by A. R. Rivera
I sat there as the two cops hammered me with question after question. They were too worked up to bother hearing anything I said, so I dropped my head, trying to reach my cuffed, discolored fingers with my mouth. I wanted to lick them, to see if the ink would bleed.
“. . . You wouldn’t know anything about that would you?” The younger cop, Gutierrez his badge said, preached at me, still pretending to want answers.
I took the opening—it was too easy. “Know that you’re a tool? No one had to tell me. It’s obvious.”
Leland was the other guy. He looked older and was dressed in street clothes with a badge hanging around his neck. He raised a hand at the younger cop, Gutierrez. My guess was to keep him from hitting me.
“The old neighbor lady . . . Mrs. Smith, she says you stole her car keys right off her kitchen table. A vehicle registered, to her, was found parked in the motel lot and your prints are all over it. Got any idea how that happened?” Leland asked.
Watching my black-tipped fingers resting against the metal chair, they looked strange, like they weren’t mine. They were just sitting there, like rude guests ignoring my commands to find a way out. Limp noodles.
“Look, I’ll tell you whatever you want to know. But you have to promise Angel walks. She had nothing to do with any of this.” I imagined we were in the middle a scene on one of those cheesy cop shows. I was trying to sound exactly like a suspect that the cops had in custody, whose instincts told them was guilty, but they couldn’t nail for lack of evidence. I thought I did okay.
Just like a cop show, Leland took a pencil from his shirt pocket and smacked it onto the table. “We’re not accepting any of your crazy bullshit. Tell the truth.” He shoved a notepad beside it and pushed both across the tabletop until they were right in front of me, just within and yet without, my reach.
Next thing I knew, Gutierrez was in my face, ripping the pages from the table. “You’re not fooling anybody. We don’t need a confession: we got you, your prints, two victims, the motel room, the stolen vehicle, dozens of witnesses that place you at the club, and everywhere else you been for the last ten years! Ward of the state—that’s you!” His hot, rancid breath made my stomach roll. I wished I had to burp or puke. I wanted to make him sick right back.
He still smoothed the paper back on the table and unlocked my right cuff.
“I’m left-handed.” I waited until he put his keys away to say anything.
Gutierrez hesitated. Leland nodded and cursed while his partner did what he was supposed to—like a good little civil servant—and relocked the right cuff around my wrist before releasing my aching left. That skank at the finger-painting station twisted it behind my back.
I started doodling while Gutierrez pulled a small remote from his pocket, pointing it towards a video camera in the corner. I heard the thin buzz of the lens adjusting.
The pencil in my hand was long and thin. The tip was sort of sharp. Brittle. It made me wonder . . . what if . . .
Clutching the new pencil—I didn’t even think about it, really. It wasn’t something I could think about. I just raised my hand and thrust it down as hard as I could, feeling nothing as the wood and led skewered the flesh of my thigh.
The supposedly fierce Officer Gutierrez paled. That was enough for me. A sweet reward. My smile grew bigger than a crescent moon as Leland jumped from his chair and ran for the door, yelling.
I couldn’t bring myself to remove the pencil, but I made a fist at Leland as he passed. It was another beat before both my hands were restrained once more.
Then, there was only pain. The chasm had opened again. It was sucking me in. I was drowning.
+++
When I opened my eyes, the interrogation room was gone. The new room was not white. The walls looked like exposed cinderblock. The only sound was that of metal. Clinking, clanking. Handcuffs thrashing against the metal frame of the bed.
Echoes in an empty room, I mused. How appropriate.
I was as good as dead—drowned inside the bottomless chasm—sinking in the emptiness, groping for a floatation device, wishing to make myself stop breathing. That was the worst part, knowing I could drown in the black feeling but couldn’t stop breathing. I tried holding my breath, but that just made me pass-out and start again.
I kept my head on the pillow and waited for whatever shrink I knew was coming to appear and make a decree.
After a while, a small man came through the locked door and folded himself into a single chair against the far wall. His hair was gray like the walls with mismatched dark brown eyebrows.
“Do you know why you are here?” He asked.
Because they want to pin me with bullshit battery and homicide charges!
Because I’m a fucked up nut-case with mommy issues!
Because the world hates me and I hate the world right back!
I turned away and shut my eyes. “I’m not. Here. At all.”
+ + +
46
—Angel
The three judges stare at me while I watch the mirrored wall, wondering over the blank faces behind it, the ears that must be listening. I don’t feel much better, but a little more unfurled.
“Society wants us, as individuals, to think that we’re so strong. But it’s a lie. We’re slaves to the physical of this world and its’ laws. We’re impotent.”
Taking a deep breath, I look at my own pathetic reflection in the mirrored glass. “Think about it: how much does it take to knock us from our towering achievements onto our knees? A breath from the earth would do it. The slightest shift in her axis and we’re all done for.”
More minutely, all it might take is a phone call. Like the one Jakes mother must have gotten. What happened to her when she heard the words, ‘Jake’s dead’?
A split-second decision to go instead of stay, to take the yellow light, to ignore the little voice in your head that says this turn might not take you where you think.
A few words of judgment, the bang of a gavel, and just like that: instead of spending my eighteenth birthday on a California beach; I’m coming of age in lockup.
“One wasted second, and we fall like dry leaves from a dead tree. How often do we take the time to think about that?”
Quiet Darren leans forward, looking at the clock. “We’ll pick this up tomorrow.”
+++
I can’t listen to modern music. I don’t want to hear any overrated Grunge or Metal with its’ thousands of sub-genres or trendy bands. I’m most comfortable with the music I grew up on. The stuff Jake hated.
Heaven isn’t too far away . . . The sound of Warrant hums from my little clock radio. The irony of the song clenches my chest and even though I have spent the better part a decade lamenting, I can’t help but break when Janie Lane says that no one really cares.
He’s right. Everyone’s gone. But unlike the song says, I will not keep trying. I decided before I ever got here that this case evaluation would be my last. The moment my testimony is over, I will be, too.
But I’m not done yet. I took too long today, went too slow to finish. So, for now, I must keep breathing and close my eyes . . .
+++
I’m seventeen, slow dancing with Jake inside his dark living room, in between the glass encased stereo and the wooden coffee table.
I feel the ghost of his lips skimming their way up my neck as he talks about what heaven is really like. “It’s nothing,” kiss, “like what you think.” Kiss, “It’s better,” kiss, “than you,” kiss, “can imagine.”
+++
It’s after twelve when I finally get into the room with my idiot lawyer, Tight Bun Tara, and Quiet Darren. They’re all waiting for me in their matching jackets. Today’s color is white. The lawyer is supposed to be here for me, playing on my team. So why the hell does he look so dang comfortable with opposing council?
There’s a sweating Diet Coke waiting for me, opened and waiting with a bendy straw. Right next to that is a bottle of water. I take the drinks because they help.
Taking my meds without food is not getting any easier. Makes me so dizzy I want to puke.
After I’m cuffed to my chair and take a few long sips of soda, I start in on my declaration, reminding everyone, once again, that what I am telling them is the way things looked to me. It is my picture, the one my mind drew up while I was navigating the maze.
I remind them of my leaving Carlisle in early June. “I’d expected to have my first taste of real freedom. I was graduating from that shithole high school. I was turning eighteen in September. I was in love and had just gotten engaged.” My eyes swell. “Before June was over, Jake was gone. By July, so was I. I don’t remember September. Someone said it rained.” The memory of a vague weather report whispers to me.
It took months to get to court, but I don’t remember most of it because the stress and depression had taken its’ toll; I was having near-constant migraines and was literally scared shitless. I couldn’t eat, sleep, or shit. That time was just a haze; with the general feeling that I didn’t care. I didn’t want to hold myself together. Nothing mattered.
But one thought kept sticking to me: there was no news about Avery.
“You’ve stated on several occasions that you do not recall the details of your arrest or the charges against you.” Darren asks, looking to my lawyer who clears his throat. “Why do you think that is?”
Why do they continually ask questions they know the answers to? “My memory has always had holes in it.”
Darren nods his head. “Yes, and that is often the case with persons having your diagnoses. What I’m curious about is how you can recall the most minute details of every moment you spent with Mister Haddon, but not recall the very important details of the crimes the state of Arizona saw fit to charge you with.”
My back straightens. “Ever heard of selective amnesia? Maybe I don’t want to remember.”
Tight Bun Tara stretches her hand across the table, getting my attention. “We’re veering off-topic. If we could continue?”
I turn to her. “My next clear memories are the handcuffs . . .”
+++
I came out of my constant daze with sudden clarity. As if I had passed through a fog that cut through time. I simply appeared there, on my feet, in a white jumpsuit.
I found myself standing between two guards in the midst of a large, plain room filled with small round tables and caged windows high up on the cement walls. Just like a cafeteria, but smaller and less smelly.
An empty visiting area, it looked like. But no one was going to visit me. Everyone hated me.
“What’s happening?”
The guard at my left didn’t meet my eyes so I turned to the one on my right and asked again. Right-side Guard removed his arm from mine only to replace it with another set of handcuffs that latched my chains to a loop molded on the underside of a table, and directed me to sit. “You’ve got a visitor,” the guard said.
Before I could get my hopes up, a grey-haired man walked into view, passing through a different doorway on the opposite side of the large room. A doorway that let the visitors come and go—not like the tricky door that I’d come through—which led me in but would never let me out.
The guards posted behind me as the gray-haired man, who was a little taller and a little more plump than he looked from across the room, sat down on the opposing bench. He set a briefcase in the space beside him, then popped it open. He rested a thick accordion file on the table, and then set both his laced hands on top.
“Are you a lawyer?”
The man shook his head. “No, dear.”
“It’s Angel.”
“Angel, my name is Doctor Bender. Do you remember me? We met once before.”
I shook my head.
“Well, I am a psychologist. I’ve been appointed by the court to examine your mental health on behalf of the state of Arizona.”
“Another doctor?”
“I have been advised of the charges against you, the incidents in the interrogation room, and have consulted with your regular physician and a doctor Elena Williams.” His brow furrowed. “Doctor Williams sent over her very extensive notes with a copy of your file.” His index finger plunked the top of the accordion file. “I would have followed up with you sooner, but I had to go over all the information and conduct some research.”
He popped off the rubber band holding the thick file folder and it sprang open, tripling in size. He removed a stack of papers and adjusted his rimless glasses.
“I’ve met separately with Avery, but this time I would like to speak with the both of you at once. Would that be okay?”
My forehead crumpled. “She’s here?”
I didn’t hear any doors open but as I spoke, Avery walked in wearing the same chains as me. She was bound at the waist, wrists, and ankles. She was allowed to sit beside me—at my left. I watched her from the corner of my eye.
Her shoulders were squared, her chin held high. “I will only speak to Doctor Williams. We had a deal.”
She twisted my direction. I refused to acknowledge her presence that felt like a weighty collar holding me back. She was so smug and demanding all the fucking time—I could not fathom why she and I had ever been friends.
The gray-haired man looked down at his papers—my file—and one corner of his mouth twisted down. “Avery, is it? I was told you might say that. So I have taken the liberty of asking Doctor Williams to join us. She should be arriving shortly.”
As if on cue, the same plain door, cordoned off by chain link fencing topped with barbed wire across the visitor’s area, opened. In stepped Doctor Williams and another guard, but he stayed inside the fencing, allowing her to pass through into our chamber, filling in an opening on the opposite side of the table.
She and Doctor Bender quickly exchanged whispers before her eyes locked on me. “I’m glad to see you, Angel. Avery.”
I couldn’t respond.
Avery screamed. “What happened to Doctor-Patient confidentiality?”
“You are being charged with a felony. Your case has officially been passed off to Doctor David Bender. I am here as a consultant.”
“Consulting my ass.” Avery spat. “You’re glad to get rid of us. No more Angel. No more head-cases.”
“Your specific issues are not within my scope of expertise, but they are within Doctor Benders. His opinions on your condition and this case may decide what happens to you from this point on.”
“We have to talk to him.” Her voice was suddenly soft and close. Half of my face burned from her breath on my cheek. She was looking directly at me, speaking into my ear. “Remember, Angel, how I always look out you?”
My throat swelled with unshed tears. How could she say that?
She paused, waiting. “Don’t worry. I’ll tell them.”
“One moment.” Doctor Bender held out his index finger then swooped it down into his briefcase. It reemerged on the button of a compact tape recorder. He set it on top of the table, speaking into the air, aiming his voice at the recorder, stating three names: his, Doctor Williams’ and mine. Then he looked to Avery. “I’m ready when you are, Avery.”
Avery mumbled, “Don’t hate me . . .” And then began in a steady voice, “We are broken, but we have value . . .”
With those few words, I felt a sudden wave of dizziness descend upon on me. It crashed over my left shoulder, rolled me onto my back, and I swear, it carried me away to another place and time.
I was six years old. Maybe seven. I was goofing around with Avery in the family room of whosever house I was staying in at the time. We were playing tag, running around the room and being rowdy. My shoulder knocked one of the bookshelves lining the wall. I fell to the hardwood floor. A tall jar of coins that was kept up on one of the higher shelves toppled over and rolled off the edge.
It hit the ground beside me with an ear-splitting shatter.
I don’t remember the name of the family (I wasn’t with them very long), but I remember the woman I stayed with had tight curls in her brown
hair. She was righteously pissed. She called me a thief, accused me of stealing from her, and then spanked me for breaking the jar. After she searched my pockets and came up empty, she told me I wasn’t worth the time it took her to clean up after me and then sent me to stand in the corner.
Avery was beside me the whole time.
Later, when we were alone, she . . . she whispered in my ear as I stood there, crying. “We are like that jar. We might have been broken,” she rubbed the permanent bump under my hair that never went away after my accident. “But we have value. You do. You do.”
Hearing Avery repeat those words to Doctor Bender, I knew right away what she was referring to, but it was an odd memory to evoke at that moment and it made me feel so strange.
I didn’t know.
I was completely unaware of how much I was missing, and completely alone in that ignorance.
47
—Angel
My chest is bursting with snotty, uncontrolled howls. One of my hands has been un-cuffed to let me wipe my nose. My throat feels unsteady as I try to keep talking, trying to tell them.
“I wish I’d died with him. I’d be better off. But you have to believe me, I didn’t know.”
Tight Bun leans in. “You didn’t know what?”
I want to roll my eyes into the back of my head just to see the look on the face of the guards behind me. I can’t be the only one flabbergasted by this stupid, stupid question. The reason I’m here is no secret to anyone.
Even my shitty lawyer is shaking his head.
The swell in my throat threatens to choke me. I clear it as best I can. “What I know now. I didn’t know then what I know now.”
Tight Bun Tara clasps her hands, setting them on the table in front of her. “And what is that?” This time, her own eyes are glistening as she passes me a replacement tissue. “What have you learned?”
“Who I am.”
“Who are you, Angel?”
“I’m—” fighting for a way to explain.
