Too Much Trouble
An Essay
The only noise I made unlocking the front door was the low jingle of my house key against the metal chain that I kept around my neck. I walked passed the bathroom at the top of the stairs and made my way to my bedroom. I wanted to see my face. I did not look in my mother’s bedroom; hers between the bathroom and mine. It was dark outside by now, and I had only walked about a half mile before a car pulled up offering a ride. I ask myself, even still, why I got in. Why I didn’t just keep walking.
Earlier, me and my mom were leaving Landover Mall in Hyattsville, Maryland, when I saw a childhood friend, who was entering the mall with her mother. I had not seen her since we moved the year before. We chatted right near the door—my friend and me—for a minute or two. It was the weekend. A Sunday, maybe. It was autumn. A chill was in the air, the trees were changing, and my mom was gone.
The men drove me another mile and a half or so, talking amongst themselves about my virginity before asking outright. I was 15 years old. They did not take me home. It was 1984.
I don’t know how I knew what was coming, and I did what any unsuspecting teenaged girl might do if she found herself locked inside a car with two grown men. I cried. And cried. And the more I wiped the slippery, stringy snot, the more it trailed back to my nose from my windbreaker. “My mom told me not to do that,” is all I heard myself saying, over and over and over.
I was too much trouble.
I was so much trouble (with my crying and snot) that the passenger punched me. I assume to shut me up. I let out a squeal. More crying. More snot. Heaving. They let me out several blocks away from the apartment complex where I said I lived. I was already smarter. I was relieved but looked over my shoulder from time to time in case I needed to make a run for it. My chest heaved even more and my eye started to tingle. Before long, I could barely see through the slit of it.
Later, I would look back and realize that that was the best black eye I ever had. That black eye kept me from getting raped that day. That black eye prepared me for what else would come my way.
The two miles I walked to get home after they let me out, I realized how stupid I was, how lucky I was. I understood that this teachable moment could have cost me my body or more. I never spoke of it. My mother never asked how I got home that day. If she saw my black eye, she did not mention it.
To unpack all that happened after leaving the mall that day was too much trouble.
