The judges’ verdict is, perhaps, the reason Eliese wants so desperately to remember the handyman. Had the handyman abused her as a child, then the violence she experienced at the age of eighteen would not have been her fault. People wouldn’t ask her if she had saidno. The no wouldn’t matter—she’d gone into the woods with those men because she’d already been a victim as a child. She’d been a victim when she was pure and naive and too young to know better. Too young, even, to say no. Every symptom she’d ever experienced—the daydreams, the self-harm, the rape itself—would be rooted in an event completely outside her control. She could not be accused of poor decision-making or poor self-advocacy or an unhealthy, rape-obsessed imagination. She could not be accused of crying wolf. In the face of disaster, we want clarity. You are bad, and I am not. Of course I said no. Eliese wants to relieve her doubt, her uncertainty. She wants to rid herself of that nagging voice—no, sweetie, you are the woman who sneaks off into the woods with strange men. She wants so desperately to free herself from the judges’ verdict that she will spend hours trying to remember what happened with the handyman at the bottom of those stairs. Maybe, if she closes her eyes hard enough, a memory will materialize. Maybe, if she closes her eyes hard enough, she will be released from her guilt. Yes, she’d flirted with the man in the army fatigue jacket. Yes, she’d touched his arm and smiled. Yes, she’d gone into the woods of her own accord, but only because she had a history of victimization. She was not at fault. You are bad, and I am not. But Eliese never remembers what happened at the bottom of the stairs.
Her desire to remember abuse—her desire to neutralize one violent memory with another—is, of course, entirely irrational. Even if Eliese were to remember the bottom of the stairs, it would only give rise to a new shame, a new doubt, a new search for yet another ameliorating violence. The handyman will not save her. He will not relieve the shame. The shame is a part of her, and she must find its beauty.
Eliese wants to tell you the story. She wants you to witness a desperate piece of herself. She thinks it’s a great example, but she will let you be the judge.
Here is the story: “I have just turned eighteen, and I’m drinking malt liquor in the woods with two men I barely know. One is a lanky, dark-haired recluse from Florida. The other is a clean-cut, pre-theologate student with a killer smile. He wears an army fatigue jacket that accentuates his massive, muscular arms. This is only the second time I’ve consumed alcohol outside of a family gathering. My buzz is distinct, but seems controlled. I joke with an ease I usually find unfamiliar. I turn to the man in the army fatigue jacket and smile. I touch his arm and smile. I laugh and swill and lick my numbing lips until something moves in the woods—probably a squirrel or a bird. The men get jumpy. Maybe the cops are coming, maybe we should get out of here, so we get up and stow our booze in a backpack and walk through the woods. I follow behind the men, overly conscious of my feet. They feel horribly heavy.
We walk until we reach a field where a group of men drunkenly wield golf clubs. They swing into the darkness. The man in the army fatigue jacket speaks to these men. He drives a ball and decides that we will go to a party with these golf-club-wielding men. The party promises more alcohol. I follow, delighting in my newfound college coolness. I’m being invited to a party by people I don’t even know. A far cry from my sheltered all-girls’ education, which was punctuated by algebra jokes and Lord of the Rings marathons.
The party smells of sweat and moldy dishwater. There are only men at this party. Men in Mötley Crüe T-shirts. Men who seem older, more worldly. I shouldn’t be the only girl, I think, but the thought turns quickly. I am the only girl. The tomboy. The girl cool enough to have a one-night pass into this man’s world.
I find myself in the kitchen. I am with the dark-haired recluse from Florida. He hands me a red cup of clear liquid, which I drink quickly to show that I am one of the boys.
Everything suddenly narrows. I can no longer walk without the aid of a wall. I need to find a bathroom, I think. I need to find a bathroom until this feeling passes. There is only one bathroom, and it is up a steep flight of stairs. I brace myself on the handrail. The dark-haired recluse from Florida follows behind me. This does not strike me as odd. After all, there is only one bathroom in the house, and we have been in the woods for most of the night. He must need to use the bathroom, too. As expected, he waits outside the door. I crouch on the toilet and hug my knees. I need to go home, but I don’t know how to get there. I will just wait for the party to wane. I’m sure this vertigo will eventually pass.
I gather myself and walk out of the bathroom, but the dark-haired recluse from Florida pushes me backward. I fall into a bathtub, hitting my head on the faucet. In what seems to be one fluid, instantaneous movement, the man from Florida slams the door and grabs my head and puts his already-hard, already-exposed dick in my mouth. I am not sure what is happening. He is wearing long underwear. There is a knock at the door, and the man from Florida leaves quickly. I grab the bathtub faucet and try to pull myself up before everything goes black.
When I awake, I am outside. I am in the woods again. I cannot stand. I am on all fours. The man in the army fatigue jacket stands in front of me. His hand reaches, as if to help me up, but instead he grabs my head. He pushes himself into my mouth so hard I cannot breathe. I can’t breathe, I think. I can’t breathe. I try to pull away, but he is too strong. I vomit. Bile runs hot down my neck. The man in the army fatigue jacket pulls away, watches me vomit, takes me by the hair, and puts himself back in my mouth. I black out.
I awake under the tree with my underwear crumpled a few feet away. My arms won’t work. The dark-haired man from Florida is on top of me, inside me.
Come on, the man in the army fatigue jacket says, we gotta go, someone’s gonna see.
I think of my little-girl underwear and close my eyes.”
The white horse is obviously a horse, Eliese thinks to herself.
She asks the logician how to refute the paradox.
“Distinguish the is of predication,” he writes to her, “from the is of identity.”
Eliese ponders this distinction, but she finds it difficult to grasp. Logic was never her strong point. She thinks of all those things people say she is. She is a woman, although she feels like a girl. She is an intellectual, although she doesn’t sound all that smart. She is a laborer and a writer and an avid equestrian. She is sometimes a liar and sometimes a slut. She is also a prude. She is, perhaps, a victim, although the pamphlets and the self-help books and the therapists say she is a “survivor.” Eliese eschews both terms. She would rather think of herself in other ways. For example, she is a woman who can harness an animal power between her legs. She once rode her sturdy, sorrel gelding through the woods at dusk. Together, she and the horse jumped fallen trees. They trotted up steep hillsides and waded ice-cold creeks. Or maybe Eliese is a woman who watched the most stunning sunrise of her life while swimming in a beachside pool on the Atlantic Ocean. A pod of dolphins played in the surf, and a man wrapped his arms around her waist. She did not love this man—she did not want to love him—but his body felt safe and warm against her own. For a moment that was enough. Or maybe Eliese is a woman who recently went off into the woods with a man she wanted to love. They sat beside a creek and watched warblers flit through the trees. They made love against a bank of crumbling shale. That’s a first for me, the man said. Eliese smiled. It’s a first for me, too, she said. And she meant it.
Perhaps Eliese does not understand the nuances of the logician. She does not understand the different types of “is”—the different types of “to be”—but she intuits a meaning outside of logic. The tiny, predicated pieces of ourselves—the things attributed to us, contained and experienced within us—cannot be confounded with all that we are. The horse may well be white, yet the white horse is not a horse. Eliese is the girl who has been raped. And she is not.
Eliese stands beside a white mare in a paddock. She has been hired to keep the mare under contr
ol during breeding. Flies land briefly on Eliese’s burnt and sweating skin. The mare flicks her tail and startles at the slightest shift in the breeze.
A tiny, sorrel stallion approaches with his handlers. His eyes are wide and wild and sickled with white. The stallion is usually a calm, steady horse, but there is something furious in him now. Something frightening. He is already erect and impatient, having caught a whiff of the white mare. As the stallion advances, the mare pins her ears. She prepares to bolt, but Eliese holds her still. The stallion sniffs the mare’s hindquarters and lifts his upper lip. He prances and whinnies and tosses his head. When the mare finally raises her tail, the handlers loosen their hold on the stallion. He mounts quickly, and the mare lurches forward.
Dammit, hold her still, someone scolds.
Eliese doubles over and leans into the mare’s chest. She presses her cheek against the white fur and smells the horse’s sweet must—shit and sawdust like honeyed earth. The mare is sweating, trembling, breathing heavy. Dammit, hold her still. With the entire weight of her body, Eliese pushes the mare backward. She pushes the mare into the stallion. When the mare inches forward, Eliese inches her back. They rock together, cheek against fur, bracing for the next blow.
Alongside the mare, Eliese is brought back into remembering. She remembers the men and their violence. She remembers the cold, packed earth beneath her thighs. She remembers the contempt in their voices. You can’t tell anyone about this. You don’t want to look like a slut. Blood and semen drip down the mare’s hocks, and Eliese pushes the mare backward. Helllloooo, Leesy Piecey, helllloooo. Blood drips onto the mare’s white hocks. This is her first breeding. You can’t tell anyone about this. This is a great example. Eliese remembers the men and their violence. She remembers the handyman and his smile. She remembers sorting his Reese’s Pieces according to color—oranges and yellows and browns. Helllloooo, Leesy Piecey. You don’t want to look like a slut. Sweat lathers on the horse’s white neck. Eliese steadies the mare, but she is not steady herself. She shakes with what she remembers, and she shakes with what she can no longer recall. The blackouts. The bottom of the stairs. Things lost. Did you say no? I don’t know. Eliese breathes the men into the mare. The memories slip between fingers and fur, into the mare’s already strained shoulders. The white Hanes underwear. The glint of the bathtub faucet before she blacked out. The judges’ verdict. No, sweetie, you were not raped. The stallion moves frantically atop the mare. You are the woman who sneaks off into the woods with strange men. The stallion digs his knees into the mare’s flanks. You are the woman who sneaks. Back when Eliese encountered the handyman at the family funeral, she had shielded the body of her young niece from his gaze. Her niece was pure and naive and too young to know better. Eliese wants to teach this niece so many things. She will teach the young girl to name the breeds and cinch a girth and slip a bit between a horse’s teeth. She will teach her the cadence of a lope and the rhythm of a poet, which are not so different at all. Eliese will tell the little girl this: Do not imbibe the belief that you are in need of saving. Do not dream of the man on the white horse. Dream, instead, of the white horse unbroken. The solid power of its hooves. The yellow tint of its shit-soaked mane. Dream, instead, of the white horse circling the herd, its tail lifted, its voice so shrill and potent it makes your own mouth itch to speak. Eliese pushes the mare backward, and the stallion finishes. The fury in his eyes is gone. The fury has gone into the mare.
The handlers take the stallion back to his stall, leaving Eliese alone in the paddock with the white horse. They are both spent, shaking. The mare lifts her head. She pricks her ears and flares her nostrils and bats flies with her bloodied tail. With watchful brown eyes, the mare studies a man unloading hay just outside the paddock. Even with a tangled mane and lathered coat, the mare holds herself with an unsettling poise. Each of her muscles is primed with that wild and fearsome power Eliese so admires in horses. The mare offers no apologies. With the lead line held loosely in hand, Eliese walks forward. The mare follows, shifting her gaze to her handler. Together they walk patterns into the dirt, catching their breaths, drying their sweat. And the white horse looks down into Eliese.
Hello, Leesy Piecey.
Hello.
LAWRENCE JACKSON
The City That Bleeds
FROM Harper’s Magazine
Freddie Gray’s relatives arrived for the trial in the afternoon, after the prep-school kids had left. By their dress, they seemed to have just gotten off work in the medical and clerical fields. The family did not appear at ease in the courtroom. They winced and dropped their heads as William Porter and his fellow officer Zachary Novak testified to opening the doors of their police van last April and finding Freddie paralyzed, unresponsive, with mucus pooling at his mouth and nose. Four women and one man mournfully listened as the officers described needing to get gloves before they could touch him.
The first of six Baltimore police officers to be brought before the court for their treatment of Freddie Gray, a black twenty-five-year-old whose death in their custody was the immediate cause of the city’s uprising last spring, William Porter is young, black, and on trial. Here in this courtroom, in this city, in this nation, race and the future seem so intertwined as to be the same thing.
During a break, I offered Freddie’s twin sister, Fredericka, a cup of water, which she refused, perhaps wary of the strangers now expressing concern, the same people who would have ignored her waiting for a bus in the rain on North Avenue. After court reconvened, Freddie’s mother, Gloria, balled up a tissue and dropped it on the floor, where it rolled under her seat. She didn’t know that in his morning testimony Officer Porter had presented himself as a light of reform, telling the jury how public littering was one of the few offenses for which he issued citations on his beat at the Gilmor Street public-housing buildings, where residents like the Grays regularly gathered to interrogate the police during arrests. When the prosecutor asked Porter whether he had protected public life, he said yes. Gray’s stepfather snorted sarcastically.
While court was in session, Freddie’s Uncle Odabe clambered over my knees into the pew behind the other family members. He wore a three-quarter-length black jacket, blue jeans, sneakers, black skullcap. A tall, lean man with close-cropped gray hair, he reminded me of the eighteenth-century Marylander Yarrow Mamout, a Muslim man born in West Africa. Odabe wore his facial hair in a style reminiscent of Charles Willson Peale’s portrait of Mamout, which now hangs in a museum in Pennsylvania—clean-shaven save for a thicket of hair underneath his bottom lip—though he was two shades darker than the figure in the painting.
Brother Odabe was slyly and amusedly animated. He announced his presence by touching the shoulders of his nieces and his sister. In lieu of a greeting, he began a kind of banter, but the response of his bunched kin suggested that they were warding off a blow; maybe there had been a recent disagreement or they were embarrassed by his presence. Talking in the courtroom was also prohibited. He introduced himself to me by repeating a rhetorical question: “It’s all right for a man to cry? It’s all right for a man to cry?” Odabe spoke in Baltimore’s vernacular, in a low, garbled register, as if his vocal chords were recovering from a shouting bout. He seemed not unaware of courtroom decorum and protocol, merely disinclined to submit to a force so similar to the one that had claimed his nephew. He picked up the balled tissue from the floor, and his pointed, guttural conversation quickened.
“Is it about the money?” he cried to his family, who had recently received a multimillion-dollar settlement from the city. He had seized a white-noise moment—Judge Barry Williams, who dominated the courtroom like a witty powerlifter, had the attorneys at his bench for a discussion, and the clerks had filled the courtroom with the sound of television snow. No matter. The sheriff’s deputies swiftly arrived at the pew. “No noise allowed, sir,” commanded the same officer who had earlier reprimanded me when I asked for directions to the courtroom for the “Freddie Gray trial,” the inaccurate handle t
hat the television networks were using. The officer beckoned for Odabe, who refused to leave and asserted his right to be in the courtroom. The tension was eased by another deputy, bald-headed and bearded like most of the African American men over thirty who were in the courtroom. He knew Odabe, and he touched his hand soothingly, assuring him that he would be all right. But a third officer, tall and powerfully built, reversed the redemptive gesture and commanded Odabe out. The deputy entered the pew and reached for his slumped prey. They were joined by the shift supervisor, a jacketed female sheriff; the four officers yoked Odabe by the shoulders and feet as he argued his citizenship rights, folding his arms like a mummy, and cast him out.
The Best American Essays 2017 Page 8