Excerpt: Ride or Die Girl

He could tell I was miserable, so he got me a kitten. That’s how I got Cora. He took me to Surrey Place Mall and we got her together, so I’d be okay at home in his containment. My gift. That’s what Cora means, according to Jason. I was so happy with that. I’d always wanted a kitten. And it showed he’d noticed at the Hamms, that he’d seen me playing with the Hamms’ cat. It showed that I wasn’t completely invisible.

One night, shortly after I’d gotten Cora, Jason decided to hit the gym alone, leaving me at home. It felt odd, because we always went to the gym together. We hadn’t been seeing eye to eye, and he wanted space, but I wasn’t into it when he didn’t invite me. When he left, though, he gave me a warning: “Whatever you do, do not answer the door.”

The way he said it was even harder than normal. Like, really don’t open the door.

“Why not?”

“My brother wants to come over here and use the kitchen.”

“Oh, okay,” I said, though it made no sense to me.

I settled in with Cora, planning on watching a movie and munching on some freshly made popcorn. Instead, I ended up watching the way she moved, how she stretched her whole spine out one vertebra at a time, how she stayed loose even when she was ready to bolt. One of the GGs in Jason’s gym had mentioned that Pilates came from a guy watching cats. So I watched Cora and kept thinking, I’m not allowed to answer the door. His brother is going to come over, and why would I question that? But it made no sense and something felt off.

Sure enough, about half an hour after Jason left, I got a knock on the door. It wasn’t a great door, just a basic deadbolt with 9 small, frosted panes, 3 across in 3 rows. Because it was glass, you could see the glow of the TV inside. Actually, it was a really stupid door for someone like Jason. Next to it was the kitchen and a hallway to the living room. The couch was hidden behind the kitchen wall, but the light of the TV would be visible from the door. Whoever was knocking would know I was home. That someone was home.

They knocked again, harder.

I got up from the sofa to look around the wall, thinking, Nope, I’m not getting it. I’m just pretending I’m not here. I have my fresh popcorn and the TV and my cat.

More banging.

“Fuck.” I have direct orders not to answer the door no matter what.

All of a sudden, I felt the walls shaking.

I heard banging and tearing, banging and tearing, and the walls kept shaking. The whole house was shaking. The sound was like Velcro being ripped apart, if wood had Velcro. I could visualize it from the sound, someone was tearing the door apart piece by piece with a crowbar.

I had a crazy urge to laugh and yell at them that there were windows on the door. Nine of them.

That was the craziest part, there were 9 windows to choose from and they were peeling the door apart piece by piece with a crowbar around the lock, hard enough that the whole house was shaking. I thought they were mentally handicapped for tearing down the door and giving me time to think about what to do, but who was I to question the professionals? They probably knew smashing glass would echo through the neighbourhood. But at the moment I thought, What a bunch of amateurs!

Are there people upstairs? Our nice Indian landlords.

It’s the fucking Iranians. They’ve come back. I was picturing the Iranians with machine guns and plastic gloves clawing the door to pieces with crowbars. I’m dead.

I ran to the washroom and locked myself in. Then I called Jason.

“Hey, what’s up?” he asked, huffing, like he was irritated I was slowing down his heavy gym sets.

“Babe! The house is getting broken into. What do I do? I don’t know what to do!”

“Oh, fuck. Who is it?”

“I don’t know who it is! Somebody with a crowbar too stupid to use it on the windows.”

“What?”

“They’re smashing the door down. I’m hiding in the fucking bathroom.”

“Call 911.”

“Are you kidding me? I can’t call 911.”

“I said call 911. You have to!”

“Okay. You tell me to call 911, I’m calling 911.”

So I called 911, still listening to the sounds of Velcro as the crowbar peeled layers off the front door.

“This is 911, what’s your emergency.” It was a woman’s voice.

“Yeah, someone’s breaking into my house. They’re tearing the door down with a crowbar.”

“Try to remain calm. Can you tell me your address so we can send help?” She enunciated every word, like she was teaching ESL class. But her own calm was helpful, slightly contagious, which was good.

“Shit, I don’t know my own address.” It was a sudden realization—that I didn’t know my own address. What the fuck? I’d been in such a cycle with Jason and we moved so often that I didn’t even know. “I, uh, don’t remember. I’m in a basement suite.”

“That’s okay. Just try to give me any information you can. Are there any nearby landmarks or cross streets?”

“I’m off Highway 1. As soon as you turn right into Fraser Heights, I’m the first right turn and then the next right turn and then I’m the third house . . . oh, shit. The bathroom door’s not going to help.”

“Are you hiding in the bathroom?”

I realized that the toilet was a stupid hiding spot. If they could tear down the outside door, the bathroom would be easy. Still talking to the operator, I ran out of the bathroom.

“It’s a stucco beige house, kind of an ugly faded yellow-beige house. We live in a basement suite.”

As I was saying this, I ran to the door upstairs—the stairs connected the basement suite with the main house—and started banging on the door.

“Shit, nobody’s home upstairs! I don’t know how much time I have left!”

“Okay, stay where you are and try to remain quiet. We’re sending officers to your location. Stay on the line with me.”

I didn’t know what to do or where to go, and the next thing I heard, they were inside the house. I could hear them. I was terrified, trying to be as silent as I could, so I hung up on 911. Then I just curled up in a ball at the top of the stairs in front of the locked door that by now seemed like some sort of gateway to heaven that I would never be allowed to cross.

“Her purse is still here,” said a voice I recognized as Teddy Hamm’s. “She’s here.” Jason had bought me a fake Louis Vuitton, the white multicolour monogram Speedy from the Richmond Asian market, so it was hard to miss. At this stage we were studio gangsters. Yeah, we had nice cars, but we couldn’t afford the real bags yet.

I could hear them trashing furniture, not sure whether they were searching for something or just destroying stuff.

Suddenly I saw Teddy come around the corner, his face lit by the glow of the TV. His jacket was open, and I could see he was wearing a Kevlar vest, ready for a shootout. I watched him look up the stairs, and then he walked back away. He seemed to be staring right at me. But he didn’t see me. It was dark at the top of the stairs, light where he was, and he didn’t see me. It was Teddy and a couple of guys they worked with. Bean was one of them. I didn’t know the other guys, but I knew Teddy was the most unpredictable and violent of the Hamm brothers.

“Bea!” Teddy yelled, sounding pissed. “Where the fuck are you?”

I could hear them going through everything downstairs, until finally Bean came around the corner, looked up the stairs and flicked on the lights.

“She’s fucking right here!” Then he turned back to me. “Come downstairs!”

Well, at least it’s not the Iranians! I thought. I know these guys. We party together.

I walked downstairs, getting ballsier with each step down. More defensive. When I got back all the way down, I said, “I didn’t fucking know it was you guys.”

It was Teddy, Bean and 2 guys I didn’t know. All 4 of them in bulletproof vests.

“We said your fucking name!” Teddy said. “You just made us tear down the door.”

“I made you tear down the door?”

“I said your fucking name!”

“Anyone could say my fucking name. Anyone who does research on Jason knows his girlfriend’s name is Beatrix. Are you kidding me? I thought you were the Iranians.” But I was starting to get scared again.

“Do I look like a fucking Iranian?”

“I didn’t see you.”

“Whatever. Where’s your fucking scumbag boyfriend?” Teddy asked.

“What are you talking about? I thought you guys are all homies?”

“No, he hasn’t paid us or answered my fucking calls.”

I figured they were probably telling the truth. I’d been cheated by Jason so many times and I knew how good of a liar he was. I figured if I didn’t want to die, I’d better flip to their side.

“Are you fucking kidding me? He’s not even paying you guys? He’s getting product?”

“Yeah, he’s getting product.”

“What a fucking idiot. I’m so embarrassed right now. I had no idea. This guy is out of control.”

“He hasn’t paid us. He’s avoiding us. He’s playing us for chumps.” I recognized the Hamms’ version of Jason’s name, playing for chumps. “So we’re going to fucking take everything he’s got.”

I shrugged. “Yeah, that’s fair.” I was making friends with them. I was on their side and we were talking about it and we were getting to the bottom of it all. I was starting to see Jason wasn’t morally correct in relationships or in business, and it was nice to have someone to relate to in the middle of all my isolation.

But we were interrupted by a huge bald guy running in from outside. The lookout. “Fucking cops are here!”

“Did you call the cops?”

“Must have been the neighbours.”

I could see a moment of fear in Teddy’s eyes as he froze, unsure what to do. But Bean was instantly scanning the basement suite. “Hide the guns! And the vests!”

They all ran into my bedroom, stripping their jackets and Kevlar vests off. Teddy stuffed his gun and vest under my bed. So did Bean. The 2 other gangsters shoved theirs in my closet. The big, bald lookout hadn’t been wearing one, but he still ran into the bedroom for no reason, breathing hard from his short run to the front door.

Then they all ran back into my living room and sat on my couch. Five huge juiceheads, sitting ass to cheek on the sofa that didn’t really fit them, all trying to look proper, and a second later a gaggle of cops in black military gear came running in with shotguns and Tasers. Or—what’s the expression? A murder of cops? With all the black gear, they made me think of crows, running in like they were storming a bunker in a war, filling up all the standing space in the living room. I could hear their radio repeating “All available members.”

I’d never had that many people in my house at once, the sofa stuffed with gangsters and the rest full of cop-soldiers flapping around and yelling at us to get on the ground, though there was no room on the ground. I stood my ground and stepped to the cops right away, my guilt needing to shut them down as soon as I could.

“No, no, no,” I said. I sounded stupid even to myself. “The guys left! The guys left!”

“Who are you?” said one of the cops, a big, red, Irish-looking guy. He seemed in charge.

“I live here! The guys left.”

I could see out of the corner of my eye Teddy giving me a hard look, but I didn’t dare look back.

“The guys left?” the cop repeated, but it wasn’t really a question. It was more like a statement of disbelief. He gestured with a shoulder at Teddy. “Then why do I recognize these clowns?”

Teddy didn’t say a word. Neither did Bean or the other guys. For once, they were the mutes and I was the one talking. I was in charge. Except not really. Step left and the cops would arrest me. Step right and the Hamms would kill me. Maybe not today. Maybe next week or next month. But I knew they were just like Jason.

“These are my friends. They came to help me. The other guys ran off. The home-invasion guys. Probably Iranian. They sounded Iranian.”

I was protecting myself. It was always about protecting myself. But then I almost started laughing because of the way all the juiceheads were sitting there with their hands innocently in their laps, and my nerves, and the cops clearly suspicious. It just came in a sudden wave and I thought I’d bust a lung holding it in, but I thought if I started laughing in front of Teddy Hamm, he’d hunt me down and kill me for the disrespect. So, I just walked outside. I thought the cops would stop me, but they didn’t.

I went outside, then around the front of the house, and I saw Jason sitting in the back of a cop car. He was staring at me and freaking out. I don’t know what he thought he was going to do. Save me, maybe. He’d grabbed one of his buddies, Jacked Jack, after my call and they’d rushed down to save me from the Hamms. But they got there at the same time as the cops, who thought they were part of the home invasion. So they grabbed both Jason and Jack and stuck them in separate cars.

They knew who Jason was, of course. And these weren’t SWAT, just regular cops that must have quickly geared up, so they’d probably known whose house they were coming to. We’d often get pulled over while I was driving the Civic and they’d give me a hard time while looking at Jason in the passenger seat, asking him, “Hey, Jason, how’s it going?” Just to play around. He got off so many times that some people started to spread the word that maybe he was an insider. I don’t know how everything always seemed to work out in his favour, but it did.

I walked up to the car, to the 4 cops around it getting into that formation they liked, where 2 would tackle him, one held a Taser and the fourth a gun. Their science-fiction names for it all, lethal overwatch and less-lethal overwatch. Which was all stupid because Jason was still inside the car, freaking out, having a panic attack and so red in the face, he was almost crying.

“No, no, no! We live here,” I said. “This is his house.” I just kept repeating it. “We live here.”

One of the cops looked at me, but the other 2 just kept staring at Jason. I couldn’t tell if they had him pegged, but I did realize that they’d never asked me my name. Not the cops inside, not out here. What does it mean when the cops never ask you your name for a home invasion?

“Yes. He’s my boyfriend. He and I live here.”

“In that case, you need to calm him down.”

“He can’t be contained. He gets panic attacks if he’s contained. Let him go.”

“He needs to calm down before we can let him go.”

“He’ll calm down when you let him go. At least open the door.”

They opened the door and Jason calmed down. Again, no questions other than to show his driver’s licence. Then they uncuffed him. Without another word, he grabbed me by the arm and walked me to the S2000.

“Drive,” he said.

“Where?”

“Just fucking drive.”

I pulled away, but I’d barely made it onto the street when I realized my new kitten was going to escape.

“There’s no door on the house. Cora’s going to escape.”

“We’ll find her after. Now go!”