The Company She Keeps

by Georgia Durante

  My body shook violently, both from fear and the cold.

  Oh, my God, he’s mentally deranged! Am I really going to die? I should’ve never said I would tell. Will he believe me now if I tell him I won’t say anything? Oh, my God. Oh, my God. How am I going to get out of this? Where there’s a will there’s a way. Think. Think!

  “Dick,” I said between hysterical sobs. “You can’t kill me.”

  “Why not?” he asked, looking disconnected from reality.

  “Because the photographer I was supposed to work for today knows I was with you tonight. I told him if I was a little late it would be because I was going out with you. He knows!”

  In his confused, demented state, he fell for it. “Call him! Tell him you weren’t with me,” he yelled, pulling me back toward the house.

  This is your only chance. Think!

  He picked up the receiver and shoved it into my hand. “Call!” he demanded. “Tell him!”

  I took a deep breath and dialed my aunt’s number. It was now four o’clock in the morning. She answered on the first ring.

  “Emil?”

  “Georgia! Where are you?”

  “Emil, I’m sorry, but I can’t work for you today,” I said, holding the receiver tightly to my ear so Dick couldn’t hear the hysterical screams coming from my aunt.

  “Georgia, what’s wrong? Where are you? Keithy, Keithy, pick up the phone! Something’s wrong with Georgia!”

  “Georgia, what’s the matter?” Keith yelled, picking up the extension. My aunt continued to scream. “Ma!” Keith yelled. “Get off the phone! Georgia, where are you?”

  “I know, Emil, I’m really sorry, but my brother-in-law is very sick and I—”

  “You’re at Dick’s?”

  “Yes!” I screamed, as Dick yanked the phone out of the wall.

  “Who were you talking to?” Dick yelled, smashing my head with the phone.

  “My cousin Keith! He knows where I am, and he’s on his way over here!” I screamed. “You won’t have to worry about my sister anymore, Dick, because you’ll be behind bars!”

  He began to pace like a caged animal. “What am I going to do? You’ve got to help me, Georgia, please.”

  “Helping you is what got me here in the first place, remember?”

  “Oh, my God . . . What have I done? What have I done? Sharon will never come back. What am I gonna do?” He sat on the floor, knocking his head against the wall and mumbling to himself.

  I couldn’t believe what I was looking at. I was numb. Unlike my normal personality, I felt no sympathy. Did he really think I would help him? Who was this person? I’d never met him before. Why hadn’t I ever seen the depth of his illness? All I could think about was my poor sister. Had she lived through scenes like this all the time? Was this the reason for her constant turmoil?

  Keith had run out the door partially dressed, and as he peeled out in his car he must have shouted to my aunt to call my uncle Pat, who was also a cop. They arrived at exactly the same time, just about colliding with each other as they raced down the driveway. Their squealing tires came as music to my ears.

  They didn’t bother knocking, just broke down the door and then stood in shock, surveying the scene. Uncle Pat looked down at Dick, huddled in the corner. His arms were over his head, bracing himself for the blows to come.

  “I didn’t mean it, Pat! I didn’t know what I was doing. I didn’t mean it.”

  “You sick son of a bitch!” screamed my uncle as he kicked Dick in the face. Dick fell to the floor. Blood streamed from his mouth and nose. He didn’t try to get up. He just lay there covering his head, pleading insanity. Uncle Pat went out of control.

  Keith found a bedspread, covered my naked, bruised body, and led me to the car.

  “Are you all right?” he asked, helping me into the car.

  “I am now,” I answered, this time crying from relief.

  Keith left me for a moment and went back into the house to get in a few of his own licks. I sat in the car shivering, listening to the violent sound of breaking glass and furniture, and Dick’s pleading voice.

  “I didn’t mean it! Don’t hurt me, Pat. I didn’t mean it!” he said repeatedly in a shrinking voice.

  As my cousin backed out of the long, narrow driveway, I could see my uncle Pat’s silhouette through the window. The shade was pulled, but I could still see legs kicking and arms swinging as we drove away.

  “I want to take a bath,” I said to my aunt as we entered the house. She was on the verge of hysterics.

  “Ma, you’re making it worse,” Keith said. “Just run the bathwater for her. I have to call the police, Georgia. Are you up to giving a statement?”

  “I want to take a bath,” I said numbly.

  Aunt Theresa took me into the bathroom. I dropped the bedspread on the floor and stepped into the tub.

  “Oh, my God!” she shrieked. “What did that animal do to you?” I scrubbed my body frantically. It wouldn’t come off. He wouldn’t come off.

  “Stop it, Georgia. You’re going to hurt yourself!”

  The police were waiting in my aunt’s tiny kitchen when I finally emerged from the tub. I knew them all, and they knew me. I couldn’t get through the story without crying uncontrollably.

  “Why don’t you get her to bed?” one of them said to my aunt. “We can come back later and make a report. Do you have any Valium?”

  “Yes, I do,” she answered.

  “It might be a good idea if you gave her one.”

  My body began to relax, and my eyelids became heavy. Aunt Theresa stayed by my bedside, stroking my hair and speaking softly.

  “Aunt Theresa?”

  “Yes, honey?” she answered as a tear quietly rolled down her cheek.

  “You have to call Emil. . . . Tell him I can’t work for him today. . . .” I drifted off into a deep sleep.

  I awoke bruised and confused in my aunt’s bed. I’d thought I’d had a bad dream. But the nightmare continued.

  The doctor’s office, the police. The humiliation of standing naked for photographs of my bruised body. Facing my sister and my parents when they returned the next day. They were devastated. I relived the nightmare over and over and over again. My mother hovered over me, trying to take the pain from my bruised spirit. I’d never seen my normally passive father so angry, pacing the room, thinking of ways to kill Dick.

  But my sister was the worst of all. She looked like she’d been speared in the heart. She agonized not only over what had been done to me but also the embarrassment she’d have to endure from the townspeople. Dick was the father of her child. Even though they had a bad marriage, she’d still clung to the love they shared as teenagers. Now there was no turning back. She not only mourned me, but the finality of the death of her marriage as well.

  Tom had come home only once, the weekend after it happened. He tried to be compassionate and supportive, but I was an icicle. With no time to help me with the healing process, he shipped off to Vietnam with a kiss on the cheek and a heavy heart.

  A long week passed. I often found myself walking down a lonely stretch of road, in search of the person I once was, ending up in the woods for hours—a comfort zone from my childhood. The March wind blew softly across the pond as I sat on a cold rock, gazing in silence. The water’s color reflected the dreariness of my heart, winter gray. Extreme depression descended upon me, not just for the loss of my virginity, but for the loss of me. My innocence had been taken. Blackness had entered where light had once lived.

  I received a phone call a few days later. “Georgia, you okay?” asked Joey Tiraborelli.

  “I’m okay, Joey.”

  “That bastard! Sammy G wants to see you. You feelin’ up to it?”

  “What does he want to see me about?” I asked apprehensively. Word spread fast in Rochester.

  “He ain’t happy with this situation—at all. He was like a . . . a . . . whatta ya call those crazy people?”

  “Lunatics?”

  “Y
eah, he was like a luna . . . lun . . . one of those, when he heard what happened to you. I think ya better meet with him.”

  “When, Joey?” I asked, not looking forward to the predictable confrontation.

  “As soon as possible.”

  “I guess I can’t avoid it. I may as well get it over with. Where?”

  “Ben’s Café. Tomorrow, for lunch—and come alone.”

  “Okay, Joey, tell him I’ll be there.”

  “Keep your chin up, kid.”

  I felt a chill settle in to my bones as I entered Ben’s Café. Spring was just a few calendar days away, but the air felt more like fall. Not crisp and refreshing, but damp and cold.

  Sammy G sat alone with his back to the wall in the rear of the restaurant. His expression was somber. His lips formed a rigid line when he looked up and saw me. Nodding in recognition to a few familiar faces as I passed the tables in the bar, I headed up the three steps to the dining area where Sammy waited. He stood and pulled out my chair as I approached.

  “Ya want a drink?”

  “It’s against the law,” I said, forcing a smile.

  “Don’t get cute; you’re with me. Now whatta ya want?” he said, smiling back at me.

  I really didn’t like to drink during the day, but I knew I was going to need it. “I’ll have a glass of wine. Scotch is a little heavy for daytime.”

  He ordered a bottle, watched in silence as the waiter opened it, then looked over at me. His dark brown eyes were soft, but a hard edge encircled them. Quietly he asked, “What happened, kid?”

  I had told the story so many times in the past week that I hated having to recall the details of the incident again, especially to Sammy. My uncle was acting outside of the law when he beat Dick unmercifully, but Sammy wouldn’t have stopped there. I tried carefully to get through the story without getting emotional, but halfway into it I lost my composure. There was nothing I could do but plod on. Sammy sat straight in his chair, eyes alert, immaculate in a dark pin-striped suit. He shook his head silently and often.

  “I had a feelin’ about that guy; I just had a feelin’. I should’ve followed my gut,” he said, almost to himself. “That cocksucker’s gonna pay!” he spat.

  My body became rigid with fear. “We’re going to court, Sam. The law will take care of—”

  “Fuck the law!” he screamed, slamming his fist on the table, spilling the wine onto the white tablecloth. We were pretty secluded, but still, heads turned from the front of the restaurant. He lowered his voice and continued.

  “I’m gonna have his cock cut off and delivered to you in a box. That’s the way you deal with pricks like him!”

  The waiter showed up to clean the spilled wine. “Did I fucking call you?” Sammy snapped.

  “No, sir.”

  “Then get the fuck outta here!”

  The waiter evaporated. Sammy’s ruggedly handsome face was bright red, looking as if it were about to explode. The veins in his forehead were turning purple and protruding. It scared me. The way his eyebrows lowered, hooding his eyes and changing them into narrow slits, sent shivers up my spine.

  “Sammy, please, calm down. I don’t like seeing you like this.”

  “And I don’t like seeing you like this either!” he retorted, slamming his fist on the table again. “Why didn’t I listen to what my gut was tellin’ me?”

  I found myself looking straight into the hostile eyes of a stranger. The sort of eyes that flirt, dance—and deceive. I subconsciously knew Sammy had blood on his hands. No way he could’ve been in the upper echelon of the organization without bodies to count. In the past, my naive mind had chosen to deny that fact. I had never seen this side of Sammy before. Dick would be lucky to lose only an organ. The thought of that kind of violence was beyond my comprehension.

  “Please, Sammy, please don’t do that,” I begged. “I couldn’t live with myself. What about Sharon? And my niece? They’d never forgive me—I couldn’t forgive myself! Let it go, Sam. Please. He’ll get his, in time.”

  “You’re damn right he will!”

  After a long while, Sammy finally calmed down. There wasn’t a hint of makeup left on my face, all erased by tears while I was pleading for Dick’s life. But I prevailed. By the time lunch was over, it boiled down to what I wanted. I held a man’s life on the tip of my tongue. Dick would have no idea how fortunate he was to only serve jail time.

  “The son of a bitch doesn’t deserve to live after what he’s done, but if that’s what you want . . .” He shrugged.

  “Yes,” I said, breathing easier, “that’s what I want.”

  Sammy had killed for lesser reasons. Could he really ignore it? An uneasy feeling said I was just being pacified, but he assured me with his intensity. The depth and consistency of his sincerity dissolved my doubts—but still, could I take that chance? We stood in the parking lot at Ben’s Café as Sammy gave me an affectionate hug and then turned and walked toward his car. Without breaking stride he yelled over his shoulder, “You let me know if you have a change of heart, kid.”

  By the time I had to repeat the details of the rape and the events leading up to it in front of the grand jury, I was telling it as though it had happened to someone else. It did happen to someone else. It happened to that innocent side of me that embraced the light, believed in love, believed in trust and compassion. Another person took the stand that day, the new and sometimes frightening shadow side I came to call Georgia Black. The side that could hate beyond all bounds, the side that also had untold power and strength to protect me from harm. Georgia Black told the story with no emotion. Blow by blow, without a tear. She was so strong. I envied her.

  Georgia Black was born the night of the rape. Her primary function was to protect my vulnerable, innocent side, the side I call Georgia White. I did what the human mind does naturally: I gave birth to my shadow in order to handle the trash. I sought a place to hide, as traumatized people do. Too much emotional pain will fragment anyone’s personality. And if that trauma repeats itself, the fracturing will become deeper and more pronounced.

  Ultimately, my shadow emerged—a persona tailored precisely for my needs. A highly desensitized woman, impervious to pain, who could handle the disillusionment that the young Georgia White couldn’t. Throughout my nightmares over the next twenty-five years, she’d whisper, telling me what to do. Sometimes my loving, vulnerable side would win the battles. But over time, my shadow would become a monster. Eclipsing the spiritual person I was meant to be, she began to take over.

  In her infancy, my shadow might have been harmless. But as my life evolved from the time of the rape at age seventeen, she grew right along with me. I hid out in her when necessary, then emerged into the light when it was safe, leaving her to handle the poison.

  Walking down the halls of East Rochester High School, I heard the whispers and caught the accusing looks from my classmates. I was no longer the victim. He was the victim.

  “If she hadn’t teased him, and led him on, it never would’ve happened.”

  “She asked for it!”

  “I know of at least five guys she’s slept with.”

  Ah, the jealousy of a small town. Now they finally had something to say about the girl who had it all. Now there was proof she was a whore, just like all of the Perrone girls.

  The court ordeal was ugly, despite all the incriminating evidence against Dick. The photographs of his hand-prints that had turned into bruises on my legs were not enough proof that I was not a willing participant. There I was, in black and white, and still the facts were twisted. Which was worse: the act of rape itself, or the after-math? The entire drama consisted of me trying to prove I wasn’t a whore.

  My parents were more than willing to go deeper into debt for justice, but as the painful proceedings moved along I became more depressed, taking more than the prescribed dosage of tranquilizers. I frequently thought of taking the whole bottle and ending the continuing nightmare. Recognizing my state of mind, our lawyer suggested to my par
ents that we let Dick plead to a lesser charge, explaining that it was still an admission of guilt, with a one-year sentence. My parents agreed.

  In the end, Dick served only six months of his sentence in jail, but that was long enough for Sammy to simmer down. When the ordeal was over, it still wasn’t over—at least, not in the minds of the narrow-minded townspeople of East Rochester. And the scar was mine for keeps.

  That December, I became the Kodak Summer Girl. The poster wouldn’t come out until the following summer, but the news covered the story, making a big splash: “Local Girl Makes It Big.” I guess it was a pretty big deal all over the country. That people still remember that poster astonishes me. In previous years, Kodak had always chosen the latest top model from New York for their Summer Girl. Cybill Shepherd took the spotlight the following year.

  But even the enjoyment of that fame was tainted. Someone wrote a letter to Kodak stating that they should be ashamed of themselves. They were supposed to be such a reputable company, with a good, clean image. Using me as their Summer Girl would only tarnish that image. Didn’t they know that I slept with everyone in town?

  Kodak was an extremely conservative company. This was the first time they had used a model in a bikini. Before that, the Summer Girl was always in a one-piece suit. This was an important step for Kodak. If the letter had gotten to the higher-ups, the ad surely would have been pulled. That happened to the girl they used for their winter poster. Someone had mentioned that she simply looked quite a bit like the current Playboy centerfold and they stopped production on her cutouts.

  Fortunately, the head of one of the photo departments who knew better received the letter. He showed it to me one day while I was on the set. It never went any farther than him, but I was appalled at the viciousness of the letter when I read it. It wasn’t signed, but it could have been any one of the many jealous gossips in my town.

  I began to discover the meaning of the word “hate” during this time. Hate had not only started to take form in my life—it fueled my existence. I spent the next twenty-five years proving to people that I wasn’t a whore. I went about it in ways that were detrimental to leading a healthy life. I set out to throw it back in their faces. If jealousy was the reason for their cruelty, then Georgia Black would give them plenty to be jealous about.