Foxy

by Pam Grier

  “You never go anywhere, Pam,” he urged me on the phone. He had seen me at Mac’s recently. “Just come to a party with me. All the players will be there, and you can meet their girlfriends.”

  Mom talked me into it. “Go with him,” she said. “What can happen? He seems like a nice enough guy, and he knows your stepdad would come after him if he got out of line. And our cousins and uncles would join in.”

  I wore a red dress and the go-go boots because I didn’t have any other party clothes. I also wore a purple suede designer coat I got from Lerner’s for thirty-nine dollars, a major purchase at the time. When I looked in the mirror, I decided I looked okay, but I was still scared when Brian drove up in his brand-new car with the fresh leather smell. I just wasn’t used to dating.

  Brian wore a black tweed blazer, which made him look conservative, and he was a perfect gentleman, promising Mom to get me home early and opening the car door for me. We exchanged pleasantries as we headed to a large hotel in the shape of a tower that was located just off the freeway. His friends greeted me respectfully, but I could see they wondered which boat I’d just gotten off. I glanced around the overcrowded room at the women who were a great deal more sophisticated than I was. It was obvious they were all sleeping with their boyfriends, hoping to become the wives of these powerful athletes who were raking in the bucks.

  Brian’s cologne smelled expensive, and I observed people dancing and kissing each other. There were empty liquor bottles all over the place as people lounged, smooching and whispering on the two king-size beds, one of them piled high with coats. Brian tried getting romantic with me at one point, but I politely pushed him away. When he persisted, I said, “Stop it. I’m not into it. I hardly know you.”

  Brian gave me a hard look. It was getting late and people were starting to leave when Brian strode over to me and knocked me back on one of beds, on top of people’s coats and purses. The bedroom was empty of people by then, and I was stunned when he threw his body on top of mine. Grabbing both of my wrists, he held my arms down as I yelled out, “No, no! Please help me!” The music was loud in the other room, or maybe people heard me and refused to ruin Brian’s good time. Maybe he told his friends to ignore whatever they heard.

  I let out a piercing scream, but he put his huge hand over my mouth to shut me up. “Oh, no,” I moaned to myself. “Not again.” I bit his fingers.

  The bite enraged him even more as he let his dead weight crush my chest, taking my breath away. I was very slim at the time, and his body felt like a huge building lying on top of me. There was no getting him off of me with my physical strength—I was much too overpowered—so I tried another tack. “I’ll tell my family if you don’t let me go,” I threatened.

  He looked into my eyes, which were wet with tears. “But, Pam, I like you. I want us to be together.”

  I tried to go along with it. “So wait,” I said. “Let’s do it after we date a while.”

  “But I have to fuck you now,” he said, panting, as he reached up my skirt and tried to pull down my panties.

  “Please,” I said, “I’m not on birth control. I can get pregnant. Please don’t do this.”

  He suddenly smiled. “I have birth control,” he said. He held me down on the bed with an arm that was stronger than both of my legs put together. Then he reached into the pocket of his pants (he never took them off ), and he came out with a cardboard sheet of pills that had been laminated in plastic. Using one hand, he grabbed a cardboard square and stuffed it up inside of me, pushing out one of the pills. I screamed with pain as his fingernail scratched me.

  “Stop being such a baby,” he said. “I got it in there. Now we have birth control.”

  “Oh, my God, you idiot,” I said as I tried to wriggle out from underneath him. I simply couldn’t move, and as I made a last-ditch attempt to throw him off of me, a terrible pain shot up my spine.

  “Pam, you’re going to hurt yourself if you keep this up,” he said.

  I surrendered because he was right. There was no way to fight him and walk away afterward. When he felt me calm down, he said, “It’s okay. I’ll be good to you.”

  I can get through this, I told myself. I will get through this. I’ll tell Mom and Papa Sam, and he’ll really be sorry. I’ll turn this into a church scandal, and his family will never forgive him.

  When it was over, he jerked me up off the bed. “C’mon, let’s go. I’m taking you home,” he said. I sat up, red-eyed, in pain and freaked out that he had ejaculated inside of me. All I wanted was to get his semen out of me as I pulled myself together, searching for my clothes among the coats on the bed. I have to get the hell out of here and get this shit out of me as fast as I can, was my only thought.

  He grabbed my hand. “We’re walking out of here like best friends,” he ordered, throwing my purse and coat at me as he roughly grabbed my hand. I held the coat bunched up in my arms as we walked through the crowded room, hand in hand, while he greeted his buddies and said he’d be coming back soon. My hand was sore, as he’d been squeezing it very hard, and I pulled it out of his as soon as I got in the car. It was snowing outside and I couldn’t exert the effort to put on my coat. I just sat there, shivering and silent, like I’d been struck dumb.

  “Say something,” he ordered me.

  I remained silent.

  “Why aren’t you saying anything?” he demanded after a few minutes.

  I continued my silence.

  “You think you’re gonna go tell your folks, don’t you? Well, you better not. Wanna know why?”

  I stared straight ahead.

  “Why won’t you talk to me?” he demanded, getting angrier.

  My body temperature was flashing hot and cold. “I’m too warm,” I muttered, still shivering. “I can’t breathe.”

  “Then roll down the damned window.”

  I did, and just as I was reaching out my arm to open the door from the outside, he grabbed my hand closest to him and pulled my arm hard. “Don’t you dare try to jump out of this car!” he shouted, forcing me closer to him.

  “Stop hurting me,” I cried, trying to pull my hand away from his, wrenching my shoulder. “I won’t jump out. I promise to sit here. Just let go of me.”

  “Here’s how this goes,” he said, letting go of my hand. “I’ll be letting you out in front of your house in a few minutes. You’re going to get out and I’ll walk you to the door. Then you’re going to go inside and not say anything to anybody. Do you understand?”

  He slowed the car at a red light, and, unable to stay in the car with this beast for another second, I got the door open and jumped out.

  The last thing I heard him say was, “Get back in this car, bitch,” as he rushed out to follow me. I ran down an alley and was out of sight in a few seconds, slipping and falling on the ice and snow. I figured I was safe because he wasn’t about to leave his precious car in the middle of an intersection to catch up with me. Still, I didn’t stop running until I was standing in front of my house.

  My shoulder was sore and I was hurting badly on the inside when I realized I had rushed away from my attacker without my coat or purse. I’d left them both in his car, and I had no keys to get inside the house. As much as I wanted to scream and cry and wake up the whole family, I had second thoughts. If I told on Brian, well—I knew the wrath of my family. I could pretty well count on someone getting shot or killed (probably Brian) and someone going to jail for life (probably my stepfather, my brother, or a cousin).

  I walked to the side of the house and threw a few small pebbles at the window of my little sister’s bedroom, which we shared since Krista had moved out. Gina looked out the window with sleepy eyes. “Pammy? Is that you?” she called out.

  “Shhh,” I called up to her. “Just open the door. Don’t wake Mom or Papa Sam.”

  Sleepy-eyed, she opened the front door. I stood there completely disheveled, with no coat in the freezing cold. I rushed inside and got Gina up to the bedroom. Before she could say a word, I told her
, “Listen, Gina, don’t tell Mom I woke you up to let me in. I’ll buy you a bunny, a bike, anything you want. Just promise not to tell.”

  She didn’t ask any questions. She slid back into bed and I filled up the bathtub with warm water, praying the splashing sound would not wake Mom or Papa Sam. I had to get the beast’s smell off of me and his body fluids out of me. I lay there in the tub, remembering so many years earlier when I was six, rolled up in a ball in an empty bathtub, wishing I could disappear. I knew I could say nothing to my family, because if any one of them found out, they would have put out an all-points bulletin to every male family member from Colorado to Wyoming and parts north. It would have been full-on war as they hunted my attacker down and did their worst to him—and his precious car.

  Instead, I sobbed and cried silently while I held on to the sides of the tub, exactly like I had done when I was six. The differences were that this time I was eighteen, not six, the tub was full of water, and I knew exactly what had happened to me.

  CHAPTER 9

  Westward Bound

  I hid my pain at breakfast the next morning, responding to Mom’s questions about my date with Brian in one-word answers. He hadn’t struck me where it showed, and I pretended to be distracted because I was late for work. When I got out the door and headed for Mac’s Record Rack, my mind was racing with thoughts like, Did he even like me a little bit? Why did he have to take it from me? Couldn’t we have dated like regular people before we had sex? Did it have to be rape?

  Though I was glad I would never have to see his sorry ass again, being raped wounds more than the body. So does keeping secrets, and I knew deep in my heart that there was another reason I would never tell on Brian, besides keeping the family peace. I was afraid that men would consider me damaged goods once they found out I’d been raped, not once but twice, and they would have no interest in me.

  When I got to Mac’s, a coworker named Betty asked me, “Where’s that beautiful purple suede coat you always wear, Pam?” Betty was three hundred pounds of pure kindness and heart, someone whom I adored. It seemed like she had dreamed of losing enough weight to fit into that coat.

  “Oh, I got tired of it,” I said. I didn’t expect her to believe that, but before she could say another word, Mac, the store owner, came walking toward me carrying that very coat and my purse from last night. I was stunned. “How did you get these?” I asked him, afraid to hear the answer.

  “Some guy brought them in earlier.”

  “Thank you,” was all I said, refusing to meet Betty’s gaze after I’d just told her I was tired of my coat. I couldn’t believe that Brian had come to my workplace to return my things. How dare he? What an invasion. Was he asking for trouble? Or did he dislike me so much that he wanted to humiliate me even further?

  Mac must have seen how upset I looked. “Pam, do you need some help? You can tell me. Do I need to get my gun?” he asked.

  I nearly burst into tears because he was being so kind to me. “Mac,” I said, choking back my emotions, “it’s okay. I’m okay.”

  He looked me over to see if I had bruises or anything else. It seemed that in the midst of attacking me, the beast had covered his own ass. Satisfied that I looked unharmed, Mac left me alone, but he assured me that if I needed his help, he was there. Later, when Mom asked me where my coat was, I told her I spilled something on it and I would have to clean it before I wore it again. Mom knew something was wrong, but she didn’t press me. She had enough trouble in her life without goading me to bring up more.

  I continued at Metropolitan State, where a psychology professor took a genuine interest in me. He must have seen my passion for learning and he asked me what I wanted to do in life. “I’m interested in what you want,” he said, “not what other people want for you.”

  “I’m interested in TV and film,” I told him. I had let go of dreams of becoming a doctor—there were just too many racial, gender, and financial obstacles—but dreams of filmmaking had taken their place.

  “Well,” he said, “there are four colleges in the country that have good film schools. You could transfer to one of them.”

  “I’d love to go to film school, but I don’t have enough money to transfer. I’d have to live in an apartment or a dorm, and I can’t afford it.”

  I kept dreaming, though, especially when I was working at the record store. I was still the quiet one, but since I’d won the beauty contest, I could pretend to be exotic rather than shy. I was sure my pageant days were over since it was so against my nature to compete like that. But when I heard that they were holding auditions for the Miss Colorado Universe Beauty Pageant and the prize was several thousand dollars, I rose to the occasion once again with Mom urging me on. This pageant, however, was not as simple as entering the Miss KHOW contest. It cost money to enter an international beauty pageant, and we needed to find a corporation to sponsor me.

  Once we convinced a major supermarket to put its money on me, I had to choose a foreign country to represent. We could choose whatever we wanted and was available. I asked to be Miss Africa, an obvious choice, but someone had claimed that already. Clearly, I couldn’t choose Miss Norway or Miss Japan, so I chose Miss India—partly because it suited my looks and partly because no one else had taken it yet.

  Now we had to figure out what to do about a dress. I knew that Mom was a terrific seamstress, but still I was amazed at her expertise when she made me a gorgeous sari for ten dollars. She also made me a crepe, empire-waist, pink and green gown with white spaghetti straps. Once I had the outfits worked out, I began my research on India, focusing on Mahatma Gandhi and Indira Gandhi.

  The Vietnam War was raging, and the Kent State riots were exploding as I tried to represent the best parts of India. I researched Indian history and I studied makeup for African American women in some beauty magazines. I also studied how Indian women wore their hair. I was terrified to be in front of thousands of people, but I showed up for all the publicity that began about two months before the pageant, with my goal in mind—money for film school.

  We all donned our gowns and arrived at various locations for publicity and photo ops. The other women had spent hundreds of dollars on their formal evening wear, and there was no way I could have matched them. But I felt great in my handmade gown, and after I got over my fear, I actually started enjoying our appearances. We were sparking more and more interest with each PR event, and local promoters were touting our charms and competitive natures. We were showing the world that we could celebrate our beauty and be smart and strong women as well.

  We opened the actual pageant by floating across the stage in our gowns. I imagined I was a ballerina, and I developed a way of walking with a straight back that made me feel grand and beautiful. I had huge Liz Taylor–style Grecian curls framing my face while I strutted in my dress, and as the pageant progressed, I won the swimsuit division. (This time, I’d managed to get my suit on frontward!) That gave me five hundred dollars and some encouragement for the rest of the pageant. Then I won the formal gown competition. That was another five hundred dollars and almost a guarantee that I would win the entire pageant.

  When it came to the crown, however, an amiable white girl named Ann Bell won. They crowned her Miss Colorado Universe, while I was first runner-up. I agreed that Ann looked great, but many people felt I should have won because I won the first two divisions. In fact, it nearly caused a riot when the audience decided the judges were being racially prejudiced.

  We were all back in our gowns, ready for the finale, when I realized that my dress had not been hemmed. I’d stepped on it when I got off stage earlier. Mom thought I’d hemmed it and I thought she’d done it. No one had done it, and there were raggedy strings hanging off the hem that could easily trip me as I walked around in my heels. And so, a few seconds before I was ready to strut across the stage as first runner-up, Mom and my sponsor were busy folding and taping my hem into place.

  I may not have won, but I was grateful to be part of the global community i
n which women were making great strides toward our independence. And the pageant helped me get over my extreme shyness and fear of being in front of people. When the winner was named, I realized I had participated in something I loved, and I had made some great new friends. In essence, I did win, even though I lost.

  When the pageant was over, I was approached by two agents, David Baumgarten and Marty Klein. I hardly knew what an agent was, but they invited me for lunch at the Broadmoor Hotel in downtown Colorado Springs, where I got my first taste of Hollywood power players who hung around the swimming pool in Gucci loafers with no socks. Didn’t they do their laundry?

  David Baumgarten was an eloquent, well-manicured man in a herringbone jacket, and he represented many of the actors who were appearing in the blockbuster variety show Laugh-In. “The way you spoke in the pageant and carried yourself was extraordinary,” David said. “You have something special. Unique. I watched you come alive when you were talking about India. You took me there with you.”

  Marty Klein agreed. While I ordered lunch they called my mom so she wouldn’t worry about where I was. Marty told me, “There’s a movement in Hollywood right now, Pam. I represent an emerging black actor named Richard Roundtree. We just signed a movie for him called Shaft. We think he’s going to be a huge star. There are lots of opportunities for black actors right now in music and film. This would be a perfect time for you to come to Hollywood and become an actress.”

  An actress? I nearly laughed out loud. Acting on TV or film was for other people. In our community, we knew that black people mostly got subservient roles, like blue-collar workers or maids. It had been such an ordeal to get myself onstage for a beauty pageant. How would I ever overcome stage fright enough to act? But it was another way to raise money for school, and so I kept an open mind, even though I thought the suggestion was ridiculous.