by Anna J.
She was brought to him a broken-down, lonely, angry, frightened fourteen-year-old who wanted to prove to the world that she was tough. He saw right through it all. From the beginning they argued daily. She screamed that he knew nothing about her.
“Those files don’t mean shit, motherfucker!” she would yell.
He would remain calm and wait it out. Their arguments turned to long conversations about her growing up without parents after watching them being murdered. Conversations that were tearful for her, and for the first time in his career, someone’s story brought him to tears. Mecca became Dr. Parker’s personal task.
“Dr. Parker, tell us about Mecca Sykes and what it was like working with her for twenty years,” Moore said, taking a seat next to Mecca. Dr. Parker smiled, showing a set of perfectly white teeth.
In 1998 officials from the Brooklyn family court and juvenile facility literally had to strap down a young teenager to a hospital gurney and wheel her into the Bronx facility. Dr. Louis Parker and his staff were awaiting the new admission. They were forewarned by her attorney that she was not a happy camper.
The staff wasn’t shocked by her behavior; they’d seen it all before. Nobody wanted to be admitted to a “crazy house” involuntarily, especially a teenager. Mecca was immediately sedated and put on suicide watch for her first week. Once she was calm, Dr. Parker paid her his first of many visits in a dimly lit padded room that brightened after he walked in. After introducing himself, Mecca simply stared at him.
“Double homicide? Wow, you’re a real mean young lady.” He leaned against the padded wall.
“And what?” she growled. Mecca sat on a chair that had been bolted down and was connected to a plastic desk on the wall. She rolled her eyes.
He held up his hands. “I’m not your enemy, dear. I’m here to help.”
“I don’t need your help,” she snapped.
“Obviously you do. I mean, the average fourteen-year-old girl, as pretty as you are, usually doesn’t kill two people and something isn’t wrong.”
“Maybe they deserved it,” she mumbled, rolling her eyes and neck simultaneously.
“I doubt that,” he stated. “But let’s talk about that for a minute.”
Mecca studied the gold nameplate on his white coat. “Listen, Dr. Parker ...”
“Call me Lou. That’s what everyone calls me.”
Within a two-year period, Dr. Parker was able to break through Mecca’s tough exterior, which he called a “defensive front.” At her first five-year hearing, Dr. Parker felt they were making progress, but still opposed her release. He had determined that she was not ready and was still showing antisocial behavior.
Then, at the last hearing, he again opposed her release but explained in depth about her condition and treatment.
“Under hypnosis, Mecca has imagined an envious version of herself living a life of crime where she is the heir of a drug-dealing empire headed by her aunt, who I know personally as a hardworking woman in the Department of Corrections. More strangely humorous about this life as a big-time drug dealer who controls her Brownsville neighborhood is that her other characters are me, my staff, and her fellow residents at the facility. She envisions some of them as her close friends who became her enemies. Enemies she is seeking revenge on.”
“Who does she envision you as in this imaginary tale?” the judge asked Dr. Parker.
“A cross between the Devil and God.”
“Dr. Parker,” Moore continued, “at Mecca’s fifteen-year hearing, you informed the court of this imaginary tale of a life of crime, which she shared with you under hypnosis. How did you go about dealing with that?”
“With the help of staff like Dr. Carter, Mason, and McLeod, the progress begins by digging beneath the emotional scars and anger to bring out the good that all humans have subconsciously within them and that they suppress with the emotional baggage. We knew from the start that her problem started in childhood, with the murder of her parents.
“I presented her with different scenarios in problem-solving sessions called Thinking for a Change and Anger Management. For example, one scenario that I presented her with was, what if she found out her aunt was responsible for her parents’ murders?”
People in the spectators’ section all looked at Ruby, who was embarrassed by the comment.
“We wanted to know how she would deal with it,” Dr. Parker continued.
“Initially, she wanted to seek revenge on her aunt, and when other scenarios were introduced, such as characters in her imaginary tale betraying her, she wanted revenge on all of them. Within the last five years, she eventually began to see the foolishness in her tale. A psychologist from centuries ago, named Sándor Ferenczi, termed when another person becomes part of a person’s ego, internalizing that other person’s character introjections. Mecca’s character in her imagination was her father. He was a drug dealer in her Brownsville neighborhood.
“Another way I dealt with her was by replaying her childhood to her. I had pictures of her as a child, along with family and friends, up to her teenage years, prior to being admitted to the facility. Under hypnosis, we traveled back to those days.
“I found out that she wanted answers as to why things happened that made her sad. The untreated head trauma only added to her condition. Fortunately for her, she was a young lady when the trauma occurred, and her brain had not fully develop. The trauma only caused her development to slow down, so at fourteen she actually had the mind of a nine-year-old, one who felt anger and felt unloved by everyone. Along with growing up in Brownsville, her mental state fueled the feelings of rejection and depression.”
Moore stood up and walked to the podium. “So today, twenty years later, what is your recommendation, Dr. Parker?”
He sighed and looked at Mecca as his eyes filled with tears. Sniffles could be heard throughout the courtroom. His testimony was emotional for many, even the judge.
“Mecca is ready to go home.”
“Surprise!”
Mecca’s friends at the facility cheered as she returned from court accompanied by Dr. Parker and Ruby. The recreation room was decorated with balloons and glittering banners that read FAREWELL, MECCA!
Mecca smiled as she took in the faces of all the people she’d grown to love over the years. Her friends and fellow patients who had put up with her mean attitude and treatment of them.
“I should have never stolen her nail polish,” Tamika told herself.
“Listen, everyone!” Dr. Parker announced. “Mecca’s aunt is here to take her home. We have a podium set up so everyone can say their last words and good-byes. Miguel, make it short, and don’t be up there giving a sermon.”
Miguel was a young Puerto Rican patient who happened to be Mecca’s best friend. Mecca sat next to Ruby and Dr. Parker in a metal folding chair as her friends walked up to the podium one by one and said their good-byes.
Karmen, her sometime friend who had been at the facility since 1990 for killing her boyfriend, who had smacked her in the face for yelling at him, got up to speak. She had cut his body into pieces and had fed them to her pit bulls. She’d kept his head in the freezer. It wasn’t unusual to see the two of them competing for the interest of the boys within the facility. As she spoke, she rubbed one of her braids that fell over her shoulder.
“I know we were at each other’s necks, Mecca, but all in all I admire you. You’re a real chick. I’ll miss you.”
Karmen walked away. Next came a brown-skinned girl two years younger than Mecca, named Tamika. For years, they’d hated each other, after she found out that Tamika had stolen nail polish from her makeup kit. When Mecca found out from Karmen, who wanted her to do something so Mecca could get into trouble, Mecca got a razor and slashed Tamika while they played in the rec room. Tamika needed thirty stitches to close the wound. Afterward, she was placed in a rubber room for a week, and when staff found out Taheem had given her the weapon, he was transferred to another facility.
“I never said I was s
orry for stealing your nail polish. I’m sorry, Mecca.” Tamika walked toward her with her arms out, and Mecca stood to hug her. “You deserve this more than any of us,” she told her. Tamika was there for killing her baby by dumping her newborn in an incinerator.
Next, a tall, handsome, athletically built man three years older than Mecca rose to speak. He was admitted to the facility a year after her for chopping his younger cousin’s head off in an East New York building.
He told the cops, “That motherfucker stole my bag of weed.”
Shamel was Mecca’s first crush. He was placed in the rubber room for a week when he beat up Taheem for giving Mecca the razor to cut Tamika. He knew Taheem did it so Mecca could get into trouble.
Mecca had told Dr. Parker that Taheem hated her, which was why he’d given her the razor. She explained he hated her because she wouldn’t be his girlfriend. Dr. Parker understood why in her imaginary tale of crime, Taheem shot her, placing her in a coma for three months.
In his cool tone, Shamel spoke. “I’m gonna miss you, Mecca. You know how we do. Stay up. I love you.”
Shamel walked over to hug her.
“Oh, boy!” Karmen said as Miguel began walking to the podium. Everyone laughed.
Miguel was the most talkative guy in the facility. All he talked about was how he was a street-ball legend from Bushwick, Brooklyn. He bragged and showed pictures of him at Rucker tournaments. He had articles about him being one of the best high school players in the country. He would talk for hours. It was Mecca who loved to listen, though. Miguel was her second crush once she found out that Shamel was messing with Karmen.
Miguel was admitted to the facility in 1997, after he stabbed and killed his father and then shoved a broomstick up his dead father’s ass. Miguel’s father had molested him since he was seven years old. Basketball was his escape from his horrible home life. His mother died of a drug overdose a year after his father first molested him. He immediately fell in love with Mecca when he got to the facility. He didn’t care that at first she paid him no attention when he sent her cards he’d drawn of beautiful landscapes. He was an extremely good artist. He wrote her notes of how he wanted to travel the world with her, go to places like Paris and Italy. He said he would become a basketball star and spend the money on making her happy.
Eventually, Mecca began speaking to him. She found him to be cute. It didn’t matter that he was talkative. Mecca put his stories into her imaginary tale. Every day she sat with him, listening to him talk about growing up in Bushwick and being the neighborhood star. He never talked about his personal life.
“I hate to see you go, Mecca, but I’m happy that you get to go. I don’t know what I’m gonna do now. I look forward to our talks. Can I call you?”
“Oh God, don’t do it,” Karmen joked.
“Shut up, Karmen,” Miguel said. “Anyway, I love you, Mecca. You’re my best friend, and you will always be that. I never had—”
“Okay, Miguel,” Dr. Parker interjected. He knew Miguel was about to go into one of his speeches.
“A’ight, Dr. L. Bye, Mecca. I love you.” Miguel went over to a crying Mecca, and they hugged tightly.
Dr. Parker walked Mecca and Ruby out to the parking lot. Before they exited the facility, the old, stooped-shouldered, bald-headed janitor they called Stone came over to them.
“Hey, Mecca. You leaving finally?” His voice cracked.
“Yes, Stone, I am.” Mecca walked over to hug him. For twenty years she had watched him clean up blood, vomit, feces, and other human body fluids from off the floor of rooms and the halls. He was a nice old man who treated the children like his grandkids. He snuck in candy to give them. Mecca was one of his favorites. He reached in his old uniform and pulled out a picture.
“She would have loved to see this day.”
Mecca grabbed the picture, and a tear dropped from her eye. The picture was of an old black female patient all the people called Nanna.
Nanna had spent thirty years at the facility, after killing her two sons, who she believed were possessed by the devil. She told the judge, “My sons, Kaheem and Brian, were sent here by Satan to tempt me. The Bible say, ‘Don’t tempt the Lord thy God.’”
In 2002 Nanna died of a heart attack. She was seventy-seven years old.
“Good-bye, Stone.” Mecca hugged the old janitor.
Outside, Dr. Parker hugged Mecca. He prayed Mecca’s behavior, which had made him recommend that she be allowed to reenter society, wasn’t an act. He had seen plenty of patients act as if they no longer suffered from mental illnesses. They “introjected,” as psychologist Sandor Ferenczi called it, other people’s character. They acted normal when they really weren’t. He felt strongly that Mecca wasn’t acting. If she was, she was one of the best actors he’d ever seen. Hollywood would definitely be her calling.
“Remember, if you feel you need someone to talk to, or you’re feeling stressed or depressed, I’m a phone call away,” Dr. Parker said as he wiped Mecca’s tears with his hand. Mecca hugged him tightly.
“I’m gonna call even if I’m not depressed,” Mecca responded.
Ruby shook his hand. “Thank you for everything.”
“It was my pleasure. Mecca made me realize this job was worth taking.”
With that said, Mecca and Ruby got in Ruby’s ’07 silver Range Rover. Mecca waved at Doctor Parker as they drove off, and he returned the gesture.
They drove in silence for a while, and Ruby looked over at her now thirty-four-year-old niece. She looked like the spitting image of her mother, Big Mecca.
Tears fell down Mecca’s face. Ruby fought to hold back her tears. She had to show strength for her niece. She was extremely happy that her niece was finally going home. She had spent thousands of dollars hiring lawyers to help her niece get released. Only to have her hopes crushed every year.
Every opportunity, she’d visited Mecca for twenty years, witnessing the change in her. At times, she’d even admitted to herself that Mecca wasn’t ready for the streets. Mecca was an emotional wreck, and Ruby knew why. She also knew that what helped her somewhat in her process of getting better was something that Ruby told her during one of their visits.
As Mecca looked out the window at the passing cars and the homes and buildings of the Bronx, the clouds seemed brighter than anything she had ever known.
“Thank you, Ruby.”
“What’s that for, baby?” Ruby asked.
“For killing the guys who killed my parents.”
Urban Books, LLC
78 East Industry Court
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Hell’s Diva 2: Mecca’s Return Copyright © 2011 Anna J.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without prior consent of the Publisher, except brief quotes used in reviews.
ISBN: 978-1-5998-3239-5
This is a work of fiction. Any references or similarities to actual events, real people, living, or dead, or to real locales are intended to give the novel a sense of reality. Any similarity in other names, characters, places, and incidents is entirely coincidental.
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