by Tracy Ross
The poem was about dark shadows and chanting voices, black widows, and fingers covered in blood. It was heavy on metaphor and light on exposition—a perfect example of how I cloaked my most painful secrets even as I tried to tell them to my mother. I wanted to shield her from the full spectrum of my horror, but at the same time I hoped that she would ask me to explain.
She didn’t—not that morning or on any other. Many years later, when she would beg me to forgive her for not knowing what was transpiring just feet from her bedroom, I would tell her that what remains unforgivable is not that she didn’t see what was happening in front of her but that she never asked me for the whole excruciating story when the truth finally surfaced. In my mind, her refusal to know the details of my abuse was the equivalent of a refusal to know her own daughter.
On that morning in late May 1985, we bustled around the kitchen, all four of us getting ready for school and work. When I was sure that Dad wasn’t watching, I handed Mom the piece of notebook paper, tucked in the palm of my hand. Taking a sip of her favorite Red Rose English breakfast tea, she unfolded the missive. Skimming the lines, she fell quiet. I waited for a change in her expression, a frown, a grimace—something. But my heart sank to the bottom of my ribcage. Instead of screaming, she refolded the paper, sipped her tea, and burned her own message back to me. It said, Please, please stop telling me this.
On the same day that I lost my virginity, I ran away from home. It happened—my “deflowering”—on a dirty bed in a small, dilapidated house on the outskirts of Jerome. I was fourteen, and I did it with a Mexican kid named Mondo, whom I didn’t even like or desire. I liked Reed, but I wanted to get sex over with.
When it was over, all I wanted to do was go home and hide in the stuffed animals that still sat in a big love pile against my headboard. But Dad had other plans for me. He greeted me at the door, threatening to ground me if I didn’t stop running around like a little strumpet. “Freak,” I muttered, pushing past him. Dad hated it when I back talked under my breath. But for some reason, on that night, he waited to retaliate.
I slammed into my room, but was in for a shock. Sometime that day, my bed had been broken. When I’d left in the morning, it had been fine, but now it was leaning to one side. It was clear that someone heavy had jumped on it, severely bending the frame. Dad—being the good father—had noticed and leapt into action. While I was out, he set up my sleeping bag on the living-room floor.
I don’t know how long I procrastinated before finally forcing myself to walk into the living room and crawl into that bag. At first I zipped it all the way closed, but getting too hot, I unzipped it down to my feet. Dad and Mom watched TV until a commercial came on, and then Mom said goodnight and padded down the hallway. An hour or so later, Dad disappeared, reemerging in a terry-cloth robe. I could smell him before I saw him: Old Spice and cigarettes. I stifled a gag. Please, God, I prayed. Make him leave me alone.
If I fell asleep at all, it was fitful. I lay on my stomach, with one leg sticking out of the open cover. A faded yellow Tweety Bird nightgown skimmed my abdomen and legs. I was still shaken by my first experience of actual sex—the pressure of a foreign object pushing into a now not-so-sacred space. Though I’d showered, I was sure Dad could smell the sweat on me, along with pheromones and sperm. I knew he couldn’t detect the scent of orgasm, because I hadn’t had one.
In a little while, Dad’s program ended. He stood up and turned down the TV. He locked the front door and switched off the lights. Tiptoeing across the carpet, he stopped above me, straddled my body like a starfish, and rested his entire body weight on top of me.
I bucked, still feigning sleep, and tried to edge out from under him. And then like always, I gave up and became lifeless. He raised his body for a second, then resettled like a bag of wet cement. Entire centuries passed as the dread of what was happening now became certain; this time, there was no question about what he wanted or what he was doing. He raised up again and was beginning to assert a rhythm. I squeezed my inner thigh muscles together. A voice in my head began chanting: I won’t let you … I won’t. I won’t. I won’t.
As I lay there, a strange feeling overtook me—I felt myself sink down and go limp. I took my mind out of the room, to a refuge I had been to before. It was the Wood River, and I imagined myself floating in the cool, baptizing water. If this was the night my dad was going to have sex with me, that’s where I would wait while it happened. Then, instead—a miracle: a dog barked, and Dad almost back-flipped off me.
I was freed, but not out of trouble, so I didn’t move or speak a word. Dad stared at me for a long second, shaking his feathered head. His big, brown hands fished around in his robe pockets. Then he turned around, put on his slippers, and went outside.
I waited, too terrified to move. When he came in, he turned out the lights and headed to bed. I attuned my eardrums to his movements. I could hear him—feet walking down the hall. Teeth brushed. Covers back. A little moan. Asleep. Restraining myself until I was sure I could hear him snoring, I got up, put on my black-and-pink Vans, and slipped out the front door, careful not to let the wind slam it behind me. I sprinted to the end of our driveway with the wind whipping my hair into the corners of my mouth. Without one ounce of deliberation, I turned north, toward the Snake River and the five-hundred-foot-high Perrine Bridge. As I ran past the dark houses where my neighbors lay sleeping, I thought, This is the night that everyone will remember, but no one will understand.
I was running to the bridge that people leapt off when they could no longer stitch together the tattered fabric of their lives. I would climb on top of the cold metal railing. And I would jump.
9
Fugitive
The wind howled and thunderclouds built over the desert. I thought I could hear the sound of roaring water, but it could have been the blood rushing into my ears. I knew I was five hundred feet above the Snake River, a few more if I climbed on top of the railing, where I would balance for a few seconds, and then—whoosh.
I’m surprised I didn’t ask God to intervene. But I didn’t think of Him in that moment. Instead, I thought of the people I knew who had thrown themselves off the Perrine Bridge, including a friend of Chris’s who was so ashamed after learning that he didn’t make the varsity cross-country team he leapt to his death. I was smart enough to know that I would black out before I hit the water, or die on impact. But the wind was so strong, I worried it would push me before I was ready, or worse; blow me back against the railing.
I didn’t want to climb onto the railing and be at the mercy of the gusts. I wanted to leap of my own volition and fall like a sack of potatoes, both heavy and weightless at the same time. I wanted to know that I was in charge of my own destiny, like Wonder Woman, who could ward off evil villains with a one-two shot of her power bracelets. I pressed my collarbones into the steel girders, leaning over water so black and shiny it looked like motor oil. As I was about to climb over, the reality of what that descent and smack onto the water would mean came over me, and even though I knew that death was the only guaranteed way to save me from my father, I also knew I was more terrified of dying than of going home. But going home was out of the question. There had to be another answer. I sat on the bridge until the wind made me shiver. Then I got up and started walking—back in the direction of my house.
It was late, and nobody was outside, just some heifers in a pasture near the irrigation canal where I used to swim. Mist rose off the water, and the smell of cow bums hung in the air. The moon was bright, which helped me decide to keep going once I got back to my street, Parkway Drive. I continued straight, thinking that maybe when I reached the end of the road, I’d slip between the barbed-wire fence and keep walking west, away from the sunrise.
I went maybe a hundred steps before abandoning the plan to walk until my legs buckled beneath me, pitching me onto my face. Instead, I turned up my friend Kathie Etter’s street, fixated on a sudden, illuminating vision of her mother. Kathie and I had known each other sinc
e kindergarten. Her mom, Laura, was not only big and masculine looking, but she always struck me as fierce and loyal—like, if I needed her to, she could grab a kitchen knife and fillet Dad. I didn’t know it yet, but she was also good friends with a cop.
I turned up Kathie’s street and continued walking. When I reached her lawn, I sat down and made a pillow out of a pile of dead grass. Lying on my back, I watched silver-rimmed clouds drift past a three-quarters full moon. I knew that if I went home, I would face the worst grounding of my life or, worse, explode my family—or the illusion of a family, anyway. A sprinkler went on in someone’s yard, and a dog started to bark. I stood up, walked to Kathie’s ground-floor bedroom window, and knocked.
Kathie must have been in a deep sleep because it took her a while to come to the screen. Her giant blue eyes were even wider than I remembered. Feathered blond hair framed a broad, high-cheekboned face. She and I had been friends since we performed “Who Put the Chicken in the Chicken Chow Mein?” as five-year-olds in Donna Mauldin’s Dance Academy. It had never occurred to me to tell her about my dad, even when she spent the night.
“Tracy?” she whispered. “What are you doing here?”
I pushed my face into her window, but no words came out.
“What time is it?” said Kathie. “And why are you here and not at home?”
I was about to answer when, inside the house, a light went on. Laura Etter came to the window. She saw me standing in the middle of a juniper bush, a rash already spreading up my shins. My nightgown was smudged from sitting on the bridge, and my hair was matted and tangled. Laura told me to come to the front door, and I did, finding her in a pool of flickering porch light. I must have looked cold, because she wrapped me in both of her arms and hug-walked me into the house.
“My God, Tracy,” she said, when we were in her living room, standing on the green shag carpet. She didn’t even know what had happened, but she was already starting to choke up. “What’s the matter? Why aren’t you home with your parents?”
Certain parts of that night are gauzy, but Laura says I began to spin. Literally stood up and turned circles in the middle of her living room. While I twirled, she kept talking, saying, “Tracy, honey. Slow down. I want to help you. But in order for me to do so, you have to help me.
“Please tell me, honey. What happened?” she said.
And then, finally, I did.
“Help is comin’, hon,” Laura said, after I’d told her as much as I could. It amounted to little more than “My dad. He comes after me. He tries to hurt me.” She called the police and told them a little girl needed their help. “I hope you’ll be able to tell them what you told me,” she said. “But if you can’t, I’ll help you, alright?”
In the dark of my friend’s living room, I hugged my legs and waited for the flashing strobes that would signal the arrival of the police. I didn’t even care when Kathie, sprawled out in a tattered green recliner, started to snore. Just as I knew she couldn’t feel the adrenaline coursing through my veins, I also knew that I was probably the only girl in Twin Falls awake and on the run at three a.m. I was equally certain that I was the only one about to turn her family in to the authorities.
While we waited, Laura got up and went into the bathroom. I could hear the water rushing into the porcelain basin, the sound of bristles moving across teeth. My eyes burned and my legs twitched from exhaustion. But as soon as I was alone, I felt the overpowering urge to get up and run, as night edged closer to morning and I became more aware of the enormity of my decision.
I don’t know why I suddenly felt the need to protect my family, but I wanted to save them from the things I was going to say. If I acted fast, I could rewind the entire evening, go home, and wake up the next morning pretending nothing had changed. When the police came, I would tell them Charmelle Puka must have called, because “Can’t you see my sleeping bag? I was right there, on the living-room floor, asleep.” They would question me, and I would tell them, No, my life isn’t perfect. But whose is? When they left, I would creep down the hall to my bedroom and try to figure out how to fix my broken bed.
I came so close to leaving that I slipped my shoes back on my feet. I pushed my body to the end of Laura’s couch. But two things kept me from bolting out of the living room and tearing off into the night. Years of Magnum P.I. episodes had made me believe that if I left the scene of a crime, I would become a fugitive. I also knew that if I went home, the next thing on my dad’s agenda would be rape. I knew it like I’d never known anything in my life. Deep down, on a level I could barely interpret, I knew there was no stopping my dad.
So I stayed. And told the police as much as I could. Laura held my hand while I picked at an orange thread sprouting out of a couch seam. Shame kept me from revealing the full extent of the abuse—the midday tickle sessions, the visits to my room, and the half-awake fondling that I was only beginning to accept as a reality—to the two officers with handguns and billy clubs who stared at me while tears streamed down my cheeks. Instead of details, I spoke in my usual euphemisms—about my dad “coming after me,” about “not feeling safe.”
And yet, for the first time ever, my euphemisms were enough. The police asked Laura to watch me until they could alert the Health and Welfare Department, who would take over where they left off. I’d stay put while social services determined if going home was an option. Laura walked the policemen to the door, then came back and bunched up a pile of blankets on the couch.
“Get some rest,” she said, putting her hand on my forehead.
I nodded again, but I was too wired for sleeping. I curled up on the sofa and watched the first rays of sunshine pouring across the west. I watched the glittering gold light shine into the windows of the Etters’ neighbors, and waited for what would happen.
I must have drifted off, because the next thing I knew a hand was rousing me from sleep. My blankets had bunched up around my legs. I kicked at them, trying to free myself from the bind of piled polyester. The rest of my body lay in a swamp of my own sweat.
The hand kept nudging me, so I made my eyelids unstick themselves from the goop that had congealed around them during my short, post-sunrise nap. My mouth tasted like the top of a battery when you licked it, trying to give yourself a spark. I opened my eyes and saw a man in a blue uniform. A gold badge floated in the empty space above his heart.
It took several more minutes for me to orient myself to my surroundings. My head felt like someone had vacuumed my brain and refilled the empty cavity with mud. I picked at my eyes, continuing to urge the sleep scabs off them. Then a voice I recognized brought my full attention into the room.
It was Laura, sitting at the far end of the couch. She touched the top of my exposed foot gently, as you would a newborn puppy or baby rabbit.
“Hi, Tracy,” she said, shooting me a warm smile. “I’m glad to see you fell asleep.”
I blinked hard, tilting my head toward her, putting flesh to the outline of her presence. But even though I wanted to respond to her, I couldn’t form the words that I was thinking. They swam recklessly as I tried to knit the events of the previous night together. Nobody asked me to get up, so I stayed where I was sitting.
Around that time, I heard the police officer sigh. His footsteps swooshed across the carpet, headed toward the front door. For a second I thought he was going to slip through it, leaving Laura and me alone to figure out my future. But he stopped halfway across the living room, at which time Laura continued talking.
“Tracy,” she said, “sit up now. I want you to see who came back for you. This is Officer Miller. He wants to take you to the Health and Welfare Department so they can ask you some questions.”
The policeman came over and stood before me, asking if he could settle in beside me on the couch. I scooched to the corner, worried that he’d put his hand in my pool of body sweat. He towered over me, smelling of aftershave and dry-cleaning starch. But the air that hovered around him as he sat down next to me evoked a certain kindness.
>
Shivering from fear and sleep-deprivation, I slumped against him, sinking into the strength of his body, feeling the gun in the holster near his hip. For a few short seconds I let myself relax into his powerful, law-enforcing presence. I could have fallen asleep and dreamt a whole different ending for the night that had just passed behind me. But I got up, changed into one of Kathie’s sundresses, and followed my civil servant into the blue-and-white squad car marked Twin Falls County Police.
Many years later, in emails from both of my parents, I would learn what happened at my house on the morning of August 7, 1985. Walking into the living room, my dad found my empty sleeping bag and the front door propped open. It being August and generally sweltering, Mom figured I’d gone out early on a run. But when Dad saw my empty sleeping bag on the living room couch, he knew he was in serious trouble. By the time his Folgers crystals had dissolved into coffee, his ears were already burning.
At ten that morning, social services called my mom, telling her I’d accused my dad of abuse. She dialed his office and demanded he meet her at home. He said, “Now? Can’t it wait? I’m at work,” to which she answered, “Get to our house this second.” When she asked him why I would have told the police that I was being molested, he answered that he had no idea, but that he’d found marijuana and cocaine in my dresser.
At ten thirty, Chris rolled out of bed, just as two cops and a social worker were walking up the driveway. They’d come to get my clothes and toothbrush because, they said, I’d be staying at a safe house until they decided if I could come home. Instead of choosing the softest pajamas and packing a note, my mom flew into hysterics. “Why are you doing this to our family!” she screamed, while Chris tried to push the social worker off the porch.
Later that day, my dad went to the police station, where he was questioned in a room with a two-way mirror. Again, he played his “no idea” card. He agreed to take a lie-detector test but only because he believed he could outsmart any machine that plugged into a wall. But when he got home, Mom told him to get a lawyer, who advised him not to take the test, because, no matter what the results ended up showing, they wouldn’t hold up in court.
