Know My Name

by Chanel Miller

  CHANEL: Um, do you know where it was exactly that they found me?

  OFFICER: Okay. In between there and the house, there’s a little area, um, I believe it’s a dumpster. Not in the dumpster.

  CHANEL: Yeah, no.

  OFFICER: No, but the area behind.

  He said, Some people passing by saw you were there, and they’re like, “Wait, that doesn’t look right.” And then they stopped, um, they saw someone . . . and then another person came by, saw you. And called, called us . . . Um, naturally in the beginning, um, we assume a possible rape.

  I didn’t understand. How’d I get outside? What didn’t look right? The detective shifted in his seat, and I caught a slight wince as he said, Did you hook up with anyone? This struck me as a weird question. I said no. So no one had permission to touch you anywhere. The way he looked sorrowful, like he already knew the answer. I felt my body stiffen. I said, They caught him like, like last night right? Were they trying to escape?

  He said, So now we just have to make sure that this is the right person, so was this the person that was doing something to you, or trying to do something to you? Um, but someone was acting really hinky around you. Hinky. I’m trying to be cautious to say that this person is the person. According to the penal code, we can arrest someone based on probable cause, since rape is a felony, we can arrest someone based on probable cause to believe that a felony occurred. Even if it didn’t occur.

  There was subtext that something grave had happened, but every sentence was capped off with an alternate scenario where I was left untouched. Even if it didn’t occur. Doing or trying. Hopefully nothing. Hinky. I had a foothold in two different worlds; one where nothing happened, one where I may have been raped. I understood he was withholding information because the investigation was still pending. Maybe he also saw that my hair was dripping and I was wearing the wrong clothing. Maybe he was thinking about my sister, who was about to arrive.

  Detective Kim said tomorrow I might remember more, he’d give me his card. I nodded, but knew I’d given him all I had. He said I’d be able to pick up my phone at the police station later that evening. Behind him, my sister appeared, hunched up, face drained. The victim in me vanished as I became the older sister. On the tape at the end of my interview you can hear her arrive:

  I said, Hey.

  Oh my god.

  Hey.

  Oh my god.

  I’m so sorry.

  Oh.

  I made you worry.

  No, it’s okay.

  Oh, sorry.

  She said, Don’t apologize.

  I was upright, unshakable, I was the adult showing her that the other strangers in this room were kind, you could talk to them. April was pouring her water, pulling up a chair. Tiffany could not stop crying. As the detective began questioning, my eyes stayed on her. She was talking through the same drinks, names of friends, atmosphere of party. She mentioned there’d been a blond guy that kept putting his face in hers, touching her hips, following her around. All her friends started avoiding him. She said she thought it was weird the guy never said anything, just stared with large eyes as he leaned in. She said she started laughing from discomfort and as a result their teeth hit.

  She said she’d left me briefly to take care of a sick friend, thinking I’d be fine on my own. When she returned police were clearing out the party. She asked two students who’d been manning the door, What’s going on, and they told her the party had been shut down due to a noise complaint. She asked a policeman in the parking lot and he said he couldn’t say. She assumed I’d left to meet up with friends in downtown Palo Alto. Still she wandered around asking, Have you seen a girl who looks like me? She and Colleen swung open every door of the fraternity, mad and then worried when I never picked up my phone. They yelled my name into the trees, while I was being carted out the side on a gurney, disappearing into the boxy white vehicle.

  Students stopped him, I said. Cool, right. That morning, I understood bystanders had seen a man acting peculiar, had pursued him in a chase. I was unaware any physical contact had been made. I did not know this man had touched me beneath my clothes, had no idea that any of my body parts had been exposed. I told myself the crisis had been averted, the bad guy had been arrested, and now we were free to leave. The detective thanked us. We would go to the Stanford police station in the evening to pick up my phone. The white-coated ladies surrounded me in a hug, a tight hold, then release.

  The sun was out now, harshly reflecting off sparse cars in the lot. What a surreal Sunday morning. How nuts was that? That was like the nuts-est thing to have ever happened. They stuck so much stuff into my hoo hoo. I can’t even—like look at what I’m wearing. How sick is this outfit? I was modeling my slicked-back hair, my oversized sweat suit, strutting a walk, a little spin. Tiffany was still teary-eyed, her breathing uneven, hiccuping her laughs.

  We sat in the car, stared at a chain-link fence, she was waiting for me to tell her where to go. She was still visibly shaken. I wasn’t thinking about who he was, or how I felt, or where the photographs would end up. All my thoughts wrapped around her, my baby sister, for whom I’m supposed to have the answers.

  Holding it together for her was what I’d been trained for. One time she became ill on a plane, lurching forward, and I held out my hands to catch her vomit before it could hit her lap. When my grandma crumbled blue cheese over our salads, Tiffany pinched her nose, and I’d wait for my grandma to turn around before shoveling her cheesy leaves into my mouth. After we watched E.T. she slept in my bed every night for the next seven years, terrified of that dehydrated alien and his wrinkly finger. When people kissed in movies I held a pillow in front of her face, Inappropriate, you’re too young. I wrote and redrafted persuasive essays that convinced my parents to get us Nokia cell phones. At every class party, I’d wrap half of my donut or snickerdoodle in a napkin so I could deliver it to her at recess. When I loved horses, I tied her to a chair with a dog leash, called her Trinity, put a bath mat on her back like a saddle, brushed her hair, and made her eat Cheerios out of my hand. I still remember when my parents found her in her “stable.” If you want to play, you have to be the horse, my parents said. You sacrifice for her, you protect her from aliens, you eat the blue cheese. I understood that was the first and most important job I had.

  But I was not ready to go home to my parents. I needed time to think. Tiffany and I were old enough to have the freedom to come and go; not coming home meant we’d stayed at a friend’s house, no reason to worry, our neighborhood safe. I understood I couldn’t tell them I woke up in a hospital, covered in vegetation, because someone was acting hinky, and have them accept that information. But it’s okay, I would say. It’s not okay, they would say. My dad would say who and where and why and how. My mom would make me lie in bed and drink a heated concoction with ginger. When you tell your parents, there is fuss. I did not want fuss. I wanted everything to go away.

  I was convinced the police would tell me a man tried to do something but did not succeed, we apologize for the inconvenience. In fact, I was so sure that this was all an error, that when my sister asked if I was going to tell our parents, I said, Maybe in a few years. I imagined one day dropping it casually into a conversation at dinner. Did you know one time I was almost assaulted? They’d say, Oh, I’m so sorry, I never knew that happened to you. Why didn’t you tell us? I’d say, Well, it was a long time ago, it turned out to be nothing really, and I’d wave my hand and ask them to pass the string beans.

  Sitting in that parking lot, the only place I could think to go was In-N-Out. It was ten in the morning, early for burgers, but In-N-Out was different. We’d treated the white-tiled interior like a church growing up. It was where we gravitated when one of us was upset or celebrating or heartbroken. All that salt and sauce always made me feel better. But by the time we arrived, I felt embarrassed in my clothes and requested that we do drive-through. We ordered o
ur burgers and pulled over to eat. I took one bite but didn’t taste the sauce. I slipped the burger under its wrapper and set it down by my feet. I had killed enough time. By now we knew the house would be empty, Dad out running errands, Mom with friends, off on their regular Sunday routines.

  My dad is a retired therapist, who had worked six days a week, twelve hours a day, listening to people. All the money that has housed and fed us comes from guiding people through stories we will never hear. My mom is a writer who has authored four books in Chinese, which means her books are ones I cannot yet read. As open as my parents are, much of their lives are unknowable to me.

  After two decades of private practice, my dad said he has heard every scenario you could imagine. Having grown up during the Cultural Revolution in rural China, my mom has seen every atrocity you could see. They both understand that life is large and messy, that nothing is black and white, there is no such thing as a linear trajectory, and at the end of the day it is a miracle just to wake up in the morning. They were married at the only Chinese cultural center in Kentucky, an attractive, unlikely pairing.

  None of our furniture matches. Our towels are not plush and white, but worn, featuring Scooby-Doo. When we have guests over for dinner parties, Tiffany and I hide all the books and deflated basketballs and lotion samples until everything is spotless. We aim to emulate the polished sheen of our friends’ houses. But afterward, it’s as if the house can unbutton its pants, release its gut, all of our items pouring out again.

  My home is a place where everything grows and all spills are forgiven, where anyone is welcome at any time of day. My family is four planets orbiting in the same small universe. If we had a slogan it’d be, Feel free to do your own thing. Home is unconventional. Home is warmth. Home is closeness while maintaining independence. Home is where darkness could not get in. I was determined not to let it.

  As we pulled into the driveway, my sister’s phone rang with a call from the detective. She passed it over. Would you like to press charges? he said. What does that mean? I asked. He said he wouldn’t be able to tell me much about the process, that it was more in the district attorney’s department. He said that the department was already legally inclined to press charges, but it was up to me whether I wanted to participate. He said it would make things easier for them if I did, but that I did not have to. I asked if I could have a minute to decide, that I would call him back.

  I hung up and turned to my sister. I had nobody to ask, and Tiffany had no idea. Should I? Yeah, right? Maybe I shouldn’t. But they are anyway, so I might as well, I mean, what is? How can? I sat and looked around, stumped. I’m probably supposed to, right? If they are. At the time I figured it was equivalent to signing a petition, a little stamp of affirmation, saying I endorsed the police’s decision to pursue this case. I was afraid that if I said no, it would mean I was on the stranger’s side. Court hadn’t even crossed my mind, was nothing more than an obscure, dramatic showdown that happened on television. Plus, the guy was already in jail. If it turned out he did nothing, he’d be let go, otherwise he’d stay and serve time. They had all the evidence needed to make the conviction. This was just a formality. I called him back. Uh, yes. Yes, I will. Thanks.

  I didn’t know that money could make the cell doors swing open. I didn’t know that if a woman was drunk when the violence occurred, she wouldn’t be taken seriously. I didn’t know that if he was drunk when the violence occurred, people would offer him sympathy. I didn’t know that my loss of memory would become his opportunity. I didn’t know that being a victim was synonymous with not being believed.

  Sitting in the driveway, I didn’t know this little yes would reopen my body, would rub the cuts raw, would pry my legs open for the public. I had no idea what a preliminary hearing was or what a trial actually meant, no idea my sister and I would be instructed to stop speaking to each other because the defense would accuse us of conspiring. My three-letter word that morning unlocked a future, one in which I would become twenty-three and twenty-four and twenty-five and twenty-six before the case would be closed.

  * * *

  • • •

  I walked down the hall to my room, told my sister I’d be out soon. I locked the door and took another shower, washing the hospital off me. She set up the pullout couch in the living room, turned on the TV. I laid down next to her. As I did, her arm rested on me like a paperweight, as if she was worried I’d blow away. The TV droned on, the afternoon sun dissolving through the living-room windows, our parents walked up and down the hall, as we drifted in and out of sleep. We’d gone to the party together and we’d been separated, and now we were together again, but not the same.

  When night fell, we emerged, told our parents we were going to get ice cream. I regret this, because when I get ice cream now, my mom eyes me, and I have to say, I promise, real ice cream.

  First we picked up Julia, who was studying in the library on campus. She and Tiffany had been friends since their little teeth had been notched up with braces. Julia was always lively, but when I pulled up, she looked shaken.

  As I looked at the two of them in my car, it weighed on me that my secrecy had become theirs. I understood this was not how we were supposed to be handling things. If Tiffany was ever in a hospital, I would want my parents to know. But I was in a strange position. When asked, Why didn’t you tell your parents? I ask, Why didn’t anyone tell me? I needed to keep the story in my control until I knew more.

  The parking lot was quiet, dark. I’d passed this building many times before. It was small, surrounded by a moat of tanbark and stocky shrubs, moths ricocheting off the outdoor lights, lines of white illuminated thread. The door buzzed and we were let into dingy halls covered in corkboard bulletins and fliers. Detective Kim was not there. Instead I was introduced to a deputy wearing a windbreaker; she had olive skin, and thin black hair nearly down to her waist. I followed her into a small room, where a notepad and audio recorder sat on the table, while Tiffany and Julia waited in a room down the hall. I thought she’d tell me what happened with the man, hand me my phone, and wish me well. But the door was closed, blinds pulled down. The questions began again, asking me to recall every trifling detail from the previous night, even more precise this time. The transcript of our conversation would come out to seventy-nine pages. It felt tedious and redundant and I could not understand the significance of what I was saying or how it would come into play.

  A knock, another deputy, tall in an acorn-colored uniform, thick mustache, black belt full of black shapes. He looked stern and weary, said he was glad to see that I was okay. The way he said it made it sound like a miracle, like I had died and come to life. He told me that one of the guys who had found me had paused while speaking to cry and catch his breath. The sergeant said he almost choked up too. Grown men are crying, I thought. What the hell happened.

  The female deputy pulled my phone out of a large envelope. The blue case was covered in dirt, a crisp, brown border caked along the edges, as if my phone had been buried and then unearthed. I had dozens of missed calls and texts from Tiffany and Julia, Where are you, I’m scared. The deputy asked me to email her all the photos I’d taken that night. There was one of me holding a red cup, eyes deliberately crossed. Why couldn’t I have smiled normally, just this once. I sent her photos and screenshots of everything, unaware they’d all be filed as evidence. She gave me the opportunity to ask questions. According to transcripts I said, Um, they said that something had happened to me. I didn’t really understand what that meant. I still real—, don’t really understand what it means.

  She said she hadn’t been fully briefed yet. She said I’d been found by two Stanford students, said no more. So I asked her why the man ran. She told me because something didn’t look right. I was trying to get closer to the crime scene, edging toward the commotion of parked police cars and yellow tape. But every time I stepped closer, she stepped in front of me. When I stepped to my right, she sidestepped. I
craned my neck to try to see what they were hiding, but it was no use, the area off-limits. I was to remain behind some unspoken line.

  Here’s what I did understand. The rooms I walked into, the air changed. People’s expressions darkened, they used indoor voices. They approached me with hesitancy, like an animal they didn’t want to spook. They scanned my face for something, and I’d look blankly back in return. And all of them said they were impressed to see how well I was doing. She said, I have to say, you are very calm, you’ve very . . . Are you usually that way? I nodded, said that when my younger sister was present, I downplayed my emotions. Still they seemed perplexed by my composure; it seemed, given the circumstances, I should be reacting some other way entirely, and this unnerved me.

  I explained that I hadn’t told my parents. That’s understandable, she said. You know, you’re trying, I think you’re trying to save your parents emotionally . . . until you can . . . kinda get a better grip of what happened and occurred. She was very kind, validating my feelings, but she redirected all my questions.

  Before the interview ended I made two things clear:

  No one was to contact my parents until I understood what happened.

  I never wanted to see or be in contact with whoever this man was again.

  I was led into a waiting room with dusty trophies while Tiffany went in for her interview. The deputy typed up the following notes:

  One of the other guys was a quiet guy, who did not speak. Colleen and Tiffany thought he was weird because he was aggressive. Tiffany described him to be about 5’11 to 6’0 tall. He had blond curly hair, and blue eyes. He appeared clean shaven. He wore a baseball cap backwards. He had on pants, not shorts. She could not remember what kind of shirt he wore. She thought he looked like one of her friends from college. The aggressive guy was giving out beers. And one point, he came up to Tiffany and started making out on her cheek. Then he went in for her lips. She laughed in shock. Colleen, and Julia saw it happen, and also laughed. The guy left. Then a short time later, while Tiffany was talking face to face to Colleen, the aggressive guy came back. He stepped between her and Colleen, and tried to make out with Tiffany again. He grabbed her from in front, at her lower waist, and kissed her on the lips. She told him she had to go, and wiggled out from his hold.