TTSOML #209: Bruce and Karine From Canada

From the start, I wondered who Bruce and Karine were and what they really did. They said they were just normal people, working normal jobs, but Bruce had a cop personality and Karine knew how to shoot a gun, and the fact that he happened to be right behind me when I was ordered to go across the border, made me wonder. Was he border patrol?

The fact that he came onto me could have been to mask who he really was, or to see if I was a prostitute or escort or would do that sort of thing. I don't know, and I do believe they set me up in the end, but that they also got a different impression too. I didn't know, ever, if they were really trying to help us, just getting information, or at first were helping and then trying to do me in. I'll just give the facts, and you will see what I mean.

Bruce came back to the hotel with his wife Karine, and took us out to breakfast. They had two kids we met later, who were at a daycare. After talking, they invited me and my son to stay with them, at their house, and to figure things out. They said I should talk to a lawyer. I said I was illegal if I stayed there but they said, before, you didn't have friends in Canada. Now, you have friends. So they said I was here legally, but that I could talk to a lawyer too.

I sort of wondered if this was the "something special" thing Radi was talking about. If someone was going to give us chance. I will probably never know. Did Bruce have a conversation with someone on his cell phone as we followed him in my car to another location, before we got out to talk?

I also wonder, given the progression of events, if someone just wanted to find a better way or excuse to get rid of us, without lengthy extradition processes. Or, who knows, maybe a better way to tarnish my name and jail me for an excuse to separate me from my son?

At any rate, I went with Bruce and Karine to their house and met their two girls. My son enjoyed playing with them. He tried to hug them a lot though, and they didn't like it and it hurt his feelings. They'd push him away and then he'd try to hug them again, waiting for their approval, as he got from other kids in the hispanic neighborhood we played at primarily (I think hispanic kids are much more affectionate than white ones, and it's obvious), and from me. I felt bad for him and the other parents felt bad for their daughter, one who took it personally. Then my son started pulling their hair to get attention after she'd say, "noooo!!!!" and push him or run away. So that wasn't great. It was the worst part.

The other part that wasn't so great was that Karine acted jealous of me sometimes. I didn't give her any reason to be either. I think one time, after a beer or two and watching a movie, her husband tried to hold my hand and I thought it was a friendly, hey there squeeze and didn't move my hand. It didn't seem romantic, but then he flicked my foot, and got up mad, like he'd "tested" me and found ME to be "unfaithful" to, I guess, Karine. I never did anything to encourage him though, ever.

They rented a couple of movies they wanted me to watch. It seemed the ones they wanted me to watch were always about dropping the fight or both sides lose. One was with Jodi Foster, too, where she's raped or sees a killing in a convenience store and no one serves justice so she starts taking justice into her own hands, and starts doing a citizen patrol of sorts on the streets. The other one was about two gangs, or a big gang against one man. In the end, the guy looks at him as, I think, they're both dying, or one is, and the evil gang guy laughs and says, "Look at you, you're just like me" and laughs,getting off that the other guy has become violent like they won for corrupting his innocence.

The other thing I wondered about, was Karine's justification of their vehicle. She kept saying everyone thought it was a cop car but it wasn't. Why would she tell me this unless they were trying to deflect any suspicions?

I hadn't had my period, at ALL, for two or three months before leaving for Canada. I and my son had been sick and my periods stopped altogether. When I was at Bruce and Karine's, for the first time, I had a regular period. It was like a dam had broke, and it was even for an even 5 day period, as had been my regular pattern before all the muscle fasciculations and pain my son and I began to experience.

They were concerned that I hadn't been having my periods and seemed worried about it. They even seemed to be a little bit afraid. I think they really knew something wasn't right, and that I wasn't lying about things.

The other thing that happened, was that after we'd been in Canada a few days, my son and I both came down with an extremely severe case of bronchitis and my son's was so bad, we almost took him to ER. It was more like whooping cough and then progressed to bronchitis and we both had to get antibiotics for it. I could tell, personally, that my son and I were both still having pains and my stomach pain didn't subside for at least two weeks. I still took my narcotics, but was trying to ration and I was still in a lot of pain from everything. Bruce and Karine seemed to be paranoid about narcotics and said I was "addicted" but I wasn't. They just didn't think being on daily narcotics was normal, and they didn't know the extent of my broken bones, injuries, and pain, on top of the damages my son and I had been through. And less than one month's supply wasn't enough to wean off of, when I had migraines too, and had been on the narcotics for several months. It should have been more gradual, which I don't think they understood.

I stayed with them and went to see a lawyer who said I was now legally in Canada. I said what about this? and showed him the paper to voluntarily leave the country, and he said it was no problem. He said before, I had to go because I had insufficient funds, but that this had changed the minute I found "friends" and the problem was legally solved. He told me I could look for a job and once I had an offer, I would then apply for a work permit and everything would be legal.

Bruce and Karine paid for our food, and some medical things as well. Once, towards the end though, I don't know if Bruce was trying to trap me or what, but he told me he didn't have money to pay for the medical visit we needed, and what was I going to give HIM in return? He implied sexual favors. He said I was helping out around the house and with the kids but that was for Karine and he got nothing out of it. So what was I going to give HIM? I said, "A good feeling". He had told me his family had to go through a wrong CPS matter when he was a kid and it was prejudicial so I told him helping us was a way to get back or to right what went wrong with his experience. That stopped him.

I really felt, intuitively, it was some kind of police trick though. It was just a little odd. It felt more like an attempt at entrapment or to test me.

They encouraged me to get a job. I tried looking for one and they told me where to look. Then, they took me to get some Tylenol-3s because I was out of the oxycodone (which is not oxyCONTIN, it's like Vicodin, which is milder, without the acetamenaphin). It was still too much of a step to go from my regular narcotics to Tylenol-3s which were very weak. So I looked up how to separate the tylenol from the codeine online, because I didn't know how to do it, and did it so I'd have something slightly stronger without killing my liver. They freaked out about this, and thought I was some kind of druggie when I did this. I wasn't, and the amount I was using was very minimal, but water extraction was too much for them, they said.

Bruce also claimed I'd left a pill on the floor and I never did. I was very careful with my medication and didn't spill anything. The other thing that they freaked out about was when I was heating oil in a cast iron pan. I always use steel, not cast iron, and didn't realize it heats faster and more intensely. So there was a small fire in the pan and I grabbed the pan and threw it into the snow. There were a couple of tiny burn marks into a multi-patterned rug and Karine claimed she knew it was from hot oil and was there a fire? I think it's nuts they would guess, unless there was a camera somewhere, or a neighbor saw me throwing the pan into the snow.

It wasn't my fault for not knowing about cast iron, and no harm was done, but they still freaked out.

I had been traumatized by my own country and Washington state idiots, and then Canada authorities, and they expected me to be perfect. Not only that, my son and I had basically been fried for months with who-knows-what and he and I had been so sick and I had blood tests to prove it, and I'm supposed to be completely clear-headed all the time?

I wasn't a drug addict, I was weaning myself gradually, but if they were cops, they didn't believe me. Because that's how all cops are. And Bruce kept saying he'd once been an addict so I think he was projecting a little.

At any rate, I was a good mother and my son and I were bonded, period, there was no doubt. Karine also noted the warped toenail of my son because I saw her looking at this the last night. I also had warped nails. It wasn't from malnutrition either, and in Canada, my son was weighed and measured and was TOP PERCENTILE, STILL. I took excellent care of my son.

Karine started acting out. She was acting jealous and it was time to go. But I think my son and I were set up in the end. Maybe they saw the extraction and that was "it", and they made wrong assumptions, but whatever it was, on the last night there, Karine didn't act like herself and kept looking at my son and was trying not to cry. And she still cried. I think she knew we going to be lambs to the slaughter and that they were part of it.

For one thing, Bruce's sister was a social worker. Who worked with kids. For another thing, they knew all about the ad for the nanny job I was going to, and pointed it out to me and then made a huge effort to correct me when I couldn't find out how to get there, and told me it was just down the road. The other thing was that if Bruce was a cop, well, the woman looking for a nanny had a brother who was a cop and SHE was a nurse in Penticton.

I was out with my son one night, taking him back to Bruce and Karine's, after playing for a couple of hours with him at the McDonalds. The weather was really bad, and it was sleeting rain and I couldn't see well enough to drive so I pulled over at a hotel. I met the owner there and tried to call to get a ride and Bruce blew up. He didn't want to go out and get us. The hotel owner spoke up and said he'd like to do it so I told Bruce nevermind. The hotel owner and I talked on the way and he said to me, that my son and I could stay, FREE OF CHARGE, in one of the hotel rooms which had a full kitchenette, until we were on our feet. No special favors, nothing. He said once I made enough from my job, and the condition was that I at least came in with a job offer and was starting work, I could decide what to do next. He knew about my whole situation, that I was there to protect my son from U.S. crap and he just offered to help us out. He was making himself our new "friend" and offered us full provisions and privacy.

If I had a job offer, I already had a place to stay, free of charge, and he said he'd help with food too.

I WAS making my way for myself, with my son, and I could have done it without Bruce and Karine too. There are good people everywhere, and I had enough faith to go, and make it happen.

When this hotel owner dropped me off, he looked at the SUV Bruce and Karine drove and said, "Is he a cop?" He said it was an RCMP vehicle. I said no, it just looked like one.

So Bruce and Karine point out this ad to me and I applied and it was for a nanny position and she gave me a copy of the contract. She said she would take care of all the papers because she would apply for me to have a permit and said that after working for her for 2 years, I could also apply to be a Canadian citizen. She said it was all legal.

So I took a copy of the contract for employment, which showed I had a job offer, and I told Bruce and Karine and said I was leaving. They didn't give us any food to take with, or anything, and I had a very bad feeling about things. I just knew something wasn't right. They asked me where I was going next. I said I was going to kill some time with my son at the Wal-Mart until the hotel owner was home and then we were checking into our new room. I had already bought some food for us too.

So they knew we were going to Wal-Mart and guess where I was arrested by the RCMP of Penticton?

At Wal-Mart.

Thanks, Bruce and Karine...

For nothing. My son thanks you too.

At any rate, just so everyone knows, the extraction I did was about 5 Tylenols worth and then I saved the residue codeine to take as needed. It's nothing, basically, and this was the best way to go off of everything by stepping down gradually. When I weaned myself off of oxycontin in Oregon, after my knee surgery, I did it myself, at my own pace, and I didn't jump from one thing to nothing. I stepped from oxycontin to then Vicodin, to a half of Vicodin, to almost nothing, to nothing. Anyway, to prove a point.

But nothing else explains how my son and I were "found" at the Wal-Mart except that Bruce called his social worker sister and she then sent someone out who claimed, to other police (or just to mask everything to me) that she just so happened to see us there.

It wasn't an accident. It was a set-up.

Oh, the movies they wanted me to watch...I am looking them up. The Jodie Foster one was "The Brave One". I'll find the title for the other one. They were of the genre "revenge films". I can't find it. Someone who knows about this kind of action film will know it. It's extremely violent and then at the end, the two guys are sitting on a bench and the gang guy, who might be the last one standing, says they made him just like them. I think the guy who got involved got involved by mistake and was a professional and his family was killed so then he goes after them when the police don't.

Karine also cut my son's hair, and I asked her to perm it for me and she totally fried it, leaving it on my head way too long without the neutralizer. It seemed purposeful to me.

It was sort of like they were trying to help, but sort of just plain NOT.