I have tried to be as faithful as possible in my translation of what Laurie Clay told me when I visited her in prison. However, I do not know whether it will be enough. First of all, we were separated by thick glass, and the recording I made of our conversation was not clear. Second, she does not speak Portuguese. I could not simply transcribe her words, like I did with Salomão. I will report what she told me in the manner she told me and as I interpreted it, even when it might seem obvious.
Laurie Clay is serving a twenty-two year sentence. She was convicted of second-degree murder. She had on an orange jumpsuit when we met. I could see a four-leaf clover tattooed on the inside of her right wrist, and she wore her blond hair in a short ponytail.
To get permission to talk to her, I had to make a request in writing to the prison administration. Her consent was required too.
Almost two years earlier, Laurie had been accepted to study fashion at the New School. Laurie met Sandra the day she, Laurie, was visiting the apartment her parents had bought for her. She was accompanied by the interior decorator who would help her furnish it. She was intrigued by that tall girl, with black hair and a red handbag, who was leaving just as they arrived.
The next time they met was at a café on the corner of Grove and Bleecker, which, curiously, I now realize, was named Angélique. They drank tea and walked back home together. They soon became friends.
Laurie, an only child like Sandra, had been an eccentric teenager by Louisville, Kentucky, standards, which is where her family was from. She went through several phases, all of which she devoted herself to fervently. There was a vegetarian phase, when she stopped consuming foods of animal origin and wearing leather. There was a Goth phase, in which she only wore black clothes and makeup, and there was a mystical phase, when she attended a variety of churches and sects.
I think the truth is that Laurie enjoyed being onstage. From what she told me, every new phase meant a new wardrobe and a new lifestyle. Because these phases were relatively short, she was constantly reinventing herself, as if creating her own cast of characters, as if filling an album with pictures of roles she could play. She never could have imagined, though, that in this album there would also be photographs of a prisoner.
In New York, she was living out her omnipotent phase. She was young, ambitious, headstrong and rich. For her, studying fashion meant, above all, expanding her collection of aesthetic experiences. She would go out every night. The experience she was chasing was the one she had not yet had.
“For someone like me, who’d just arrived from Kentucky, Sandra was the epitome of the true New Yorker. She was six-two. Super elegant in her manners and the way she dressed. She never wore prints, just solids. She had style, charisma, great taste. It was the whole androgynous thing. I’d never met a Brazilian before. She seemed exotic to me. Sandra was very chic. In a way, she was who I wanted to be. The day she died, we were celebrating the fact that the New York Times had confirmed they’d be doing a story about her restaurant. I was proud to be friends with her, to be seen with her. I thought having a transgender friend was the coolest thing.
“I never meant to kill her. I never even thought of killing anyone. I interrupted her life and mine in a moment of madness. Because of one irresponsible act, I forever changed our destinies.
“At the time, everyone in my class was experimenting with ‘magic mushrooms.’ A friend of mine, who grew mushrooms at home, gave me a paper bag with twelve small red mushrooms with white spots on them. They looked like little strawberries. ‘The active ingredient is psilocybin,’ he said.
“I was curious. The day I got the mushrooms it was cold. On the way home, I ate the two smallest ones. I ran into Sandra in front of the house. We arrived at the same time. We went upstairs together. She was beaming. She invited me in for a glass of champagne to celebrate the New York Times article. I wasn’t going to drink champagne. I’m really not into champagne. But, since the mushrooms hadn’t really taken effect, I thought maybe it wouldn’t be a problem if I just took one sip to toast with my friend.
“We were facing each other. She sat by the window in a high-back chair. I remember her profile against the darkness outside the window. I didn’t offer her mushrooms because I knew pot was the only drug she liked. She smoked it sometimes at home to relax.
“Sandra was all excited about the article. She kept flailing her arms about. I sat there, right in front of her, just listening. I think that’s the last sober memory I have of that day.
“After that, all I remember was my hallucination. I started hearing voices in my head. I was certain I heard the voice of God. He ordered me to push Sandra through the window with all my might.
“The voice grew stronger. He repeated the order. Suddenly, Sandra sounded aggressive, threatening. She was an evil being. I became convinced God had entrusted me with the task of ridding the world of that rotten fruit, and I wanted all the glory that came with that.
“I wanted to push her. It was simply a matter of having a desire to do something and then satisfying that desire. Like buying a pair of shoes or a bracelet and seeing no reason not to.
“I pushed Sandra with all my might. I remember her losing her balance, tumbling, with her arms open, falling back in her chair. If I close my eyes now, I can still hear the curtain tearing.
“I can still hear the dry, muffled thud of the body hitting the courtyard below.
“The next morning, I woke up alone, in my apartment. I woke up to police sirens. They’d found her body. No one came for me that morning. I took the two o’clock flight to Louisville.
“At home, I told my parents what had happened. They went crazy. We talked to lawyers, but there wasn’t much they could do. I surrendered to the police on Monday.
“I’m going to spend a long time here. My life is here now. Life goes on. It doesn’t stop just because I’m behind bars. But it’s very limited.
“I read a lot, I’m learning to meditate. I exercise, I write. I have my parents’ support, but I think I’ll never have children of my own. Prison doesn’t kill you, but it steals important things from you.
“I killed someone.
“I don’t like knowing I have this power. Knowing this makes me aware of the immense responsibility I have. It hurts to know that I stupidly killed a happy person, who would have gone on to do good. I stole her happiness. I subtracted happiness from the world. I have to make up for that.
“My dad didn’t like me being friends with Sandra because she was trans. When he visited me, he couldn’t even bring himself to say hi to her. He said transsexuals were ‘the devil’s work.’
“That must have stayed in my subconscious. We really don’t understand how our minds work, do we? You’re a psychiatrist, do you think it was my dad who planted the seed that made me murder my friend Sandra? I don’t know. It makes no difference now. I’m here now.”