She Is Risen (She Is Risen: The Gun Control Case Studies) (11 page)

            “Another man just said he wants to attack my
body and this old, white woman told me she wants to taste my sweetness!”  A
piece of saliva is trailing across Letisha’s right cheek as she feels herself
reduced to the vulnerability of a child.

            “Baby, you’re sick…” Phillip says in a calming
tone, realizing that what she’s saying isn’t possible. “We need to get you to a
doctor.”

            “It happened, baby!” She whimpers into the phone
painfully, leaning into the cement and covering her face.  “It all happened… I
promise… Please believe me…”

            “I believe you, sweetheart…”  Phillip says with
hesitation, trying to sound convincing.  “Did you call back the number of the
lady that invited you to the interview?” 

            “Holy shit!” Letisha replies, sounding much more
like a grown woman.  “I’ll call that bitch back right now!  Thank you so much,
Phil… I love you!”

            “I love you too, baby!  As soon as I finish
painting this building, I’ll be home… I promise!  Kiss, kiss!”

            “Kiss, kiss.” She responds with an empowered smile
and hangs up the phone.

            After a brief pause, she looks at her call log
and swipes her thumb to the right across the phone number of the woman who
invited her to the interview.  Letisha holds the phone tight against her head
with her right hand, placing her left hand gently beneath her right elbow. 

            “Hello, rape crisis center, this is Karen,” The
woman’s voice answers in a pleasant tone.

            “Don’t you mean Kara?”  Letisha asks with fiery
eyes. 

            “No, this is Karen with The Rape Crisis Center. 
How can I help you?”

            “This is Letisha Belfort; you called me about an
appointment today?”

            “Oh, yes, Letisha, we are expecting you right
now.  As I said before, I wasn’t able to get you a job at The Roscoe Group, but
we can meet and discuss other career options.  Are you nearby?”  The woman asks
in a sincere voice, sounding relaxed and professional.

            “Oh my God, I’m going crazy…” Letisha says as
she pulls the phone away from her ear.

            “Letisha-” The woman’s voice begins before the
call is ended.

            With this new information, Letisha doesn’t know
what to think, she grabs the side of her head as if to inspect some broken
thing.  Her face is a work of hopelessness as she stares down at the small cell
phone in her hand, feeling as betrayed and alone as she did the day of her
attack.

The OBDAT - Chicago

            “You are so full of shit!” Maxwell utters as he sneers
at Lorabell with shock and dismay from the control panel of the OBDAT.  “Karen
with The Rape Crisis Center?  Why are we pushing Letisha over the edge?  Our
objective is Phillip.”

            “There’s no way we’ll be able to push a soldier
over the edge.  Not directly.” Lorabell answers with a knowing smirk.  “The
only way to put Phillip on edge is to push her into a raw state of agony.”

            “What does that mean?” Maxwell asks with
disgust.  “I really don’t feel comfortable playing games with a rape victim!”

            “We got her out of the house,” Lorabell begins,
“she made some big steps today.”

            “Yeah, she made two steps forward… and five
steps back…” Maxwell retorts with judgmental eyes.

            “She’ll be okay; we’ll get her some help.”
Lorabell declares with a degree of guilt in her voice.  “The important thing is
that she is reduced to a raw state of agony, which will force her into
Phillip’s arms and make him feel like he needs to do something.  When she is
that distraught, to the point where her actions are like a little girl- that’s
when he’s going to take action.”

            “I hope you know what you’re doing because this doesn’t
feel right…” Maxwell looks at her with mixed concern, showing that she has
violated the red line of his conscience.  “We’re assaulting her all over
again…”

            “Exactly!” Lorabell says with a wicked glare,
exhibiting the eyes of a predatory lizard that is eager to strike.  “We are
assaulting her all over again… so that he feels the need to assault them in
return…”  She looks up at the next set of LCD displays, taking a sip of her
coffee, secretly excited for another round of people watching.

MAY IVORY:

            The cold feels pleasant on May’s skin as she
stands next to the open freezer door, enjoying the sensual fingers of a fake
arctic breeze in her large kitchen.  She retrieves a carton of orange sherbet
from the freezer and holds it against the scar tissue on her face, serving an
irrational notion that the cold will undo the damage that was created by the
heat five years ago.  Her face blooms into a smile as she holds the sherbet up
in the air, dancing with it a bit on the smooth, white tiles like a lover that
has come to replenish her soul. 

            She twists her head from side-to-side
seductively, waving her left index finger at the sherbet, and then she
playfully smacks the side of her bum with the same hand.  May stops for moment
to giggle and winks, feeling alive and uninhibited by her scars in the privacy
of the large Virginia home.  At this fantastical moment, she is dancing in a
ballroom filled with admirers; a vast sea of approving faces, looking at her
and applauding as she embraces a debonair gent.  In this fantasy; however, she
doesn’t have scar tissue covering forty-percent of her body.

            May takes a deep bow in her silk nightgown, and
then kisses the side of the sherbet container, laughing at herself in this
moment of lonely, social survival.  As she sits down on a large, white barstool
her eyes glimpse the invitation that inspired her preemptive dancing fantasy. 
The invitation is for a party in her honor, and just arrived through the mail
today, sent by her amazing publisher from California.  May smiles wide again
and sets the sherbet container on the smooth tiles of the island in the center
of her kitchen.  The young woman glimpses down at her left leg for a moment,
seeing the horrible pink scar tissue that covers over half of her outer thigh
and calf, all the way down to her toes.  She places her left leg on the floor
and brings her right leg up, resting her foot on the steel prongs at the bottom
of the barstool. 

            Her heart sinks a bit as she compares the
scarred left leg to the beauty of her right leg; a constant reminder of the
life she lost in The Needle’s Eye.  May shakes her head and grins, refusing to
be defeated by the past.  She grabs the invitation that her publisher sent,
feeling the coarse texture of the stout stationary between her fingers and
admiring the gorgeous font.

            “Dear Ms. May Ivory,” she begins to read aloud
with pride, “due to the recent success of your children’s book series
Honey
Badger and Duck
, we would like to invite you to a party in your honor. 
Please R.S.V.P. via email or call our offices to accept our sincerest gratitude
and humble recognition of our mutual success.  We will hold this event at the
venue of your choosing with a guest list that you select personally.  With
Congratulations & Regards, Seth Hagenmeir, -Your Friend & Publisher.”

            May smiles with radiance, feeling overwhelmed
with love for the first time in a long while.  She looks at Seth’s amazing
signature, wishing that he liked women, but enjoying his effervescent
flamboyance nonetheless.  She breathes deeply, wondering if the party could
actually become a reality.

            After a short pause, she gets up from the
barstool and makes her way across the tiles to the familiar plush carpet,
enjoying the squish of the padding beneath her feet.  As she steps up to the
darkness of the bathroom, May grits her teeth and closes her eyes, moving
forward with some hesitation until her hips and nightgown press up against the
small bathroom sink.  Her hands begin to tremble as she feels the cool, white
marble beneath them.  She reaches out with her left hand and flips on the
lights, keeping her eyes closed tight; not wanting to see the horrible truth in
the mirror.

            May holds her breath for a moment, feeling dizzy
and nauseous; both of her hands starting to tremble. 

            “It’s just one party.” She says to herself with
fading confidence.  “You can have one party in L.A., and nobody will remember
your scars… You can have one party and just be radiant and intelligent all
night long.”

            She turns and steps to the doorway of the
bathroom, forcing herself to stop as she rests her scarred face against the
inner doorframe.  The white wood feels firm and cold on her face, giving her
the strength to turn back around and confront the mirror.  As May opens her
eyes, she begins to tremble and covers the left side of her face in shame.

            “There’s no fucking way, Seth,” May whispers
with her left hand shaking in front of her face, “I can’t go to a party like
this!  Why do you want to show me off to the public!?” She asks with a raised
voice, beckoning the mirror.  “Do you need a freak to help you sell more copies
of my books?  Are a million copies not enough, you fucking bastard!? …Come in
and see the freak who writes books, ladies and gentlemen… Step right up and
witness the freaky author who rights books for your children… Get a picture…
Take some video on your cell phones so you can laugh at her during lunch with
your fucked up friends!”

            May looks at herself in the mirror now, feeling
more pain every second as she mourns the loss of her social life.  Her delicate,
blonde hair is draped over a mixture of beautiful and odd looking features. 
The skin on her left cheek is deeply burned with vivid lines where the steel
and glass of the truck cabin cut into her.  In the places where the skin was
melted, she looks unnaturally aged, with the tissue near her mouth creased over
in a half-scowl.  Even when she smiles, her expression is slightly twisted; a
lovely girl on the right side and a witchy, horrid thing on the left.  She
raises her head, inspecting the scar tissue surrounding her neck as if Satan
himself had grabbed her with his searing hot hands.  May begins to shake and
cry, wondering if Seth is a true friend or someone just taunting her like all
the rest. 

            As she witnesses her fresh tears spattering the
marble countertop of the bathroom vanity, May feels a sudden thumping from deep
inside the earth.  There is a bombastic sound of music and heavy bass pounding
her luxury home from a vehicle outside.  May decides to leave the mirror for now,
gratefully turning off the light as she steps into the living room to peer outside
through her large bay window. 

            Her chest begins to tighten and throb, almost in
rhythm with the bass as she steps up near the closed drapes.  May hears the
lyrics of a familiar song being blasted through her neighborhood.  ‘Feeling
like a freak on a leash… feeling like I have no release,’ the song thunders
from outside.  She opens her curtains to see a large, black truck parked near
the curb in front of her home, but is unable to determine the make and model
from this angle.

            “Holy creepy, Dude!” A young teenage boy screams
from immediately in front of her window, holding up a cell phone to get a
picture of her.

            “Oh my God!” May exclaims as she closes the
curtain.  “Why me!? Why today, you little fuckers!? GO AWAY!” She cries out,
burying her face in her left hand as she feels the lyrics of the song tearing
away at her soul.  “GO AWAY BEFORE I CALL THE COPS, YOU LITTLE ASSHOLES!”

            May bemoans her insides getting queasy as the
young men snicker outside her window, showing no intention of leaving.  She
backs up against the wall, enjoying the cold comfort of its pristine surface,
allowing herself to slide down to the soft carpet.  As her backside reaches the
soft padding of the plush carpet, May places her hands in her lap, crossed over
one another, with the palms facing upward, damaged by the cruelty of this
moment, feeling helpless and humiliated. 

            “SHE’S TOTALLY FUCKIN’ SCARED, DUDE!” The
teenager shouts over the music from outside her living room.

            When she hears the young man’s cocky voice, May
raises her head, instantly personifying the honey badger character from her
children’s books.  She gets up quickly from the floor, showing renewed,
brilliant, blue eyes that are empowered and vengeful.  With newfound strength,
May stomps through the home to her bedroom, making her way to the closet.  When
she reaches the closet, she opens the slatted, white wooden doors, looking for
her purse.  She soon finds the familiar black, leather bag and pulls it up from
the floor by its thin strap.  Her eyes are afire as she fishes inside the purse
with her right hand for the .38 Special Revolver.  When she grasps the familiar
Hogue Grip, May removes the pistol and drops the purse on the bed.  She then
holds the barrel safely up in the air and makes her way back to the living
room. 

            May feels powerful as she grips the small
revolver in her right hand, stepping coolly up to the long, tan drapes.  With a
sharp swipe of her left hand, she throws the drapes aside and points the pistol
at the teenager on the left.  May is immediately shocked to see that he is
mooning her from the front lawn, his pants pulled so far down that she can see
his penis and scrotum dangling above them.