Fainting
I am prone to fainting these days. My body begins to feel weak. Something about winning shocked my system permanently. It is not a state of Stockholm Syndrome or Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder; it is a kind of 'I just can't believe it' state of shock. I feel like a damsel in distress being rescued or Rapunzel being freed from the tower.
It is Liberals who destroyed justice for victims of violent crime. They can bear the shame and burden of that. It is this Canadian government that releases and has released violent offenders through the National Parole Board, claiming 'society' will tame them, only for them to go on killing sprees. Some of them disappear; others are arraigned. Some just kill others and then themselves.
If the man who had raped me had been charged, he could have been convicted. It is like I did not try. He choked me in a public place, then went to UBC Vancouver on scholarship. After several accusations of sexual misconduct at the university, Canadian Consular Services, the university representatives, and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police sent him on scholarship to Washington Medical School in Seattle.
He became a doctor, until I tracked him down. I then submitted an essay of what happened to me along with eight accusations of malpractice from his patients. He lost his right to practice as a plastic surgeon in three states, as well as his residency in the United States. He returned to Canada and moved in with relatives. Eight months later, he stabbed two of their children.
Fortunately, justice actually worked this time, but not for me. For them. It is an offshoot of someone's benefit I have received, not my own justice. He got fifteen years. Let us hope the National Parole Board, which belongs in jail as he does, does not choose to 'reform' him throug 'society'.
Believe me, I never thought it would happen. Three years ago, I was on a plane to Cuba. Boarding from Port 63 in Toronto-Pearson Airport and had a nosebleed. It probably contributed to the development of a nasal perforation. The trip was good. My nose, not so much.
I also have a hole in my nose from all the stress. The medical condition is referred to as a nasal performation. Good luck getting into see the doctor. After the pandemic, they were still offering phone and virtual appointments. I need surgery, not an appointment online or over the phone. Medicine requires in-person visits. I have never really forgiven doctors for offsetting some of their duties to nurses or restricting/eliminating home visits. They are not doing their jobs anymore.
Madeleine
I met Madeleine* at McDonald's one day in January of 1993, where she worked as a cashier. She was wiping down trays and staring through her glasses at her reflection on the counter. It was a late Saturday afternoon.
"Hello, how are you? My name is Madeleine," she said to me.
"I am fine. How are you? Do you have any mayonnaise? There is only ketchup here," I asked.
I rarely ate McDonald's but I was desperate for a McChicken. The sandwich was dry and there was little mayonnaise on the bun to offset the texture. Disappointed, I looked around for condiments. My figure was kept slender by a low-calorie diet and lots of walking, yoga, and weight. Madeleine was naturally thin. Her dark blue eyes lit up as she spoke. She smiled her perfect smile and her crooked glasses nearly fell off her nose.
"If you are looking for mayonnaise, we have McChicken sauce. It costs twenty cents per package," she offered as she fluttered her eye lashes.
"That's fine. I can go without," I said, hoping she would hand one over.
"Here is some sweet and sour sauce," she offered.
"Madeleine! Stop giving out the sweet and sour sauce for free! It costs ten cents a pack!" Kelly the manager yelled.
The story I heard from Peter Auld and Chad Baker was that Madeleine had fought with Elaine on the roof of the apartment complex behind the Willow Park Church. I also heard that she had pushed Elaine off the roof of a condo complex on Gaggon Road. I had met her in April of 1993 at a first floor walk-out on Gaggon Road. The location apparently had a pool behind the condo complex.
I suspected the location was Gaggon Road, since that was where Elaine lived and it was easy to park a car in front of the building. The building was two stories tall. Auld and Baker insisted the building Elaine fell from was three stories high, with a pool behind the back. Both buildings previously had pools that had been filled with cement and closed up. It was hard to say which building was the one Elaine fell off of.
Auld and Baker were certain that Madeleine had fought with Elaine for several minutes until she pushed her off the roof. I had heard the story before, from several friends and acquaintances of mine, including Mark*, an off-and-on boyfriend/dealer of Madeleine's who studied engineering at Okanagan College.
Madeleine had been detained by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in 1993 in regards to this matter as well as her involvement in prostitution, grand theft auto, and shoplifting. Her high-powered lawyers from a top Vancouver firm as well as her wealthy parents had successfully stopped further detainments, charges, and questioning.
I knew the method by which they worked: enabling Madeleine was their way of covering up her behaviours and their own bad parenting. They were enablers who spoiled their daughter with money and ignored her. Rules did not apply. Madeleine was the devil's trick; thou shalt do what thou wilt.
Elaine had apparently fallen from the roof, cracked her skull, and ended up in a coma. She died a few days later. I was not at this party and never saw the event. I was uncertain how and if Madeleine was involved. For a few years, I resisted the urge to contact the police. All I had was second-hand information. I told the witnesses at the party Elaine died at to inform the local police if they were so convinced it was her. Most of them were too afraid to do so.
I was uncertain what they were afraid of, except for perhaps Madeleine's connections to local bikers and dealers. She had a habit of seeking out dealers for boyfriends. Sucking their dicks and dating them gave her access to a social underworld of drug distribution and partying that she was dying to join. Her motivation was not financial; she had a $500,000 trust fund that she had inherited from her paternal grandmother, a $1.2 million investment portfolio, a $700,000 condo, and $900,000 cabin. Her parents had made certain her existence was as padded and comfortable as possible.
Her favorite drug was prescription codeine; she only went to parties to get shot on morphine or to drink a keg of beer. Beer was the only drink I knew her to gorge on. Wine did not appeal to her; she never drank it. Hard liquor was used for making drinks for others. For someone who tried every drug and had an unbelievably high tolerance for angel dust, amphetamines, and barbiturates, she hardly tolerated hard liquor. Beer was another matter; she often spent her weekends alone with her Nirvana records and two flats of beer.
There were different versions of Madeleine; sometimes she appeared decked in Calvin Klein underwear hanging underneath oversized Tommy Hilfiger outfits; other times she wore bellbottoms, t-shirts, and platform heels; at other times, she wore designer dresses with pantyhose and Chelsea boots. At other times, she even wore men's oversized denim overalls on top of Garage hoodies or band t-shirts with jean cut-offs and Aussie Doc Martens. I never really knew which of the five personalities I would encounter.
There was little consistency in terms of her personality. I was uncertain what she suffered from. Borderline personality, bipolar disorder, dissociative personality disorder, and split personality were all suggested. I am not a psychiatrist, but I always thought she was a histrionic. Madeleine was superficial, overly emotional with flat moods, and constantly in search of attention. She was vindictive when she didn't get her way or someone rejected her, which was rare. Unfamiliar with the notion of rejection, she did not take kindly to those who did not do what she wanted. Perhaps it was herself the witnesses were afraid of.
The reputation of her lawyers and parents may have scared them off as well. They refused to let anyone prosecute her, make accusations, issue a fine, impose a restriction, or take her to court. I think they were embarrassed. It was not surprising that Madeleine's real name meant 'one who is like God.' She certainly acted that way, courtesy of her parents' attitudes and constant redemption.
Madeleine was the type of person who functioned better on drugs than not on drugs. Sobriety was never her thing. Nothing really scared her into it. Perhaps her only fear was HIV. She hesitated to make a habit of getting shot up with morphine, owing to the risk factors. Three of our friends would go on to die from HIV; none of them were drug users. A previous boyfriend of hers had slept around with many prostitutes in Asia, only to infect two of his male lovers and one of his mistresses. He had been married at the time as well to two different Asiatic women, Eileen from Hong Kong, and Yumiko from Hokkaido, Japan. I have no idea if they were ever aware of his cheating and HIV status, as neither of them spoke any English and refused to speak to anyone who was not from their home countries. It is quite possible they were infected and never got tested; this means when they left Lemmy* for their home countries with their children by him, they may have taken the undetected, active, and untreated virus with them. I have no idea where they are now.
(* Name has been changed to protect identity)
The Streets
Returning to America for the first time in thirty years was interesting. Nothing seemed to have really changed. I had expected an extreme form of political correctness based on news reports and social media. What I learned is not that much had changed except for weaker iced tea and more multiculturalism. I cannot say I was disappointed.
I was one of those people who actually liked America, though its problems of homelessness and racism towards Black Americans had clearly not changed. Despite all the reports of theft and violence, I never felt unsafe here. After watching a homeless woman get raped through forced oral sex in front of the local Royal Canadian Mounted Police back home and again on a wall near my section of the hotel after a night of dancing and drinking in Cancun, America did not phase me.
Being white in America determines the culture. Being a Black person who is homeless and addicted in the United States means being up against the cops and being visible, vulnerable, and unable to access resources. Being white in America would be a very different thing under these circumstances. There were few white homeless people in the States. Resources that are available to whites are simply not available to Blacks in the same sense. The history of segregation, housing discrimination, underfunded education, and slavery was still holding them back.
I had no other explanation. There was no reason to believe that Blacks were less motivated or intelligent. There were many successful Hispanics and Asians, but they did not face the same racism, history, and discrimination that African-Americans did.
There were a lot of complaints about Americas liquor laws. After watching carelessness amongst teenagers with alcohol, I was uncertain how I felt about it. It seemed to me that most people over the age of 21 were responsible with alcohol and developed a healthy, moderate attitude towards it.
I never saw that behavior amongst teenagers or all the late-age teenagers in British Columbia and Alberta. Alcohol abuse was rampant and beer bong contests were a thing. I heard stories about women being abused at these parties. Political correctness prevented any discussion of wearing appropriate clothing, limiting alcohol, not hanging around late at night in isolated places or night clubs, or avoiding frat parties.
By no means am I trying to blame women or suggest that rapists get off. I have seen many aggressive men with sociopathic, sexist, and violent attitudes. To them, women were objects. This attitude was nurtured by egoism, narcissism, the male culture surrounding sex, enabling parents, and pornography. However, I fail to see why anyone would ignore the obvious and create a situation that would set up young women against these men in opportunistic, dangerous, and irresponsible fashion by pretending that other factors do not contribute to the situation.
I was sexually assaulted in a theatre randomly on a date out of nowhere and was prevented from getting help or fighting off my offender. I was choked and nearly choked several times. It is amazing I never suffered any permanent damage, and this is coming from someone whose mouth was rebuilt with fiberglass after an accident with a pipe at the age of four, an accident that ripped open the roof of my mouth and nearly caused a hemorrhage. The top of my mouth is rebuilt partly with fiberglass and surgical precision. I cannot Scuba dive or sky dive; both are highly irritating. I also avoid spicy food. Other than that, I have not had limitations.
The term rape culture came up at a time that women were being blamed for being murdered, beaten, and choked in courts of law across North America. I was not surprised that victims did not want to come forward. Any history of sexual promiscuity, mental illness, homelessness, drug addiction, hooking, or other questioned activity was mentioned by the defense and used against them in order to have charges dropped. It was just the latest version of victim blaming by the laws and courts.
Mrs. Brownstone
Mrs. Brownstone
There is a song off Guns n Roses first album, Appetite for Destruction, called Mr. Brownstone. It is reputed to be about drug dealers and heroin addiction. I heard the song several times at home, as my sister Jennifer was a fan. She had the album in her possession and played it once or twice a week.
Guns n Roses was the band du jour back then, outselling Aerosmith, Metallica, Iron Maiden, Cinderella, Bon Jovi, and all the other so-called heavy metal bands. Grunge, heavy metal, blues-rock, and hard rock were popular at our home, to my mothers chagrin. She preferred Roy Orbison, the Beatles, Bob Dylan, and Vivaldi. Tired of videos on John Lennon and Yoko Ono, the arrival of hard rock in our house was a great relief. My favourite was Black Sabbath.
I probably preferred their dystonic sound, dark themes, dooms-day lyrics, and unusual timing because I was sort of a goth. At least, that is what I was told. I liked Siouxsie & the Banshees, Echo & the Bunnymen, Bauhaus, The Smiths, L.A. Guns, Cowboy Junkies, and Janes Addiction. I had no idea what goth meant, and pointed out that the Banshees started off as art-punk fans of the Sex Pistols, but none of my persuasive tactics got through. I was not one for smearing my face with purple and wearing a black cloak day. Just because I liked morose music sometimes doesn’t mean I lived the life.
Michelle, on the other hand, wanted to live the life described on their debut album. A serious fan of Slipknot, Slayer, and Guns n Roses, she threw out her Warrant records and began jumping up and down on her bed to the Roses debut album. I remember the sight of her, howling and jumping in jeans and a tank top on her canopy bed, barefoot and crazed with that look in her eyes.
She had a wild look, like a rabid animal in heat or something. I do not really know how to describe it. She was beautiful, adventurous, and charming. She was also callous, deliberate, and opportunistic. When it came to sex and money, she was a bit of a cannibal. Her appetite for codeine, morphine, and crack cocaine was insatiable. She never really had a problem with overdoses or low tolerance.
Codeine was her favorite. Many times I walked into the bathroom and saw her from the back. Her long, straight auburn hair fell down her shoulders and contrasted with her tanned skin. She regularly hung out at her parents compound in Riviera Nayarit, Mexico. She leaned over her tabs and bottles, pushing out the syrup and pills in large quantities. A large cup of black coffee washed down her daily medicine. Her intake ranged from 24 to 36 pills a day, or one to three codeine-laced cough syrup bottles. I used to sleep over from time to time, but her drug habits pushed me away.
I once opened up Michelles bathroom cabinets. She had forty prescription medications, ranging from anti-depressants to Lithium to Valium and various tranquilizers. Another time, I opened up her lower cabinets and found twenty-five discarded codeine cough syrup bottles, a stash of three unopened bottles, and ten codeine tabs packs. She was a real hoarder and user of prescription drugs. At one point, she had three psychiatrists and obtained the same prescriptions in turn from each of them. This was called triple-dipping and was banned in 1998. OTC codeine syrups and tabs were also banned in 1998. A pharmacists approval and prescription were required after that. Michelle had previously stolen prescription pads from doctors and pharmacists; after a few more attempts of writing false prescriptions, the court carted her away to rehab, which failed. After a few months, her parents forced her into rehab in Mexico with a private nurse at their compound. She came back itching and shaking after two months, typical reactions to opiate-free sobriety. Under the care of a court-ordered psychiatrist, he put her on a heavy tranquilizer regimen so that she was too doped up to think about her usual behaviors. I have no doubt Michelle would have gone back to her usual tendencies in the absence of heavy tranquilizers. She took ten or more a day. Her friend Kelly took one once and could not move for sixteen hours. She was up at 1 in the morning calling people, sipping coffee, vacuuming, and walking around after taking a handful of them, say four or five. I never understood it. Nothing short of a straight jacket and morphine shot would have stopped her.
She once used crack cocaine at my mothers house, during the summer of 1995. 54-40 and Northern Pikes were Canadian alt-rock bands that were nationally known and frequently passed through Kelowna on tour; they were also close friends with the son of the next-door neighbor, who was a well-known songwriter and guitarist.
They had planned a charity concert together and had decided to go for dinner after a meeting. Two members of each band stayed behind. My sister and mother had decided to entertain them. The lead singer had brought along his girlfriend, a rather dull and cold model with short black hair, pale skin, and brown eyes. She was one of the most beautiful women I had ever seen.
Her name was Dawn. She wore a white knit cloche with a crochet pattern, a long white dress, and lace translucent vest. 6
Her personality matched her look. Stuck with catering to them, I spent time in the kitchen preparing appetizers. She was a strict organic vegan who eschewed caffeine and alcohol. We spent two hours staring at the fireplace in silence as she sipped herbal tea and answered questions from Michelle with yes or no. There was no elaboration on her part.
Frustrated, Michelle excused herself and said she had stomach problems. She got on her cell phone and asked Gordon to pick her up as she paced the kitchen. Then she went downstairs and broke into my sisters room. It had been locked up since she left home years before. The room was mysterious and legendary.
Donèt ask me why it was legendary. The room featured an old wooden bed with two mattresses, ten pictures of Jim Morrisons grave on the wall, a large wooden shelf, cotton drapes, three unused snowboards, a wardrobe of skimpy designer fashion deemed too small for a weightlifter, fake tanning lotion, back packs, and a large collection of books on the following topics: zombies, John Lennon, the Doors, Haiti, voodoo, and psychedelic drugs. Perhaps I was used to seeing it dozens of times; perhaps I considered it no more or less interesting than anyone elses teenage bedroom at the time. To me, it was like Ferris Bueller on acid. I had stared at the pictures and read all the books. The rest didnèt interest me.
Michelle, like so many people, was fascinated. She found a way to break open the sealed door and walked in. I heard a large breath come out of her mouth. Curious, I headed to the foyer on the stairs. She noticed I saw her, slammed the door shut, and locked herself in the adjacent downstairs bathroom by the laundry room.
Though the house featured a large basin in the laundry room, Michelle wanted privacy. She lit up a pipe and heated up her spoon, and then began smoking. The smell permeated the basement and I sprayed orange zest room spray all over the house. She then came out at some point after thirty-five minutes, and spilled a brown liquid all over the rug. I would be blamed for this mess. Two orange-scented professional carpet cleans were required at a cost of $300. I refused to pay and Michelle proclaimed innocence. She offered no explanation for the brown liquid and smell. Then she came out, obviously high, with pupils like a Siamese cat in the sun.
In a strange comatose state, she walked as if she were sleep-walking. Uncertain what to do, I shoved her out the back door. She then somehow managed to find Gordons truck out front and got him to ask the next door neighbours mother to use the washroom. While the other band members were either out or at our house, she snuck in through the back hatch after opening it, and stole a large cachet of collector rock items and gear from the two bands.
Her theft stash included a signed vinyl album by John Lennon called Imagine, Yoko Ono albums, a signed Led Zeppelin IV, ten copies of Black Sabbathès debut vinyl, a boatload of U2 albums and CDs, two guitars with cases, four amps, two pedals, Elvis flags, and other rock-related paraphernalia. She even got a copy of Abby Road, one of the only Beatles albums I ever liked. The gear was sold for money; she hid the amps and U2 albums. Deemed worthless on the drug and pawn shop market, she stored the items she did not sell away from six years and then claimed she was a hardcore U2 fan. Michelle never liked U2.
When I first met Michelle, she had seemed like a party girl who liked pot, rock music, fashion, boys, and modeling. I had expected a friend who was fast and fun, not an amoral person with a copious need for attention, drama, danger, and hard drugs. Michelle was treated like the it girl VIP socialite in town; she should have been treated like the one to avoid at all costs.
Now I have never resented Michelle for her addiction, but I have seen the vicarious and even fatal effects of her drug-induced behavior.
Accidents
Accidental
I had been drinking heavily during the first few weeks of returning home. One night, after a bottle of red wine, I woke up in yesterdays clothes. As I adjusted my sweater, I got up out of bed and slammed my right eye into a fold-up table I had left by the bed. Now I looked like a domestic violence victim. The people at work were less than thrilled; though I worked in a magazine subscription office and nobody saw me, they felt it was embarrassing.
My eye was bruised and swollen for the next three weeks. What takes one week to heal in another takes three weeks for me. It was almost as bad as the time I developed conjunctivitis out of the blue in my right eye. It lasted for three weeks. I went everywhere outside of work with sunglasses.
The only other time I experienced such a face-altering incident was the time I woke up with large, swollen hives on my face. The left side of my face shedded skin and was swollen. I desperately worried about scarring and constantly covered the mess with Vitamin E, petroleum jelly, and hydrocortisone cream. Thankfully, there was no scarring. My skin is even better than it was. For six weeks, I went around in a hijab-like head garment and passed as a Muslim woman, albeit one that went to the casino and liquor store. The scarf was the only thing that covered up my face. Thankfully, I had a car back then and drove to and from work.
I hated taking the car across the lake. Shannon Lake is situated between Glenrosa Canyon and Bear Creek. It has a golf course and small lake. The area starts up on the mountain below the rock divide that separates the old mine from expensive rental and investment properties and then descends and spreads out onto the valley between Stewart Road and Boucherie Mountain. The mountain is nearly opposite to Shannon Lake.
To go across the lake required a crazy drive with trucks and speeding cars down a narrow, winding highway. The descent into Kelowna includes a high-rise bridge and window roads near drop-off cliffs without barriers. There were mountains on one side and cliffs on the other. I avoided driving that route if I could.
I also hated the double-dip curved part of the highway between the Mill and Peachland. There were no barriers, people sped, trucks whipped by, and the road was narrow. Tackling such obstacles was key to getting a full drivers license in central British Columbia. I had avoided the test most of my adulthood.
The Birds
I watched the feather-topped blondes strut past me along the walkway near the Excalibur Hotel. There were four of them. Each woman wore a large, extravagant headpiece of feathers, as if they were large birds. They carefully sashayed on large white platform heels. I stood 5 feet 9 inches tall. Most of my life I have had to endure a different type of feeling as a woman; my height was considered to be on the edge of being too tall for most people.
To my shock, these women towered above me. Their vanity hit me instantly. I had spent a lifetime enduring verbal abuse and harassment by angry people. I came from a culture that valued modesty, altruism, and self-effacing tendencies over self-respect, a dangerous lesson if there ever was one on how to devalue oneself.
They both had natural, light-blonde hair. Vegas heat made hair stick straight but could not even and flatten my natural ringlets. The top of my hair was slightly greasy, which was the way I preferred it. Since I had given up washing my hair with soap-based products, my hair had been much healthier. Vinegar and beer became my mantra.
They had clearly spent time this morning on their looks. Each movement seemed posed. Their hips stuck out of their uniforms. The feminine body has never enticed me, and I am not fond of garish looks such as butt and bosom hanging out of tacky showgirl uniforms.
I am sure they were considered beautiful. I wish I could consider them harmless. They were clearly eager to pose and make money. As I came off the escalator, I bumped into two pairs of them. As I attempted to regain my balance, they noticed I had been taking pictures. Naturally, they thought I wanted one of them.
Nothing could have been further from the truth. I stared at the fascinating, elegant, yet vulgarly Disney-like creation. The castle caught my attention. Vegas is the land of the garish, and its desert landscapes contrast with the commercial looseness. It has never bothered me because it is here. I would have a different reaction if I saw such a building in
Puerto Vallarta or Toronto.
Would you like to take a picture, darling. You are so gorgeous. Do you want to take a picture
I ignored them and took a picture of the castle
What. You don’t want to take a picture of us. You are beautiful
Come on. Take a picture of us.
Again, I ignored them and kept walking.