9:22 a.m. - March 22, 2002
Fast lane, two occupants
Last night spent several hours at a rape crisis center decorated with hand-painted clay tiles, roughly 4x4, featuring simple drawings and names and dates like Michael R(----) Raped Me, Sarah G(-----) In My Bed On January 4, 1999 or Sean T(------) Raped My Daughter On Her 15th Birthday.
The juxtaposition of these tiles against the brightly-painted walls with sunflowers and birds and trees and animals disturbed me and I wanted to close my eyes and not think of how many tiles are on the walls how many aren't.
So now I'm amidst both sides of rape: Monday I work with the men, Thursday with the women. Haven't written much about my Monday evenings because they're difficult to step away from but it's in my system like sweating garlic. One man in particular has a saying he likes to say often not as much for the shock value perhaps but more as a mission statement, a call to arms: When You Pick A Bitch, Finish Her Off So She Can't Call the Cops.
The guys laugh and approve.
The women don't laugh as much and when they do it's quiet, surreptitious and with eyes that dart, perhaps looking for a shadow that's coming closer but isn't seen yet.
The guys are proud in a way and swing their notched belts overhead and compare jail terms and the latest woman they've had. Right out of a Clockwork Orange with their own version of newspeak and I sit there judging and condemning and itching for the hours to be up so I can go home and not think about what I've seen and heard and yet I go back every week for the same reason people slow down next to a freeway crash but this, this is hard, because I know both occupants in the car but I have to drive by.
