Lemon

by Cordelia Strube

  Knock knock on the washroom door. I wait for someone to answer. Knock knock again.

  ‘Who’s there?’ I ask.

  ‘pc Ramkumar.’

  ‘pc Ramkumar who?’

  ‘Are you alright in there, miss?’

  ‘Certainly.’

  ‘Are you coming out?’

  ‘In a minute.’

  And why’s Rochester always calling her Janet when her name is Jane? And why doesn’t she say, ‘My name’s Jane not Janet’? I lift up my shirt and see finger-shaped bruises on my breasts. Bone’s fingers. My legs quit again. I slump back on the toilet. Doesn’t smell too bad in here. Cop bathrooms are mighty clean. Little Portuguese ladies must give them a good scrub with toxic substances before they rush home to serve their sahibs. Prisons are clean too. In one of Drew’s social-consciousness-raising zines they showed photos of prisons and schools. The prisons were pristine with all the latest facilities while the schools looked like delapidated prisons.

  Knock knock again.

  ‘Who’s there?’

  ‘Ramkumar.’

  ‘Ramkumar who?’

  ‘It’s time to come out, miss.’

  ‘In a minute.’

  When you think about it, old D. H. Lawrence was writing about women who had a desire to serve. And Hardy, and the Georges, and those other Brontës before consumption killed them. Our classical literature is all about women who end up serving some schlep.

  Knock knock.

  ‘Who’s there?’

  ‘Detective Sergeant Weech.’

  ‘Detective Sergeant Weech who?’

  ‘This isn’t a game, Limone. Come out or we’ll have to come and get you.’

  ‘I’m having bladder problems,’ I lie.

  Dead quiet for a minute.

  ‘What kind of bladder problems?’

  ‘It’s personal.’

  ‘Is this since the party?’

  ‘I’m not sure.’ Maybe if they think I’m traumatized they’ll leave me alone.

  ‘We can get you some medical help.’

  ‘I’ll be alright. Just give me a minute.’ I stumble over to the sinks, see some really messed-up girl with two black eyes staring back at me.

  Things get worse when Damian shows up. He starts out friendly, what’s up kid and all that, but when I won’t leave the can he starts ranting and I tell him to fuck off because he’s not my father. This gets the cops going, who is her father then? Who’s her mother? They can’t believe I’m unaffiliated. Orphan sympathy kicks in. I have to admit it’s getting stuffy in the can, and I’m scared my legs aren’t working properly. ‘Think what this is doing to Drew,’ Damian says through the door.

  ‘Think what you did to Drew,’ I tell him. All these adults running around messing with each other’s heads. The door swings open and Weech smiles at me like I’m a lost kitten he’s about to grab and flush down the toilet.

  ‘Are you thirsty?’ he asks. ‘Want a Coke?’

  ‘Sure,’ I say, hoping this’ll distract him for a few minutes.

  ‘You come out,’ he says, ‘and we’ll set you up with a Coke.’

  I hate Coke, it’s like drinking cleaning fluid. ‘Can I call somebody?’ I ask.

  ‘Sure,’ Weech says.

  ‘Who are you going to call?’ Damian demands. ‘Haven’t you upset enough people already? What the hell were you thinking?’

  I just ignore him, feel legs moving under me that don’t feel like my legs. ‘Where’s the phone?’ I ask Ramkumar. He leads me to a desk with a phone and hovers. ‘I’d appreciate some privacy,’ I tell him. Meanwhile Damian’s getting testy with Weech. Accustomed to bossing around illegal immigrants, he lacks people skills. Weech is telling him I’m sixteen and can do what I want. There’s no answer at Rossi’s, just her mother’s bank-teller squeak on the service. I know Rossi’s home, just not picking up. I try Doyle again. His Botoxed mother answers and says he’s not home, wants to know who’s calling and all that. I just hang up. Ramkumar’s checking his Black Berry. I consider making a run for it but Weech approaches, Coke in hand, with Damian hot at his heels.

  ‘Do you want this man here?’ Weech asks me.

  ‘Which man?’

  ‘Your stepfather or whatever he is.’

  ‘Negative,’ I say.

  ‘What do you mean “negative”?’ Damian demands.

  ‘She means “no,”’ Weech translates, and I have to admit, he’s alright.

  Back in the little room I sip the cleaning fluid. They’re all watching me. Must be a slow day.

  ‘Why don’t you tell me how it all started?’ Weech says.

  ‘What’s happened to Doyle?’

  ‘He’s been charged.’

  ‘He was defending me.’

  ‘He was swinging a golf club around. Now, if a girl was in trouble and he was trying to defend her, he might have a case. But he didn’t say anything about that.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘You tell me.’

  I fidget with the Coke can, feel the toxic fluid eroding my guts. You’re supposed to be able to remove rust with this stuff.

  A pc peeks in the window and nods at Wigglesworth who exits. Ramkumar keeps taking notes.

  ‘Limone,’ Weech says, ‘you’ve got to answer to these allegations, otherwise I’m going to have to go with their story. Now I have to tell you, the whole thing smells bad. Doyle seems like a good kid, you don’t strike me as an attacker, but what am I supposed to think if you don’t tell me anything? If you can show me evidence that you were attacked, I suggest you do so because these boys are filing a complaint and you’re going to end up with a criminal record.’

  ‘Where’s Doyle now?’

  ‘We let him out on his own recognizance.’

  ‘They’re all going to testify against him?’

  ‘That’s the idea. And they’ll do the same for you. Five guys with eighty pounds on you are going to tell the judge you hurt them real bad.’

  ‘What if someone was raped?’

  He leans forward, resting his elbows on the table, displaying the busted capillaries on his nose. ‘Then that someone should come forward.’

  ‘What if she doesn’t want to come forward?’

  ‘Then that’s a problem.’

  There’s this astronomical silence in which the planet turns a couple of times.

  ‘Why wouldn’t she come forward?’ Weech asks.

  ‘Because girls lose at rape trials.’

  ‘Who told you that?’

  ‘It’s not news.’

  ‘Well, I beg to differ. If the girl is innocent, if she wasn’t leading anybody on, or drunk out of her wits, or stoned, or high or whatever.’

  ‘Or has a history.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘If she’s fucked goons before, she has a history. Means she probably asked for it.’

  ‘Your attitude is not helping you, Limone. We’re trying to help you here.’

  The planet turns a couple of more times. Weech points to the Coke can. ‘Want another one?’

  ‘Nein, danke.’

  I’ve served customers like Weech, guys who mow their lawns every twenty seconds and vote Conservative. Guys who, if you were hit by a car, would probably try to help you out.

  I yank up my shirt and pull up my sports bra. My nipples harden at the exposure. He takes a look, then gently pulls my shirt down. Ramkumar keeps taking notes.

  ‘Who did that to you?’ Weech asks.

  ‘The plaintiffs. Doyle scared the shit out of them so they stopped. He didn’t hit anybody.’

  ‘Did they rape you?’

  ‘Negative.’

  He stares at me and I stare back. A blinking contest. I win.

  ‘Okay,’ he says and I know he doesn’t believe me. ‘We’re going to get a female officer in here to take a look at you.’

  ‘What do you mean “take a look”?’

  ‘She’s going to measure those bruises. They look defensive to me.’ He stands and hikes up hi
s pants, jangling the keys in his pockets.

  ‘You might want to consider getting microchips implanted in your fingers,’ I suggest to delay some butch cop coming at me with a ruler. ‘So you won’t have to worry about keys. It’s all the rage in Europe and Asia. They’re getting their fingers coded so all they have to do is scan their finger to get into their car or house or something. You can even do ATM with your finger.’

  ‘You don’t say,’ Weech says. ‘Isn’t technology great?’ He holds the door open for Ramkumar. ‘Limone, if you ever happen to talk to that girl who was raped, encourage her to pursue the charges, will ya?’

  23

  The chair hurts my butt. I start pacing. Periodically some putz slides open the door window and gawps at me. A hostage was on the radio talking about the little room he shared with three other guys in Iraq, all cuffed together. The captors let them out to shit and piss and shower once a month or something. The hostage said the Iraqis weren’t mean to him, didn’t beat him and always checked to make sure the handcuffs weren’t too tight. At Christmas the Iraqis brought them a cake with a decorated palm tree on it and sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to Jesus for them. They even asked the hostages to sing some carols. They said they hadn’t intended to keep the hostages for months and months. All they’d wanted was money to buy more weapons to blow up Americans. The freed hostage wasn’t angry at his captors, he said he’d like to see them again, find out if they’re alright. He kept referring to ‘the war machine,’ how all of this terrorist mess is a product of a war machine that costs billions of dollars to run. I thought it was pretty interesting that a guy who’d lived and almost died in Iraq had nothing nasty to say about Muslims. Everybody else is starting to hate them, people who haven’t even met any. I figure it’s pretty pointless to hate them since there’s so many and most of them aren’t fanatics. And it’s not like they’re all in one country we can hate and bomb. It gets pretty tiring hating that many people in that many countries. Anyway, as soon as the oil runs out we won’t need to hate them anymore. They’ll all be dying of thirst in the desert and we’ll be nuking each other for water.

  The door window slides open again and a young woman looks in. She enters, camera, clipboard and ruler in hand. She’s your regular fat-assed cop. They must make pants in special sizes for these girls.

  ‘Would you mind removing your trousers please?’ she asks.

  I drop them fast because I want to get it over with. She measures slowly, like she’s being tested. She’s pudgy-faced, probably fresh out of cop school. She carefully writes down the numbers on her clipboard. I start to shiver, which freaks her out. ‘Are you okay?’ she asks about a thousand times which only slows the procedure even more.

  ‘I’m fine,’ I keep saying but her hands continue to fumble. I don’t think she’s done this before and I have to admit that the bruises look pretty hideous under the fluorescents. I start to feel sorry for her, this big-thighed girl who’s going to have to endure all kinds of macho bullshit to survive on the force. At least they won’t want to bang her. It must be hard on the pretty girls.

  ‘I understand there are more bruises on your torso.’

  ‘Can I put my pants back on?’

  ‘Can I just take a quick photo?’ She looks embarrassed, fiddling with the camera. Click click.

  On go the pants, off goes the shirt. She doesn’t gasp or anything but I can see she’s having trouble refraining from screaming ohmygod! I have this weird sensation that my body doesn’t belong to me anymore. It’s become a piece of evidence.

  It’s hard to measure bruises on breasts because they’re full of fat and move around. I hold them steady for her. The ruler tickles but I don’t laugh. I think about my biological mother, now that I’m down to the wire with nobody else acting even half-normal. You have to wonder if nineteenth-century novelists made their protagonists orphans because parents complicated the story. Much better to start minus all that baggage.

  What’s really scary about the Jane/Rochester thing is that even after it’s proven that he lied to her, she’s worried about what he thinks of her. She keeps responding to his moods, his outbursts, lets him yammer on about how wronged he was by crazy Bertha and her father. Not once does old Jane say, ‘You made your own bed, now lie in it. And stop calling me Janet!’ Charlotte married some old pastor type in the end and served him well until he got her pregnant and she started puking her guts out. Dehydration from morning sickness killed her.

  After more Playboy shots the newbie cop says I can get dressed.

  ‘Can I go?’

  ‘Umm … let me check with Detective Sergeant Weech.’

  The hostages in Baghdad figured out how to jam a nail into their cuffs to open them because they’d seen Nick Cage do it in some movie. But one of them was chained to a pipe and they couldn’t free him. They knew that if they escaped, the guy left behind would be tortured. So they stayed, took the cuffs off at night to sleep then snapped them back on in the morning. Men of honour. If you cuffed a few politicians together you can be sure they wouldn’t be too fussed about leaving one of their comrades behind to have his balls electrocuted. The cuffs would be off and they’d be scrambling over each other.

  Weech comes in with a bagel wrapped in plastic. ‘You hungry?’

  ‘Negative.’

  ‘When did you last eat?’

  ‘Can’t remember.’

  ‘Eat something.’ He puts the bagel on the table. I can’t imagine getting my mouth around it. Can’t imagine doing anything beyond slouching in this tiny room.

  ‘I have to tell you,’ Weech says, ‘your defensive wounds are consistent with sexual assault. I’m starting to doubt these allegations against you.’

  ‘What about Doyle?’

  ‘What about Doyle?’

  ‘I’m only here because of Doyle.’

  ‘pc Wigglesworth says you work with him at Dairy Dream.’

  ‘Correct.’

  ‘Is he your boyfriend?’

  ‘I never mix business with pleasure.’

  ‘So why are you so worried about him?’

  ‘He’s my friend. I want the charges dropped.’

  ‘Too late for that. Once the paperwork gets going there’s no stopping it. You should’ve come in sooner. Shouldn’t have made us chase you.’

  I stare at a dent in the wall, figure a head made it.

  ‘This whole thing smells bad, Limone. If these guys sexually assaulted you, we can charge them and they get stuck with a record and the stink stays with them. It’s up to you.’

  ‘I just want to help Doyle.’

  ‘If you come forward about the rape, and say Doyle was acting in your defence, it’ll help him.’

  ‘I wasn’t raped.’

  ‘Whatever. Let’s call it sexual assault.’

  It’s the victim thing. If I’m a victim, they win. I stare at a table leg. They must bolt things to the floor because people go nuts in here, smash things, themselves.

  ‘Am I going to be charged?’

  Weech leans back in his chair, folds his hands behind his head and gives me a good stare. ‘At this point, as far as I’m concerned there is no basis for a charge against you. If they come up with more evidence, we’ll take another look at it. In the meantime if you want to charge them, that’s another story.’

  I just want to fade into the walls.

  ‘A girl like yourself stands a good chance against five football players.’

  He means an ugly girl in baggy clothes versus a Rossi in a push-up bra.

  He leans forward again, squinting. ‘Who are you protecting?’

  ‘Myself. I want to go now.’

  I find a tree and climb it, disappear. A homeless guy drags his shopping cart to the bench below and sits quietly, looking around like your regular park-bench occupant. His hair’s completely matted, his clothes filthy, but he doesn’t seem insane or dangerous. He’s probably in his thirties, young enough to start over, train for some pod job to keep the machine going. Maybe he doesn
’t want to. Maybe homelessness means freedom to him. He starts opening coffee creamers and knocking them back like shots. People with life purpose walk by, ignoring him. People who think it’s normal to get five hours of sleep a night and have your supervisor on your tail. People who go to movies and eat dinner out and buy package-deal vacations. Normally I feel removed from these people and it doesn’t bother me. But now, in pain, with fingerprints all over me, I want to be one of them. It’s too hard on the outside.

  After the freed hostage spoke, they had some university prof of Middle Eastern studies commenting on the latest terrorist activities. ‘They believe they are cleansing their country by blowing up cars,’ he said. ‘They believe that the decline of their culture began with Western influence. By eradicating Western influence, they believe they can reinstate their faith.’ I’d like to know how this is different from Westerners thinking that bombing the shit out of Muslims will convince them that democracy does exist. Amazing how everybody knows what’s best for everybody else.

  Rossi still won’t talk to me. Mrs. Barnfield brews me some instant coffee. I drink the swill because I need an excuse to linger.

  ‘I don’t know what’s come over her,’ she whispers. ‘She’s not eating, won’t go out.’

  Mrs. Barnfield looks like death. I’ve read about that in novels but never actually seen it. Her skin’s pasty and hangs off her face. She’s got purple bags under her eyes and her lips are the colour of her skin. When she comes home from the bank she’s got makeup on so you don’t notice. But now she’s in her bathrobe, scrubbed for bed.

  ‘Did something happen at the party?’ she asks.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘With Rossi. Did she get into any kind of trouble? Kids and alcohol don’t always mix.’

  ‘I wasn’t with her all that much.’

  ‘Where were you?’

  ‘I was mingling.’ I really like Mrs. Barnfield and don’t want to tell her that her daughter got raped because it might speed her demise.