Believe Like a Child (12 page)

“Why is it men just want to fuck me?” she blurted out suddenly. “Do I have a sign on my head that says: ‘Rape me’?”

Harlin looked at her in surprise. “What are you talking about?” he asked curiously. “You been raped before?”

Alessa nodded, acknowledging that she had.

“Nah,” Harlin told her, “you ain’t got no sign on your head that says, ‘rape me’. You’re just missing the sign on your head that says, ‘don’t fuck with me or I’ll kill you.’ We’ll work on that.” He smiled that brilliant, broad smile which warmed her in this darkest of moments.

“It’s okay,” he said soothingly. “You’re safe now. You’ll stay here with me for a while. At least, until Tasha gets home. Then you two can have that girl talk. I’m sure she can make you feel better.”

The fear that had gripped Alessa began to lift as she lay back on the bare mattress. She shed silent tears as the reality of what she had just lived through sank in. She grasped Harlin’s hand and said, “Thank you, Harlin. You saved my life tonight.”

For the first time in his life, Harlin felt a tug at his heart for a woman other than his sister. He was new to the feeling and it took him by surprise. He realized then that he liked Alessa. He was beginning to understand the special quality about her that appealed to his sister. He could see now that unlike other girls her age, Alessa took nothing in her life for granted. And her needs were minimal. All she wanted was to feel safe and cared for. He sat with her until her slow, steady breathing told him she was asleep. Then he walked out into his living room and looked at his crew.

“That motherfucker needs to pay,” he told his boys. “He raped her. Any man who can’t get sex without stealing it deserves to die.”

Chapter Fourteen

T
he next morning, Alessa woke up tired. She had slept badly. All night, her dreams had kept drifting between the boys who had accosted her the previous night and her Uncle Danny. She was grateful she had two days off before returning to work.

When she walked out of the bedroom to use the bathroom, Harlin was standing at the sink, shaving. He wore nothing but a pair of sweat pants and Alessa noticed what a well-defined physique he had. His shoulders were broad and his torso narrowed at the waist. His stomach was well sculpted and his muscled arms rippled with strength.

He caught her staring at him and said, “How you doing this morning? Give me a minute to finish shaving and the bathroom will be yours.”

“I’m doing okay,” she replied. “I didn’t sleep well and my body is sore.”

Harlin looked at her, but didn’t know what to say next. He was used to a world where he dealt with men who had been in battle and didn’t talk about how they felt the next day. He really wished Tasha were home. “I called Tasha last night and told her what had happened,” he said. “She’s flying home tomorrow.”

“Oh no, Harlin,” Alessa protested. “She doesn’t need to do that. This is her vacation and I’ll be fine.”

“Ain’t no big deal,” he answered. “She said the relatives were driving her fucking crazy. Besides, she was real upset to hear what had happened to you. I told her you’d be staying here with me, until she got home and she liked the idea. When you need to work again?”

“I don’t have to be in until Monday afternoon.”

Harlin’s expression hardened. “You need to be working during the day. Coming home at night ain’t a good idea for you. I’ll make sure you get day work. One of my boys will drive you there and pick you up for a while, until we finish dealing with this shit.”

Alessa’s eyes widened. “What do you mean until you’re finished dealing with it? Harlin, I just want this to go away. And I’m afraid if you keep going after them, they will come back and do it to me again.”

Harlin put his hand on her shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze. “You don’t have anything to worry about,” he reassured her. “You need to understand that this is bigger than you. In my neighborhood, men don’t have sex without it being mutual. Last night didn’t look too mutual to me and we need to deal with that. Otherwise, we’ll have these punks thinking they can do whatever they want and get away with it. We do illegal shit and fuck people up who overstep their bounds, but we can’t stand aside and let them start throwing down and raping the women around here. You understand?”

Alessa nodded. When Harlin had left the bathroom to her, she stood for several minutes staring at her reflection in the mirror. She felt as if she were looking at a stranger. Less than twenty-four hours ago, she had, for the first time in her life, started feeling good about herself. Now, as she gazed at the dark circles under her eyes, with one eye nearly swollen shut from being punched, she was disheartened by the thought that life would, perhaps, never cease to be a struggle. Maybe, just maybe, she was meant to be unhappy? There must have been something she’d done to deserve such a shitty hand. She splashed some water on her face and turned to use the toilet. She wasn’t wearing any panties, since they had been ripped off her and it was when she pulled up the large tee shirt she was wearing and sat on the toilet that she saw all the bruises and scratches between her thighs.

When she peed, the sensation was as if someone had thrown acid between her legs. She screamed involuntarily as her insides burned, bringing Harlin rushing into the bathroom. Rage inflamed him when he looked down and saw the carnage between her legs. His face turned red and his eyes burned with fury.

“I’m leaving,” he said curtly. “When I come home later, I will walk you down to your apartment so you can get some clothes. Until I get back, you stay inside and don’t let nobody come in.”

“I just didn’t expect it to burn this much,’ Alessa said apologetically. “I’m okay, really. It just took me by surprise. That’s all. I’m sorry for screaming out like that and being a pain in your ass.” Alessa began to cry.

Harlin looked at the girl, sitting on the toilet and sobbing and felt bad for her.

“You ain’t a pain in the ass,” he told her. “How about you cook something good for me and my boys for dinner? That would be real nice. I got all kinds of shit in there to cook. My mom and Tasha are always bringing stuff over.”

Alessa managed a slight smile. “Okay, I can do that.”

Harlin left the house shortly after and headed down Dauphin Street in his black van. He was picking up his boys and they had two stops to make. The first was a visit to Tag, the neighborhood rapist; the second was the Dollar Store on Broad Street to discuss Alessa’s new hours with her boss.

Harlin and his crew found Tag walking down North Orkney Street which was deserted at that hour. They pulled the van over and opened the side door, sucking their target into the van. Tag’s eyes searched frantically for a way to escape, but he knew it was no use. He also knew if he put up a fight, he would piss Harlin’s boys off even more and the beating he would get would be far worse.

“Hey man, what the fuck?” he said, trying to brazen it out. “I thought we settled this last night?”

Harlin looked at him. “Yeah bitch, that was before we knew you raped the girl.”

Tag turned to one of Harlin’s crew members. “Come on, man, help me out,” he implored. “I didn’t mean to rape her; I just got carried away is all.”

The boy he had addressed glared at him as if he might snap his neck and said, “I ain’t here to help you. You broke the code of Dauphin Street last night when you raped that girl. Now just shut the fuck up or I’ll cut your fucking tongue out.”

Harlin and his crew drove on for another thirty minutes before they reached an empty lot sheltered from the street by some abandoned and dilapidated buildings. Tag had no idea where they were, but felt broken glass crunching beneath his feet as they pushed him ahead of them into one of the rundown buildings. When they ordered him to take off his clothes, he groveled at their feet, begging for forgiveness.

Harlin walked up to him and grabbed him by the collar of his shirt. “Take off your fucking clothes or we can take them off for you, if that’s what you’d like.”

Tag began to cry as he stripped naked. When he was done, Harlin motioned to his boys. Two of them walked over and hog-tied their victim’s feet and hands together behind his back before laying him on his side. Tag shook with terror as his bare flesh met the cold cement floor. He knew his life was about to be snuffed out and he began to whimper, pleading for mercy.

Harlin walked over to him, a rag wrapped around his hand. He grasped Tag’s penis with that hand, held it out straight in front of him and sawed his way through it with the large knife he was gripping in his other hand, till it was detached from his victim’s body. Then he dangled it high above Tag’s head for him to see. Screaming in pain, Tag started vomiting. “You won’t be needin’ this anymore,” Harlin told him. Then he looked at two of his boys and said, “Let him bleed out; then burn the body.”

As their van pulled away from the abandoned building, the glow of the fire was visible from outside. The crew had dowsed a blanket in gasoline, tossed it on top of Tag and lit a match.

“That was one ugly ass penis!” Harlin joked.

The boys in the van all broke into laughter as they headed to North Broad for a visit to the manager of the Dollar Store.

They walked boldly into the store and Harlin immediately asked for the manager. The girls at the register recognized him right away and started to get nervous, hoping there wouldn’t be any shooting. One of the girls went into a back room and Brady came out almost immediately. He too knew who Harlin was. If you lived or worked anywhere in North Philadelphia, you had to live under a rock not to know who he was. Brady stepped up to Harlin and extended his hand.

“Hi,” he said, “I’m Brady, the store manager.”

Harlin ignored his hand and stared at him. “You got a girl named Alessa working here.”

Brady quickly jumped in with, “Yeah, she’s young and a little goofy. Do you want me to get you her address? I can go in the back and get it.”

“No, motherfucker,” Harlin told him, “I don’t want you to give me her address. That girl is with me. If I ever find out you gave someone her address, I will kill you. Understand?”

Brady immediately regretted his attempt to suck up by making the offer and nodded vigorously in agreement. “Yeah, sure. I won’t ever give anyone her address.”

Harlin said, “She can’t work that late shift no more. You’re gonna need to give her hours during the day. I don’t want her leaving here after five p.m. You make sure that starting on Monday, she is only working the day shift.”

Behind Brady’s broad smile, he was shaking with fear. “Absolutely, sir,” he said submissively. “That’s no problem. Alessa only works during the day from now on. No more night shifts. I completely understand.”

“One other thing,” Harlin said. “Don’t ever let me hear that you’ve been disrespectful to her.”

“I would never be disrespectful to her, sir,” Brady assured him.

Harlin turned on his heel and, without casting another glance at Brady or the women working in the store, walked out, with his crew following close behind. As he got back into his van, he thought that Alessa could surely be doing something better than earning minimum wage at that dump. Shit, the girl could really dance! She oughta be at Double Visions, making some real money. Doubles, as they all called it, was a go-go bar. The girls there were hot and exotic and Alessa would fit right in. He would suggest it to Tasha when she got home the next day. As they drove back to Dauphin Street, Harlin convinced himself that it was a good profession for Alessa to get into. She could dance and make good money and he could provide her protection.

Chapter Fifteen

O
n Sunday morning, Tasha came barreling through her brother’s front door. She looked at him anxiously and he nodded in the direction of his spare bedroom. She opened the door hesitantly and found Alessa in bed, lying on her back and staring vacantly at the ceiling.

“Sweetie, I’m here,” Tasha whispered.

Alessa turned and looked at her, struggling to get her eyes to focus. But the moment her friend moved further into the room and came into view, Alessa started crying and reached out to her like a child in need of comfort. In a moment, Tasha was lying on the bed next to her, the two friends entwined like a pretzel. As Tasha held her tight, Alessa let the tears flow. They lay there together for a long time. Then Tasha pulled back so she could look at her.

“What happened?” she asked after a moment. “I want you to tell me everything those motherfuckers did to you.”

As Alessa related the details of the incident, Tasha’s expression changed from dismay to one of horror. By now, she knew all about Alessa’s past with her uncle and Carl. She was aware that Alessa had fled her home for fear of being gang-raped by her uncle’s friends. And now, the very thing she had feared had come to haunt her here, on Daulphin Street. When Alessa hesitated for a moment while telling the story, Tasha could tell she was holding something back.

“Okay, girl,” Tasha said. “What ain’t you telling me? I can tell you’re holding out. Come on now. You know you can trust me.”

Alessa started to cry again. “Tasha, Harlin
killed
a man! He stuck a knife in him and split him from gut to heart! It was horrible! What if someone finds out it was Harlin? What if they think I started it all, that it was all my fault, and send me to prison? I know he was protecting me, but I saw him murder someone. I’m scared, Tasha!”

Tasha took Alessa’s chin in her hand. “Listen, sweetie,” she said gently. “You ain’t got nothin’ to worry ’bout. Here in the streets of North Philly, it’s different from where you came from. Ain’t nobody gonna tell the police that Harlin killed that fat motherfucker. Harlin told me what he did and it ain’t no big deal. It ain’t the first time he had to kill. You need to forget you ever seen anything. You understand?”

Alessa nodded, but her friend’s assurance didn’t help to ease her worry. Tasha helped her out of bed and led her to the bathroom. She helped her undress, turned on a hot shower and urged her inside.

“I want you get yourself washed up real good,” she told her. “I will be back in a couple of minutes to check on you.”

Tasha left to find her brother and ask him about the killing. Harlin didn’t need to explain himself to her. She knew he needed to do what was right for everyone.

“Did she tell you that Tag raped her?” Harlin asked her.

Tasha shook her head.

“Well, I took care of that too. Ain’t nothing left of him, but some ashes.”

Tasha put her arms around her brother’s neck.

“Thank you!” she said. “You’re the best brother in the whole world!”

“You need to remind your little friend in there that she should keep her mouth shut about what happened that night,” Harlin cautioned her. “She needs to understand that people who live in this neighborhood don’t talk about the shit they see.”

Tasha assured him that she had already explained it to Alessa and he had nothing to worry about. Satisfied with his sister’s confidence in her friend, Harlin went back to weighing the weed he was placing in small bags.

Once Alessa finished showering, Tasha went into the bathroom to help with her hair. Then she noticed the bruises and scratches on her inner thighs. Alessa’s eye wasn’t looking too good either. She had come out with a nasty shiner. Tasha’s blood began to boil at the thought of those bastards just grabbing what they wanted.

She helped Alessa dress, made her toast for breakfast and when she had eaten it, commanded, “Come on. We need to go down to the Dauphin Mini Mart and get some things for this house. Harlin is out of orange juice and paper towels.”

Alessa recoiled at the idea. “No, please!” she pleaded. “I don’t want to go there. I’m afraid, Tasha. What if those boys are there? What if they hurt both of us this time?”

“Sweetie, you can’t stay inside forever,” she reasoned. “On these streets, news travels fast. So I’m sure most of the neighborhood knows that you were raped. To regain respect, you need to go back out and show them that you ain’t afraid. If you don’t, people will think that you let them win. What’s worse, they will wonder why you are afraid to be out, with Harlin and his crew protecting you. That’s what we do here. When bad shit happens, we just keep moving. Otherwise, we would never survive.”

Alessa looked at her friend. She realized that Tasha couldn’t bear to let anyone think ill of her brother. Harlin had saved her life. Recognizing that she was now part of something bigger than herself, Alessa agreed to go out, but only after Tasha had promised not to leave her side for even one second. An hour later, they were walking toward the mini mart. Suddenly, Alessa froze on the sidewalk. Tasha, who had been talking about her trip to Atlanta, stopped as well and looked at her.

“What’s wrong, Alessa?” she asked, “why you stoppin’?” Then she followed Alessa’s gaze to a spot across the street. Tag’s gang was there. “Were they all there the other night?” she asked her.

“Yeah, all of them. Oh God, Tasha, what are we going to do? Let’s go back.”

Tasha looked at her like she was nuts. “We ain’t going back nowhere!” she said firmly. Then with a swift jerk, Tasha snatched Alessa’s hand, gripped it in her own and pulled her across the street toward the gang of boys.

When the two girls were standing in front of them, Tasha said, “I understand you motherfuckers messed with my girl. I also hear that Tag’s been out of town ever since.” She smiled tightly at them, her searing gaze taking in first one, then the others. “Maybe some more of you will be going out of town? You know, since you all had your hands in this ‘sweet meat’.”

The boys started shifting uncomfortably.

“Not too sure how this is going to work out for all of you,” Tasha went on. “You know, she ain’t just with me. She’s with Harlin too. And you know how he gets when you mess with his shit.”

One of the boys finally summoned up the courage to retort, “So what the fuck you want us to do? We didn’t know she was with Harlin. And it ain’t no big deal anyway. Ain’t like we all got to fuck her. Fuck, girl, we just got a couple of fingers wet, before Harlin broke it all up!”

Tasha walked up close to the boy who had spoken to her and looked him in the eye. “Might not be a big deal to you, but it sure is to me. So I guess it wouldn’t be no big deal, if someone stuck their fingers up your ass while you were being held down. I’ll let Harlin know it ain’t no big deal.” Tasha turned and, taking Alessa by the hand, left the boys standing there with uncertainty, fear in their eyes. After Harlin’s sister had dealt with them, none of them knew for certain if there would be a further price to pay for what they had done or if Tag’s death had been revenge enough.

When they were far enough away from the boys, Alessa asked, “How do you know Tag is out of town? And what did you mean when you said that maybe they would go out of town too?”

“Listen, everything is taken care of,” Tasha assured her. She added cryptically, “Harlin did what he needed to do and Tag won’t be around to bother you no more. That’s all I meant.”

Alessa didn’t press the point, but she had seen enough in the last few days to be convinced that Tag was dead. She had mixed feelings about it. The thought of Harlin killing her rapist nauseated her. At the same time, she was overwhelmed with relief. Guilt gnawed at her for not feeling devastated that a life had been taken on account of something that had happened to her. She was used to being exploited, not protected, and didn’t quite know how to process the incidents that had overtaken her so rapidly.

When they got back to Harlin’s house, Alessa went back into the spare bedroom. Tasha went to look for her brother and found him in the kitchen.

“Harlin,” she said, “we ran into Tag’s gang. I warned them to mind their own business.”

“Yeah,” her brother said, “stupid motherfuckers should know by now where they stand, but now they’ve been officially warned. How’s she doing?”

“She’s good. She ain’t used to this. She’ll be fine.”

“I want to talk to you about her for a minute,” Harlin said, leading his sister into his bedroom and shutting the door.

“Why all the secrecy? What’s up?”

“I got her day hours at the Dollar Store—starting tomorrow,” he informed her. “She won’t be working nights no more.”

Tasha smiled gratefully at her big brother.

“But I got to thinking,” he went on. “That’s a stupid ass job and it don’t make no money.”

Tasha thought for a minute that he was going to suggest that Alessa sell weed too, but she knew her friend wouldn’t have the stomach for it.

“I was thinking she would be better off dancing at Doubles,” he went on. “She’d make a lot more money and you have to admit the girl can dance. She’s got the body for it too. I got to see it the other night, when I walked in on her in the bathroom after I heard her screaming.”

Tasha considered Harlin’s suggestion carefully. She didn’t think it was a bad idea. The girls at Doubles were exotic dancers and performed topless, but they weren’t allowed to dance completely in the nude. She knew a couple of girls who had danced there before and they hadn’t been permitted to have sex with the clients either.

“See, I was thinking she could dance there and I could provide her protection,” Harlin went on. “I would make sure she got dropped off and picked up so she wouldn’t have to take public transportation. She could live here. And instead of paying old lady Lea three hundred a month, she could pay me fifty percent of what she earned at Doubles for rent and protection.”

Tasha smiled at her brother. “I guess you want me to convince her that this is the right thing to do?”

Harlin pulled her into his strong arms. “Of course, baby. If you tell her its okay, she’ll accept it.”

“Okay, I don’t think it’s a bad idea either,” Tasha admitted. “I’ll talk to her, but I’m gonna wait a couple of weeks, until she recovers from the shit she’s been through and calms down. In the meantime, she can live here with you so she feels safe. But we ain’t officially moving her out of old lady Lea’s until she agrees to it, okay?”

“Sure, Tasha. Whatever you think is right.”