After they took Huddie away, I stood there, the very definition of vulnerable. I knew there were hardly ever more than three people in the kitchen at one time, and often I was there alone while Beauregard hauled trash and the inmate staff mopped down the eating area, with the guard standing post out there.
Meanwhile, the head cook had the freedom to go wherever he pleased in the food processing area, and with whomever he pleased. If I was in the kitchen alone, he could order me into the supply room or the icebox or out back near the trash bins with him any old time, and if I didn’t comply, he could fire me. I nearly suffocated with my position, my cage. The thought of it caused me to have the kind of nausea that starts at your throat and continues all the way down to your knees. The kind of nausea that settles in and stays with you in its misery.
And now, Huddie was gone and would never be back. Poor Huddie who’d defended me. He hadn’t just resisted a guard: he’d hit the head cook in the face then kicked him solidly on the kneecap. The guard would support the head cook’s story. From what I could tell, not many guards liked the head cook, but they respected his title—and they all hated Negroes, every last one.
For the rest of the day, I did my best to stay within eyeshot of the guard on duty. My body tingled, alert to the presence of the head cook, who nodded and smiled at me every time he walked by. Once, he grabbed his crotch and rubbed himself before disappearing into the hallway. I nearly vomited.
Back in those days, there was no recourse for the kind of behavior exhibited by the head cook and his sundial. There was no union or group for women’s rights. He was my boss, and bringing his behavior into the light would have just proven that working women were a distraction. I would have been let go, no doubt after being chastised for being seductive—though I felt about as seductive as an acorn in the mud.
At clock-out time, just when I was thinking I made it through the day, the head cook called me into his office again. My palms went damp. My head felt like someone had just wrapped it in cotton, all dull and numbed out. I wished I’d gone to college with Rhodie after all.
“Close the door,” he said, his face looking considerably more swollen on the one side than the other.
I closed the door, only this time I stayed right up against it, with the doorknob pressing into my tailbone.
“What you are afraid of?” he asked, his mouth smacking with saliva.
I didn’t answer, so he stood up and walked over to me.
He smiled. “If you don’t come to me, I can always come to you.”
He positioned himself right in front of me. With only that desk lamp of his—no overhead light, no windows—everything got dimmer further away from the desk. We were in one of the darkest spots of his office with him backlit in front of me like some evil spirit.
His breath smelled of heavy tobacco. He took off his white cap and threw it on the ground, then reached out, put his hands on my hips, and pulled me into him so I could feel him pressing his urgency into my girl parts. My mind raced with a dozen different thoughts: Are there any sharp objects nearby? Can the guard hear us—would he care? Will it hurt? I’ve never been with a man before. This just can’t be happening.
“You are just the right height,” he said into my ear, his eyes looking not at me, but at the white door behind me. “We work just right together.”
He sniffed my hair. I shut my eyes and started praying. Then I remembered something: when I was a little girl, my daddy told me that if a bear attacks, make yourself look bigger and create lots of noise. Don’t be passive, he said.
So, despite the panic that was creeping over me, I stuck out my chest and said, “Keep your penis to yourself, Billy.” This was the first time I’d ever said his name.
He laughed, and I thought maybe my bluff had worked.
“Listen to you getting all powerful and familiar-like!” he said.
I relaxed and smiled—this was all a friendly misunderstanding!—until he grabbed me by the throat. My eyes flared up with fear and I held my breath.
“Don’t you ever call me anything but ‘head cook.’” He unbuttoned his pants and pulled out his penis again. “I will do what I want, when I want. This here is my kitchen. I didn’t want you in my kitchen, but here you are. Now I’m thinking I’ll make the best of it and do what I want with you, woman.”
I closed my eyes again. My mind spun around. I felt dizzy and sick.
He moved his hand fast, and he grunted as he said, “I do what I want.”
I prayed that I’d vomit right there, all over him, but I didn’t. It was all I could do not to fall into a panic and cry. I listened to my heart beating and looked off to the left.
A moment later, the head cook moaned and arched back slightly. He pressed hard into me two or three times and squeezed himself dry. When he finished, he said, “Wash your uniform. You’re a dirty mess, nigger lover.”
My legs shook. I put my hand behind me, grabbed the doorknob, and let myself out.
I don’t remember walking down the short hall into the kitchen. I only remember cleaning the evidence off my uniform—the look of it on the sponge and the feel of it when I wrung out the sponge under water. I had this sensation that I couldn’t get it off my hands, so I kept washing them over and over again. Still, I could feel it on me.
I smelled him, even though he wasn’t around me. His smell stunk stronger than it had in real life, and it was everywhere. Suddenly, with the feeling of being kicked in the stomach, I leaned over the sink and threw up.
Not wanting to fill my unclean hands with water, I tipped my head sideways and let the faucet run on my face to clean off the vomit. I grabbed some water in my mouth, swished it around, and spit.
The head cook opened the door to his office again and my guts dropped. He shouted, “You can go home early today, Miss Dara. We don’t need you anymore.”
I don’t remember clocking out or walking into the sun.
I clicked back in on the tiny sidewalk leading into my shanty. In a numb daze, I walked inside, wrapped up the trash, and fed the stray cats who stopped by for dinner. I pulled out a dozen cookies I’d made a few days before and ate every single one of them. They made me feel better, as if I was replacing the anxiety in my stomach with something solid.
That night, for the first time in memory, I locked my front door and checked every window, putting sticks up where the locks didn’t work. I kept all my clothes on in case I needed to run—in case the head cook came to my house. I reassured myself with the memory of how fast I’d run down Old Spider Road with Rhodie to escape the killer chasing us. I slept with my finger on the trigger of my rifle, who I called Dead Eye. The rifle that could shoot a tin can off a fence at a hundred paces. I’d shoot him in the guts and the crotch and the face, I said to myself over and over again, like a prayer. Guts, crotch, face.
Then I lay there, forcing myself not to cry, until morning.