Kill the Silence

by Monika Korra

  But he laughed right along with the others, and he slapped me on the backside and joined them in their gang rape. Somehow, though, I got the sense that he was going along without wholeheartedly wanting to. How could someone be so weak to just go along with something like this? If he had any conscience whatsoever, why didn’t he stop them?

  When they spoke to one another, it was always in Spanish, so I couldn’t understand a word. The Worst One did most of the talking to me. When I thought they might be done and the driver started the car again, the Worst One made it even more horrible—he wanted oral sex.

  “Do it. Suck me. I know you want to. Open your mouth, but don’t bite me!”

  No.

  I didn’t think I could. I was again so on the verge of being sick that I didn’t think I could physically do what he was telling me. And yet there was a gun, and this was the price of my life. What would I have done to keep my life? Anything. I paid for my life in horrors, in disgust. I paid with every piece of me. Through it all, though, the sense that another presence was there with me and watching me took hold. I was a Christian in the strictest sense, baptized and confirmed, though not a regular churchgoer, but it seemed to me that the presence and the voice I heard in my mind and in my heart was some otherworldly being.

  The Worst One held my hair and pushed my head up and down. And when he was done, they all laughed together again. Was this the end?

  “Please, can’t you just let me out here?” I asked.

  More talking and yelling in Spanish, with less laughter this time. With my heart in my throat, I waited for a door to open—but when it did, the Boss and the Worst One got out. The third one sat half-turned in the seat, his gun hand draped lightly over the back, all his fingers loosely spanning the grip. I briefly wondered how long it would take for him to aim and fire. Through the open door the sound of the other two relieving themselves on dry leaves reached me.

  While they were gone, the third one offered me back my clothes. My dress, then my bra. Then he held up a black clog and asked, “Is this yours?”

  I shook my head, barely able to contain my anger. I felt as if someone were pressing a sharp tool to each of my temples.

  I had a better sense of what kind of job the Boss and the Worst One and the third one did.

  I shrugged my way into my dress, and the third one sat there staring at me, stupidly holding the shoe like a salesclerk wondering if I might like it.

  “That isn’t my shoe. I don’t want it. I don’t care about my stupid shoes either. Just let me out of here!”

  He lowered the clog and then it thumped to the ground. He sighed, confirming for me that he was the weakest one—not the third one any longer, but the weakest one. I wasn’t afraid of him. He wouldn’t do anything to me unless the others were there. But he also wouldn’t disobey them; he wasn’t going to let me go free until they allowed it. In some ways that made me despise him even more. I imagined the conversation they might have had earlier that evening.

  “We were thinking of going out and kidnapping and raping someone. Want to join us?”

  A shrug. Pursed lips. “I guess so. I don’t have anything else to do.”

  How pathetic. Furious, I stared at him, all of me wanting to shake him and say, “How could you?”

  He dropped his eyes, and I felt some small measure of victory.

  That feeling didn’t last.

  It became clear that the other two weren’t happy with him. The Worst One pointed at me and shook his head and then snatched the gun from the weakest one and used it to gesture toward the front of the vehicle. The weakest one rubbed his chin and then stood outside the car with his arms spread wide as if to say, “What did I do to deserve this?” He remained there, his slumped posture accentuating the belly that hung like a hammock.

  I didn’t think it was possible, but in that moment, I found him even more despicable than before. How could he believe that in any way he was the victim, he was the one who had somehow been wronged?

  A moment later I was naked again. The engine started and we were moving, the Boss and the Worst One taking turns with me again.

  When they were through, after they’d dressed themselves again, the Boss sat in the seat in front of me. The Worst One sat beside me. He set the gun on the seat, just within his reach.

  “Where are you from?”

  It took me a moment to be sure I’d heard him correctly.

  “I’m not from this country. I’m not American,” I told him. It seemed important not to give him anything more of myself than necessary, so I held on to my Norwegian background as a secret. I wanted to give him just enough so that he knew that I was a person; maybe that would make a difference in their decision.

  “Where do you live?”

  “In an apartment.”

  He engaged in more small talk, like we were on a date, and I replied almost automatically, revealing as little as I could, keeping my tone flat, like we were two strangers on a bus and he was interrupting my reading and I hoped that he’d get the message.

  After a few minutes, he lapsed into silence.

  “Please, just drop me off anywhere,” I said, enunciating each word as precisely as I could, not angry, not pleading, simply speaking in as determined a manner as I could.

  Even through their Spanish, I got the gist of their conversation—they were talking about what to do with me next. The weakest one wanted to call my friends and tell them where to find me. The other two didn’t. They were talking about Oak Cliff and then asked me if I knew where it was.

  “No,” I told them. “Please, may I have my dress back?”

  They kept my shoes and underwear, but the Weak One handed me my phone and my dress again. I hadn’t even put the dress over my head when they grabbed me and covered my eyes in duct tape. I flinched at the stuttering sound of it as they unrolled it, wrapping my head several times.

  I felt the SUV come to a stop. I heard a door open; felt hands on my back; then small stones stinging my knees. The wind and the chill air bit at my skin. I tried to rise, but my legs refused to support me at first. I struggled to get into something like the position a sprinter takes in the blocks. After that I was able to stand. I wobbled and shivered, but still afraid of what they might do to me, I didn’t tear at the tape holding me in darkness.

  “We know where you live and how to find you, so don’t even try to tell the police!” the Worst One threatened. Then he slammed the door.

  I took a few steps, then heard the crackle of their vehicle’s tires following me. I tried to move faster, but my feet rebelled. Had the men just been waiting until I was outside to shoot me, so there wouldn’t be a mess in the SUV?

  Again, I felt hands on my back. Again, they were pushing me. I hit the ground hard, unable to break my fall. A hand grabbed my wrist and lifted my arm before slamming it to the pavement. I heard my cell phone clatter and then another order.

  “Run!”

  I took off, blindly running. I didn’t care or know in what direction I was moving. It felt exhilarating to no longer be held in place, no longer in that vehicle. All I wanted to do was to put time and space between those men and me.

  Doors slammed behind me again. I ran and ran as straight as I could until I no longer heard the sounds of their car, until I felt less sure they would come back and shoot me. I ran, and I was alive. The voice I’d been hearing all along telling me that I was going to be all right had been telling me the truth. Feelings of relief welled up from my stomach and for a few moments I was no longer cold.

  Several minutes passed before I felt it was safe to remove the tape. The adhesive had secured itself to my hair, and every tug at the stubborn tape felt like my scalp was being pricked with dozens of needles. I abandoned that effort and just pulled the tape below my eyes. I blinked to clear my vision.

  Shaking and numb from shock and the cold, I resumed running along the side of the road, finally realizing that my dress was still in my hand. I stopped and pulled the dress over my head and made m
yself stand still for a moment, fighting against my body’s urgent call to just keep running. I needed a plan to get myself home, but my thoughts took off in a million different directions.

  How could I flag down a car? How could I trust that the men inside the car wouldn’t want to rape me? How would I look to someone passing by? They’d think I was drunk or crazy, someone wandering around at that hour barefoot in a dress with no coat. Wouldn’t they be frightened of me?

  You have to do this, I told myself. You don’t have any other choice.

  Another thought stabbed at me. What would happen when people found out what had been done to me? I wondered if I would lose my scholarship and have to leave school. I loved being at SMU; I loved the life I had in Dallas, my friends, Robin. What if all that was going to be taken away? What if my parents refused to let me return to school, didn’t trust any longer that I’d be safe in the U.S.? Maybe I should just get myself home, not tell anyone what had really gone on, make up a story that the men were just playing a joke on us, trying to scare the college kids.

  I shivered, and it was as if my body was taking control again, letting my brain know that it needed help, that all my delaying was getting in the way of being taken care of.

  I saw approaching headlights and then the outline of a car, and a lone figure silhouetted behind the wheel. I retreated deeper into the shadows farther onto the shoulder. Not with one person. Better if it was a couple. The cold was starting to really get to me. I worried that hypothermia had begun to affect my thinking process. I had to get inside somewhere.

  A string of cars came toward me. I dashed to the edge of the road, screaming and waving my arms. The first car in line got within fifty meters or so, and I backed away, the sound of the frightened voice in my head drowning out the more sensible voice.

  You can’t trust anyone.

  In the distance, a traffic signal went from green to yellow to red, its colors bleeding across the pavement toward me.

  The next green light, I told myself. I repeated the same charge-and-retreat process three times. That was enough, I told myself when the image of the three men—the Worst One, the Boss, and the Weak One—appeared in my mind.

  To my left stood a row of three darkened houses. From somewhere, the sound of a dog barking carried on the wind. I hoped that meant that someone else was awake at that hour, someone either coming home from or going to work. Without pausing to think, I made my way to the first house. The sound of my fist rattling against the storm door startled me. I banged again, harder this time, and stood running in place, taking tiny steps and hugging myself like a kid just out of a bath.

  In my impatience, I looked along the trio of houses. From the corner of my eye, I saw a dark shape. I turned fully and saw it was a black SUV. Its tinted windows hid whoever might be inside it. Why would anyone choose to drive something like that and with those windows? They had something to hide; they did things they didn’t want anyone to know about. Rapists used that kind of car.

  I ran away and to the next house, where I again banged on the door. No one answered. I moved to the third house, but again, no one answered. I imagined that if I was the one inside and was startled awake by a loud noise, I would wonder if I had been dreaming, or maybe I’d be too afraid to answer. I thought it best to try each house again in the same order as before.

  The ground underneath me was ice. The only way I could get warm was to run, so I set off running again, avoiding the passing cars, talking to myself the whole way.

  You’ve come this far. You can’t give your life away now out of fear.

  It felt like I was playing a version of Russian roulette. The next person in a car could be my savior, or maybe he would be another man with a gun who would rape me. I wanted to see my family and friends again, and I didn’t want to die out here in the cold.

  More than anything, I wanted to be in Robin’s arms again. I remembered how it felt when he held me, how safe I felt. I needed to feel that kind of reassurance, experience again the sense that nothing existed outside the two of us. In those moments when he enveloped me, I felt invincible. I needed to experience that again.

  I knew what I had to do; I just couldn’t seem to get my body to do it. I stopped running for an instant. I bent over and balled my fists and punched at my thighs as a way to get my body to respond, to break out of the numbness.

  A block later, I spotted a man walking in the opposite direction on the other side of the street.

  “Please help!” I called. “I need you to help me!”

  He looked and said something I couldn’t understand. He continued moving toward me, but then he paused and leaned against a stop sign. From the way he canted his body at a nearly obtuse angle, I could see that he was drunk. He could not help me.

  “Never mind! I’m okay! Just turn around and keep going wherever you were going,” I said foolishly, thinking it was best not to offend him.

  He didn’t listen. I ran a few paces and looked behind me. He was trailing behind me.

  Now I had to flag down a car. Not only had I just been raped, but now I also had a drunk man following me. I couldn’t afford to let my fear take over again. This time, I ran alongside the road and waved my arms and shouted loudly when a car approached. But it didn’t stop.

  I tried to brush it off. Another car, and I did the same thing. Again, the car passed me by. How could it be?

  I had finally found my nerve, and then I lost my faith. One after another, cars drove right past me, ignoring the girl wearing nothing but a dress, with duct tape all over her face, begging for help. I will never forget the woman who looked right into my eyes without blinking and drove away, not even slowing down.

  Is this what it has come to?

  Nothing made sense anymore. The world was turning its back on me, and I couldn’t let it. I had to do something drastic to make someone stop, so I stood right in the middle of the road. I planted myself there and waved my arms.

  Instead of stopping, the cars just swerved around me.

  I couldn’t believe it. I wanted to cry, but the tears didn’t come. Exhausted and in shock, I felt like my brain was about to shut down, when, at last, I heard a woman’s voice.

  “Are you okay?”

  I turned and there she was, leaning her head out of her car window on the side of the road. Relief washed over me. I was going to be rescued!

  “No, I need help. Can you help me? I got raped and I need help now.”

  She just stared at me for a few seconds and then said, “Oh. Sorry, but my car is broken down here. I need help, too. But if you keep running, there’s a police station further up the road.”

  I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. I looked past her and saw someone slumped over the passenger seat, saw the shattered windshield, and wondered briefly what had happened to them that put them there that late at night. Those thoughts took off.

  I’d been running for more than two miles. Out of energy to run, I walked right down the middle of the street with no sense of logic or sanity. I felt sure I was losing my mind. Was anything even real anymore?

  All I wanted to do now was to get home. I thought to myself, No one has to find out about this. I just have to go home and go to sleep and not tell anyone, and I’ll be able to forget this night. Someday. I just have to find my way home.

  But then another thought made me remember why I couldn’t stay silent about this:

  The shoe.

  A white van passed me. I had given up on hoping for anyone to stop, but then it turned around and came back toward me. I felt a bit of hope, right until I saw that there were three men inside. All three of them got out of the van. This couldn’t be happening. They were coming to rape me!

  I took off running again, continuing even as I heard a man say, “Calm down! We’re going to help you.” How could I trust him? Any of them?

  My mind fought with itself—this could be my chance, or it could be another horror. I turned back toward the men and shouted, “I need help!”

&n
bsp; As I did so, I kept moving away from them, keeping that good head start in case they made a move toward me. Each time they stepped toward me, I shifted back. It was as if we were opposite poles of a magnet, invisible forces directing us.

  “Just stay there. We called the police and they’re on their way.” The man’s voice was calm, matter-of-fact. I wanted to believe him. At that point I was like a wounded animal, feeling cornered. Part of me believed these men were something I could trust in; a larger part of me wanted nothing to do with them. The man who spoke held his ground, and we stood there eyeing each other. All I could see were three potential rapists.

  We stood there for a few moments, all of us frozen in place. I’d begun to shiver, and I realized that more than anything in that moment I needed to pee. The scene grew more surreal when another car came flying toward us. A red-and-blue light flashed on its roof and in the headlights. The door was flung open, and a man stood in the open space with his arms locked in front of him. All I could see were those colored lights glinting off his weapon. The policeman dropped one hand, and it disappeared behind the door. A moment later he held out a badge.

  I had a brief moment of clarity. Kristine and the others had to have called the police. They told the authorities about the three men. Now here I was with three men looking like they were confronting me. I had to make it clear what was going on.

  “No! No! They’re helping me.”

  Before the officer could respond, the sound of tires squealing added to the chaos. The three men were all trying to say something, offer some explanation, but another voice rose above theirs.

  “You need any help, Officer?”

  I sank down again and rested my hands on my knees. I don’t know how many seconds lapsed, but as I rested there, my chest heaving, my heart racing, and my mind overloaded, I felt like I’d crossed the finish line at the end of a race completely spent. Except race officials and my coaches were rushing toward me telling me that I had to get back out there. I still had another lap to go.