Strange Are the Ways of Love

12

Her name was Peggy Cordovan and she was drunk.

Very drunk, she decided. Almost too drunk to know where she was and definitely too drunk to know where she was going.

She was on Thompson Street. She knew that, because she had left The Shadows when it had closed, and since it was Wednesday night it must be around four A.M. Which meant that it was Thursday morning, when you came right down to it.

But what was the point of coming right down to it? That was the most excellent thing about getting drunk — you didn’t have to come down to it until you woke up the next morning or afternoon with a head that was two sizes too big. Then you came down, hard, but until then you could fly around like a sparrow on marijuana, flying around and even chirping.

She came to a corner and peered intently at the street sign, trying to put the letters together to form words. Thompson and Houston, the sign said. She had managed to wander south and east, and this wasn’t particularly good because the neighborhood wasn’t particularly nice, not nice at all, and if she weren’t drunk she would be a little scared by it all, but why be afraid now, why be scared because she was drunk and God protected drunks and fools and she qualified on both counts.

There was no place to go.

That was the hell of it. There ought to be a place to sleep somewhere, even alone, because she didn’t want to sleep with anyone else yet except Laura, who didn’t want to sleep with her. But there ought to be an empty bed for her to crawl into. She had found one Sunday night and Monday night and Tuesday night, although she couldn’t remember whether she had taken a hotel room or slept at a friend’s place or exactly what she had done.

This was nice. Just letting her mind ramble on and not giving a good goddamn about anything, just walking south on Thompson Street into a perfectly wretched neighborhood and not caring, this was what she needed. She had to practice not caring about things and pretty soon she wouldn’t care about anything at all and she would never be hurt again. She would be strong and bitter and tough and never care any more and that would be better and infinitely safer.

There were footsteps behind her.

She was aware of this suddenly, and with the awareness came the realization that there had been footsteps behind her all the way from The Shadows, footsteps that she hadn’t quite noticed until just now. She listened closely and discovered that more than one person was following her. Two at least. Maybe more.

She decided that she ought to be frightened. Here she was in a lousy neighborhood with someone right behind her and she ought to run like hell. But, strangely, she wasn’t frightened at all.

She didn’t run. She was drunk and nothing was worth worrying about, so instead of running she simply turned around and walked back again to find out what sort of sons-of-bitches were following her and just what they wanted from her young life.

She kept walking until she was within ten yards of them. Then she stopped and they stopped and she looked at them carefully.

There were four of them. They were young, around eighteen, and they were big and they looked strong. They were dressed alike in tight dungarees and black leather jackets with zippers on the pockets.

Christ, she thought, it’s just like the movies. Sideburned teenage toughs in black leather jackets. I ought to be scared out of my wits.

But she wasn’t.

What could they want? If they were after money they had the wrong pigeon. Her purse was someplace, but she hadn’t the slightest idea where.

What did they want?

I’ll ask them, she decided. That ought to be the best way to find out. “What do you want, fellows?”

One of them snickered and they all put their hands on their hips, all at the same time, and it was funny the way they all did the same thing at the same time like a bunch of robots. She started to smile.

“What do you think we want?” one of them demanded.

“That’s a silly question. Would I ask if I knew?”

The one who had asked the question seemed to be the leader. He was a little taller than the rest and a little more ferocious in appearance. “We want you,” he announced. “What else?”

She was puzzled.

“We been following you a long ways. Nobody awake at this hour. No cops around. See?”

She didn’t see.

“All the way from that dike joint we followed you. Hell, what’s a good looker like you doing being a lady-lover? It don’t make sense.”

Doesn’t, she thought.

The tall one snickered again, and she thought that it was a most unpleasant sound, not a nice snicker at all. Come to think of it, how did people snicker pleasantly? That was something to think about.

“It’s such a waste,” he went on. “We figure it’s because you never had a chance to learn better, and maybe if you had a chance it’d do you some good. Get the picture?”

She was beginning to get the picture. She was beginning to see it, although the lines were still slightly fuzzy. She realized what was going to happen to her and that it was the most terrible thing that could happen to anyone and especially the most terrible thing that could every happen to her, and she was beginning to get frightened and a little sober.

“Hey,” she said. “Wait a minute.”

“Why wait? Pretty soon it’ll be getting light out. We been waiting all night.”

Then he took a step toward her and she wanted to scream but she couldn’t scream, not quite, not yet, and by the time she was ready to scream it was too late. His hand was pressed tightly over her mouth and the fingers of his other hand were digging into her shoulder, hurting her.

He took his hand away and another of the boys slipped a piece of tape over her mouth so that she still couldn’t scream. They had her surrounded now. Behind her was a store entrance and there were boys all around her.

They knew that she was helpless. Now that they had caught her, now that it had all been so easy for them, they didn’t seem to be paying any special attention to her.

She was merely a girl to be raped. She might just as well be a car to be stolen or a boy to be beaten up, it didn’t matter. The smallest of the boys was looking at her with something approaching hunger in his eyes, but the others gave no real indication that they were about to rape her. She knew what was going to happen. But she couldn’t believe it was actually going to happen to her.

“I’ll go first,” the tall one said.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. It was my idea, wasn’t it?”

The other shrugged, as though it didn’t really matter very much, and the tall boy took a step forward and drove his fist into her stomach. The pain shot through her and she doubled up, trying to shout through the piece of tape and suddenly very much afraid, knowing that it was definitely going to happen, and not wanting it to happen, not wanting it at all.

He hit her again, slapping her sharply across the face and shoving her down onto the pavement. Then he was tearing at her clothing, hungry for her, impatient. She heard him breathing heavily and she started to struggle, pushing and clawing at him with her little hands. Then his knee shot into her stomach and it hurt, hurt so badly that she closed her eyes and stopped struggling, unable to move or feel or even think about anything but the pain that was shooting through her body.

He tore at her blouse and ripped off her bra, his hands digging into her flesh so that she ached to scream her lungs out. She had to make him stop but there was nothing she could do.

“She’s nice,” one of them said.

And then it happened. When she couldn’t struggle any more he took her, forcing her, hurting her, and a stab of pain screamed through her. Nothing existed for her but the pain. She wished that it would stop, hoped that she would die so that the pain would be over, but she didn’t die and it didn’t stop and her whole body was twisting and crying and dying inside until finally, finally it was over.

There was hardly a break. Before she could think, before she could fully realize that he was through with her, the second one was taking her and hurting her all over again. This time she couldn’t struggle at all.

She lay on the cold sidewalk inert while the two remaining boys took their turns with her. She thought that it was going to go on this way forever, that the rest of her life would be one continuous rape, a never-ending succession of pain with hard bodies pressing down upon her.

After the fourth boy had finished she lay alone on the pavement waiting for a fifth, until the realization came that it was over, that she had indeed lived through it.

“Let’s go,” one of them said.

“Jesus, that was nice.”

“C’mon.”

She listened to the footsteps as they left, still hearing the voices and not bothering to figure out which way they were headed. Finally as the footsteps faded away she opened her eyes.

The drunkenness was long gone. Everything was gone, everything but the pain. Laura was gone and the boys were gone and now even her virginity was gone. The thin membrane that was the last sign of innocence had been torn from her.

She had nothing left.

Slowly, painfully, she hauled herself to her feet. She pulled the shreds of her clothing around her to cover herself as well as she could. She seemed to be bruised all over, and she wanted to go somewhere, anywhere, some place where she could be all alone with no one to see her and no one to talk to her and no one to hurt her any more. She walked south on Thompson Street, not going any place in particular because there was no place for her to go, because it no longer mattered in the least where she went.

She had lost more than her virginity. She had lost her innocence, and perhaps that was a good thing. Perhaps the pain and the horror of it all was something good, something to be thankful for, something important to her.

Because she knew that she could never be hurt again. She had endured everything there was to endure and she was still alive, still able to breathe and walk and think. She had passed through Hell. It burned and it would leave scars, but she would never be burned again.

She would never love either. She’d get tough as shoe leather and kick the hell out of anyone who got in her way. Nobody would hurt her. Nobody would make her cry again.

Never.

She wouldn’t be sweet little Peggy, not any more. She’d be one hell of a tough little bitch, a real bitch on wheels. She wasn’t too sure where she was going, but no one would keep her from getting there.

The city started to wake up around her. Windows opened and alarm clocks rang in rooms. Cars passed her on Thompson Street. The city woke up but she didn’t notice it. She didn’t let herself respond to anything.

When the sun came up over the East River and cast her shadow on the pavement she didn’t pay any attention to it.