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

by Adams Irish, Travis

  Letisha backs up against the elevator wall, her heart is racing and tears are emerging from her soft, brown eyes. To her surprise, the athletic redhead returns to his position in the center of the elevator, wearing a pleasant expression as if nothing happened.

  “It should be a good interview,” he says with a reassuring smirk. “I wish you luck!”

  “Take your luck and shove it up your ass, Sir!” Letisha responds with disgust as the elevator doors open on the thirty-seventh floor. “Don’t you ever talk to me that way again, motherfucker!”

  The man looks at her with confusion as she steps past him, seeming innocent and betrayed.

  “I beg you pardon?” He asks with more confusion. “You don’t want me to wish you luck?”

  “You just stay the hell away from me!” She commands with a firm gaze as the elevator doors close, watching his perplexed expression. “Get it together, girl.” She whispers to herself as the elevator doors close all the way.

  Letisha bends down to check her dress, looking for any wet spots, knowing that she peed a little bit when the man slammed his hand against the wall. After a short inspection, she notices a small dark circle on the back of her dress, about the size of a quarter, and exhales in deep frustration. She takes out her cell phone and looks at the time, realizing that she won’t be able to step into the bathroom and inspect her dress further. Instead, she retrieves a small bottle of perfume and gives her dress two spurts on the front below her belly, and two more below the small of her back. The scent of the perfume gives her confidence to move forward, and she decides to keep her backside pointed toward the wall during the interview.

  With rejuvenated strength, Letisha steps across the sleek, glossy tan and black tiles, looking for suite 115 as she goes. After passing a few neat glass entryways with beautiful frosted windows, she locates the familiar logo of The Roscoe Group to her right, toward the end of the hallway. With her delicate right hand she grips the smooth round steel of the chrome-plated door handle, having a difficult time restraining the childish excitement that is bursting forth from within.

  As she enters the office, Letisha struts with her best Hollywoodesque ambiance, wanting to appear strong and desirable. She approaches the high-profile reception desk with supreme confidence, allowing herself to own the room.

  “May I help you?” A sexy brunette asks from behind the desk, showing off her glamorous hair and makeup that compliments her Latino cheekbones and short, curly hair.

  “Yes, I’m Letisha Belfort, and I have an interview at eleven.” Letisha conveys with a broad smile, resting her elbows on top of the smooth oak desk.

  “We’re not… interviewing for any positions right now…” The young woman declares with a lost expression. “Let me check the calendar… No, we don’t have interviews or open positions right now.”

  “Well, I spoke to a lady about an hour ago,” Letisha begins with a soft voice, losing her confidence a bit, “and she asked if I could be here within the hour for an interview.”

  “Can you give me her name?” The receptionist requests optimistically.

  “Yes, she said her name was Kara.” Letisha responds with a slight smile.

  “Is this some kind of joke!?” The young Latino demands with a brazen voice, folding her arms and glaring at Letisha. “Kara died over two years ago. She was the Senior Vice-President, and everyone loved her!”

  “Well… That’s what she said her name was…” Letisha replies with a shocked expression, staring off to her right.

  “I think you should leave!” The receptionist says in a blunt manner, showing that she’s dealt with all types of crazy in Los Angeles. “Look, maybe someone played a joke on you here, and if that’s true, I’m sorry, but you need to leave.” She emphasizes her position by putting her hand on the receiver of her desk phone and staring Letisha down.

  Letisha nods, slowly accepting this terrible news, and walks instinctively to the door, moving hastily away from this awkward situation. As soon as she gets a few feet away from the suite, tears burst forth from her bright eyes, and a flood of emotions seep back into her heart like putrid waters engulfing a once clean and dry boat.

  Her stomach is aching with fresh knots of pain as she makes the dizzying journey back down the elevator, through the lobby, and out of the building. When Letisha finally reaches the outside air, her emotions come forth with the destructiveness of a hurricane. She finds herself in the secluded smoking area near the building, alone in a small maze of concrete, walled off from the world in a place where she can release her anger. Letisha leans against the large concrete wall, not caring about getting her dress dirty as she lets the tears roll forward, shaking her abdomen with convulsive sobs from her bowels to her chest.

  “You know what I’d like to do!?” A male voice asks, approaching her from behind. “I’d like to attack your naked body!”

  Letisha spins around to see a jogger in a black shirt and shorts running past her through the maze of concrete. He smiles and waves as though nothing happened, checking his watch briefly and continuing his route around the building. She closes her eyes, not knowing what is real anymore; the job interview; the disgusting voices in her head; the memories of her assault.

  “You know what I’d like to do!?” A female voice asks, as a frail figure steps around the side of the cement structure. “I’d like to hold you down and taste your sweetness!”

  “Stop it! Stop it!” Letisha cries out, covering her ears as she turns halfway around and sees an older woman approaching from the right.

  “Oh my God, sweetheart, are you okay?” The older woman asks as she steps closer to comfort her.

  The woman is wearing a black pantsuit and white blouse, looking smart and approachable. Despite her motherly intentions, Letisha wrenches away in a violent manner, holding her arms near her chest to protect herself.

  “DON’T TOUCH ME!” Letisha screams, placing her right hand on her forehead in anguish. “Don’t fucking touch me; I don’t know who you are… I don’t know who I am…”

  The older woman is shocked by these words and instantly takes a detour toward the back part of the building, her expensive heels clicking the sidewalk with nerve-fueled urgency.

  Letisha takes out her cell phone, feeling hysterical and panicked, suddenly wanting the comfort of her husband.

  “Hey, baby, is everything okay?” Phillip’s gentle voice comes through the phone like a water supply truck showing up at desolate refugee camp.

  “Hello, sweetheart.” Letisha says with impulsive laughter, feeling childish joy just from the sound of his voice. “I’m having a bad day, and I really need you.”

  “Baby, what’s wrong!? Is everything okay?” Phillip asks with authentic concern, his voice filled with tension.

  “I’m okay, just scared and confused.” Letisha replies, pouring out her emotions in waves of tears and heavy breathing. “This lady invited me to an interview with The Roscoe Group, and when I got here, they said the lady has been dead for a few years.”

  “What!?” Phillip asks with bewilderment, clearly still a bit distracted by his work.

  “On my way up to the interview, a man said he wanted to rip off my panties.” She explains with the terror of a four-year-old.

  “What man, Letisha? Who said that to you!? I’ll beat his fuckin’ ass!” Phillip’s voice is ablaze with rage, and his breathing becomes elevated.

  “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…” Phill
ip 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.