Monica

I first met her through a mutual friend, loRRett; They worked together at a massage parlor in Berkeley. She went by "Lee" but her name was Monica. She was a lady of talent: she was an artist.

Her boyfriend was a dope dealer and he physically abused her on a regular basis. We used to joke that he would hit her because the name of the day ended in "Y".

I met with the two of them after work to discuss the idea of Lee disappearing from her condition. I told er that if she wanted to vanish, she would have to walk away from everything for several weeks. She indicated she wasn't ready to do that "right now", and went back to her life, such as it was.

We stayed in touch, having an occasional meeting for coffee.

And then her call came in.

I told her I would be parked in her driveway. Walk out the front door, take your purse and nothing else.

Lee told a story of how her boyfriend had gone out the previous night to a party. In the morning, his "stash disappeared, and she had taken it. The interrogation included being beaten with a piece of broomstick and having cigarette burns to her body. He yanked her around the house and broke her wrist. When he passed out, she called me.

I drove her to Mountain View. A stop by the local "Doc-in-the-Box"got a splint for her wrist, ointments for the burns, sleeping and pain pill prescriptions. At that time, the back bedroom in the Wyandotte house was actually a "bedroom". We fed her, gave her hot chocolate and put her to bed.

For the next few days, she