It was near the end of July, the time of the big Garth Brooks concert. Everyone had tickets and they needed someone to cover. It was assumed that I didn’t like Garth. Black girls don’t want to see country music. But I would have loved to see Garth. No Fences was one of my favorite albums, and I knew every single word to “Friends in Low Places.” But of course, Nickie can work that night. The black girl and the Goth girl—they’ll cover.
I was nineteen.
Someone was hitting Payless stores that summer, but we didn’t know a thing. He was a former employee, black. The management and police had positively identified him because he robbed the same store where he used to work. They had a description, even his driver’s license information. Then he hit a second store. Mind you, Payless would send you a storewide alert to change the price of a shoe or tell you how to display new sandals. They had the ability to warn us about this guy, tell us to be on the lookout for this former employee. They had pictures and a driver’s license. And since our store was in a predominantly white community, if a black guy walked in, we would pick up on him right away. And yet, we weren’t told a thing. Not a peep about the robberies.
Our store had even been hit before, but by someone else. Goth Girl had been there then, but no one got hurt. Every other Payless store that had ever been robbed now had security measures, like cameras and panic buttons. Not ours. And we were right by the freeway, such an easy mark.
So a black man walks into a Payless just before closing . . .
When he first walked in, I was in the back of the store straightening up a display of fake Timberlands in the men’s department. When it was two to the store, one person worked the register, one worked the floor. He came up behind me and asked me about the boots. I don’t remember what he asked, because I took one look at him and I immediately wanted to run. I didn’t. I ignored my instincts. Part of that was the racial component of where I lived. I was very aware of how my coworkers and the people in the community viewed black people. So my instincts said, “Run. Run. This is a bad situation.” But my racial solidarity and my “good home training” as a “polite” woman said, “Stay put. Don’t feed a stereotype. Don’t be rude.”
He went back to the front and I started vacuuming. This was at eight forty-five. We weren’t supposed to vacuum until the store actually closed at nine, but this was a trick staffers did to tell customers that it was closing time, get the fuck out.
The vacuum was so loud, and I heard Goth Girl scream to me to come to the register. Something in her voice told me to run. Again, I didn’t. I overruled my instincts and walked to the front, where he was holding a gun on her. He motioned to me with the gun to get behind the register. As Goth Girl gave him the money, he was incredulous that there was only a couple of hundred. As a former employee, he knew there should be more.
“I already did the drop,” she said, referring to walking the pouch of money to the nearby bank. It was another way we cut closing corners to clock out early. She sounded more annoyed than frightened. She had been there during the previous robbery and wasn’t hurt. And being an entitled young person, she had the luxury of being angry.
“Go in the back,” he said when he had emptied the cash into his bag.
Goth was in front of me, and the gun was in my back as he marched us to the storeroom. The gun was in my back, and she was still cursing him out, kicking boxes all the way in.
“This is such bullshit,” she said as he closed the storeroom door behind us. “I can’t believe this is happening.”
“Take off your clothes.”
Goth was still pissed. “I’m not taking my clothes off.”
Mind you, I was naked in a second. It never even occurred to me to say no.
We’ll be naked and dead when they find us, I thought.
And then he told us to both get in the bathroom.
Okay, I thought, maybe he’ll just put us in the bathroom. Maybe he’s doing this to buy time so he can leave.
So we crammed into the tiny little bathroom. And then, seconds later, he ordered me out.
He threw me to the ground and was suddenly on me, spreading my legs as he kept the gun on my head.
As he raped me, I began to hover over myself. I could see the whole room. I looked at that poor crying girl as she was being raped and thought, Things like this happen to bad people. Things like this don’t happen to people like me. My psyche, my body, my soul, simply could not take it. Though people say things like “I saw my whole life flash before my eyes,” I can tell you that this didn’t happen to me. I didn’t see my life. I was just very much present at the scene, watching this man rape me with a gun to my head.
He turned me over to go for it doggy style. He put the gun down, placing it right next to me. I wasn’t looking at him, obviously, but staring at his gun.
“Can you hand me the gun?”
He said it just like that, as he ripped into me. He said it so very casually. “Can you hand me the gun?” It wasn’t even “Gimme the gun.” It wasn’t forceful or gruff. It was like he was asking for the salt.
“Can you hand me the gun?”
And in that moment, when he asked me to give him the gun, the me that was hovering above and the me getting raped became one. I was back in my body, and I grabbed that motherfucking gun.
I moved forward, turned, and landed on my back. And I shot at him.
I can go right back to that moment now. The sound of the gunshot reverberating in my ears, every muscle in my hurting body tensed, the smell of gunpowder filling the air.
And the realization that I missed. And that I was probably going to die very soon.
He jumped on me, trying to yank the gun out of my fist. He bashed my face as he turned the gun toward me with his other hand.
My finger was wedged between the trigger and the base of the gun. It felt like he was going to rip my finger off, but I wouldn’t let go. I flashed on scenes from movies, so I kept trying to pull the trigger seven times. I just thought that if I clicked it seven times, I would save myself. I was trying to turn the gun away from my face and holding on to it and trying to pull the trigger all at the same time.
I kept screaming for Goth to come out and help me. She didn’t come out.
Finally, he ripped the gun out of my hand. He pointed the barrel at my head as he stood over me.
“Now I’m gonna have to kill you, bitch.”
I looked down, begging, my face a mess of blood and tears. I clutched a gold-plated chain necklace my boyfriend Alex had given me.
“You can have this,” I sputtered. “Take it. It’s worth more than the money you got. Take it.”
He had already taken everything else from me. This necklace was all I had to offer for my life.
He didn’t take the necklace. I didn’t dare look at him. And as quickly as it all happened, he was calm. And again, he said, very casually.
“How do I get out of here?”
I pointed to the back exit, whimpering, snorting tears and the thick blood back into my nose.
He went out and I was left alone. I never saw him again.
I called for Goth. I didn’t ask why she hadn’t come out. I knew why. In those moments, you do what you need to do to stay alive, I guess. Self-preservation is a motherfucker.
I DON’T REMEMBER WHICH ONE OF US CALLED 911, BUT THE POLICE GOT there fast. I am grateful I was raped in an affluent neighborhood with an underworked police department. And an underutilized rape crisis center. And overly trained doctors and nurses and medical personnel. The fact that one can be grateful for such things is goddamn ridiculous.