Raising Myself

by Beverly Engel

  chapter 21

  I met Barbara Anderson through Linda Embrey and Ronnie. The story in our neighborhood was that Barbara had four sisters and they were all whores. Looking back on this, I imagine they were all sexually abused—probably at home. The rumor was that Barbara hadn’t turned into a whore yet, but everyone was just waiting for it to happen.

  I liked Barbara. She had that innocent, sweet quality I’d seen in Patricia. I guess I saw my own lost innocence in both girls.

  I don’t know what Barbara saw in me. Perhaps a mother figure or an older sister who would protect her in ways that her own older sisters didn’t. At any rate, even though she was two years younger than me we were good friends for a short time, and in that time she made a huge impression on me.

  We were friends during the time I was seeing Richard. Sometimes when he picked me up at school I had him swing by and pick up Barbara at Friendly’s Market, the local hangout, and she came along with us to the park. She’d get out of the car while we kissed and just walk around until we were ready to go home. I always felt like she just wanted to get out of her house and into the fresh air, and since it never seemed like her parents cared where she was, she was free to do what she wanted.

  Barbara and I continued to hang out after I stopped seeing Richard. I never went to her house, and she never came to mine. Instead we just hung out outside Friendly’s waiting for someone to come by with a car to take us for a ride. Ronnie would sometimes come by and take us to A&W Root Beer up on Niles Street, and on weekends he sometimes gave us a ride to the canal, where everyone tried to cool off from the heat.

  Ronnie seemed like a good guy. He wasn’t seeing Linda anymore, and neither was I. I don’t remember why—she just seemed to not be around anymore. But he was always nice to me and Barbara.

  One evening Ronnie came by in a friend’s car, another convertible.

  “This is Lonnie,” Ronnie said, introducing his friend.

  Lonnie and Ronnie—it sounded funny to us, and we laughed hysterically.

  “You girls wanna go for a ride?” Ronnie asked.

  We jumped at the chance. Lonnie got out of the car and motioned for me to sit next to him in the front. Instead of sitting next to Ronnie in the backseat, Barbara sat in the front next to me on the bench-style seat. I thought she probably didn’t want to give Ronnie any ideas by sitting in the backseat with him, which was okay by me.

  We drove out to the country and the guys offered us some beer. I’d had sips of beer from other guys’ cans in the past but no one had ever given me my own can. Barbara didn’t want to drink but I gulped mine down. I liked the feeling it gave me. It made my head feel light and made me feel more relaxed.

  We drove the country roads with the radio blaring and the wind cooling us off from the day’s heat. I decided I didn’t like Lonnie much. Something about him seemed dirty and sleazy. But I was having fun talking to Barbara and Ronnie and drinking beer and smoking cigarettes and driving in the dark country.

  Eventually, Lonnie stopped the car and we just sat there talking and enjoying the evening. At some point, he tried to put his fingers up inside my short shorts. I didn’t push his hand away; I just let him do it. I knew that Barbara could probably see what he was doing but that didn’t make me stop him, even though I felt ashamed. I hadn’t even let Richard touch me but here I was letting a total stranger touch me in this forbidden way. There was something about him being sleazy and me not liking him that made him touching me all the more exciting.

  I never saw Barbara again after that night. I don’t know why—maybe because I was so ashamed, or maybe because she felt betrayed by me. I think it was the latter. I imagine she had come to me for some respite from the promiscuity of her sisters, and here I’d exhibited that same behavior right in front of her. I lost track of her after that. I imagine she followed in her sisters’ footsteps.

  Barbara Anderson was the first of many females in my life who latched onto me for comfort. Perhaps it was the fact that there was a motherly quality to me, partly because I looked and acted so much older than I was, and partly because I was developing a desire to help those who were in trouble. The problem was I usually couldn’t help these people any more than I could help myself. And I usually ended up disappointing them in some way. Of course, this is what happens when someone puts you on a pedestal, as Barbara and so many others did with me over the course of my young life, but I was too young to understand that. Instead, I just ended up feeling guilty that I had once again let someone down.

  chapter 22

  I met Harvey shortly after the Lonnie experience. I wasn’t aware of it then, but I was on a downward spiral. Harvey was also much older than me—in his early twenties. And like Barbara Anderson’s sisters, his reputation preceded him. People said he liked to go out with virgins and take their virginity from them.

  I don’t know how I met Harvey or who he ran around with, but I played hooky from school one day and a bunch of people came to my house. We were all smoking and drinking and I noticed Harvey was flirting with me. He looked at me as if he was undressing me and it made me feel nervous, but in kind of a good way. He wasn’t good-looking—he was tall and gangly—but he had that bad boy quality I liked, with long sideburns and a tight T-shirt. He felt as dangerous as people said he was. When he asked me to go on a date with him, I was thrilled.

  Even though I’d been hanging out with Richard and Ronnie and lots of other guys, my mother didn’t know anything about them. She never asked me where I was going. This was the first time a guy was going to come to my house to take me out, so I asked my mother for permission to go on a date.

  She said no at first—said twelve years old was too young to date. But eventually she agreed. I imagine I must have hounded her until she gave in. She insisted that she had to meet him first, though.

  As the time came closer for Harvey to pick me up, I got more and more nervous and started pacing. Surely my mother wouldn’t let me go out with him once she saw how old he was. But I was in luck. About thirty minutes before Harvey was due to arrive, my mother announced that she was running out to the store for more beer.

  “But don’t you leave this house until I get back,” she said. “I want to meet this guy.”

  “Okay, Momma,” I promised, playing my “good girl” act.

  But then Harvey ended up coming early and I slipped off with him before she got back. I knew I’d probably get into trouble for disobeying her, but I took my chances.

  There was another couple in Harvey’s car, so I felt comfortable enough. We drove out into the country, sipping beer and listening to music. It seemed like any other night, except that when we stopped at a farmhouse, the other couple went inside and Harvey suggested we stay in the car. I agreed; I was thinking we’d make out like I had with Richard.

  But Harvey was no Richard. He didn’t kiss me very long at all before he got all worked up. He started grabbing my breasts right away. I pushed his hands away but he didn’t stop the way Richard had, he just became more insistent.

  “Let’s go into the backseat,” he said between gasps of breath.

  “No, I don’t want to,” I said firmly.

  “Come on,” he insisted.

  I was starting to get scared. I didn’t like his tone or the fact that he was holding me so tight.

  “I want to go home,” I said in my strongest voice.

  He laughed cruelly. “We ain’t goin’ nowhere. My friends are going to be in there for a long time. I’m going to pop your cherry tonight, little girl.”

  Now I was terrified. I tried to pull away from him but he had a firm hold on my left shoulder. With his other hand he reached under his seat and pulled up a wrench from the floor. He held the wrench in front of my face and said, “You either get in the backseat or I’m going to knock the shit out of you.”

  I took one look at his face and I knew he meant it—just like I had known Steve had meant it when he told me he would kill me if I told anyone what we’d been up to. It was th
e same crazy, scary look. Harvey grabbed my arm and pulled me out of the front seat and pushed me into the back. I knew it was useless to try to fight him or to try to run away. We were out in the middle of the country—God knows where—and if I did manage to get away, he could easily catch me.

  He pushed me down on the backseat, hard. I struggled to get up but he was able to hold me down with one of his huge hands while he pulled my panties aside with the other. At one point, when I was hitting his chest and trying to push him away, he held up the wrench again and snarled, “You can make this hard on yourself if you want to, but it’s going to happen one way or the other.”

  At that point I gave in. As Harvey got on top of me and penetrated me the pain was excruciating, even with me cooperating. The pain went on and on and on. It felt like I was being stabbed with a knife—like I was being sliced into two pieces. I thought it would never end.

  Even though Steve had molested me, I’m not sure he ever penetrated me with his penis, so I think I still had my hymen intact. I’m not sure why the pain would have been so intense otherwise.

  I cried to Harvey in desperation, “Please stop, it really, really hurts.”

  Harvey just laughed.

  In that dark moment, I realized that he didn’t care if it hurt me. In fact, he liked it. For some reason, this realization was devastating to me. A feeling of helplessness and hopelessness washed over me. I felt like I was sliding down a dark hole. Suddenly, even though he was still on top of me and thrusting hard inside of me, I didn’t feel any pain. In fact, there was a slight feeling of something like pleasure.

  And then it was over. Harvey got up and barked at me to straighten myself up and get in the front seat.

  I was still shaking with fear as I got myself together. Mostly I felt relieved that it was over. I felt happy to be alive. But I also felt ashamed and used. And I felt like a fool. After all, I’d been warned that this was who Harvey was—that this was what he did. I had no one to blame but myself.

  Soon the other couple was back in the car and we were on our way back into town. After we had been driving for a while I moved closer to Harvey and put my head on his shoulder. He immediately pushed me away like he couldn’t stand to be near me. “Don’t start that again,” he said harshly, “not if you know what’s good for you.”

  I felt really, really stupid. What was wrong with me? He had just forced himself on me, he had just hurt me very badly, and here I was trying to get close to him. Why would I try to get comfort from the very person who had hurt me so horribly?

  I had no way of knowing that this is a typical response of victims who have been traumatized. I just knew I shouldn’t be seeking comfort from my enemy.

  I also didn’t have the knowledge or maturity to understand that I was trying to normalize what had happened. Sure, he had hurt me, but that was just because guys want sex. I wanted to pretend we had been on a real date. I wanted to pretend that Harvey really cared about me and we were a couple now.

  My mother was asleep when I got home, so I hid my bloody underwear and torn dress where she wouldn’t find them and went to bed. As I lay alone in my dark room, I vowed to myself that I would never tell anyone what happened, not even my mother—or rather, especially not my mother. I felt so alone with my pain, but I didn’t feel like I deserved any comforting. Mostly, I didn’t want anyone to know what a stupid idiot I had been to go out with Harvey in the first place.

  For many years I didn’t understand exactly what had happened to me that night. People didn’t talk about “date rape” at the time. I just thought I’d had the bad luck to go out with a guy who wouldn’t take no for an answer.

  It took me even more years to figure out why I had been so reckless with myself. I’d felt safe with Richard, and in some ways even a bit empowered. I knew he would never try anything with me and this gave me some comfort and confidence. Later, though, I realized that Richard was hurting me. He was using me for his sick fantasies of being with a young girl. He was a pedophile and I was his victim—not so empowering after all.

  Worse, I now understand that if I hadn’t felt such a false sense of empowerment with Richard, I wouldn’t have gone out with Harvey. With Richard, I had begun to feel invincible; I believed I could be with these older guys—even Harvey—and nothing bad would happen to me. I wouldn’t end up feeling used and full of shame like I had with Steve. And in being the one in control, I thought I could magically turn things around and wipe my shame away.

  I desperately wanted to feel how I imagined normal girls felt on their dates. But I never had normal dates, and I always ended up feeling betrayed. I felt like there was no safe place, no situation in which people weren’t engaged in some sick sexual game.

  After Harvey, I lost some of my bravado. I’d been “knocked down a peg or two,” as my mother liked to say. I stopped hanging out with the kids at Friendly’s Market and looking for rides to the canal on hot days. I once again buckled down at school.

  I was now wiser, smarter, less gullible, and far less innocent. In fact, any innocence I had managed to salvage from my experience with Steve was completely gone. And boys and men were completely off limits. Except for Elvis, of course. I still loved Elvis.

  chapter 23

  After the rape, I regressed into a childlike state for a while. I stopped flirting with boys altogether and I started hanging out with Patricia Embrey again. Linda was long gone and her mother welcomed my newfound attention to Patricia. I wasn’t officially babysitting her anymore, now we were just friends. I felt safe with her.

  I also became closer to Pat, the girl next door. Pat and her parents were among those who lived behind a chain-linked fence. They had a large piece of property on which they raised vegetables and chickens. Pat’s parents, like Charlene’s mother, were very strict with her. Even though she was older than me, she wasn’t allowed to leave the yard. She had a younger brother and was supposed to babysit him, along with keeping the house clean and tending to the vegetables and chickens while her parents were at work.

  I also found a new friend named Sue, who was about four years older than me. Sue was a pretty girl with long blond hair and blue eyes. “Wholesome” was the word my mother used to describe her. Sue was already in high school and was more mature and intelligent than the other friends I’d met on Janice Drive. She wanted to make something of her life and studied hard in school. She had a boyfriend named Glenn who she was madly in love with, so I didn’t see her often, but we became friends just the same.

  Sue’s mother was what in those days they called a “floozy,” which meant she slept around. She spent most of her time in bars or off with some man, so, like me, Sue had pretty much raised herself.

  One day, I was over at her house when there was a loud knock on the door. When Sue opened the door, two very serious-looking policemen stood there staring at us.

  “Pardon us, ma’am, are you Sue Campbell?”

  I could hear the nervousness in Sue’s voice. “Yes, yes I am.”

  “May we come in? We need to talk to you.”

  Sue opened the screen door to let them in. Her face was frozen in fear.

  The uniforms the men wore made them seem very official but their demeanor did as well. Their intense energy took up all the space in Sue’s small living room.

  “Ma’am, I think you should sit down,” the shorter officer said to Sue with a great deal of authority.

  Sue nearly collapsed onto the couch next to me. “What is it?” she pleaded.

  “Well, ma’am, we have some bad news for you. Your mother. Well, your mother is dead.”

  The color drained out of Sue’s face. My heart was pounding so hard I thought I was going to pass out. Sue sat in silence for several minutes. The policemen stood towering over us like giant monuments, almost motionless. All our eyes were fixed on Sue.

  “Ma’am, I know this is a terrible shock,” the taller policeman said.

  “Young lady, can you get her a glass of water?” the shorter one asked.
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  When I realized he was talking to me, I jumped up and went into the kitchen, relieved to have something to do. I grabbed a glass from the cupboard and as I filled it with water from the tap I looked out the kitchen window. How would I feel if my mother died? I wondered. Tears welled up in my eyes as I thought of her lying in a coffin, lifeless and cold. But there was another feeling mixed in with the pain. A feeling of relief rose up from deep inside my chest. The feeling that I could finally breathe.

  I heard a sound from the other room and it brought me back to the present. I took the glass of water back into the living room, where Sue still sat motionless on the couch.

  I tried to hand it to her but she didn’t seem to notice. I put my hand on her shoulder and she looked up at me with the strangest look in her eyes—like I imagined someone would look if they were in a trance. Moving in slow motion, she took the glass from me and put it on the end table next to her without taking a drink.

  “Ma’am,” the taller policeman said. “We need to tell you what happened to your mother.”

  There was complete silence from Sue and no indication that she’d heard the policeman. They were both being very kind and very patient, which gave me the feeling that something horrible had happened.

  The shorter policeman looked at me and asked, “Are you going to be able to stay with her?”

  I said in my most confident voice, “Yes, sir. I’ll stay with her. We’re good friends.”

  “We haven’t been able to find any other relatives. Do you know if she has any?”

  “No, I don’t think so. I think it is . . . was just Sue and her mother. She does have a boyfriend. I can call him.”

  “Yes, that would be good,” the shorter policeman said.

  This seemed to rouse Sue out of her trance. “Yes, Beverly, will you call Glenn? Please?”

  “Sure, what’s his number?” I asked, grabbing my purse for a pen. As she recited it, I wrote it down on a magazine that was sitting on the coffee table and went over to the phone to make the call.