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CREEPING INTO THE dark, I left friendly laughter behind. The night spoke to me. What it said wasn’t good.
When I arrived at the club, the street had been hopping. Safety in numbers had made me complacent. This wasn’t the best of neighborhoods in daylight. In the wee hours, it was dark and creepy, especially for a woman by herself. A foul breath urged me along. Though tempted to take a shortcut back to the car, I hugged the sidewalk where the street lamps shined brightest.
Gabby, giggly, and wobbly on high-heeled shoes, two gorgeous girls dressed in bright, flashy colors approached. When they saw me, they grew quiet. Probably they were as suspicious of a lone white girl as I was of them. They melted into the shadows, taking their jovial banter with them. I was alone once again.
Farther on, three men came up from the rear. Their jabbering and chuckles steadily increased in volume until they were almost on top of me. I sped ahead. They kept pace. Someone across the street slid home a window and engaged the latch. Not far off, a door creaked open and immediately banged shut. My companions faltered but only for a few seconds before closing the distance.
I sniffed liquor on their breaths and sensed the ill intent on their minds. One of them pulled abreast of me and murmured something suggestive, only to fall back and laugh with his buddies. Another swept a hand across the nape of my neck. I twisted away and said, “Don’t.” They sensed fear in my feeble voice, liked it, and guffawed. The third grabbed my arm and just as quickly let it go. I pulled in defenses, muscles contracting and fists clenching. The first man returned and matched his long-legged swagger to my hurried stride. Showing his teeth, he told me I didn’t have to be afraid. Him and his buddies, he said, were only having a little fun. They didn’t mean no harm.
Fear told me otherwise. Fear and gut instinct said they were up to no good. The beat of my heart quickened. So did my step.
He stayed with me. Told me how pretty I was. Admired the color of my eyes. Wondered where my man was. My man, I said, was getting the car. He didn’t believe me for a second. He remarked on the shape of my nose, not like his nose, which was squashed in the middle. He held up a paper bag with a bottle of gin tucked inside. Did I want some? I shook my head. He asked what was I doing out here all alone. This was a bad neighborhood, he said. I shouldn’t be here, he cautioned. He’d take me home, he offered. I shook my head and pulled in tighter. He laughed. Then he raised a fist in the air, angry with someone else and trying to articulate his rage, but without words, only with anger. Eventually, he slipped back.
I took an unsteady breath, fearful of what might come next. Looked for help. Searched for a squad car. Tried to work up spit so I could scream if it came to that. It came to that, but I didn’t get a chance to scream because suddenly they surrounded me. Their number wasn’t three. It was five. They hustled me around the corner where it was darker and scarier, and crowded me against the brick wall of an abandoned storefront, its windows soaped out and interior pitch black. Their hands were all over me. I tried to cry out. Tried to resist. But my mouth was full of cotton, my arms wet noodles, and my wits disengaged.
The angry one locked his hand around my arm so hard, I cried out. He slapped his other hand over my mouth and stifled my screams. I wrenched away, kicking him in the shin, and he whacked me across the face. I didn’t see the blow coming and didn’t know what had just happened. I only knew that my head snapped back and I tasted blood inside my mouth. My head exploded. I felt sick to my stomach. I think I cried, at least it felt like tears streaking down my cheeks even though I hadn’t made a single sound of lament. After that, I became a play toy in their grasping, grappling, spiteful hands. Their fingers were everywhere, poking and prodding. They laughed the whole time as if they were on a carnival ride, thrust their faces close to mine, and grinned maniacally. One of them squeezed my breasts two-fisted and commented on how small they were.
Now I was mad. Damned mad.
I let out a long, keening shriek that cut the night with a cutting edge. I swung my purse from side to side, the maddened twists and turns cowering them away from the building and out toward the sidewalk, where a street lamp burned bright. “Looking for a piece of the action!” I yelled, baring my teeth. “I’ll give you a fucking piece of the action!” I reached into my purse and grabbed a non-existent revolver. I shoved the tip of my index finger against the leather and took aim at their bellies, one after the other, straight down the imaginary sites of my imaginary gun. They raised their hands and stumbled away, afraid yet laughing nervously, unsure of whether to take me seriously or run like hell.
I rushed toward the biggest one, the one who let the others do the dirty work for him. He recoiled, tripped over the curb, tumbled into the street, and pushed out his hands. “Watch it, lady. Those are my balls you’re aiming at.” He fell onto his ass. I aimed pointblank at his prick. He was sweating bullets, sweating the same way I was sweating, trembled the same way I had trembled, but trembled no more. He wet the front of his pants and sniveled like a crybaby.
I retreated. The adrenalin receded. I swept my eyesight across a lineup of young faces. They were just kids. Juvenile delinquents. Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen. And scared shitless. They ran, stranding their buddy, cowards all. “Come on,” they cried out. But their friend couldn’t budge, not when I was getting ready to squeeze off a shot ... just one ... that would make him a eunuch.
He shook his head. “Don’t, lady. Pl-please don’t do it.” I stood down. His eyes opened wide. Was I really letting him off? Or about to turn him into a soprano? He balanced himself back to his feet and pushed his hands down on the air, as much to keep me calm as to reassure himself. Then he ran as if the devil’s handmaiden was chasing him.
I would have, too, except I couldn’t move a muscle. I collapsed like a popped balloon. My mind shut down. I found myself slumped on the pavement, legs in a tangle and snot running from my nose. I wiped it away. Hysterical laughter followed, I couldn’t say at what. Shock ebbed. Reality crept back. The secondhand ticked, ticked so loudly I thought my watch would explode. Eventually, I crawled on hands and knees, and gathered up the scattered contents of my purse. When I was done reclaiming everything that was mine—including pride—I pushed to my feet, took a girding breath, and walked down the sidewalk, a little shaky but head held high.
Street lamps followed my path from shadow to shadow. Halfway down the block, heavy footsteps approached from behind. I reached into my purse and burrowed around for the touch of cold, hard steel: a ring of keys. At the very least, they could gouge out an eye or two. A middle-aged man pulled ahead with purpose. He tipped his hat. The back of his brown suit soon vanished into the distance.
Girls dressed in feathery fineness came my way. Sloshed to the gills, they were tripping on their heels and falling all over each other. One of them pointed at me and said something snide. I looked down. My clothes were streaked with grime, my hands covered in filth, my nylons snagged and running, and my knees scraped and bloodied. I looked a mess. Worse, I looked like a guttersnipe and probably smelled like one, too. They sniggered and made a wide berth around me. The toot of a car horn distracted them. They waved cheerily and piled inside. The car lurched away, music blaring from the radio.
Fear chased me around to a residential street. My heart pounded like a kettledrum. The murmur of sociable voices spilling from open windows was reassuring. This wasn’t a good neighborhood, but at least I was a scream away from summoning help.
A minute later, I wedged myself behind the Bel Air’s steering wheel. Locked all the doors. Cranked the ignition key. Raised the gear level into reverse. And backed up. When I snapped the lever into drive, it registered that my hand was shaking. Sweat was pouring off me. I heard someone sob, a high-pitched shrill that sounded like a cat in heat. It was me. I choked back the noises, checked for traffic, flipped the turn signal, and angled into the street.
At the corner, the shark-tooth grill and high beams of a white four-door sedan filled the rearview mirror.
I drove to the end of the block and nosed the Bel Air into Maxwell Street. The white sedan sat on my bumper. When traffic cleared, I floored the accelerator and whipped onto the boulevard. The sedan careened into the turn. Street lamps cast light onto the broad side, the fin tails, and the chrome detailing of a Plymouth Fury. Against the blinding headlights, the interior was too dark to see the driver.
I gunned the engine and raced to the end of the block, leaving the Plymouth behind in a blaze of speed. The night swallowed the windshield, the hood, the grill, and lastly, the spinning tires. Just as the traffic signal ahead started to change, the Fury zoomed out of the dark and closed in. I glimpsed strawberry-blonde hair and a lemon-yellow halter-top.
A quick check of traffic revealed a black sedan approaching from the cross street. I had just enough time to floor the accelerator and let her rip. The blare of a car horn penetrated the blackness. I glanced neither left nor right but focused on the narrow lane ahead. I don’t remember if I squeezed my eyes shut or propped them wide open. I only knew I had arrived on the other side of the intersection unscathed. Two seconds later, the roar of an engine pierced the night, followed by the squeal of brakes and the crunch of metal. The rearview mirror exposed the Plymouth dancing a shimmy, skidding sideways, regaining traction, and skating around the black sedan.
Halfway down the block, I shifted gears, turned a sharp right into a residential neighborhood, and doused the headlights. Roaring down narrow one-way streets, I turned right, left, another left, followed by a right, and on and on until I had driven a zigzagging course around the block. When I circled back to Maxwell Street, all was quiet except for a few cruising automobiles. The Plymouth was nowhere in sight. I slipped into traffic.
Screw Pennyroyal. Screw the sting. Screw my career. I didn’t give a damn anymore. Right now, my head ached, my knees stung, my thighs burned, and my stomach wrenched. I was going home. “Happy birthday, Iris,” I said to the night. “Happy fucking birthday.”
I followed Lake Shore Drive, black waters to my right and city lights to my left. Night wasn’t much cooler than day had been, but sweet breezes blew through the rolled-down windows, reviving my wits. I kept my eyes glued to the rearview mirror but never made out the slightest ghost of a white Plymouth Fury.
With my heart still pounding, I cruised down my street. I parked around the corner. I surveyed the terrain. I perked up my ears. I warily stepped out of the Bel Air. The block was like most city blocks, a mixture of classic bungalows and walkup apartment buildings where young and old, couples and families, career women and confirmed bachelors staked out a place to call home. A block where everybody knew everybody else’s business and looked out for each other. Normally I felt safe here. Tonight was the exception. I marched with my last shred of pluckiness. Arms and thighs pumping. Posture straight. Shoulders back. Body tense. Ears alert. Telegraphing toughness, bitchiness, and unpredictability.
Soon the click-click-click of shoes hounded me. I glanced back. The clicking stopped. I didn’t see anybody. “Who’s there?” I called out.
The night hushed. Clouds swept across a crescent moon. I listened to the stillness. The street was quiet except for the hoot of an owl. I took off my shoes and sprinted, parting the blackness. My apartment building loomed ahead. I stomped up the front steps and glanced around. Nothing stirred but the lazy sound of crickets. I reached out. The outer door opened on a squeak but closed on a whisper. I peeked out through the leaded glass panel. Nothing disturbed the peacefulness of a hot summer night, nothing but the quickened beat of my pulse.
I let myself inside with the passkey.
