It was just before dusk, that time that briefly dances between day and night. As she started to come to, Glory felt the hard gravel beneath her and a tight, choking grip around her neck. Her hands went immediately to it, and she tried frantically to remove what was there. As she loosened it, she felt the rush of blood to her head and felt swallowed with dizziness. She choked and gasped for more air. Her sides were pierced with sharp pain each time she coughed. She tried to move her body and feel her surroundings, but felt paralyzed by a fear she didn’t yet understand. She struggled to remember what had happened to her. Events were fuzzy, but she recalled going out to work and her first few tricks. Her head was pounding; her body ached with intermittent pain shooting throughout. She blinked several times but could not focus. Her eyes felt huge and swollen, crusted with something. She lay there on the ground, afraid and unsure, trying to remember.
Gripped with terror, she quieted her breathing, holding her breath a moment to listen until she started coughing and gasping for air. Each gasp hurt her more than the one before. Horror filled her heart — the man in the big car. She tried to remember what colour it had been, burgundy maybe? He seemed normal when she got into his car earlier that evening, or — no wait — it had to be yesterday because it had been around eleven o’clock at night when she got in, she remembered. Was it last evening? She recalled the fleeting feeling in the pit of her stomach, a sense of unrest, an intuition. She began to recall how she had felt hurried into his vehicle as a cop car approached, but dismissed the premonition reluctantly as the cop car got closer and her instincts fought the same internal fight they always did. She had closed the door and said, “Hi.” That much she remembered most clearly.
She lifted her hand to her face and pulled it away; it was caked in dried blood. Moving her hand cautiously down to her neck and the tightness that she still felt, she grabbed at the fabric that might have been a scarf, trying to remove it from around her neck, and coughing and wincing as she did. She was confused and disoriented. What the fuck was going on? What the fuck happened, and why couldn’t she remember? Maybe Nick had been in the back of her trick’s car, she thought; maybe he had come back for her and found her. Did he roofie and then beat her as he had done so many times in the past? Her mind raced: she was immediately back in that psychological state of emergency that was all too familiar to her.
She summoned all the strength she could and lifted her head to assess her surroundings. She was in the back of an alley that was familiar, but she couldn’t tell why it was familiar; it was only a feeling that she had been there before. She tried hard to concentrate and the memory returned sharply. She suddenly knew exactly where she was. She was behind the old, abandoned theatre, in the back alley near a dumpster; the street was visible from where she lay. As she tried to brace her hands to lift her body up, still unable to focus completely, she cried out as her hand was pierced suddenly, taking her mind off all the other pain. She lifted it close to her face, and through one eye and the slit of the other, she saw the shard of green glass. She pulled the piece of glass from her palm without hesitation and shifted her weight, trying again to sit up. She cried out in pain.
She managed to get herself into a semi-sitting position, despite the unbelievable pain, and tried to balance on one elbow. She noticed a woman and child about thirty feet away, walking past. As their eyes met, she looked pleadingly at the woman. From her gravel bed at the back of the alley lot, just beneath a line of small broken trees and shrubs, she held out her hand, dripping blood, and whimpered, “Help me.” The woman drew her child in close and walked faster, until she was out of sight. Are you kidding me? You looked right at me, Glory thought.
Although each breath was like knives piercing her insides, she managed to pull her beaten body up with her good hand. Quickly surveying the ground near her, she saw her knapsack and moved toward it, shimmying on her butt, until she reached it. She needed to be anywhere but here, of that she was sure. A new wave of soul-gripping panic battered her with the realization that he may be coming back to finish what he started. She could see a flash of his unshaven face and she remembered his smell. It was trapped in the tiny hairs of memory inside her nostrils. She instinctively blew her nose to repel the residual smell.
Glory pushed through the remarkable pain and grabbed the knapsack, opened it, and pulled out the thin jacket to put over her top, which no longer resembled clothing. Her chest was bare and the remnants of the T-shirt dangled from her shoulders. Unable to make her arm move as she wanted it to, she managed to still cover up her torso. Her legs, covered in blood, were exposed and her feet without shoes. She realized that her skirt and panties were off as well, but as she grabbed at her articles of clothing, her body convulsed and she began to vomit. She could think only of her exposed and brutalized body. She felt the cool air on her all but naked body and felt the depths of humiliation.
As the vomiting passed she again returned to the immediacy of putting on her skirt, only to realize it wasn’t her skirt at all. She frantically looked around again, and tried to peer through the trees and rubbish that lined the fence. Was anyone else there? She threw the skirt away from her as if it had given her an electrical shock, and grabbed in her bag for more clothing. Finding in the array of belongings a pair of loose-fitting khakis, she slid painfully into them. She grabbed at a branch and lifted herself up to try and stand straighter, but doubled over again and vomited. Wiping her mouth on her hand, she glanced up and saw a group of teenagers passing by in the same direction as the woman and child.
She managed with more resolve, if not anger, to again ask for help. “Please fucking help me?” But her voice was muted and raspy, and it hurt to try and speak. Her hand went to her throat and held it in an attempt to ease the pain. She couldn’t believe people could just ignore someone in trouble. She thought she heard a few of them laughing in the distance.
This had to be a bad dream, she thought, and any minute she would wake and be in her own bed. Just wake up, just wake up, wake up, damn it! She tried to listen for Jenny; she hoped she would hear her soft mutterings and childlike giggles. Maybe if she tried to force open her eyes wider she would wake from her nightmare. She rubbed at them, ignoring the pain. She saw cruiser lights and tried to fall back into an undetectable ball but she couldn’t force her body to cooperate or contort. In the distance she heard an ambulance siren, different than a police siren. With one foot under her, she attempted to get up, her flight instinct activated. But she stumbled on the slippery ground beneath her and fell. Everything went black. She dreamt of a time before now.
That’s great, nice canter; heels down. That’s it, nice. Eyes straight ahead; look past the jump. She felt her horse’s powerful muscles naturally respond and soar over the jump. She felt herself in slow motion, upper body leaning into it, and her butt lifted just a fraction out of the saddle as she glided, as though one with her horse, over the jump. The exhilaration! Good boy. Without hesitation, she cantered on toward the next jump. Count: one, two, three, four, five, and lift and jump! Her smile was so big, her heart so full, and her freedom so evident. Again Sir glided with her over the jump. She heard the applause as she cleared the last of the jumps. There was nothing more perfect — pure joy and bliss. Then it was gone.
Glory slowly started to stir; her head felt heavy and foggy, like being high, but way too high. There was a mask over her mouth and nose. Her arms and hands felt heavy as she tried to lift them to open her eyes; she felt her face with the tips of her fingers. One eye was padded and taped closed. She started to panic and pull at the bandages, but was stopped by a stranger’s damp, cool hand.
She recoiled from the touch, and terror filled her heart. “No, no, no; please no more,” she said in a barely audible voice. Someone’s voice was saying it was okay; that she was at the hospital, and that she needed to remain very still. She struggled to focus.
Again, the voice said calmly, “No one’s hurting you; you’re going to be fine. You’re in the hospital, do you understand?”
Glory said, “Uh-huh,” and with one eye open she saw the face that belonged to the voice, a middle-aged woman with tired eyes.
“Can you tell me your name, dear?” The nurse pulled down her oxygen mask. Glory touched her fingers to her mouth, which felt misshapen and sore, making it difficult to form her words. She hesitated a moment while trying to make her mouth co-operate and synchronize with her thoughts. The nurse leaned in closer still and repeated her question, with less softness this time. “I need you to answer me; this is important. What’s your name?”
Well then, if it was important, thought Glory sarcastically. She looked into the tired eyes of the nurse and was struck by what seemed a genuine goodness, kindness, and softness. “Glory; my name is Glory.” She was startled by the sound of saying her real name; she had been Candy for so long, she had almost forgotten.
The nurse reached up and checked the IV drip, and then said, “Welcome back, Glory. Do you have a last name? Can you tell me how old you are, Glory?”
Glory had to think about the answer to that question, and it made her angry. “Twenty-four; only twenty-four,” she said, as if it was inconceivable to her. There was a sudden commotion just then; people talking in low voices. Another nurse came into the cubicle and looked at her with furrowed forehead, and then pulled Glory’s nurse aside, speaking to her in hushed tones. Glory was used to being looked at in judgment, but this seemed worse. Like … like what? Like concern; genuine concern. Glory’s nurse said she’d be right back and left the room with the other nurse. Beyond the curtains, Glory could hear several other hushed voices and tried to peer under the bottom of the curtain; there was enough of a gap at the bottom that she could see, and she suddenly knew who else was there. It was the police: the unmistakable, ugly boots of several police officers, along with a pair of scuffed white shoes and a large pair of brown ones.
She tried to move but was kept from sitting up by something tight that was around her middle; as she felt the area just above her waist, swathed in bandages, she thought she must have broken ribs. She could feel people around her and felt trapped. Another nurse came in and said, “I’m just going to adjust your bed so you can sit up a little more, okay? We can’t let you lie down.” The bed was rising and as she adjusted to the bright lights of the hospital, fear and panic overtook her again. She realized that her head and face were also bandaged. Just outside the curtain, the people who had gathered were talking all at the same time it seemed, but she couldn’t make any sense out of the garble.
She wondered what her hair looked like; it must be a mess, she thought. Nick would never tolerate her being messy or having her hair out of place, and if he saw her wearing anything he didn’t approve of he would always give her a punch in the back of her head, where bruises didn’t show. The problem was that what he approved of changed from day to day and week to week. Eventually she learned not to get dressed without asking what he thought she should wear; it was just easier that way. He also had rules about what her hair should look like, and messy was definitely as sure a way as any to get a smack. She had been brainwashed into not speaking, unless he asked her to; not sleeping; not ever making eye contact with any motel staff, if she was lucky enough to even get out of the room accompanied by him or one of his boys.
Her head started to spin and she felt nausea threatening, and then darkness. The image of the woman and child penetrated her thoughts. She recalled the way the woman had looked through her as if she wasn’t real, wasn’t deserving of help, even as she lay in her blood and vomit on the gravel by the scraggy, tree-lined fence full of garbage — caught there by wind storms, serving as additional coverage to fill in the holes. It’s the way they look at you, isn’t it? Well, maybe she didn’t deserve to be helped; maybe she would have looked the other way once, too. Really, look at me; I am a disgusting, worthless, ugly piece of useless shit. That’s what Nick had told her over and over and over again, like a mantra, until eventually that was all she believed. But I wasn’t always this, she thought, and tried to remember before. But she couldn’t stop thinking about the expression on the face of the woman who walked by and left her there. This … this … to have walked past, with child in hand and do nothing, this was just wrong. Glory felt a sense of impossible estrangement from people and reality. Just when she was sure she had seen the many faces of cruelty, another pushed into her mind and remained. She didn’t know that the mother had hurriedly picked her child up, and ran and knocked on a stranger’s door to call the police and ambulance to help her, while still protecting her child. She didn’t know. She didn’t know. She didn’t know.
Before Glory was “Candy” she had been a riding coach, gifted for one so young. She identified well with some of her students, the ones that refused to leave; she understood all too well the desire to remain at the stable all day and into the evening. It was as if they had to tear themselves away to return to their lives outside of riding, the stable, and the horse world. She occasionally heard their stories and saw the sadness reflected back at her in their young, wide eyes, peering at her from behind their individual masks of courage. And it started to be reflective of how she herself felt, in tight japers and tall boots — her life also felt so restrictive. And so when she met the new summer boarder, she knew it was a sign.
She first met Nick at the stable — well, really, she met his horse first. His horse had been trailered from another stable near the city, a few hours away, to be boarded for a month. Nick was vacationing nearby in one of the big rental cottages on the lake amidst the beautiful rolling hills of the countryside. He had called to make the arrangements a month in advance; she had taken the call and reserved a box stall for his horse.
King Boss was an amazing seventeen-hand black gelding: part thoroughbred, part Canadian. Nick paid her extra to work out his horse before he arrived in the late mornings. She knew too well the type of horse owner who really wasn’t comfortable in the saddle — not really. They bought and owned the magnificent creatures that, deep down, intimidated and often frightened them. Glory understood horses and had an easy, gentle way with them; they would bend for her and move through a series of exercises willingly with her in the saddle. She arrived at five o’clock each morning to feed the horses before putting them out to their paddocks, and then she would muck as fast as she could before she would bring them, one at a time, back in to groom and tack so she could ride the ones she was paid to exercise. She made sure they were tired enough not to be too hot or energetic for their owners. She liked to keep track of what time different owners typically showed up; she could stagger the horses’ workouts so that they were more likely to behave under saddle for the individual owners. It was an effective technique for her, and she would always be praised for the change in a horse’s attitude and manner. Unknown to some people, it was simply a matter of letting the horse release some unused energy beforehand; simple, no magic touch required.
Nick seemed to like Glory right away, and maybe he took a little too much of an interest in her, but she didn’t mind; she was flattered. He arranged to take riding lessons from her four days a week. He was getting himself and his horse ready for the annual Hunter Pace. It was always a big event; horse owners from hundreds of miles away would trailer their horses in for the event. Ribbons were awarded to the three riders whose time came closest to the Hunt Masters. More than anything, it was brilliant fun for all involved, and was talked about for months. The evening gala after the Pace was where she had her first kiss with a boy from the city who she never saw again. But she wrote about the kiss and the boy for a year afterward in her diary.
She couldn’t have known that the summer she met Nick would be the summer that changed her young life forever. It was a time she would later reflect on and wonder if maybe, just maybe, she could have done things differently. After her first weeks in the city, she would never again be so quick to trust. But she would never be able to reclaim the summer and take back her innocence either. She would wear the events that followed like the crust of an infected wound that went unattended too long.
Nick skillfully inflicted himself and his attentions on her, as if he knew her vulnerabilities even though she didn’t. Most days he would hang around awhile and talk with her after his lessons, and it made her feel older than she was. He treated her like an adult and not the young country girl she knew herself to be. But then there were days when it seemed he was disinterested in her altogether, or maybe mad at her, and she would try and figure out if she had been too eager, or done something wrong, or acted too young; she would try harder to please him to have his attention again. And when she won it back she always felt exhilarated. He made her feel special when he showered her with attention, and she felt the joy and confusion of her first grown-up crush. When he left at the end of his vacation, he gave her his card and said if she ever wanted to come to the city to give him a call for a place to stay. He said he could give her a job whenever she was ready. He paid extra attention to her in those last two days before he left, and for that she was flattered and a bit embarrassed all at once.
The afternoon he left, he bent down and kissed her cheek, lingering a little too long. Her stomach exploded with butterflies and she could feel the heat of the blush that moved across her face. Before closing the door and driving off in his SUV, Nick told her that her hair would probably look better down than in that messy bun she always wore. Her heart sunk hard and fast as though she had just been punched, and she instinctively reached up and took the elastic out and shook out her hair, trying to awkwardly smooth it. “That’s better,” he said, smiling brilliantly at her, and waved goodbye.
When the show season was over and the stable was quiet again, she began to miss Nick and his attentions. She finally resolved to leave and go to the city, just for a little while — a week, maybe two — just to say she did. When she arrived, a little ruffled and unnerved, she called him. True to his word, he came and picked her up at the bus terminal. Well, not exactly; he asked her to go to a little restaurant just down the street from it, and so trustingly she did. He had a way of putting her immediately at ease and making her feel comfortable around him. Maybe it was the way he spoke to her, like she was older. He said, “I’m going to make a hair appointment at the best place in town for you tomorrow, my gift to you. You know, you’d look awesome with much shorter hair dyed blonde. Definitely platinum blonde.”
“Glory. Glory, can you open your eyes for me?”
Glory mumbled and opened her eyes for the nurse with tired ones. She was in a sitting-up position and the nurse asked if she was up to answering some questions for the police. Panicked, Glory grabbed the nurse’s hand and searched her face for something. In a whisper she pleaded with the nurse, “No … no … no way. Please, I can’t talk to the police; please don’t make me. Make them go away. Please … please just make them go away … please.”
The nurse saw the terror clearly in Glory’s face and was momentarily taken aback. She squeezed Glory’s hand, and patted it with the other before freeing the grip her patient had on her. With a cloth from beside the bed, she gently wiped Glory’s forehead.
“It’s going to be all right, Glory. I promise. You’ve suffered a great deal of trauma, dear.” Glory felt the tenderness but also the deep concern that was evident on her nurse’s face. Her heart raced and she looked beyond the curtain that was now partly opened. Holy shit, Nick was going to kill her. He had forbid her to talk to police. When she threatened to call the police, so long ago now, he had beaten her up badly. He’d beaten her too many times before, and she knew he had done worse to other girls that he made work for him. She saw the police, a female and male, as well as a man she thought might be a doctor standing there looking in on her. She looked at her nurse, and back at them, and started to cry inexplicably. Deep sobs overtook her; her breathing was unbearably painful and laboured. The nurse moved quickly to offer her a tissue from a small, square box. Glory wiped her eyes and covered her face in the not-so-soft tissue, attempting to shield it.
Her ribs raged with renewed pain and she tried to raise her voice as loud as she could, just above a whisper. “Get them out of here; get them out of here! It hurts, it really friggin’ hurts. Please, just get them out of here.” She couldn’t control the crying, and the pain with each intake of air sent vicious shooting daggers through her body.
The nurse said, “Okay, okay. That’s enough. Try and calm down; it won’t hurt as much if you can calm down and stop moving.” But she couldn’t. The nurse left her sight, which only served to cause Glory more panic.
When she returned, the doctor was with her and the nurse adjusted the IV drip and checked her blood pressure. “We’re going to give you something to calm you down and something more for the pain, but you need to settle down and remain still,” the doctor said.
Glory looked pleadingly at the nurse and reached out her hand. “Stay with me. Can you stay with me? Please?” The sound of sirens was in the distance and Glory heard sudden commotion and running.
“I have to go right now, but I’ll be back. You just try and breathe slowly, okay? You should be feeling the medication now. It will help calm you, but you absolutely must remain still.”
Glory tried hard to figure out why she was so panicked by the sight of police and their ugly damn boots. She closed her eyes as the medication started to take effect, making her mind feel thick and sluggish. She tried to fight the dizzying sensation but was losing the battle. She could feel her eyes begin to roll and felt herself losing control. She didn’t resist it; her head slumped forward as she went out again.
Someone was speaking to her firmly. “Glory, wake up. Come on, we need you to open your eyes now.” Glory opened her eyes with a start, and focused on the nurse and the policewoman standing next to her. “Can you tell me your last name, Glory?”
Glory shifted her gaze to the cop. “It’s … it’s …” she looked around the curtained room and saw the thin, tartan jacket that was hers on a chair at the foot of the bed with her knapsack. “MacIntyre.”
The policewoman wrote in her small, black book. “And what is your date of birth, Glory?”
“I … umm …” she stammered. A renewed sense of panic washed over her. She needed to get out of here, away from the police. She couldn’t let them know who she really was because she knew Nick would find out and kill her. He always found out everything; it was like he had spies everywhere. “No,” pleaded Glory.
“You’re not going anywhere for a while, so why don’t you just tell me your date of birth, Glory. No one’s going to make you go anywhere you don’t want to go, okay? You have my word on that.”
“You don’t understand,” she whispered, looking cynically at the cop.
“What’s your date of birth? Come on, you gotta help me so I can help you. Can you write it down on this paper?” she offered her the pen and pad.
Glory reached up and touched her sore and swollen neck and face, feeling the bandaged eye and then moved further up to her scalp, feeling for her hair and trying to smooth it in spite of the bandages. Nick had said more than once that if she ever spoke to police, he’d find out; he had convinced her that he knew many cops.
“Come on, Glory, I don’t want to have to ask again.”
Glory tried to adjust her posture and reached for the paper. She wrote, “May 11, 1938.”
The nurse and cop exchanged concerned looks. “That would make you much older than you look. Try again, Glory,” the officer said.
Glory thought for a minute, not understanding what she meant. “Oh … no … umm … December second, nineteen eighty.” Glory reached for her side and winced in pain.
“Glory, can you tell me about that tattoo on your neck? Can you tell me who put it there?” The cop recognized the tattoo from photos of a known trafficker of young girls. He branded them with his mark, visible for all to see. The police had discovered that piece of evidence after a sixteen-year-old girl had managed to escape a few years ago at a truck stop along the highway, between two cities. The terrified young girl had run through the mass of trucks, frantically crying and searching for someone to help her until she was found by a truck driver and was taken to the police. The police had been working with other law enforcement agencies in various cities to try and find out who the trafficker was, without much luck. “Glory, who gave you your tat? What’s his name, Glory? He can’t hurt you now, but I need you to tell me his name,” the cop persisted.
“I don’t …” Glory stammered and shook her head as a new wave of fear bore down on her. “Got … it … myself,” her voice a whisper. Tears welled up in her eyes, spilling without control. She was terrified to even utter his name.
“Now that wasn’t so bad was it?” the nurse said. Glory tried her best to smile at her, through the tears, glad that she was back at her side.
The policewoman looked closely at her and said, “So how old are you again?” She then looked down at her book and scribbled, intentionally avoiding eye contact.
Glory wrote, “My name is Glory, and I’m 24.” After she finished writing, the policewoman told her to take care; she reached for her radio on her left shoulder and turned away, disappearing through the curtains. The nurse reached over and put her oxygen mask back on. Glory could hear the crackle of the radio but couldn’t make out what the cop said.
Another voice, authoritative and clear, said “Okay, that’s enough. She’s really in bad shape; she’s still in critical condition. She needs to remain very still and as calm as possible right now; you’ll have to come back tomorrow.”
Glory closed her eyes and felt herself drifting off in a drug-induced haze. And then the images assaulted her and she could feel the fabric tightening like a noose around her neck, her arms flailing. The man in the big car was punching her repeatedly in the face with one hand and holding her down with the other. She fought and kicked and tried to bite him, but he had taken her by surprise and she was high and couldn’t fight him. The next image hit her like cold water: it was an image of his face as he ripped her underwear off; she heard the familiar sound of unzipping. The next punch must have knocked her out because when she came to, he had something around her neck and she could feel her eyes bulge. She couldn’t scream. Suddenly, she felt calmness wash over her; all tension left her body and it fell completely limp, and she felt herself slipping away. The next thing she remembered was coming to in the back of the alley behind the theatre, the thunder, the woman and child, and finally the police lights. Her sudden thrashing and small, painful cry startled and woke her; her breathing was erratic and she began to hyperventilate.
A young security guard came quickly to her side, looking around frantically for a nurse or doctor. Not seeing one, she rushed to Glory’s side and instinctively reached for her hand and said, “My name is Kaitlin; it’s going to be okay. The nurse will be right here, I’m sure.” A nurse came into the intensive care unit, looked quizzically at Kaitlin, and asked her to stand outside the curtains. Kaitlin moved away from the bed but didn’t leave the curtained space. She recognized the woman in the bed and couldn’t move or take her eyes off her; she was frozen in disbelief.
She was way thinner and her hair was dyed blonde and was shorter, but it was her: it was Glory Evers, Kaitlin was positive. Glory had been her riding coach for four months when she was younger until she had taken a week off to go to the city and never returned; with no word to anyone, she vanished. Many stories were circulated but Kaitlin didn’t believe the rumours and had missed her coach terribly. She had stopped riding a month later and hadn’t bothered to go back even though her mother had paid for her lessons months in advance.
“Glory?” stammered Kaitlin, “Glory Evers? It’s me, it’s Kaitlin, from the stable. Glory, don’t you remember me? Jesus, what happened to you?” Glory was non-responsive.
The nurse turned and looked at Kaitlin, shocked. “You know this woman?”
Kaitlin nodded, not able to tear her gaze from Glory. “Yes. Yes, she was my riding coach when I was fourteen — a long time ago. But she left and no one ever heard from her again; her mom tried everything to find her, it was even on the news for like, like a week.”
The nurse looked at Glory and then looked back at Kaitlin. “You stay here with her, okay? I’ll be right back.” The nurse returned five minutes later with the police officer and motioned for Kaitlin to come over to her.
Kaitlin stepped out of the ICU beyond the curtains to speak with the policewoman; the alarm went off on one of the machines that was monitoring Glory’s vital signs. A nurse moved through the people standing in the hallway as if gliding, and hurriedly went to the bedside where Glory lay, lifeless. “Code Blue, Code Blue. ICU106, stat.” The police officer and Kaitlin were ushered out of the area as nurses and a doctor rushed into the cubicle.
“You know this woman? What can you tell me about her? Do you know her family? Do you know how we can reach her next of kin?” The questions all came fast and furious, and all Kaitlin could do was stare in silence. She was in shock.
“Her name: what’s her family name, her real name?” said the cop.
“Evers. It’s Glory Evers. We’ll Ride for Evers.” Kaitlin’s eyes began filling with tears of helplessness and disbelief.
The officer stepped away, leaned into her shoulder, and said something into her radio before turning back to Kaitlin. “What did you say about ‘ride forever’?”
Kaitlin looked up at her and said, “It was a campaign and fundraiser, to help find her about six years ago. It was called Ride for Evers, November ninety-eight.”
The cop remembered the campaign; it had been her first year on the job. There had been posters and flyers and news coverage to find Glory Evers: pictures and video clips of her at equestrian events jumping and winning ribbons; a beautiful, young, glowing, and strong girl. Many of the cops thought she had likely met a boyfriend and simply moved away. Although they looked, they never found her.
None of them would know that Glory went to the city at seventeen for a week, on the whim of a crush after she had been skillfully baited — only to end up being groomed, beaten, and raped repeatedly until she could be submissively sold each night to anyone who paid her pimp and captor, Nick.
No one would know that she had been forced to stay out of sight for several years, being shuttled back and forth between various cities with other girls she wasn’t allowed to speak to. No one would know that she was taken under the dark of night into different hotels and motels. No one would know that it was Glory who had helped a new young girl, terrified to death, to escape at the truck stop when their driver had stopped to rest and finally fell asleep.
No one would know that she had been taken to a filthy office for an abortion — not once, not twice, but three separate times — and that she was expected to work as soon as the bleeding stopped. No one would know that she cut herself on the inside to make sure she bled just a little longer. No one would know that she did not want this, except maybe once. There was a man who saw it in her eyes and changed his mind, put extra money on the bed, and left without touching her.
And when she was used up and stopped resisting, reacting, and seeming to care anymore; when they had extracted all will to live from her; when she had become completely and perfectly numb; sometime after about four years — and after Nick had made well over a million dollars from the many rapes he arranged each night — they dumped her off in the dark like a bag of garbage, on the side of the road somewhere, between two cities.
And when she found herself finally free from the clutches of her captor and trafficker, she felt scared, alone, and ashamed. She always looked over her shoulder. She hadn’t been out of sight of her captors for so long that she felt lost and lived in a state of hypervigilance, always! So on a cold and snowy night in a little diner, she accepted an old man’s offer, over free hot chocolate and french fries, for a place to stay; it didn’t matter to her anymore that she was expected to service him. At least it was only a few times a week instead of ten to fifteen times a night. And when he was gone, she moved from his small house to the streets, by accident and design — she was transformed from who she once was, and the only life she could really remember anymore was this trauma-filled hell. At least the stroll had been easier; she got to say when, she got to say how much, and more than that, she got to keep the money! At least it had been easier than that which she had left behind on the side of the road between two cities.
The cop looked in as they pulled the sheet over the small, slight body, and vaguely remembered the image of the girl she was from the flyers. But this — this broken slip of a girl who lay in the bed — was a shell of the girl she remembered from the media attention her disappearance had generated. Eventually, it seemed, they all forgot about just one more missing girl. The stories stopped being written and were replaced by a new plea from another family, or a different story about statistics on runaways and lost youth swallowed into a life they didn’t expect, want, or deserve.
The doctor and nurses walked out of the cubicle. Glory “Candy” Evers was dead of injuries from a vicious attack and attempted strangulation. The news would be big for a day or two; reporters would pull out all the old footage, posters, and flyers, and retell the story of her disappearance six years earlier. They would report on her brutal attack and ultimate murder, most likely at the hands of a trick. They would talk about it on call-in shows on the radio; NGOs would use the story to beef up their requests for funding to fight domestic human trafficking; parents would use the story to scare their kids; and all the while people would attempt to feign interest and a measured semblance of sorrow. “Did you hear they found that girl, Glory?” nodding before changing the subject to avoid any real feelings one way or another.
Glory (1980–2004)