The very first time I saw Tiffany Cattrell and her mother Carman was 2 and a half years ago, on the Saturday morning that they moved into my apartment complex, four doors down from me.
It was unlike any other moving process I had ever seen before. There were no Ryder trucks or other moving vans or throng of friends and family helping to unload the two women's' material possessions with care. There was simply a mother and a daughter with everything they owned between them stuffed into a beat up station wagon.
Granted, a few days later a truck from one of those big rental furniture companies, that rent things at ungodly high monthly rates, showed up at the Cattrell residence and dropped off one bed, two tables and a very small sofa. My mind would constantly wonder what kind of life those two ladies were enduring inside that cramped apartment.
Carman Cattrell appeared, at first glance, to be in her late 40's but I would later find out she was over 10 years younger than that. Her weathered face and slumped posture indicated that she had led a very difficult and arduous life to that point.
Her daughter, Tiffany, also seemed to have the look of a woman that was older than her calendar years. In her case, despite the fact that she was only 16 when she moved in, she could have easily passed for 25. There was an inherent bleakness in Tiffany's brown eyes that spoke of great turmoil in her life as well. It appeared that Tiffany had seen more in her 16 years than anyone should in a lifetime.
She was definitely mature for her age, in more ways than one. Her long brown hair was often pulled back into a pony tail but when she teased it on the rare occasions that she went out and added some makeup, she took on the radiant glow of a young groupie that wouldn't have a problem making it backstage at any concert.
On the rare occasion I happened to see Tiffany and her Mom go somewhere together, there was a tangible aloofness between the two that spoke of a mountain's worth of festering, unresolved conflict. When I would see each woman on their own with their own friends, both Carman and Tiffany seemed like complexity different people than they did when Mother and Daughter were hanging out together.
As the months wore on, I slowly pieced together some of the tendencies of their relationship and frankly I came to believe that the teenager was keeping better and more stable company than her Mother was.
It was an interesting dichotomy. Children are naturally rebellious and frequently react unpredictably in the face of authority. When no authority is put forth, children can go in one of two directions. It appeared that Tiffany Cattrell had chosen the path of being the responsible one while her Mother went about her merry way, living life in the really really fast lane.
Still, bound by the mores and laws of society, my 16 year old neighbor was trapped in her predicament and I sensed that she would eventually fall victim to the same vicious patterns her Mother was living out in front of her, unless she could somehow escape from it.
* * * * *
Being a night owl and also someone who finds himself always looking out the window whenever a pair of headlights ease into the apartment complex after midnight, I couldn't help but see a lot of the comings and goings with my neighbors. Not that I really cared either way what any of them were doing but with the occasional burglary in the neighborhood, a person tends to pay more attention to strangers coming around.
I immediately started to notice a pattern with Carman Cattrell's late night routines as the weeks went on. Her rickety station wagon would come and go at all times of the night and many times with a wide array of men accompanying her in and out of her apartment. Knowing Tiffany was home to experience her Mother's looseness first hand, all I could do was pray that somehow she'd stay immune to her lecherous upbringing.
Many of the men I saw come and go from the Cattrell apartment frankly I wouldn't let walk my dog, and knowing those men were doing God knows what with Carman while her Daughter slept under the same roof made my skin crawl. Knowing first hand just how small the apartments were, I knew Tiffany was forced to be party to everything socially her Mother did those nights when Carman chose to bring men home with her.
Another example of Tiffany 'rebelling' against her Mother's influence was in the way she dealt with her boyfriends. While Carman went through men like pudding through a cat, Tiffany appeared to have only two steady boyfriends from the time she was 16 until she was 18, and both those boys seemed to have their acts together much more than the scuzzy things Carman Cattrell brought home.
* * * * *
One Saturday afternoon last April, I was on my back underneath my car changing the oil when I got to witness Tiffany Cattrell's then relationship with her 18 year old boyfriend hit the rocks. If my memory serves, Tiffany was about two months away from from her 18th birthday at the time.
Hidden underneath my Buick, I could hear Tiffany and her boyfriend Ryan arguing intensely as they parked in front of the Cantrell apartment. Before they had even opened the doors to get out, the whole neighborhood was filling with the sounds of cursing, yelling and threats.
When Tiffany and Ryan finally did emerge from the car, everything else around the apartment complex slowed to a halt.
I momentarily quit what I was doing with the oil pan and watched the two fight from the privacy of my secluded hiding place. I couldn't make out the entire gyst of the heated discussion but the snippets I could understand seemed to revolve around Tiffany's Mom, Carman.
"You're gonna grow up and be just like her," I heard Ryan say accusingly.
"That ought to make you happy you son of a bitch...after all Ryan...you are fuckin' her...she must be good enough for somethin'!" Tiffany belted out, not caring in the least that a dozen or so of her neighbors were voyeuristically hanging on every word.
"I got to get it from somewhere Tiff...you sure as Hell don't want to ever do anything...I got news for ya...that pussy of yours isn't made out of gold!" Ryan shot back, causing Tiffany's eyes to start to get puffy.
"FUCK YOU!" the 17 year old girl yelled bitterly.
After about three minutes of back and forth, Ryan simply gave up and got back into his car, slamming the door loudly before speeding away. Tiffany was left all alone on the front stoop of her apartment with the gaze of every curious eye in the neighborhood on her as her world caved in.
I continued laying there on my back for a few seconds waiting to see if Tiffany would turn and walk inside her apartment but she simply stood there with her head in her hands as if her feet were secured in concrete.
An overwhelming sense of discomfort washed over me as I laid there fidgeting under my car. I couldn't help feeling sorry for the 17 year old girl that was bawling her eyes out less than 100 feet from me. I could look between my driver's side rear and front tires to see several of the other neighbors milling about, getting back to their lazy weekend routines after the brief interlude of watching two teenagers fight like cats and dogs.
Looking up at the slow drip of dirty oil as it drained from my engine, I grabbed a rag to wipe my hands with as I pushed myself out from underneath my car. Why I felt the need or obligation to take myself away from what I was doing and butt my nose into someone else's business, I still don't know, but at the time I genuinely thought I was doing the right thing.
The moment Tiffany sensed me raising out from underneath my car, she instantly recoiled as if she had seen a ghost. The sound of her quick gasp of surprise was peppered with the ricocheting sounds of gravel skidding across the driveway as I stopped cold in my tracks.
Understanding her shock in seeing my rise out of nowhere, like a satanic and oil-covered jack in the box, I froze there for a moment and waited for her to gain her bearings.
