Sweet Sixteen and Never Been. . . .

This happened on my 16th birthday.

I went out with my friend Debbie. We headed for her boyfriend’s house in the northeastern side of town (about three miles away from my home). We drank a few beers, we listened to some Iron Maiden, but my heart wasn’t in it. I felt...bad. Anxious. I wanted to go home. Debbie didn’t want to go. John, Debbie’s boyfriend, had a car, but he didn’t want to drive me home, which was understandable (the beers). They didn’t want me to call for a ride--my mom was at work (the graveyard shift), and her live-in boyfriend might get pissed off at chauffeuring, and this would get me in trouble. That was their reasoning anyway.

I should have gone with my instincts and called Herb (mother’s boyfriend). Instead, I went along with Debbie and John’s urging--they would find me a ride home. This meant we walked down the main drag in that part of town--with Debbie sticking her thumb out while John and I walked behind. A truck pulled over. A big, blue, old school Chevy.

Debbie yelled, “You got a ride!”

I said no. No. no.

John said, “Don’t be scared, I know this guy. He’s the security guard at Zed Middle School. I know him. He’s the best guy to drive you home--he’s a security guard.

So I clambered in. I gave him directions to my street (not my house).

We started off pleasantly enough. He offered me a Camel straight (non-filtered for you non-smokers)

Then he turned off the main drag. And he drove down street that, at the time, was undeveloped. Lots of fields. Lots of fields. And he pulled into one.

It was February. Snow covered everything.

He drove pretty far in-maybe half a mile. I remember seeing the lights of a bowling alley and a set of McDonalds arches. So close.

I said “what are you doing?”

He said, “I’m going to fuck you.”

I pleaded--no. I was still a virgin (and I was). He said I wasn't--couldn't be.

He opened the truck door and pulled me down the seat so that my legs were hanging out.
He stuffed it into me. He shoved his fingers up with it--to put it in me--impotent.

I was screaming. He put his hands around my neck--“I will strangle you. I will kill you bitch.” I shut up. I kept looking at those Golden Arches. At Silver Lanes' flashy signs.

Then I left; I went into third-person and saw what was happening from the other side of the windshield. It all became a movie, and Valerie Bertinelli was playing my part.

At the same time, I was still there. I saw the stupid plastic dog hanging from the rear-view mirror. I noted the murky blue, broken, dashboard speakers.

And then. I don’t know how this came to me…I grabbed my little, skinny, black Cricket lighter from my vest pocket and put it up to his face. He had some growth there, and I torched it. I seriously did.

He yelled, and knocked the lighter out of my hands, into the snow outside. The he pulled me out into the snow. He went back to choking me and trying to shove himself into me.
He finally gave up. Standing up, he said “I’ll drive you home.”

I gave, again, directions to the street I lived on. I added “It’s my 16th birthday.” He said “I’d give you money if I had any.”

All I kept thinking was “sweet sixteen and never been kissed.”

A block before my house I said “This is it”
“Are you sure” he said.
“”Yes” I said.
We were in front of the house were I usually babysat for a neighbor woman.
So he dropped me off. When he drove away, and after he’d turned the corner, I ran home.

I don’t want to go into the drama that followed right now. I’ll just say:

I felt safe/justified when, after being inspected by doctors that night, the police drove me back to the scene of the crime, notes a sign of a scuffle, and found my little black Cricket lighter--evidence that I wasn't making it up.

Debbie and John denied I’d been raped. They said I was making it up for attention. And laughed about it; they denied they’d been with me when I got into that blue Chevy; they said I’d left John’s house to find a better party.

My mother cut out a blurb from the local paper that said “teen hitchhiker raped.”

I went to the house were I usually babysit the day after my rape just to let the woman know that I’d been dropped off nearby, in case she saw anything “funny.” she said, “you mean like him?”

And there he was. Walking up and down the street smoking a cigarette.

Did “they” catch” him? No. Not a surprise, either. This is a city where a then-recent police chief said, when asked what a woman should do if she were confronted with rape, that she should “lay back and enjoy it” (following a public outcry, he chose to wear the slogan on a t-shirt. Somehow, he thought he was being funny)

I’m sure I’ll elaborate on the police's woeful invesitgation at another time. But can I say this for now?

Fuck you, Detective Poindexter.