Patch.com
Sept 25 2011
FICTION
NoHo Noir: ‘Mother and Child Reunion’
Rouzan’s mother has something to say.
By Katherine Tomlinson
In the wake of her father and brother’s arrests, Rouzan had moved out
of her parents’ home and into an FBI safe house. It was a small place
that smelled like cigarettes and fresh paint and she hated being
cooped up there all day.
The agents refused to let her out of their sight and the one time she
tried to sneak away, she was caught before she got a block from the
house and locked in for the night just so they could make a point.
Rouzan had been swept up into their custody so fast that she hadn’t
really had time to pack. She’d left her iPod in her bedroom, and was
getting antsy from music withdrawal.
She felt like a prisoner and not like a star witness.
And it didn’t help that the agents didn’t like her. The agents were
cordial but not warm. She knew they blamed her for Nick’s death.
They still hadn’t found his body and his beautiful blonde wife had
been on television begging Rouzan’s father to tell authorities where
his body had been dumped.
Rouzan knew that was not going to happen.
She knew a lot of things that were not going to happen but she had no
idea what was going to happen and her minders weren’t really that
interested in answering her questions.
They didn’t welcome her curiosity and they deflected her questions and
they did not initiate conversations with her. When she attempted to
chat, they politely cut her off, turning to their laptops and their
smart phones and clicking and texting away like people who had
something better to do and somewhere more important to be.
She never would have agreed to meet with her mother if she hadn’t been
bored out of her freaking mind.
Rouzan’s mother scared her more than her father. Her father was like a
circus bear – big and strong but kind of clumsy and slow and a little
stupid. Her mother was a leopard, with lethally sharp claws. Her
mother knew 14 different words for `whore’ and had had thrown all of
them at Rouzan when she found out she was sleeping with the FBI agent.
Unlike her brother, Rouzan had never really learned to speak Armenian
and when her mother rained curses down on her, she was glad of it.
She caught a word here and there that she knew, Aboosh (which meant
`stupid’) and one particularly colorful phrase that meant, `I’ll pee
in your eye,’ which Rouzan had thought was hilarious when she was a
little girl.
She didn’t think it was funny any more though, not after enduring the
threat a few dozen times at close range, her mother’s breath a noxious
perfume of Parliament Lights and honey pistachio pastries.
In the weeks of her confinement, before the FBI came calling, Rouzan’s
mother had invented fiendish torments to punish her daughter for her
real and imagined sins.
Rouzan began avoiding the kitchen after her mother flung a pot of
scalding water at her. She began showering in the middle of the night
because otherwise her mother would come into the bathroom and stare
balefully at her, fingering the neck of a large butcher knife.
Her mother had literally turned her back on Rouzan as the agents
escorted her out of her parent’s home.
But now her mother had sent Rouzan a note tucked into a copy of People
Magazine that was part of a pile of periodicals the agents bought
every week from the same newsstand.
The proprietor of the newsstand wasn’t Armenian but he didn’t want
trouble with any of Rouzan’s father’s people, so when he saw Rouzan on
the street, he was more than happy to act as a conduit from mother to
daughter.
Her mother’s note had said she’d been shocked by some of the
revelations aired in court and that she wanted to make peace with her
daughter. She stopped short of saying Rouzan was doing the right
thing, but the note was an olive branch.
And Rouzan, beaten down by boredom and anxiety and fear, agreed to
meet her mother.
She asked the agents if they could take her to the drug store because
she needed to buy some `personal items.’
It amused her to see how squeamish the male agents acted when she
elaborated on the personal nature of those items.
She had counted on that embarrassment, hoped they would agree to let
her go along on the errand so they wouldn’t have to pick up the items
and look as sheepish at the checkstand as a 12-year-old buying his
first condoms.
Once in the drug store, it was simple enough to duck around an aisle
and into a nook next to the blood pressure machine where her mother
was waiting.
`Mayrig,’ Rouzan said to her mother, who opened her arms for a hug.
`How are you?’ her mother asked. `You look thin. Are they feeding you?’
`Yes,’ Rouzan said, happy that her mother was asking about her
welfare. `I just haven’t been very hungry.’
`No,’ said her mother. `I imagine not.’
Rouzan’s mother looked over her shoulder. `We don’t have much time,’
she said, `but I wanted to give you this.’
`What?’ Rouzan asked, smiling until she saw what her mother was holding.
Rouzan was backing away when her mother brought her hand up and fired
the little gun she’d been concealing the whole time.
The sound of the gunshot was only partially masked by the store’s
jaunty Muzak and it was loud enough to alarm the two agents who’d
drawn the short straws to accompany Rouzan.
Knocking customers out of the way, they barreled into the small space
where Rouzan and her mother had concealed themselves.
One of the agents tackled Rouzan’s mother, wrestling the gun away from
her as the other bent down to tend to Rouzan.
`Stay with me kid,’ she heard him say and then all she could hear was
her mother screaming epithets in Armenian.
Armenian is a good language for cursing, Rouzan thought and then her
thoughts skittered away like roaches when the light comes on.
`Is she dead?’ Rouzan’s mother asked the agent giving her daughter CPR.
He mistook the question for solicitude, an indication that she was
having second thoughts about what she’d just done.
`No,’ he said, his attention fixed on Rouzan’s pale face.
Rouzan’s mother said something in Armenian, and before either of the
agents could react, she kicked her daughter right in the chest with
the toe of her orthopedic shoes.
Rouzan let out a keening wail and then fell silent.
`How about now?’ Rouzan’s mother asked, as if she were asking a stock
boy for a price check on a container of Metamucil.
The agent looked down at Rouzan’s face, which was the same gray shade
as the linoleum floor.
Rouzan wasn’t breathing any more.
He rocked back on his heels and let out a breath and thought about
just how FUBAR the situation had gotten.
`Yeah,’ he said to Rouzan’s mother.
`Now she’s dead.’
Note: NoHo Noir is fiction that’s not for the faint-hearted. Written
by Katherine Tomlinson and illustrated by Mark Satchwill, these tales
are weekly walks on the wild side, narratives torn from the bleeding
heart of North Hollywood and Toluca Lake; stories of love and death
and everything that lies between…