No Matter How Much You Promise

by Edgardo Vega

  “Come and sit down for a minute,” Papo said, patting the dirty cushion next to him.

  “Where are the puppies?”

  “Dere in another apartment. Sit down and rest.”

  She sat on the couch and he was immediately next to her, kissing her. She allowed herself to kiss him back, enjoying once more the feeling of his tongue in her mouth. He repositioned her gently so that she was resting partly on his lap and partly on his arm. His hand was moving to her breasts, massaging them and watching the nipples rise through the fabric of the bra and T-shirt. She kept her legs tightly closed, the tight panties keeping the yinandyango safely tucked away between her peepee and her thigh. And then he was touching her stomach, but when he started playing with the belt and zipper of her jeans, she sat up, shaking her head, feeling the awful fear. She closed her eyes and took deep breaths, fearing that at any moment she would begin convulsing and start making faces and Papo would see how ugly she was.

  He reached for her, smoothing her blond hair and telling her how much he liked her, how pretty she was. She kept her eyes closed, feeling as if she were drifting off into sleep like the time she had touched herself, and after a few seconds she let herself slip back down to his lap, this time feeling the hardness of his thing on her back. She was so bad, just like Cookie and Vee, who were doing it all the time. The feeling of relaxation was becoming greater and greater, extending downward from her head to her chest and then her stomach and below. And then she heard the door open. She sat up, this time her heart jumping and the fear making her shake, knowing it was someone else.

  She turned and they were there, one of them holding the leash to the largest pit bull she had ever seen. The dog’s eyes were riveted on her. She turned to Papo and was about to ask if this was the puppies’ mother, but the words hadn’t come out of her mouth when she saw the dog’s large red testicles hanging between his bowed legs.

  “I should go,” she said, taking a step toward the door.

  “No, you gotta stay,” Papo said, stepping in front of her. “Lock the door. I got da key.”

  Pepe moved to the door, put the padlock through the hasp and snapped the lock shut.

  “Now you gotta stay,” Papo said.

  “I don’t want to,” she said, meekly. “I’m scared. Who are they?”

  “My homeboys,” Papo said, sneering at her. “Fellas, she wants to know who you are.”

  “We his homeboys,” Pupi said, tapping the leather strap of Macho Man’s leash against his leg. “I’m Pupi, the little one over there is Pipo and this doofus with the mustache is Pepe. Oh, this is our other homeboy, Macho Man.” He petted the dog’s head. “You Fun, right?”

  She nodded and tried to go around Papo, but he pushed her chest.

  “Don’t,” she said, tears welling up in her eyes. “That hurt.”

  “Just shut up, bitch,” Papo said, his left eye ticking violently.

  “Don’t hurt me.”

  “‘Don’t hurt me,’” he mocked her and then his right hand came up and slapped her face so that she fell back on the couch, dazed, the skin of her cheek stinging and the tears streaming down her face. “Didn’t I tell you to shut up? Take off your clothes,” he said.

  She curled up in a ball on the couch, her eyes shut tight and her face beginning to twist, the muscles knotting up into her witch face. She was shaking now, her face contorting and her teeth grinding against each other. Papo and Pipo pried her hands away from her face and held each of her arms as she twisted, her head going from side to side and the dizziness of the movement making her nauseous. And then they noticed the disfigured face.

  “Looka that shit, man,” Pepe said. “She totally buggin’”

  “Yeah,” Pipo said, holding back the pitbull. “The niggah’s ugly as a mothafucka.”

  “I have to go home, Papo,” she said, the muscles of her face rigid, aware of how terrible she must look. A new awareness hit her and she thought that perhaps if she was ugly they would let her go. “Please, I have to go to the rehearsal.” She had no idea why she said that and thought maybe she was going to go crazy. Why had she come up? She knew it was a mistake from the moment that Papo hadn’t understood the film. He wasn’t just stupid, he was bad. “I should go.”

  “Shut up, bitch,” Papo said, yanking her arm backward.

  “Okay, okay,” she said. “Don’t hurt me, please.”

  “We ain’t gonna hurt you, honey,” Papo said, mocking her. “Just take off your clothes.”

  “No, please,” she said. “I can’t.”

  “Let her go, homeboy,” Papo said to Pupi, loosening his grip on her arm. “I’ma take dis bitch to school.”

  Pupi released Fawn’s arm and Fawn once again shrank back into a corner of the couch.

  “Stand up, bitch,” Papo said, his voice quiet but menacing.

  “No, please, please, please,” Fawn said, crying. “You said you liked me.”

  The slap came with lightning rapidity, catching her right cheek before she could cover up.

  “I said stand the fuck up!” Papo screamed.

  She was up immediately, standing before him, her hands shaking in front of her lips as she peeked out over the fingertips. Pipo now noticed that the front of her jeans were wet and pointed at the spot. He tied Macho Man to a steampipe and came over and touched the front of her pants. This was an opportunity for them to laugh, pointing at the front of her and calling her a baby. It was then that she felt the urine running down her legs but couldn’t help it and wondered if she would also poop in her pants. She couldn’t. It would be embarrassing and would smell. She made up her mind that no matter what happened she wouldn’t, and then they’d see that she was brave and let her go. That was it, she would be brave.

  “You gonna take off your clothes?”

  “No, please. I can’t.”

  “You dissing me, bitch?”

  “No, I’m not. I just can’t. I don’t want you to see me.”

  “‘I don’t want you to see me,’” Papo mocked her in a squeaky voice.

  Their hands were now all over her. Touching her breasts, her buttocks, and thighs, her arms and face, pulling her hair hard enough so that it hurt. When she protested they slapped at her. At one point Pepe punched her in the arm and Papo yelled at him to take it easy. “No punches, stupid,” he said. The words gave her a little hope, but the feeling that she was being protected was gone before she had a chance to feel gratitude. They had now created a circle and were taunting her to try and escape. Each time she made a dash one way, they closed the circle and once again mauled her, at times squeezing her breasts and buttocks with such force that she whimpered, the tears bursting from her eyes. All the activity had caused Macho Man to bark and growl and strain to get into the action.

  The four stopped and she stood in the middle of the room, rigid with fear. She recalled going back to Tennessee with Lurleen that one summer and one of her uncles talking about animals caught in the headlights of a car and how they stood paralyzed by the light. That’s how she felt looking into Papo’s eyes. Why did he want to do this? She thought he liked her a lot. What was she going to do now?

  “Are you gonna take off your clothes?” he said, approaching her.

  “I can’t, Papo,” she said. “I thought you liked me.”

  They oohed and aahed and repeated her question, except that they pronounced the word “liketed.” Again Papo’s hand reached out like a viper striking its prey and the buttons on her blouse were gone, stripped. With another strike the white blouse was completely shredded from her. The sight of the naked flesh, the full breasts in the brassiere sent the four horsemen into a riot of lust and violence. They were like sharks in a feeding frenzy, their fingers eager to touch her, their movements crazed, primeval in their quest to feel her nakedness. In a second they had thrown her to the ground and mostly with their hands except for Pupi’s final cutting off her jeans with the knife, they ripped her brassiere and white baggy jeans off of her. In the process she received a sm
all cut on her thigh when they’d dragged her across the linoleum floor, and one of the carpet tacks sticking up scratched her.

  “Get up, bitch,” Papo said, recalling the Chinaman and already feeling that she was gonna end up the same as him. “Get up.”

  She stood up in her panties and her black Reeboks and white socks, her arms covering the front of her breasts, wondering if she’d pee again. The evaporating urine was making her feel cool down there and she imagined that they would soon notice the yinandyango stuck behind the cloth of her panties.

  “You wanna get hurt?” Papo said, coming up to her.

  “No, I really don’t,” she said, feeling stupid.

  “Den go sit in the middle of the couch and put your arms over your head,” he said.

  “Why?”

  “Do you wanna get hurt?” he repeated.

  “No, please.”

  “Den go sit on da mothafuckin’ couch and put your arms over your mothafuckin’ head,” he said, the words brimming with anger, each one spit out separately.

  When she had done as she was told, he motioned Pepe and Pipo forward, and as if they had planned the entire thing, each one attached his mouth to one of her breasts.

  “Now, put your arms down and make believe you’re the mother dog and they was your puppies,” Papo said.

  “No, please,” she said, shaking her head violently from side to side, making the two let go.

  “You wanted to see puppies?” Papo said. “Dere dey are.”

  She continued to shake her head for a few moments and then there was a slap and then another and she stopped and they were once again on her breasts. This time she did as she was told, holding the two homeboys to her breasts, smelling their smells of sweat and poop, cigarettes and wine, pot and musk and incense and she didn’t know what else, maybe garlic and gummy bears. They sucked on her nipples and she wished she could take them and kill them, crush them like cockroaches beneath her feet, but they had their things out and Papo said she had to take them in her hands. She did as she was told and watched as Pepe took his penis out and was trying to get Macho Man to lick it like he sometimes did with his mother’s Chihuahuas. Papo saw him and told him he was a stupid mothafucka cause the pit was gonna grab his dick and swallow it.

  She watched Pepe take his thing, which was real big, and begin moving his hand over it, pulling the prepuce back and forth so that the organ looked like a turtle sticking its head in and out of its neck. Papo asked her if she saw what Pepe was doing. She nodded and he said she ought to do the same thing to the homeboys. And then Papo was in front of her face, unzipping his pants and taking out his thing. It was so big and red it scared her so that she almost peed again. She looked into his eyes and saw the frightening, deadly fierceness and suddenly knew she was never going to see her mother and father again and she gave up.

  He pried her mouth open and his thing was in her mouth and she could hear him say that she had to lick it. She moved her tongue around, hoping she was doing it right and they wouldn’t hurt her too much. She closed her eyes and imagined traveling with Bobby McGee, playing her harmonica. She was drifting and then she felt the stinging pain and then the blow as Pipo bit her nipple and punched her in the stomach, as he had often struck his mother. The sudden movement made her expel Papo’s organ from her mouth and her bottom teeth barely touched the underside of his glans but nevertheless made him wince. Once again he reached back and slapped her on the temple, making her head snap to the side and she blacked out momentarily.

  “I’ma fuck her, man,” Pipo said to Papo.

  “Niggah, what da fuck is wrong wif you? The bitch almost chewed up my dick. And anyways, I was just about to shoot a load in her mouf.”

  “We came here to get us some pussy, niggah,” Pupi said.

  “Dat’s right, Papo,” Pipo said, thinking about his mother. Since she’d left nine months before he’d had no pussy and the shit was getting to him.

  “Okay, okay,” Papo said.

  “She’s gotta take off her Reeboks,” Pepe said, coming over.

  “Niggah, shut the fuck up,” Papo said. “She gonna do it like them bitches in the movies. With her mothafuckin’ shoes on.”

  “Word up,” Pipo said.

  She knew what was going to happen now, and she locked her legs together. When Papo saw this he slapped her again and she fell back against the couch.

  “What the fuck you think you doing, bitch?” he said. “You a mothafuckin’ ankle woman that give up no pussy? Take off your panties, puta. Quítate los fockin pantis y enseñame esa criquita linda. Esa criquita rubita, mami.” He spoke the Spanish sweetly, encouraging her to remove her panties and show him her little blond crack.

  This time she fought back, striking at them. She couldn’t imagine what they’d think if they saw the yinandyango. The fact that she would fight back excited them and they rained blows upon her body and head, cautioning each other not to mar her face. After a couple of minutes she was nearly unconscious, her head ringing so that she was hardly aware of where she was.

  Pupi cut the panties away with the knife, told Pepe to hold her arms and then they laid her out on the couch. Pupi grabbed her ankle and brought it up over the back of the couch and held it there. Papo had said he would be first, so he grabbed the other thigh and spread her legs. And then they saw the red appendage hanging like a wrinkled finger from her pubic area. The sight intrigued them. They looked at each other. Pipo was the first one to speak.

  “Oh, shit, man,” he said. “Da bitch is like one of them freaks from da Robin Burr Show.”

  “Yeah, chicks wif dicks,” Pupi said.

  “Put your finger in her,” Pipo said.

  “You put your finger in, niggah,” Pupi said.

  “I’ll put my dick in her,” Pepe said.

  “Oh, you niggahs is a bunch of faggots,” Papo said. “Get out the way.

  Fawn was now beyond the stage at which there is any reserve of dignity. She knew she would die and her mind had broken up into small confetti-like pieces. Her thoughts came to her disconnected, as if everything in her life were an awful kaleidoscope, fragmented and prismatic.

  63. Where Have All the Flowers Gone

  Cliff dialed 911 exactly as Billy had asked.

  “Nine-one-one,” the dispatcher said. “Where is the police emergency?”

  “On Eldridge Street,” Cliff replied. “Somebody took my sister up into an abandoned building. You gotta send the police, please.”

  “Sir, what address is the emergency at?”

  “I don’t know the address. It’s over on Eldridge Street. Manhattan. Lower East Side.”

  “Well, sir, how can we send the police if you can’t tell us the address?”

  “It’s between Grand and Hester.”

  “Is it Grand or Hester, sir?”

  “No, no. Eldridge between Grand and Hester, but I don’t know the address.”

  “Sir, next time please get the right address.”

  “Okay, sure. But please send the police. Please.”

  “Can you see the perpetrators?”

  “No, I’m in my house. The place they got her is about six blocks away.”

  “Did you get a look at the perpetrators?”

  “Yes, there were four.”

  “Can you describe them?”

  “Yeah, the one that was with my sister is about five-ten and a hundred and sixty pounds. He’s white, but Spanish. I think his name is Papo. He was wearing dark jeans with white sneakers and a blue T-shirt. He had on a Jets baseball cap. Green and white.”

  “What about the other ones?”

  “Two of them were about medium size and the other was small. They all had baggy pants and sneakers with T-shirts and baseball caps. One of the medium-sized ones had a pit bull on a leash. The guy with the dog was wearing black combat boots. His pants were down over the laces, not like they wear them rolled up so you can see the boots.”

  “Now, what is your name?”

  “Cliff Farrell.”r />
  “Is that Clifford?”

  “Yes.”

  “And how do you spell your last name?”

  “Farrell. F-A-R-R-E-L-L. Farrell. Cliff Farrell.”

  “And your phone number, Mr. Farrell?”

  He gave the woman their phone number and was informed that he should be near the building in order to show the police exactly where the perpetrators were to be found.

  Ten minutes after Cliff made his phone call, the message came into the local precinct from the 911 unit. The four-o’clock shift was just coming in. A full fifteen minutes transpired before the call went out that there was a problem at an abandoned building on Eldridge Street. Patrolmen David Gallagher and Eugene Vargas of the 7th, cruising west on Delancey Street in their patrol car, received the first call of their shift, turned on the siren, and headed for Eldridge Street.

  When Cliff hung up the phone, he saw his father coming from the back of the loft. He was placing a pistol into the waistband of his jeans and buttoning his camouflage Marine shirt to conceal the weapon. There was a patch on the shirt with the name FARRELL on it. He had put on a Marine cap with corporal insignia on the front and was wearing combat boots. There was a set of binoculars around his neck. Anyplace else in New York, Billy Farrell would’ve looked out of place, but in the East Village / Lower East Side area he looked perfectly normal.