Vengeance

“I can’t do this.”

“Then maybe that’s enough for today.”

“Or maybe it’s enough forever. I’m sure you get the gist of what happened. My best friends set me up to be raped that night by the boys I had always trusted, and others. It was humiliating, painful, and I thought that they were going to literally fuck me to death.”

Marcella stood up and came over to sit beside me where I lay on her sofa. She took my hand. “I’m so sorry, but please understand that you’re not alone. A rape occurs every—”

“Why do people always go there? How does knowing that tons of other women, and men, have endured the same thing help matters?” I sat up, angry. “So that means that I shouldn’t be so upset because Peggy Sue was raped back in 1952 in Peoria, Illinois, walking home from third grade and Tiffany will be raped tonight leaving work at a diner in Milwaukee, Wisconsin?”

“No, I’m not implying that,” Marcella said, taken aback by my statement.

While I understood that I was far from the only person who had ever been victimized, I was fighting my own damn demons. There are two different ways to tell someone that they aren’t the only ones who have dealt with a traumatic experience, such as rape, death of a loved one, or even an addiction. One way is for it to come across like: you did nothing to deserve this and there are others who can be a support system for you because they have dealt with similar things. The other way is for it to come across like: you need to suck it up, get over it, and deal with it like everyone else because this is life and shit happens.

I decided to take Marcella at her word, that she didn’t mean to come across abrasively like I had taken it.

“I just don’t want to go into further details,” I said. “It was horrific and inhumane and now I’m back here to make sure they pay for what they did to me.”

“Okay . . .” Marcella tightened her grip on my hand. “Let’s not talk about that night. I’m sure that it was an atrocious experience. But I do need to know what you are planning to do to Bianca, Cherie, Jonovan, and—”

“Jonovan was the one who saved me that night. He showed up in his tiger costume and started pulling them off me. He wanted to call the police.”

“But you refused?”

“I ran and kept running. I sat outside in the park for a few hours, and afterward, I snuck into the house to look at Grandma one last time. I sat there beside her bed, in the darkness, listening to her breathing while her chest went up and down. At first, I was going to wake her and tell her the truth; let her call the police, even though I had run away when Jonovan suggested it.

“But then she started coughing in her sleep and she seemed to be struggling to breathe for a few seconds. She was way too sick to be burdened with the chaos that would have ensued if I’d told the truth. I was young but not dumb, and I already understood how most rape victims are treated; especially when they accuse men who are deemed too attractive to have to rape someone.

“The parents of those boys would have defended them, refused to believe that their sons would rape an ugly, anorexic girl whose mother was locked up in a psych ward. They would have made all sorts of accusations about me: That I had to be crazy like my mother. That I was a liar and starving for attention. That their sons all had girlfriends and would have no reason to lay a finger on me.

“Cherie and Bianca would’ve lied, if for no other reason than to cover their own asses. They’d lured me into the entire thing, and then watched when a drunk and high Herman took the first turn. It all happened so fast, but I swear that I remember Bianca helping to hold one of my legs open so they could hurt me.”

Marcella let go of my hand and started rubbing it. “How many of them were there?”

“Six, maybe seven. It was at the party. I thought it was going to be at someone’s house—that maybe even the parents would be there to supervise—but it was in an old, abandoned building in Southeast. They started fires in large metal trash cans for lights and the music was played from a battery-operated boom box. They had cases and cases of beer that some college students had purchased and a lot of illegal drugs.

“I wanted to go shortly after we arrived. The entire thing spelled trouble. The ironic thing was that I was worried about the police showing up and my being arrested on drug or alcohol charges because of the party law. My future possibly being ruined for being guilty by association, or being in the wrong place at the wrong time. That part about being in the wrong place rang true, but the police never showed up to break up the party. People didn’t have to knock one another over to dash out broken windows or busted doors to get away from them. The only one who ended up running for her life was me.”

“The statute of limitations has run out, but that doesn’t mean we can’t confront them, together.” Marcella seemed so sincere when she said that. “They need to know how this affected you and at least face the fact that someone else knows.”

“Marcella, that can’t happen. In order for me to confront them, I’d have to admit to being Caprice Tatum, and that shit is out of the question.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Then how do you plan to get retribution?”

I started to tell her about the videos I already had of Michael, Glaze, and Duchess. I was still contemplating the best way to use them, but I was most certainly going t

o do so. I also started to tell her that Herman was next on my list, but she would’ve only tried to convince me not to do it.

“Caprice?”

“I’m not quite sure, with two exceptions. I’m not going to physically harm anyone, and they can never know why their lives are suddenly falling apart. They should assume that it’s karma. We all know she’s a bad bitch!”

“What do you mean by their lives suddenly falling apart?”

I shrugged. “Some people create their own storms, then get all upset and in their feelings when it starts to rain. Like I said, I haven’t drawn any conclusions about it yet. Maybe that’s why I’m here; for you to prevent me from doing anything at all.”

Marcella smiled. I’d only said that to deflect her questions. There was not a chance in hell that I wasn’t going to get them back, one way or another.

“That’s a positive outlook, Caprice. It’s really not healthy for you to wish negative things on others, or to be the catalyst for their struggles. Karma does work both ways. Whatever is thrown out into the universe comes back, regardless of who is doing the throwing. You need to learn to accept that they won’t ever apologize, mainly because you never plan to give them the opportunity to do so.”