What I Remember Most (18 page)

JUDGE CARRADONE: Grenadine, sit down. We’re taking a break. Fifteen minutes.

MISS WILD: And I may be stupid, Berlinsky butts, I don’t spell too good, but I can spell these two words: F.U.C.K. You. That spells
fuck you
.

JUDGE CARRADONE: Grenadine, we will now begin the portion of the trial where Mr. Orokoff asks you some questions. Please remember what Ms. Silvers talked about with you at the break. You are to answer the questions as best you can, politely. Do you understand?

MS. WILD: Yes.

MR. OROKOFF: Hello, Grenadine.

A: What do you want, fat skull face? And don’t tell me that I don’t know the difference between the truth and a lie like you did before, because I do.

Q: I’m not going to say that to you, Grenadine—

A: You better not. I’m telling the truth. Even Dr. Chakrabarti saw my whole body when I was in the hospital. I had broken ribs, right here, this side, for a long time. Do you know what broken ribs feel like? They hurt. That’s where the Berlinsky boys kicked me. I had scars on my back from that belt and the cigarette burns and a lot of bruises and I weighed only forty pounds and I had papnemonia. He’ll tell you.

Q: Yes, I know. Dr. Chakrabarti already testified, but what I want to talk to you about is—

A: I don’t know what that tess a fied [spelled phonetically, as spoken] word means, but Dr. Chakrabarti knows and the nurses know I could hardly breathe. He said no one should hurt a kid ever and he was supermad that they—those mean fat people—hurt me. Hi, Dr. Chakrabarti.

DR. PARESH CHAKRABARTI (from the courtroom): Hello, Grenadine.

JUDGE CARRADONE: Grenadine, you can’t talk to people in the courtroom, only Mr. Orokoff right now.

MISS WILD: But I don’t want to talk to him. Hi, Dr. Chakrabarti. Hi to the nurses, too. Hi, Nurse Susan. Hi, Nurse Debbie. Hi, Nurse Joan. Dr. Chakrabarti, did you tell them how I was in the hospital . . . you already did? Good. How’s your wife? How’s the baby, Ruchira? You have a picture to show me? I’ll see it later when penis man sits down.

JUDGE CARRADONE: Grenadine, I know you don’t want to talk to Mr. Orokoff, but you have to because Mr. and Mrs. Berlinsky are on trial.

MISS WILD: What else do you want to know, penis?

MR. OROKOFF: Judge, please ask Grenadine not to use that word.

JUDGE CARRADONE: You can do that, can’t you?

MR. OROKOFF: Don’t call me, penis, Grenadine.

MISS WILD: No, penis.

JUDGE CARRADONE: Please sit down in the witness chair, Grenadine.

MISS WILD: No. He gets to stand up and he’s taller than me and he’s trying to scare me by being taller and using a big voice. So I’m going to stand. Sorry to you, Judge. I’m sick of this. What other stupid questions do you have, stupid face?

MR. OROKOFF: Objection. She can’t talk to me like that.

JUDGE CARRADONE: Grenadine.

MISS WILD: Why don’t you ask me how many times I had to take an ice bath? Do you know what that’s like? Especially when someone dunks your head under the water? Mrs. Berlinsky said she was trying to kill the lice. She was trying to drowned me. Can I tell now how Mrs. Berlinsky used to put me in her closet? The kennel was better than the closet. No air, no sun for three days all because I took an apple. There was a rat in the closet.

MR. OROKOFF: I didn’t ask about the closet. Please answer only the questions I ask you.

MISS WILD: I’m going to answer whatever questions I want. The rats bit me, too. On my toes. That’s why I got the infection that Dr. Chakrabarti had to fix. Hi, Dr. Chakrabarti. Hi, nurses. And you know how I got the bruises on my head? From being hit. And you know why I was all flaky? Because I didn’t get enough water. And you know why I had hardly any hair? Because I didn’t get good food and it got pulled out and the lice ate it. Now my hair’s pretty because my foster mother feeds me all the time and gives me extra snacks in my backpack. Three a day.

MR OROKOFF: Grenadine, how many nights total did you spend in the kennel? Two? Three? And wasn’t it part of a game you were playing with the Berlinsky boys if you’re totally honest here today?

JUDGE CARRADONE: Okay, that’s enough. Do not throw a pen again, Grenadine. Do not throw your shoe. Grenadine, please. No yelling—

MISS WILD: You bald liar penis. I spent almost every night in the kennel, and they would lock me in and you know it. You want to sleep in a cage?

MR. OROKOFF: Did you pull your own hair out?

JUDGE CARRADONE: Okay, Grenadine. That’s enough. You’ve thrown both shoes now, settle down. Please sit down. Stop shouting.

MISS WILD: Why would I pull my hair out? That hurts. It fell out. I remember. Looks like your hair is falling out, too, but not because you weren’t fed. You’re fed too much. What other questions do you want to ask? Want me to tell you how Mr. Berlinsky stomped on a chick with his feet and made me watch the chick die? He said they were going to do that to me if I told. They made chicken noises at me. Then he killed another one. Six in all. Dead from his boot.

Q: Okay. Calm down. Please.

A: You calm down. You put your hands down. You back up. You stop talking to me like you think I’m dumb. You quit trying to scare me. Why don’t you answer these questions: Why did Mrs. Berlinsky put her cigarettes out on my arm? Why did she shake me? Why did Mr. Berlinsky yell at me and scare me? Why did they let the boys poke me with sticks when I was in the kennel? Why didn’t they give me a blanket with no lice?

Q: I have no further questions.

A: Good. Go and sit down with the Berlinsky butts who said they were nice to me. If they were nice to me, why did they call me Dog? That was my name, Dog.

Q: Judge, please. I said I have no further questions. She should leave the stand.

A: What stand? I’m standing up right now. I’m not going to sit. I want to tell all you people and you the judge what they did to me. You go sit down. Sit! Sit! Like a dog. That’s what that whole family said to me. Sit! Beg! Roll over! Why did I have to beg for food? Why was I put in that home? I kept hoping someone would come and I could tell them about the kennel and ask for a new family, but no one came. Why didn’t anyone come get me? Why did they forget about me?

Q: Objection.

JUDGE CARRADONE: Overruled.

MISS WILD: Shut up, penis. I objection to you. When are my parents getting here? The Berlinskys said my parents are dead. Are they dead? My mother had a red, crocheted shawl. Did anybody find that? What about my dad’s guitar? I know the police were looking for them. Why won’t anyone answer me?

Tom and Adelly Berlinsky, you were found guilty on all charges by a jury of your peers ten weeks ago. I have never, in twenty-five years of being a judge, had a jury come back so fast with their verdict.

Your abuse of Grenadine Scotch Wild is appalling. I am sickened by you and by your actions towards a child in your home. You were charged to take care of her, to feed and nurture her, and instead you tortured her in a kennel. You starved and beat her. You burned her.

Your lack of remorse and regret shows you have no conception of the damage you have caused this innocent child.

That you encouraged your own sons to do the same, to degrade, humiliate, and abuse another human being, shows yet another part of your sick, twisted personalities. As you know, your sons are now in foster care, as no one in your families thought they were capable of taking care of them.

Placing both boys with one family has proven to be impossible, I’m told, because they both have severe behavior problems. Adopting them out with their behavior problems will also be near to impossible. They will probably live the rest of their childhood as foster children and then will be moved into group homes if they’re not incarcerated for the violent tendencies they have already shown. It’s ironic. It’s tragic.

What, Grenadine? Yes, the Berlinskys are going to jail. Hang on a minute, I’m getting to that part. I am sentencing you both to ten years in prison. Yes, I said ten, Grenadine. It is the maximum I am allowed to sentence them by law. No, I can’t send them away for a hundred thousand years. Mr. and Mrs. Berlinsky, if it were up to me, I would put you both in kennels like you did Grenadine. I would deny you food and sanitation. Then I would take you out back and shoot you like we used to shoot rabid raccoons when I was a girl growing up in the backwoods of Mississippi.

Your sentence will begin immediately. There is no possibility of early parole.

Grenadine, from all of us, every single person in this room, I apologize. This should never have happened to you. You did nothing wrong; nothing was your fault. The system failed you. The Berlinskys failed you. Everyone failed you.

I wish for you, Grenadine, nothing but the best for you in the future. I want to thank your new foster parents, and I want to thank Dr. Chakrabarti and your nurses for all that they have done to help you.

To Mr. and Mrs. Berlinsky, I’m sure you will not be popular in prison. The inmates, I hear, do not like child abusers.

What, Grenadine? Yes, you’re right. Mr. and Mrs. Berlinsky are pieces of shit. Is there anything else you want to say to them?

MISS WILD: Yes. I want to spell more words. G.O. T.O. H.E.L.L. That spells
go to hell
.

JUDGE CARRADONE: Thank you, Grenadine. I believe they are headed that way. Court adjourned.

That night, after my shift at The Spirited Owl, I turned off all the lights in the bathroom, filled the claw-foot tub with hot water, and opened the window so I could see the stars as I soaked.

I was so grateful for a bathtub. So grateful for a bed. So grateful for the pans in my kitchen. I had a roof, a door that locked, and a couch. I had my own Laundromat. I had not one but two decks, and I was not living in a home with an engine and headlights.

I would sleep under a pile of blankets. I would not be peeing out my car door in the middle of the night, or in my pee cup, waiting for some creepy man to attack me. I would be able to keep food in the fridge and make hot soup whenever I wanted. I had heat.

I added more hot water for the third time. Outside, it started to snow.

I was inside.

I sniffled.

I snuffled.

I slid down so I was entirely covered in hot water in my claw-foot tub to give my bones a break.

I came up only when I had to laugh so I wouldn’t choke on the water.

I slept in until eleven o’clock on Saturday morning, buried under blankets. I felt like I was getting my energy back, my health back.

I padded to the bathroom in my thick socks, delighted that my first pee of the day did not involve me secretly and furtively squatting like a fool beside my car.

I washed my hands in warm water and played with the soap bubbles like a kindergartener. I couldn’t see the scars on my hands with the bubbles all over the place. I made coffee, added whipping cream, then scrambled back into bed with a huge red mug.

My bedroom had a view of the mountains straight in front of me. From my bed I could watch the weather. Watching the weather from bed rather than the back of a car is always more pleasing. I had put my pink, ceramic rose box for my lily bracelet on my dresser, and I opened it up and put my lily bracelet on.

I finished my coffee, then picked up my sketch book.

My art, my creativity, was coming back, too, all in a rush, as if it had gotten stuck in my homelessness. I drew a picture with a handful of colorful pastels of a window. Outside the window I drew a wishing well. The wishing well would eventually have trinkets coming out of it—dice, brooches, faux stones, tiny gold stars, and sequins. A little girl was running toward it wearing a crown of daisies and yellow ribbons . . .

I drew three hummingbirds. I would use sparkly netting and wire for the wings . . .

I drew a double-wide trailer and surrounded it with wildflowers.... I would use buttons and fabrics for the flowers....

Two hours later, I turned on my computer. I vowed I would not look at anything stomach churning, that is, e-mails from Covey coming from someone else’s e-mail account, as I’d blocked him, or from my defense or divorce attorneys. I would try not to read any other articles about myself or Covey in the paper. That unpleasantness I’d leave for Sunday.

“Oh, my gosh,” I breathed. I read the e-mail, then read it again. “Yippee! Oh, yippee!”

Kade Hendricks had e-mailed me. Moi!

“Dear Grenady: As Bajal is on maternity leave, I have a temporary position available as a receptionist, starting Monday. I would be happy to have you at the company. The position involves answering phones, greeting visitors . . .”

I giggled as I read the rest of the e-mail. Yes, a giggle. I am too old to giggle, but even with my tips, he was offering me much more than what I made at The Spirited Owl, plus medical insurance.

I wrote back right away. I thanked him for the position, told him I understood that it was only temporary and that I would be there Monday at eight-thirty, as he had requested. “Thank you,” I wrote. “I look forward to working for your company.” I read it, read it again, studied the ceiling, walked around, read it again to make sure all the letters were in the right place, then hit send.

I kicked my legs under my blankets. I wiggled with my arms flailing in the air.

I might be going to jail, but I was no longer living in my car and I had not one but two jobs.
Two.

Because I am an utter geek, I said, “Yippee!” one more time.

On Sunday I went to a thrift shop and Goodwill. I love shopping for used things at bargain prices.

I bought four mismatched, hand-painted china plates and four teacups with saucers for two dollars each because they were so pretty and I need pretty around me badly. I bought a pair of two-foot-tall blue ceramic candlesticks for three dollars for my kitchen table, and a flowered teapot, even though I don’t drink tea. I would put it on my stove. I bought three glass vases—one crystal, one stained glass, one huge and blue—for two dollars each. I would put one in the kitchen, one in the family room, one in my bedroom. I also bought light blue Ball jars and two smaller blue vases for fifty cents each.

Then came my splurge: I went to the big-box store at the end of town, used a coupon, bought sale items only, and brought home pink bedsheets, two queen-sized pillows and pillowcases, and a white comforter with tiny pink roses for my queen-sized bed.

I also bought a white slipcover for the couch and a white slipcover for the chair. I went to a grocery store next and stocked up, my relief at having food again—and somewhere to store and cook it—immense. I sniffled my way through the aisles. I made sure I grabbed coffee and whipping cream.

On the way home, I stopped at a garage sale at a sprawling home in the country. The owner told me that she and her husband were downsizing. She had huge throw pillows she’d used on her couch. The flowers on the fabric appeared to be deranged. I bought all eight for twenty-four dollars and headed to the fabric store.

I went straight to the discount rack, with another coupon in hand, and got a deal a horse thief would envy. Two of the pillows would be yellow with white tulips, and two would have blue and yellow pansies mixed together. One would be candy cane red. I bought enough of each fabric to make tablecloths for my kitchen table.

For the other three pillows, which would be on my bed, I bought pink-and-white-striped fabric.

I felt reckless buying these things, but I had a job at Hendricks’ and The Spirited Owl! I had not had to come up with first and last month’s rent and a security deposit, which I had been saving for, and I had already made another payment to Cherie.

I had to get the scent of homelessness off of me, the clingy cloud of poverty and desperation. I had to. Setting up an organized, colorful, decorated home was the only way I knew how to do it.

When I returned to my home above the red barn, I washed the china and left it out on the counter so I could admire the plates and teacups. I pulled the white slipcovers over the furniture. Instant light. I made the bed. Pink and white, sweet and safe.

I set the vases out and decided I’d spring for flowers.

I was relieved to my core to have a home.

After weeks of car living, I am still getting pleasure out of my toilet.

Not in a weird way.

And don’t get me started on my shower.

It was like old home week when I was in jail. A woman would come into the dayroom, and she’d be greeted like we were at some kind of family reunion. “Hey, Lonnie. How ya doin’? How’s your son?” or “D’Angela. You back in again? What for? Hookin’?” and “Glitter! Been a long time. You still with that shit? How your brother? What about your momma? Saw her last time I was out. She had that hip operation yet?”

They talked, they laughed, they swore together. I didn’t know anyone. I wasn’t there to make friends, but I wasn’t there to make enemies, either.

There was a guard there with a face like a skull, who reminded me of someone else I didn’t want to think about. He was bony, thin. He leered at the women. You could tell he took this job because he liked the power trip. I saw him watching me. I said, “Eyes back in your head, skull face.”

The survival instincts I had honed for years came sailing right back in, along with the repressed anger and decimated self-esteem. The me who I had become—the artist who had a little green house and taught kids art—was completely gone, poof, as if she’d never existed, and I was back to slamming down my emotions, living with my guard up, fists ready to fly.

I hated it. Hated who I had to become again in there to survive. I watched one Herculean-sized woman, at least six feet tall, lumber up to me where I sat on the floor, my back to the cold wall. “Now, aren’t you a pretty Barbie princess?”

I didn’t respond, but I did stand up. I was not going to be kicked in the Big V sitting down, and I could see by the way she was judging me, and how her gaze settled on my crotch, that a swift kick there was not out of the range of possibility.

“What? You can’t talk to me, girl? You got in trouble at your country club? What you do, steal the silver?”

“Thought about it, but no.” I did belong to a country club, although it was in the city. I hated it. Bunch of fancy, brittle, wealthy people wanting to rub shoulders with other fancy, brittle, wealthy people in their quest to reach the top. They reminded me of vultures in Vuitton. I never fit in.

She stuck her hand out and stroked my hair. I hit her beefy arm away so fast, I knocked her off balance and she stumbled.

“You pussy bitch,” she hissed at me.

“You try to touch my hair and I’m a pussy bitch? Don’t touch me.” I wasn’t even scared of Neanderthal Woman. I’d been in fights with worse. Plus I was ravingly pissed because of what
he’d
done to get me in here.

“Fancy lady, aren’t you?”

Not at all. If she only knew how not fancy I was.

“Where you from, fancy lady?”

Not much. Less than nothing. “Where are you from?”

“I ain’t from your neighborhood, that for sure.”

Oh, you have no idea
.

She glared at me; I glared back. I felt my temper trigger, like a switch, cold and controlled.

“I asked you a question, Barbie princess. Where you from?”

Barbie princess? Damn. Temper skyrocketed.

She stepped up close to me, her face scrunched like a scrunched-up bag. She reached out a hand toward my chest, and I didn’t even think. My fist came swinging out in an arch, and I popped her in the eye. She fell to the ground. She scrambled up, swung, I ducked, and she smashed my cheek with her other fist. I threw a punch at her fat chin. She went flat down again and stayed there.

I ended up in solitary for three days. Neanderthal Woman did, too.

What’s funny is that women on the outside think they’ll never be on the inside, in jail. I’ll tell you, between the women you’re in jail with and the women you’re at the supermarket with, there’s not much difference. In fact, sometimes the only difference between them and you is that they had a weapon available when their life turned upside down.

When I returned from solitary, a brain-mushing experience, Jane and her cat and pig were no longer my roommates.

I missed the cat and the pig.

I bought yellow daffodils with orange centers and purple tulips. I put them in the light blue Ball jars and the two smaller blue vases, then placed them on my window sill in the kitchen.

Instant pretty.

I so needed pretty. It calmed my nerves.

“Hi, Millie.” I answered my attorney’s call outside the library.

“Hi, Dina. How are you? How’s the weather?”

“It’s still around. How are things going?”

“The charges have not been dropped, if that’s what you’re unrealistically hoping for. I’m trying to work with the prosecution guys. They’re not giving in, those mules. They believe you were a part of this whole financial scheme.”

“I’m not even remotely smart enough to be involved. . . .” She talked me through my semi hysteria. “Millie, is there a chance I won’t go to jail?”

“Yes. No. Maybe. Those documents you signed are killing you.”

I wanted to bash Covey to pieces.

“A jury may believe you. A jury may also cook you on a spit like a pig. People are pissed off right now about rich people gashing others’ savings accounts. Also, Covey is prepared to burn you at the stake on the witness stand, like an accused witch. If you’re found guilty, you’ll get around five years, probably. If you plea bargain we can make a deal. We can minimize your jail time. The assistant U.S. attorney has offered eighteen months if you plead guilty.”

“No!” I semi yelled that. “Hell, no. I will not do time for something I did not do. It ticks me off to even think about it. I will not agree to live behind bars. No way. Never. Let’s go to trial. I will tell the truth. No plea.”

“Atta girl! You stud muffin! That’s what I wanted to hear, but I had to be upfront with you about where this might be headed. My boxing gloves are off, and I will fight for you with all my legal weaponry. I think you’re innocent.”

“Thank you. I am innocent. I will not do time for this. I will not plea my way out of this and go to jail for Covey’s scheming. I’ll take a chance.”

“I love a nasty, hair-pulling fight. Raises my testosterone level.”

“Maybe you’ll turn into a man before my trial.”

“Hope not. Women are so much smarter. It would be a detriment in the legal field to be a man.”