The Book of Atlantis Black

by Betsy Bonner

  ·

  I was surprised to learn that my sister had registered at the Hotel St. Francis with a man. Someone calling himself Pascual Perez had given the desk clerk a Tijuana address. Our family believed that the police made no attempt to question him because Atlantis was supposedly seen alive after he left the hotel. As I later found out, the clerk gave them a physical description of Perez—“white skin, long face, thin, with large teeth”—and noted that he wore a white shirt and black pants, “like a waiter.” Before leaving the hotel, Perez had told the clerk that my sister had locked him out of room 203—in fact, he claimed, he’d never set foot inside. He’d gone upstairs with her, stayed outside the door, then come back downstairs and asked the clerk to unlock the room for him. The clerk refused; Perez left. The body was found the next day.

  Perez must have checked into the hotel with her for some clandestine purpose. A drug deal? A fake passport? I remembered Atlantis’s trembling hands and doubted that she was capable of shooting herself up (though she did talk about mainlining in that Facebook post). Maybe Perez had done it, despite his claim that he’d stayed outside the door. He surely knew something I didn’t about my sister’s life. When I Googled his name, I found a baseball player and some dead featherweight boxing champion.

  ·

  The day she disappeared, Atlantis sent me a link to an article on CNN.com. It was titled: “Inheritance Battles and How to Avoid Them.” It contained a private message:

  Those Bonner girls just take things to the ends of the Earth!! There’s just no stopping them!!

  What could it have meant? I assumed that she’d left the country and wanted me to know she was okay, and then died the next day.

  ·

  I opened her Facebook page, half expecting a suicide note—it hadn’t been updated in two days—and I discovered that she’d apparently been documenting her downward spiral on social media the whole time we were together. The first images I saw were the gun photographs. One of her posts appeared to have been sent while we were waiting outside the courtroom, which seemed impossible; Atlantis’s phone wasn’t capable of such feats and I surely would have noticed if she’d had her computer on her and been posting something. Maybe the time stamp was wrong?

  Or was it possible that her account had been hacked? I thought I recognized her voice in some of the status updates she’d posted. But some of the updates suggested that she had more interest in taunting the DEA and the prosecutor than she had in keeping friends and family members informed. Her last update was particularly unbelievable:

  June 23

  Atlantis spent last night in Del Mar on children’s rides, which beat the hell out of her back, neck, and ribcage. She woke up in the motel room of a vacationing family.

  Del Mar? There’s a San Antonio del Mar, the Mexican resort where the German Gentleman lived; there’s also a Del Mar, California, a beach town north of San Diego. And why would she have gone to an amusement park? When we were growing up, even the gentlest Ferris wheel would upset her delicate stomach. The rides, the motel room, the “vacationing family”—were these codes for something I didn’t really want to know about? I had to remind myself that the potency of her paranoia—and now mine—didn’t make anything true.

  SAN DIEGO, MARCH 2008

  I need to get myself out of this fucking place.

  16.

  When an American disappears in Mexico, especially if she has changed her name and fled the United States while embroiled in a court case, no one in a position of authority there is likely to care much about what happened to her. And my positive ID of the autopsy photographs was not enough to have a death certificate issued. Atlantis was still expected to appear in court in San Diego on July 23.

  My family requested copies of the police and autopsy reports, but the consulate said that without a death certificate they couldn’t be released. And a death certificate could not be issued until the body was identified in person, by two next of kin, in the Tijuana morgue.

  ·

  I had always known Atlantis’s email password—she’d given it to me after opening her first Hotmail account. “I want you to have this in case anything ever happens to me,” she’d said. “But if you use it before I die, I’ll fucking kill you.” Over the years, she moved on to Yahoo! and Gmail but kept the same password.

  Hoping to find out more, my cousin Elizabeth and I agreed to read whatever messages she’d saved, and any new ones that might come in. She suggested that we keep Atlantis’s Gmail account active but change the password to protect it. But of course the email account had been compromised long ago: Atlantis’s former San Diego roommate had used it to tell my aunt Tina that Atlantis was in jail. And how many other people knew Atlantis’s password?

  Her inbox was overflowing with responses to her ad for “a hot, loyal wife.” One of them said, simply: “WHORE!”

  ·

  And then I found something strange: an account of my sister’s death had been written before she disappeared in Mexico. On June 19, someone with the user name Don Juan, at robinhoodscape@gmail.com, had sent a fake obituary to Atlantis’s own account, with the subject: “Has the War on Drugs Gone Too Far?”

  On June 20th, 2008, independent musician from NYC, Atlantis Black, 31, committed suicide via a heroin overdose in a room she was subletting in La Jolla, CA.

  Atlantis had never done heroin before.

  In January 2008, she was in a car accident which left her with whiplash and back injuries, and for that she sought medical attention. Every doctor’s visit was documented, and she was prescribed Vicodin and Flexeril (to which both she claimed made her nauseous, but at least she could sleep at night). She also invested in a new therapeutic mattress and did regular physical therapy to help her recover from her injuries.

  She took her medications as prescribed until March 19, 2008 and then she claimed she was tired from the nausea so she stopped taking them.

  In the middle of April, the FBI and DEA kicked in her door without a warrant and took her away in her pajamas to the local FBI/DEA chapter and booked her for “prescription fraud” because apparently there was some confusion over a prescription her doctor called in back in March.

  Atlantis was held in jail for 7 days with no access to any loved ones since all her numbers were in her cell phone, which they immediately stripped of her, as well as refusing to let her bail herself out because her credit card was in her wallet, which they also stripped of her.

  The SD County Jail deprived her food and water for 7 days b/c she was vegan (and would go into anaphalaphtic [sic] shock if she was to eat meat after 17 years of not ingesting it—same idea as “mad cow disease”) so she drank water from the jail bathroom faucets and other prisoners would occasionally give her bread or cookies. She was also deprived her anti-seizure medication and despite her visits to the doctor and written requests day after day (along with the dietary requests) was still denied her medication. Sure enough, during Arraignment, she had a Grand Mal seizure in the Courtroom and her Arraignment had to be scheduled for the following day. They took her to the hospital in shackles—and of all things, sent the ambulance bill and hospital bill to her. They then brutalized her for “not taking her medicine as prescribed” (what medicine?!).

  So after 7 days a kind-hearted bailsman trusted Atlantis’ word, being that she had a clean record up until then and she signed over her belongings (wallet, credit card, and all) to him with an agreement that he would post her $10,000 bail and she would meet him downtown upon release and sign the credit card statement.

  After that debacle, Atlantis hired a private attorney. When they went to the first hearing she pled “100% Not Guilty” and the DA offered her a plea bargain: the 4 Felony counts knocked down to a couple misdemeanors and 18 months in jail. Atlantis and her attorney said no way, that she had committed no crime, and would not accept such a plea bargain.

  When they went to the preliminary hearing, the DA tried to plea bargain with her again, this time angry with her for not acc
epting their initial plea and said misdemeanor was off the table and they somehow upped it to *12* felony counts and several years of jail time. Atlantis and her attorney refused again.

  Well, somehow this took a serious toll on the depressive musician whose life was destroyed by this “brand new DEA Task Force on Prescription Drugs” (as quoted by Special Agent Lennox) and Atlantis Black, for the first time in her life, shot 7 bags of heroin into her virgin arms to escape being a victim of another meaningless quota. She knew it was futile, she knew it would only back their case even more, but before she left this world, she left a note:

  “Dear DEA:

  I have had my moments with alcohol, but I have NEVER been a prescription drug abuser. Here is your evidence.”

  And with that she left a hair sample from before she injected the heroin.

  Where to begin? For one thing, the body would be found in Tijuana, not La Jolla. The piece exaggerated the number of years she’d been a vegan, added an extra day of incarceration, and lied about Atlantis’s never having done heroin before. But much of it was true. So who was Don Juan? I thought it sounded like Atlantis herself. Or had she cowritten her obituary with someone? In any case, why?

  ·

  The last email she’d sent to anyone suggested what role Pascual Perez might have played in her death. On June 19, she wrote to her friend Psychobunny:

  I have 7 bags of the finest Peruvian coming my way tonight. I’m going to shoot it and I don’t care if I die. You have no idea what my life has been like since I was arrested and sent to jail. Since I refused to plea bargain, they upped it to TWELVE felony counts with YEARS in jail or rehab (who goes to rehab for *years* ??!!).

  And on June 23, the day before she disappeared, she told Psychobunny:

  I have a connection for China White—CAN YOU BELIEVE IT??!! The only problem is that I’ll have to cross the border to get it—and I am NOT risking smuggling it back.

  So I’ll simply have to rent a motel room down there and do it there. He has EVERYTHING—literally every drug you can imagine—oxy, MS-C (lol), China White, Vanna White, Black Tar, coke—EVERYTHING. You name it, he has it.

  So I think I’m going to go down there tomorrow.

  Wish me luck!!!!!!

  ·

  I read her Facebook messages, which included one to someone called Mimi Plaza, who apparently knew Gretchen. Mimi’s job description (on Facebook) was “backroom drugdeals and then some.”

  On the same day that she posted the gun photographs, Atlantis had written to Mimi:

  So I have a weird question for you—important to use code words here: I’ve mailed Gretchen jewelry that she’s wanted but couldn’t obtain in times of crisis and vice versa. I was wondering if you could obtain any jewelry that I would like and I would pay top-notch for.

  Mom finally called me back. She sounded exhausted, and I didn’t ask where she’d been; I was just glad to hear her voice. I told her that I’d been reading Atlantis’s emails, that she’d definitely planned her death, and that the man who’d checked into the hotel with her was probably a drug dealer. Mom said that we should be relieved that it was over and that her own grief was coming in “waves.” I asked her how she thought we should inform Atlantis’s friends and her lawyer; she said I should do it. As always, I was anxious about her state of mind, and I hoped to protect her—I worried about losing her too. I told her that Elizabeth and I could handle everything, and that she should just try to take care of herself.

  I phoned the Johnnie Cochran of San Diego, told him that his client was dead and that my family would be grateful if he could return any portion of the retainer.

  “Sorry,” he said. “That’s not possible.”

  Two weeks ago, I reminded him, he’d seemed to think that anything was possible.

  ·

  I found still more strange information by reading Atlantis’s emails. On the same afternoon as the exchange with Psychobunny, Gretchen had taken control of Atlantis’s cell phone account and payments. She emailed Atlantis that she’d successfully changed Atlantis’s Verizon password, and that the bills would go to her from now on. Atlantis wrote back:

  THANK YOU GRETCHEN!!!!!!

  You can actually call Verizon and tell them you want to upgrade my account or whatever—now that you have my username and password, it should be okay.

  I know that site is confusing as fuck—it’s driven me into the Bell Jar countless times—LOL.

  Again, I cannot thank you enough, for everything. You have no idea the toll this whole ordeal has taken on me mentally, psychologically, and physically.

  K—I MUST take a nap............

  All my love and endless gratitude,

  —A

  Why would this woman pay for Atlantis’s phone?

  Each new message seemed to bring to light another shady person from my sister’s life—like the German Gentleman. On May 8, they had exchanged emails about what a great time they’d had together in Tijuana. She wrote that her tampon had nearly fallen out as she was walking across the border to her truck and told him to relay the story to his sixteen-year-old daughter. Was this another coded message—perhaps that Atlantis had smuggled drugs from Mexico to the US? But, if so, wasn’t it indiscreet? She knew that email wasn’t safe; she’d insisted on phone calls or in-person contact with me about things she wanted to keep secret. Or was she baiting whatever authorities she thought were monitoring her?

  On June 13, ten days before she disappeared, she sent the German Gentleman this email:

  Quick question: how much would your “friend” charge for what we talked about to get me from “Point A” to “Point B” if things get bad and I need to be able to see all those beautiful ports around the world??

  He responded immediately: he would find out, needed to run now, would write more soon. As far as I could tell, he didn’t.

  A week before she disappeared, on June 16, she wrote a mass email whose recipients included family members such as my aunt Tina—but notably not me—as well as another new friend in San Diego, Jan Howell: “The day I got my Passport I felt an amazing rush go through my body: freedom. I have yet to see the world.”

  Had she actually scored a fake passport? There was no mention of one in the Tijuana police report.

  ·

  Five days before Atlantis disappeared, she self-sent a copy of her “final Will and Testament” to her Gmail account called Yoursteamroller. Then she emailed it to her former psychotherapist in New York. It was a long document:

  (In no particular order):

  1.) Her raggedy grey medium Old Navy Fleece to be sent to [Name redacted].

  I couldn’t imagine sending Atlantis’s jacket to her first adult therapist.

  2.) Her Fender Electric Strat to be sent to Tim Adams.

  Atlantis and Tim reminded me of Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe: each had been the artist of the other’s life. It made sense that Tim would get my sister’s most prized and expensive possession, her black-and-white Fender Stratocaster. But where was her first guitar, the black Yamaha acoustic-electric she’d carried with her everywhere, with the bloodstains inside?

  3.) Her vintage Marshall amp to be sent to Andrew Griffith.

  Her guitarist from Drugstore Cowgirl.

  4.) All her horrible demo CDs to be sent to [Name redacted] (along with all her Kurt and Courtney CDs).

  She wanted Gretchen to have her unreleased songs? Why wouldn’t she have left her music to Tim in addition to the Fender? He was her best friend and he worked in the music industry.

  5.) All her size 1/2 clothes to be given to Salvation Army or Lisa Royer (if she wants to pick through them).

  My sister had been devoted to Lisa, her first lesbian friend, since her teenage nights at Sisters in Philadelphia.

  6.) Her copies of Madame Bovary and Anna Karenina to be sent to Lia Jay.

  Lia, a married Orthodox Jew who’d been one of my sister’s colleagues at her government job in New York, loved stories about double lives and lov
e affairs.

  7.) $10,000 of her inheritance to be paid to [Name redacted] in Oakland (she paid the retainer of Atlantis’ attorney and she barely knew Atlantis—it was out of the kindness of her generous heart).

  Really? What inheritance? And had Sugar Mama paid her lawyer’s fees simply out of kindness?

  8.) $5,000 of her inheritance to be paid to Erik Solomonson who paid Atlantis’ rent when she was going through very hard times when she lost her job after her own mother refused to bail her out of jail so she was MIA for 7 days.

  This item made it unlikely that I would ever share my sister’s last wishes with our mother.

  9.) Colleen Kane to be granted full access to Atlantis’ Gmail, Myspace, and Facebook accounts so she can one day write The Book—Atlantis will send her the password in a private message.

  The Book, I supposed, must be the story of Atlantis’s dramatic, heartbreaking life. My sister must have thought I wouldn’t be interested in writing it.

  10.) Kelly Donohue (former resident at 39 Nantucket Ave, SF, CA—now in PA) to have Atlantis’ PA license plates.

  Another neighbor crush. But why the license plates? Perhaps they were among the only remaining mementos she had to leave.

  11.) Leah Jackson to have Atlantis’ Buddhist Nepalese Tapestry.