Savage

Lilliana E was seventeen, lost I guess. Just wanted to feel protected. Found it, she knew what she had to do. Didn’t expect the blinding pain. Walked in the house. Dirty floors smoke clouding the room. Smelled like weed and stale cigarettes. She walked to the back room. Sat on the edge of the stained and stripped mattress. Was that urine on the middle? OMG is that rust or dried blood? She’s trembling. Puts a cig to her mouth, sees her hand visibly shaking. Throws the cig down. Takes a deep breath. Takes her pants off slowly you can tell she is still not comfortable in her own skin yet. Still shy and timid but she knows what she’s got to do. She slides out of her thong. 2 men come in. She calmly lays down on the mattress, covers her face, the first climbs up and throws her arm away from her face. She looks at him of contempt all the while I’m watching from the living room. Sitting on a dirty ass ripped couch. I look away like something has interested me intently. I try not to think I used to play dolls with this chick the guy pulls out. Here comes number 2. Then 3 and 4 walk in and close the door a little more. So now I’m just seeing the edge of the mattress. I hear a moan, a slap, a sharp intake of breath and then I hear what I knew was coming, the screaming the crying. The begging an hour later, they emerge, she’s laying there, alone, blood, spit, tears rolling down her face. She didn’t have a shirt or anything to cover her. I looked away again because I was ashamed. Ashamed that I didn’t utter one word of resistance to what they were doing. I was young not that young though. I looked at it like this she was trying to fit in so was I. I had to be fearless. I didn’t show sympathy for her or any of the other things I’ve done to the victims of gang violence. No morals, no ethics, not me, not her, not them. Was there a god? Ask her, ask the kids, all our pleas fell on deaf ears.