by Ros Baxter
‘Wanna get a closer look?’ he sneered, so close I could see the red tracks in his eyes and pieces of spittle landed on my face.
‘No thanks, asshole,’ I spat back at him, seeing Milosh race towards us, his face dark with fury. I closed my eyes and thought about the Kosovan man and what he had been through. I could not let him get caught up in this. But...no violence.
I twisted my body backwards and brought my elbow up to the big man’s face. The blow caught him, surprised, and he released his grip for a second. I wriggled free and sprinted towards Milosh, the last one left.
‘Go,’ I screamed as I heard the petulant whine of sirens. ‘I’m right behind you.’
He nodded quickly and did as he was told. I followed him, feeling bodies behind me and hearing the big man scream at the workers.
‘You fuckin’ wetbacks better get outta here too if you know what’s good for you. You’ll be on the first boat back if the cops catch you.’
My brain registered the screams and chaos as the workers tried to move as one towards the back entrance. I knew I had only seconds to get out before the police were in, but something cold seized my heart. I turned and watched the people, the workers, scrabbling to gather their things and make for the exit. I rounded on the big man with the prod.
‘You fucking asshole,’ I screamed. ‘They’re your people.’
‘Plenty more where they came from,’ he shrugged, showing even white veneers.
I had to get out. I’d planned this whole thing carefully so we’d be in and out before they got us. This time I had planned it like a military operation. This time evading the police had been an integral part of my plan. I could not get caught. I had to get out.
I knew that, by now, my people would be out through the secret route we had planned so meticulously. It was time for me to follow them, to get away before the police came through that door. But I couldn’t go. Not yet.
I had to give these other people, these workers, time to get away.
Third time unlucky — Another holding cell; October, 2006
The ones who got me this time reminded me of Benson and Stabler. You know, Law and Order: SVU. They were kind of sexy, in a TV sort of way. The woman was sashaying around in these really tight pants. And I’d never been arrested by a woman before. I was kind of intrigued, to tell you the truth. I would’ve loved to hear some of her stories. But she wasn’t really interested in sharing. The guy was kind of sexy too. He was almost bald, like Stabler, strutting around, all big and cross-looking. And he had this great Jersey accent.
But neither of them had eyes for me. In fact, they seemed pretty into each other. She was giving him these big eyes, and banging the table dramatically: my partner this, my partner that. ‘Mentionitis’, Heidi would have called it. A dead giveaway.
I could see it in her eyes. She had a thing for him. Big time.
But not so much for me.
When she looked at me, those big, soft eyes would narrow and go cold, like I was what the TV cops call a ‘perp’, instead of just me. In bad underwear, as usual.
Actually, the lingerie wasn’t too tragic this time. I must have known in my heart we were going to get into trouble, despite all my careful planning, because I was in very sensible, very clean underwear. Grandma briefs, almost. The full waist-to-thigh deal. Not glamorous, but no shame in them either. Kinda made me sad to think that this is how I’d evolved — from red lace to grandma underwear.
***
I called Mom and Dad when it became apparent that the whole thing was going to be much more serious than the last times. I needed their help with logistics. I was waiting for them in the interview room and was getting kind of nervous. The cops had been asking lots of questions and kind of freaking me out with what might happen to me this time.
I’d been doing my best French Resistance number, all tight-lipped and cool, lest I get any of my fellow break-and-enterers into trouble.
Mom looked like a third-time Oscar winner when she arrived at the 104th. She was all dressed up in a cocktail number, and had this look on her face that said ‘no autographs, please, I’m just here to pick up my famous daughter’. Dad had obviously been under orders to look the part, too, because he had his tux on. I swear I have the only parents in the world who get more thrilled and proud of me each time I get arrested.
Mom swanned into the interview room with the female cop — Benson, I’d mentally named her. Benson was walking behind her with a gentle smile on her face and a hand solicitously under Mom’s elbow. I swear she looked like Mom’s publicist. If Mom had a bridal train, she’d be holding it. How the hell Mom had managed to make friends with her when I had completely failed I have no idea, but you can always rely on Mom to do the unpredictable. Benson settled Mom into a chair.
‘Coffee, Mrs Murphy?’ Her voice was pure honey.
‘Thank you, Julie dear,’ she said softly, patting the female cop’s hand and waving her other hand as though dismissing the cop like a butler. ‘You can go now. We had better meet with our dear daughter alone.’
Was I imagining it, or did she actually produce a handkerchief and mime wiping a tear from one of her devious eyes? Julie, in turn, patted my Mom’s shoulder sympathetically, gave my Dad a little half smile and nod, and left. Just like that.
‘Julie?’ I stared at Mom. ‘What the hell is going on?’
‘Don’t get all uptight, sweetheart,’ Dad said. ‘Mom was planning tactics all the way here. She decided against blowing a hole in the door with that stash of gelignite Uncle Larry keeps in the basement in case the government turns bad. This is the next best thing.’
‘But what the hell is it?’ I asked.
‘Humph,’ Mom sniffed. ‘God, you can be ungrateful. You have no idea how much I resent sucking up to cops.’
‘Well, why are you?’ I insisted.
Mom looked at me like I had the tactical genius of a cabbage. ‘Can’t you see we’re trying to make sure they go easy on you?’ She reached across and held my hand. ‘Absolutely marvellous action today, sweetie. Your father and I are just so proud of you. But the cops don’t quite see it that way, unfortunately. So I’ve been working Julie.’
‘Working her?’ Talk about the understatement of the century. ‘Julie’ had looked like she wanted Mom and Dad to adopt her. ‘What the hell did you do? Offer her your rent-control apartment?’
‘Oh, my love,’ Mom murmured. ‘You really do have a lot to learn. Don’t you remember what I always told you? Everyone can make a difference and —’
‘I know, I know,’ I snapped. ‘God, Mom, of course I know. I’ve heard it a million times. And “together we can change the world”.’
Mom humphed again. ‘Well, you may have heard it, but you obviously weren’t listening. Together, darling. To-ge-ther. You don’t have to fight every battle by yourself. Sometimes you need to call in reinforcements.’
‘Julie is not a reinforcement,’ I corrected her. ‘She’s a pawn in your malevolent plan. You’re trying to turn her, make her a double agent.’
‘Desperate times…’ Mom mused.
I had to give it to her. She really was a wily old fox. She had come down here looking for pliant souls to bring across to her way of thinking. But I was still curious.
‘How, Mom? How did you turn her? She hated me.’
‘Oh, don’t worry darling. She had some funny thing about her partner. Was sure he was interested in you, or something ridiculous.’ Mom snorted and I felt myself get kind of offended. ‘Anyway, I fixed it. Told her you’re a lesbian. She bought it too. You know cops. They think any woman who cares about the world is a lesbian.’
I had nothing against lesbians, but something inside me died then and there. I’ve always had this sneaking superstition that every woman only has so many orgasms in her. You know, they’re like a non-renewable resource. You know how in Peter Pan they said that every time someone says they don’t believe in fairies, a fairy dies? A bit like that. Like maybe when something particularly nasty ha
ppens, one of your potential orgasms dies. In my mind, they kind of pop, like soap bubbles blown by children. Like when I found out that my gorgeous math tutor was a Young Republican, and I thought: there goes one. Or when I walked in on the supervisor in our building making out with old Mrs Clyde from number five, I thought: oh God, there goes another one. Anyway, when I found out Mom told the cops I was gay, I thought: How many are left? Lucky I’m not really using them right now.
Mom went on. ‘Anyway, making connections with people is basic psychology. Share a secret. Evoke sympathy. Explain a tragedy.’
Dad was nodding sagely, like it was all his idea. This was the man who could barely buy milk without getting embarrassed if people engaged him in conversation for too long.
Anyway, I was still confused. ‘Yeah, Mom, that’s all great, if you’ve actually got some tragic news to share but —’
We got called then to go in and start the bail processing, or I might have paid more attention to the funny little look that passed between my Mom and Dad, and the way he squeezed her hand and whispered something to her. But I didn’t. Instead, we all just went where we were told.
Mom and Dad signed the recognizance. Actually, to tell you the truth, ‘bail’ sounds a bit lofty. I don’t think I was considered much of a risk to the community, because I even had enough cash in my checking account to cover the bail, which is saying something. The main thing I recall about the bail processing was that it gave Mom another opportunity to do her tragic heroine routine with Benson. I swear, the way she transformed her face as she shakily inquired when we would know about the final charges, I could have sworn I was looking at a chameleon.
And Benson ate it up.
Wonder Woman and the pirates — Che’s Café, East Village; the next day
‘Not yet. I don’t want to talk about it just yet,’ I said. Heidi nodded. I smiled at her. ‘Thanks. Just give me a few minutes, okay? Let’s talk about something else.’ She nodded again and I took her hand. ‘So, tell me. Did they really make him do it in a paper cup?’
I knew Heidi wanted to talk about the arrest, not the IVF, but I needed to take a moment. And, also, I did really want to know. I knew it made me sound like a teenage boy, but there’s a part of the human condition that is genetically programmed to find weirdo sex or poo things fascinating. We all deny it, claim a higher, more evolved nature, but let’s face it, whenever we meet someone who works in a real life emergency room, the first thing we always ask is: ‘So what’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever seen anyone stick up their butt?’
‘We-ell, I’m not exactly sure if it’s paper or plastic. I don’t go in with him. But yeah, he definitely has to produce the goods. Into a cup. Poor guy, he was so nervous about it the first time I made him practice.’ She sounded matter of fact.
‘No!’ I slapped her arm. I knew this was really important to Heidi, but even for her, making Steve practice masturbation was taking being organized to a whole new extreme.
‘What do you mean? How does he practice? I thought guys learned to do it in the womb.’
‘Don’t look at me like that, Lolly. I can tell you think I’m over-engineering this, but you know Steve. You know what a head-case he is. For sure, if we hadn’t practiced he’d have screwed it up. He’d have misfired and ended up in some hideous Something About Mary incident. You know it’s true, Loll. Don’t you remember the time he dated that French girl?’
My memory banks whirred and creaked painfully. Then bingo! ‘Oh my God, that’s right!’ I’d forgotten the incident until that moment.
‘He was so worried about impressing her, he had total performance anxiety, because he assumed she’d been with a whole lot of French guys who knew way more than him. So he made us draw him that vagina diagram.’
‘Yep,’ Heidi confirmed. ‘And he was like, so astonished by what it revealed. It was like an epiphany. Saul on the Road to Damascus. Remember how he kept saying “so there are three holes?” like the news had just broken? And remember he kept scratching his head and asking us if the diagram was to scale?’
My God, she did a perfect impression of Steve.
‘That’s right,’ I recalled with glee. ‘We did that huge cartoon on the back of a shoebox and I remember thinking I hope he doesn’t think my vagina’s that big. Ships’d get lost in it, like the Bermuda triangle.’ I paused for a moment, lost in thought, shaking my head in wonder. ‘Actually, come to think of it, it’s kind of amazing you slept with him after realizing how clueless he was about the whole thing. You are like Mother Theresa.’
‘Not really,’ she sighed. ‘We gave him pretty detailed instructions, remember? It took about three hours and four bottles of wine to talk him through the whole thing. As I recall. If he didn’t know what to do after all that, there’s no hope for any man.’ Heidi was staring up into space. ‘In a way, it gave me confidence. You know, that he wouldn’t completely screw it up. Actually,’ she leaned forward and whispered. ‘Did I ever tell you I found that old vagina map cello-taped to the inside of his wardrobe only like two years ago? I think it had become his bible. Anyway, you know how keen he is to learn new tricks. I knew he’d make the most of the lesson.’ I nodded in agreement. Heidi paused again for a moment, then continued, ‘Anyway, I couldn’t afford any Steve screw-ups with this. This is our baby.’
‘So how did you do it?’ I was really curious now.
‘Huh?’ She was staring off into space, smiling.
‘How did you, you know, make him practice?’
‘We-ell, I tried to reproduce the conditions he would face in the clinic as precisely as possible at home. I needed to know he could do what he had to do even if he felt really awkward and uncomfortable. A bit like that torture, you know, where they wake you up all the time and shine bright lights on you and confuse you.’
Oh my God, poor Steve.
She went on. ‘So…I like, put the lights on really, really brightly in the bathroom. And I made my Mom come over and hand him the cup and the porn so he’d feel really awkward and embarrassed. I even told her to be extra scary as she did it. She did so well, man. She even told him she’d be waiting outside. “In case he needed any help.”’ Heidi laughed at the memory, and continued. ‘And I made sure the porn was really old and dated, with really scary looking women in it. And lots of guys with big handle-bar moustaches.’
All I could do was stare at her in amazement. I really did choose my best friend well. This woman is incredible.
‘Heidi,’ I declared, hugging her tightly. ‘You should run the U.N.’
She laughed and waved away the praise.
‘Well, technically, it’s Steve who deserves the praise really. I mean, he came through like an absolute trooper. At home and in the clinic. The nurse said she’d never seen so much product. I was so proud.’
We both spent a moment reflecting on what a champion Steve was.
‘It’s amazing,’ I agreed. ‘I’m going to call him Super Sperm from now on.’
‘Good idea,’ Heidi concurred. ‘He’ll love that, Loll. But anyway, enough about our baby-making stuff. I want to hear about what happened yesterday. I thought you were trying to stay out of trouble since…you know…’
Oh God, this was always the problem. Where to start? I remember Mom telling me when I was at school that every story had a beginning, a middle and an end. But most things have pretty elastic beginnings, in my experience.
I toyed with my little sugar sachet.
I wanted to get this right, and I wasn’t in a hurry, for once. It was so nice to have a quiet moment in my crazy life. And it was extra nice being here, in this café, where Heidi and I have shared so many of these moments. Che’s is at the bottom of the building in which Heidi, Steve and I shared our apartment, and where they still live, so we’ve been briefing and bitching here for years.
I sighed. ‘Oh, Heidi, you know how it is. There are so many bad things in the world. I know I shouldn’t even go there half the time because I’m just going to get upset. But it�
�s like picking a scab Or...squeezing a pimple. It’s seductive. You know it’s going to be all bad, but you just can’t help but dig your spiky nails right in. I know I should just learn to stay away from bad news. Sometimes my heart just gets so full of it I feel numb. Powerless.’
Heidi nodded and took my hand.
‘And sometimes,’ I went on. ‘Sometimes I hear about something, or read something, or find out about something…’
‘Yeah?’ she encouraged.
‘And I just feel the total opposite of apathetic. The opposite of powerless. I want to rip someone limb from limb.’
‘Is that what happened this time?’ Her lovely blue eyes were all soft.
‘Yeah,’ I confirmed. ‘I didn’t get to do any limb ripping, but…’
‘But you did get arrested,’ she finished. ‘Again.’
‘Yeah,’ I sighed. ‘Third time unlucky. I didn’t break anything, in the end. To tell you the truth, I’m not sure I’d actually have it in me.’
Heidi nodded. ‘You were always kind of a wuss. Remember that girl, back at school? Tanya Bricker?’ It was my turn to nod, and shudder.
‘Yeah,’ I agreed. ‘I can’t really remember how it started.’
Heidi laughed. ‘Oh, I do,’ she said. ‘She was pushing around Jane Zwiecki, remember? That shy girl? And you said something to her about how bizarre it was that someone with such a thick neck could have such a small brain.’
The memory still hurt too much to laugh, but I smiled. ‘I wasn’t just making it up to be funny. She really did have an extraordinarily wide neck.’
‘Yeah,’ Heidi nodded. ‘She did. Anyway, it was never going to go well. When she belted you across the head with her school bag, I thought you’d been beheaded.’
‘That was because she had a can of mega-hold hairspray in the thing.’
We both sighed. ‘Thank God for Emmy,’ I said. ‘Once Tanya Bricker found out I was related to Emmy,, she even offered to make my dress for homecoming. Go figure.’ I stirred my coffee. ‘Anyway, so, see? I’m no kind of hero. But you know what? I’m still really proud that we broke into that hideous factory, even if it was a complete disaster.’