
done. Try hard. It might all come back to you. We don’t need to talk about the
alleged offence, but I need to understand what makes you tick or I can’t
recommend that you get out on bail.”

“I don’t want to.”

“You don’t want to talk?”

“I don’t want to get out on bail.”

“Why not? You could go back to your mother until trial starts.”

“Shit, no! Leave her out of it! I don’t want to live with her and I
don’t want to see her!”

”Not even if she visits?”

I glare at him. How often do I have to repeat it?

 “You have a right to refuse her visit.”

 He gives me a moment but can sense that I’ve shut down. He shakes
his head, goes back to his desk, takes out another notebook, an unused one, and
a pencil from his desk drawer and slides both over to me.

“If you don’t want to talk to me, you might find it easier to write
things down.”

“Like what? I don’t remember anything.”

“Just a thought. Sometimes things come back while writing.”

I’m back in my hospital-like room inside the prison, and it is so
quiet I can hear my mind ticking and clicking. The psycho-doc got under my skin.
He’s got me uptight and emotional before I even knew what he was up to. Nicely
played, doc, I won’t let my guard down so quickly next time.

But he did dangle a carrot in front of me, and like a dumb rabbit
I’m reaching for it.

Sometimes things come back while writing.

This hatred still burns inside me. I want to, no, I need to know why
I tried to kill the bitch. Not knowing drives me crazy. But maybe I
am
crazy.
I must be, or I’d know the reason why furious orange flames scorch my insides.

For an endless time, I contemplate what the psycho-doc has offered
—If
you don’t want to talk to me, you might find it easier to write things down
—and
stare at the still closed notebook. Finally, I reach for the pencil and let it
roll between my fingers. It is round, with a sharp tip, I’m surprised they let
me have it. I could do damage with it. Another eye? Can you blind someone with
a pencil?

I slowly open the notebook. If I find out when and how it all began,
it might douse the fire. I need something to hold on to while trying.

My hand tightens around the pencil.

Birthday Zero

So, you don’t remember anything before age five or six? Bullshit, I
say. If you try hard enough, you remember. I do! Shall I tell you what happened
when I was born?

It was a hot day in 1998, August 21, to be exact, the same day my
father, Miguel ‘Mike’ Rodriguez, died during a goddamn stupid cruise missile
strike called Operation Infinite Reach. The US bombed an obscure terrorist camp
called Zhawar Kili in Afghanistan. Officially, the attack was in retaliation
for the bombings of the American Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, but
unofficially the CIA suspected Osama bin Laden to be there. Bad luck. They
found out later that he’d left a few hours prior to the attack. At least no US
soldier had lost his life—none other than my father, and even he wasn’t really
a casualty. The less said about it, the better. It hadn’t been the ultimate
sacrifice, it had been a goddamn stupid accident.

At about the time he blew his brains out, my mother was doing what I
assume expecting mothers do while waiting for their belly to pop. Don’t know that
one for sure because I wasn’t born yet—(not like my birth, which I
do
remember, remember?). Presumably she was knitting some tiny shoes or sewing
little toddler’s outfits. I wasn’t due for another month, but when she got word
of her beloved Mike’s unfortunate demise, she went straight into shock. They
took her to a hospital in Houston and performed a caesarean to make sure she
wouldn’t lose me too.

When she woke up, she couldn’t even look at me.

Next day, my father’s sister Graciella, or Gracie, as Mom called
her, dropped by with a bunch of flowers and a box of chocolates. After they had
cried together for a while, Gracie carefully placed me on my mom’s cut-and-stapled-back-together-again
stomach.

My mom said to Gracie: “At least it’s a girl. I couldn’t bear it if
it were a boy. I’m sure he’d look just like Mikey and remind me of him every
single day.”

And Gracie nodded in agreement and said: “Yes, it’s a blessing. A
girl is so much easier. We can make pretty things for her.”

Mind you, I was lying right on my mom’s now empty belly, listening
to every word the two ladies said. You believe that? Ha, ha—got you there. Of
course I didn’t. I was a newborn, for crying out loud. But I’ve heard it told
so many times that I can’t say if I know it from hearing or from experience. In
any case, it’s true, unless their account of my birth has been twisted to suit
their own memories. Could be a figment of my mom’s imagination because she
doesn’t want to admit that she didn’t even look at me, the red-wrinkled
premature bundle of obligations. It could well be that she cried and lamented
and cursed me for being born and becoming a burden to a young, widowed woman.
Wouldn’t surprise me, the way she always went on about her suffering and how
much she’s given up for me and so on.

Whatever. That was my Birthday Number Zero.

A big, fat Zero!