Rat Pack Party Girl: From Prostitute to Women’s Advocate

by McCormick, Jane

  After a while, we began skipping school about once a week. Curly drove us to the Pike, an amusement park in Long Beach, where we met marines and sailors who tried to get us drunk on beer.

  One day, Carol and I met Curly at his house and we picked up Bob Harvey, his friend. When Bob got into the car in his white navy uniform, I thought my heart was going to stop! He was a five-foot-ten-inch blond with the biggest pair of dark brown eyes and the longest eyelashes I’d ever seen.

  “And who is this?” Bob asked Curly with a great smile as he snuggled into the back seat beside me. “Are you my date, or am I just dreaming?” he said, turning and looking into my eyes. “You’re beautiful.” And that’s all it took. I was instantly in love. Or so I thought.

  Instead of going to the beach, Curly drove us to an orange grove near Anaheim. While Carol and Curly made out in the front seat, Bob and I talked for a few minutes, and then he kissed and hugged me for nearly an hour. I was so hot for him I never wanted that necking to stop before he had to return to his base in Long Beach. I didn’t want to let him go.

  I couldn’t wait to see Bob again, and in three weeks we were back together. Carol, Curly, Bob and I went to Newport Beach. The minute Bob got into the back seat, we started making out. When we reached the beach, we took a walk down the sand and found a spot all to ourselves. He held me close, and I could feel his heart pounding. Nothing could tear me away.

  That afternoon, Bob said, “I can’t stand this any longer. I want you, and I want to be with you. Will you go with me to a place where we can be alone?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  He took me to a nearby motel and we made love. I acted inexperienced, as I had with Allen and Jim. He was a gentle kisser, always considerate, and romantic. He seemed to care for me as much as I did for him, and when he made love to me, the bells chimed.

  On April 1, 1957, Bob asked Mom, in my presence, if he could marry me in June. My mother laughed, “Oh, can’t you make it sooner?”

  Then Mom looked at us, serious: “Don’t you guys go making a bunch of babies and then come back to me . . . because you know, if you make your bed, you lie in it! Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  Getting approval from Bob’s mother, Mae Keck, was not so easy. She had been divorced and remarried, and she said we were both too young, that the idea was ridiculous. But Bob kept telling her how much he loved me, and finally she went along with it, wishing us love, luck and happiness.

  I thought my life would be wonderful. I loved a man who loved me, and I thought we’d live on a military base like the one I grew up on. I wanted my children to have a stable and secure life with lots of love and happiness. I couldn’t wait for my dreams to come true.

  Bob and I were married on June 5, 1957. He was eighteen and I was sixteen. Mom paid for more than forty relatives and friends to attend the ceremony at the Wishing Well Chapel in Anaheim, California. She bought me a gorgeous, low-cut, white dress with a long skirt full with crinolines. A small net veil sat delicately on my hair, curled on top and swept back on the sides.

  Bob wore a slick black tuxedo and was more handsome than ever.

  At the reception, Mom handed me a card containing a hundred-dollar bill and couldn’t help but smile.

  Then Carol and Curly took Bob and me to the Fullerton train station, and we headed for Seattle, Washington for our honeymoon. After Bob checked in, I learned that he was only a deuce (private) and was not provided housing like I was used to. So we had to spend our honeymoon in a dark, dingy, rundown hotel on Main Street.

  Our room was just that—one room. The bathroom was down the hall, and everyone on the floor shared it. One window overlooked Main Street, which was crawling with drunken sailors, prostitutes and thieves. Bob and I ate our meals on a tiny end table that barely held two plates. There was no refrigerator so we had to buy food every day. When Bob brought me a two-burner hotplate, I was thrilled that I now had the luxury of heating up canned foods and frying up meals in the room.

  I’d fallen in love with a guy with no money, and on top of that I’d learned that I’d be alone for up to six months at a time. But I knew better than to complain about loneliness—a military wife never made it hard for her husband to serve our country.

  After his first trip, Bob returned home with a shipmate named Freddy, and I cooked for them and cleaned up their empty beer cans after they went on a drinking binge. That afternoon we looked for a bigger apartment so we could all live together. For a while I smiled and laughed because I loved Bob and wanted to make him proud of his wife. But eventually the partying drove me crazy. I told Bob I couldn’t live that way any longer.

  The next week we moved to an efficiency apartment in a nicer neighborhood—and started work on having a baby. A couple of weeks later, Bob went to sea again. During that time I missed my period, so I went to see a doctor. I was overjoyed when he told me I was pregnant. I was sixteen.

  When Bob was gone on another cruise, I got a letter from him: “Dear Jane, I’ll be coming home in two days. We need to talk. I met a girl in Iceland. I’ll be picking up my belongings when I get home. I’m sorry.”

  I was devastated. All my dreams were crushed. For the next two days I watched for him out the kitchen window. Finally on the second afternoon, I heard a car pull up to the curb and Bob emerged from a black Ford piled high with gear and full of servicemen.

  He shouted, “I’m back,” as he handed me a beautiful floral scarf, a bouquet of flowers and a red silk dress.

  I just stood there staring at him and sobbing.

  “Oh baby, I love you so much,” he said. He put his arm around me, steered me into the bedroom, and sat me down on the bed. “Can you ever find it in your heart to forgive me? I made a mistake. Please, please forgive me.”

  I couldn’t move and I kept on crying. Finally I gulped, “You broke my heart.”

  He said the girl in Iceland was too old for him and that she had led him to believe she loved him. All she wanted was sex, he said, but they didn’t do anything. I didn’t believe him. He moved closer, put his arms around me, and lay me down on the bed. He kissed me on my neck and mouth.

  “I need you honey,” Bob said. “I’ve been away from you for so long, and I need you to love me.” He kissed me some more and I began to feel myself give in to him.

  “I’ve never loved anyone else but you honey,” he said, and I began to believe it.

  I loved him so much, and it was wonderful to be back in his arms. I could feel myself wanting him too. My heart turned to mush, and I forgave him. After we made love, I told him about our baby.

  “A baby?” he cried. “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. The doctor said I’ll deliver in the first week of June, which will be our one-year anniversary.

  We spent the rest of his leave looking for an apartment in Seattle in a neighborhood with a playground for our baby. We found a small one-bedroom, with a living room and kitchen. Now I thought I could be a real housewife and mother-to-be. I could cook and clean and raise our baby just as I had always wanted.

  When Bob went to sea, I decided to get a babysitting job so I could start saving up for the baby. At the laundromat down the street, I saw an ad: “Babysitter wanted for two small children. Rates negotiable.” I ran to the nearest pay phone and dialed the number.

  With that call, I got my second job, babysitting for a young couple living in a new house in the Queen Anne section of Seattle. I sat for them a few times, and they began calling me on a regular basis, especially on weekends. I was happy to work and to make some money for baby things.

  One Friday night, the mother picked me up and drove me to her house to babysit. After she and her husband left the house, I tucked the two children in for the night and enjoyed the luxury of their beautiful home. I thought, “Someday I’ll be living in a house like this with Bob and our kids. We’ll be just as happy as this family, happier even.”

  At about one in the morning, the couple came home. They’d left their car at the bar becau
se they’d been drinking. A man named Buck had volunteered to drive them home and said he’d drive me home too. As he drove, Buck told me he was a marine. We started talking, and he said, “I think you are so beautiful.”

  “Thank you,” I replied.

  “Have you ever been married?” Buck asked.

  “I am married,” I said.

  “You are? Are you married to a real man?”

  “Of course I’m married to a real man. He’s in the navy,” I said proudly.

  “Navy men are nothing but pussies.”

  “He’s no pussy; he’s a man! And I don’t like you saying that about my husband.”

  Buck looked at the maternity top I was wearing over my pedal pushers. “Are you pregnant?”

  “Yes,” I said.

  “I don’t believe you’re pregnant.”

  Before I realized what he was doing, he turned the car left into an alley and parked behind a gas station. Now he was scaring me, and I remembered what Mom had told me in case I ever thought I was going to be raped: try to talk him out of it.

  I tried. My heart pounded. Trembling all over, I managed to say, “You don’t want to do this, Buck. I’m going to have a baby. Think what this could do to the baby.”

  He didn’t listen. He put his hand on my leg and scooted across the seat toward me. He had a terrible look on his face. He said, “You’re too pretty and young to be pregnant. You’re going to feel what a real man is like.”

  “Please don’t do this,” I pleaded as he unzipped his pants. I grabbed his prick and twisted it as hard as I could but it didn’t even faze him. He kept pulling me underneath him. My mere 100 pounds was trapped beneath a 250-pound maniac. I tried to get out of the car but he was too strong and held me down and I saw a knife he had on the floor of the car! But no matter what I did he was hell bent on raping me. I was pregnant and worried about losing my baby!

  He grabbed my hand and put it on his penis. Lurching toward me, he grabbed one breast, and then pulled on the neck of my maternity blouse so hard it split down the middle, the buttons bursting from their stitches. He pitched my blouse into the back seat. Then he pinned one arm behind my back and pushed me up against the seat so that he could get at my neck and face. He kissed me on the mouth and I could feel the sticky trails of his slobber on my cheeks and throat as his mouth moved down toward my chest. He flipped my bra off with one move, licking and nuzzling as he moved down between my breasts. He sucked on one, then the other, chewing harder and harder from the bottom toward the nipple. I could feel his teeth clamp down. There was a searing pain as he bit hard into my flesh.

  I tried to resist, but I couldn’t make a sound. My whole body seemed paralyzed. I could see Woody in his face and feel Woody in his hands, and I was powerless to stop him.

  Then Buck was holding a pocketknife to my throat.

  “Okay! Okay!” I tried to scream. “Just let go of my arm and I will.” He let go and I reached behind to undo the zipper of my pedal pushers.

  Buck stuck the knife under my chin. “Take them down! Take them down!” he ordered.

  Sobbing, I pulled my pants down around my thighs, but I couldn’t get them to go any farther. He pinned both arms behind me so I could barely move. Still holding the knife under my chin, he grabbed at the elastic waist of my panties and, in one jerk, ripped them in half and tore them off. Entirely exposed, I kicked wildly at the dashboard, at the front window, at anything my legs could reach. Buck put the knife to my stomach. I stopped kicking and sat, my arms pinned behind me.

  “My baby’s in there! My baby’s in there. Please don’t hurt me there!” I sobbed. “I’ll do it if you just don’t hurt my baby.”

  “Then shut up and enjoy it,” Buck said.

  I stopped crying; my body went numb. Buck pushed me down on the seat, pulled off my pedal pushers, and raised my legs over my head. He pinned me to the front seat with the weight of his body, leaning on me so hard that my knees were almost touching the floor. When he penetrated, the pain was so terrible I bit my lip, cutting into it. I could taste blood trickling into my mouth, but the only thing I could think about was my baby.

  Buck pounded into me like a wild animal for several minutes before exploding inside me, grunting and gasping as he shot his “real man” into this captive, pregnant navy wife. When it was over, he zipped up his pants, reached over me to open the door and shouted, “Get out of the car, you little fucking whore.”

  I scrunched out from under him and slid backwards, falling onto the ground. I saw him drop the knife on the floor near the gas pedal. He picked up my pants, bra, and panties, reached into the back seat for my blouse, and tossed the clothes at me. Then he spit on me, pulled the door shut, started the car, and took off.

  For a few minutes all I could do was cry and shake. I had just been raped, I was stranded in a part of the city I didn’t recognize, my clothes were in shreds, and all I had was the money I’d earned from babysitting. But it wasn’t much help because I didn’t know where I was. I had to find help, and found myself desperately praying that a cop would drive by at that moment.

  I saw a light in the window of a house about a block away and headed for it. I pounded on the door until an elderly woman opened it.

  “I’ve been raped. I’ve been raped. Call the police. Please, call the police!” I said.

  “Oh dear, you look like you’ve had quite a beating,” she answered. “Charlie, come and help the poor girl.”

  Her husband came to the door and helped me into the house while she ran to phone the police.

  My legs were bruised, my stomach was sore, and my clothes were torn. The police came and took me to the station. A woman police officer took pictures of my legs, shoulders, and stomach. Then she took me into a room and tried to calm me down.

  I explained what happened, and the police called the people I had been babysitting for. They said they didn’t know the guy, that they’d just happened to meet him at the bar and that he’d offered to give me a ride for them. There was nothing more they could do, so the police officer took me back to my apartment.

  Bob came back to Seattle several weeks later, and as we embraced and said hello I fell apart and blurted out that I had been raped.

  “Where is he?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, tears rolling down my face.

  “What do you mean you don’t know?”

  “He was a stranger. I thought he was a friend of the people I babysat for because he brought them home from the bar.”

  Bob turned on me. “You fucking little whore, you probably wanted it. You little bitch! You think you’re so cute and sexy all the time. You probably asked for it.”

  He had never said anything like this to me before. My heart broke. How could a man who loved me say such things? The hurt I felt that night stayed with me for months. I never really forgot it, but I put it aside so that Bob and I could be happy as we awaited the birth of our baby.

  Cindy Lou, our first daughter, was born in Seattle on June 3, 1958.

  Cindy made me happy. I promised she’d never be hungry and I’d never let anyone come into her bedroom and hurt her.

  Bob was happy too, but he left us for another six-month duty without enough money for food.

  I didn’t know what to do, but as luck would have it, I met a neighbor who suggested she teach me the art of shoplifting. First, she had me rent a freezer. Then my new “friend” and I went to the supermarket wearing big, loose coats. We stole steaks and cigarette cartons by sticking them under our arms, into our pockets, and into Cindy’s stroller. At first I was scared and felt guilty about stealing, but then I became a pro. When Bob came home, I showed him our stocked freezer, and when he asked me how I did it, I told him the truth.

  “Good going,” was all he said. My life of crime (that one anyway) ended a few months later when Bob got out of the navy and we moved back to southern California.

  Our new home in Santa Ana was a one-bedroom trailer. Bob couldn’t find a job for several months, and whe
n he did, he lost it promptly. All he wanted to do was get high with his friends. Whenever he had money, he spent it on pot, pills and alcohol.

  Eventually I went to Bob’s mother, Mae, to ask for help. I told her Bob couldn’t hold a job and that we needed to borrow money for our rent.

  Then I became pregnant with our second child.

  Roberta Jane was born on February 5, 1960, at Santa Ana Community Hospital.

  I was happy to have another little girl, but at one month short of nineteen, I was hardly more than a child myself. I stressed out over having to care for two little ones.

  When Bob still couldn’t get a job, I got a nurse’s aide job at the Fullerton Community Hospital. For once we were able to pay the bills an even had a little money left over for the girls. Eventually we moved to the same apartment complex in Anaheim where Curly and Carol lived after they got married.

  After a few weeks things went sour and Bob started partying again, this time with Carol and Curly and their friends. One night I caught Bob kissing another woman. I slapped him across the face, told him it was over and that I wanted a divorce.

  I returned to our apartment, packed some of the girls’ clothes, gathered up Cindy and Roberta, and left to stay with a friend in Long Beach.

  Two days later she brought us back to the apartment. Bob had taken his clothes and the car. I found a babysitter and walked the eight miles (each way) to work. I couldn’t afford the rent and the sitter too, so after a few weeks, I called Bob’s mother. Mae said she didn’t know where her son was, and when I asked her to lend me enough money to keep the apartment, she said all she could do was keep the girls with her until I found an affordable place to live.

  The next morning, the babysitter needed more money to continue and I didn’t have it, so I was forced to quit my job and stay home to take care of the girls.

  Now I had absolutely no means to support myself or my family.