The day before New Years Eve I went into the City. Finally, I thought.
At the first bus loop, it began. My day as an endless tirade of strange men latching onto me, telling me that “we have something special” and lashing me with race hatred. I don’t think that strangers talk here. I don’t think that my race is generally welcome in certain parts of town. People are surprised when I am friendly. Innocence and ignorance my shield and banner. Teach me so that I know to cry.
He was leaning on a pillar five feet away from where I sat. He asked the time and followed his question to me with his feet. An older man, frizzy hair going salt and pepper, he seemed nice, though I didn’t feel like talking. The book I was reading, he asked, what is it? We discussed authors as we stepped onto the bus and I broke conversation as I found a seat at the back. Ten blocks passed, another ten, then he stood up, he came to the back. He sat facing me, swaying sideways, staring at me from wide dark eyes. “Dumb white bitch, you think you know everything because you can read. Fucking ho, that’s what you are. What do you cost, fucking whore?”
Passengers around me ignored him, looking outside the window to the gray stained concrete. My eyes were on my book, I did not need to watch more decaying city swish past. I’d been on the busses for hours. He continued until I eventually looked up, realizing the target of his vitriol was myself. I was the only white girl. The people who ride the bus here are the old and the poor. Working class to those more wealthy, who made the grade. The racial split disturbs me in that it’s so apparent. Those with money do not ride the bus. Those with money are white. I wonder what this place was like in it’s golden years, the rock god era of the seventies when to strut down the street was allowed.
The streaming invective grew more hateful, more cutting. He began to gesture once he saw he had my attention. Hands slicing through the air with vengeance against my skin colour, my sex. “Filthy whores, always the same. Slumming little fucking girls. What do you think you’re doing here rich bitch? Going to find yourself some black cock? Just like every other fucking white slut.” He’s escalated to yelling as I got up and he caught at my arm. A moment of something serious, boundry crossed. I was intending to sit at the front, away from him. To give him credit, I think he realized he made a mistake. He stopped yelling and our eyes met. To give him credit, I think he realized he deserved it when I twisted his arm back on him. “Don’t touch people without asking, and don’t shout at them for something they have no part of.”
Instead of continuing to the front, I sat back down in my seat and didn’t look at him again. He offered me money, I think as an apology, but didn’t say anything more and I think he got off soon after, cradling his arm a little. I sincerely hoped he hurt the next day. An older woman, spanish, reached over and patted my hand. I didn’t know what she said to me so another passenger translated for her in broken english. “That was good of you” she said. I wanted to make a confession, I wanted to tell her that I didn’t know how to hate him, but I wanted to, but I didn’t think she would understand.
I had to make change at the train station so I went into a supermarket and was overwhelmed by women in desperate make-up and heavy walls of generic brand diet soda. It was full of bad light and busy with people, though the staff were kind, even through the quick weapon check. Back at the platform I was pressed by a man wearing a suit and tie to take a religious pamphlet. Aware or Awake, I couldn’t see the full name. My plan was to find The Getty with maybe a stop by Necromance. He asked if he could take me there and I agreed. Company when traveling a strange transit system is a plus. I wasn’t aware he had a car.
At first driving with “Ricky” wasn’t much of a worry. Getting into a strangers car sounds more dangerous than I find it to be. I tend to meet people who by and large don’t mean anyone harm. My world is attributed far more ill than it tends to apply. I think I could get away with murder sometimes. I know in the car I wanted to. The first time I’ve ever had a problem. We found the Getty on the map and arrived twenty minutes from the station, traffic on the 405 being notably absent going north. It was closed, just closed, apparently on holiday hours. He was a little upset, but nothing serious. He decided we had to do it another day, stressing how he’s never spontaneous, how he needs to do such things more often. He’s an electrical inspector, likely gets to the church on time every week. The killer question, the pegger of ‘I can see you are thinking oddly’, “why did you get into the car with me?” happened earlier. I asked if I could be dropped off at the subway, any station. I would find my way to Santa Monica from there.
It fell dark as he drove past the exits and I began to be concerned. I reminded him about his mother, how he had drop me off and visit her. Instead he talked about the politics of Los Angeles, how everyone buys into image more than substance, how single mothers are to blame for bad parenting. He was angry underneath the mild exterior. Bitter and hateful under the nice quiet boy. He continued to drive, paying no attention to my need to leave. I began to want to get out very badly. The traffic slowed to a crawl closer to downtown and I almost got out and legged it across the freeway. There was a police car nine cars forward and I wanted to fall into their arms. He almost reached out his hand to rest on my leg. If he had, I would have been out of that car like a shot, traffic or no. He didn’t see that I took my seatbelt off, but I made sure he was aware of the cell phone in my hands.
I called Alastair at seven o’clock, trying to stress that there was something wrong without being obvious. We’ve since decided that I need a safe word, like I had when I was younger when people would try to steal me from my parents. (One person was kind enough to offer them a suitcase of money first, but most weren’t so polite. As an aside, that sort of behaviour is part of why I despise the word “cute”). We’ve established that “Hey, I’m in someone’s car and I don’t know where I am.” is not a red flag statement. It’s too patently the sort of thing that might occur to me on a regular basis. This, to me, says something about me, but I haven’t figured out quite what or if it’s good or not.
Calling and setting out a certain plan of action, “Meet me at the pier,” helped jell the situation. Ricky seemed to snap back into awareness of the strangers dance and out of the role of the passive predator. I’ve watched it happen before. People pacified with an uninteresting life suddenly wash with realizations when they’re disrupted. Too much television and they think of opportunities. They think of bodies found in rivers and what happens to girls who suddenly vanish off the side of the highway. You can hear the word rape as if it was clearly said aloud.
I was troubled when he drove past the stations, but relaxed into my usual wariness as we turned around toward Santa Monica. An end to the situation was at hand. I had to twist polite language to the breaking point to restrain him from following me as I stepped from the car. I had to refuse money. He caught me into a hug and called out, “Call me sometime! This is special, Jhayne! I can feel it!” while I quickly walked away. I darted into a shopping mall as soon as I could and wove through a department store, making certain that I wasn’t pursued. I felt somehow hollow, realizing that I’m unused to being under attack for so many hours. One letting into the other, it was more than I’m used to.
I stayed in the mall, it being chilly outside, with two hours to wait. I sat in the food court, hoping to write more to my letter, but was interrupted by another black man, this one asking if I was writing a diary. I told him no, and he said it was a pity as it’s always nice to see the younger folk writing. He introduced himself as Abraham and it came up that I’m Canadian. He used to be a schoolteacher, but retired years ago. I don’t know what he does now, he seemed friendly but addled. We began drawing silly maps in my notebook, trying to place where America the man came from. I think we decided Greece, but we got distracted by trying to name all the States in the U.S.A. When I said I had to leave he became nasty. Accusing me of prostitution and sounding remarkably like the man on my earlier bus-ride. “You’re just a rich white bitch, riding though life on whoring.”
Abraham walked me to the pier, insisting on walking on the outside of the skinny sidewalk, telling me about how he saw someone get hit last summer. He apologized and smoked too many cigarettes, leaving me only when I’d been transferred over to Alastair. He called after us, trying to give me money for ice-cream.
I obviously don’t understand some of the people here, but I’m sensing a theme. Not in all my time in Canada has my skin colour been pointed out as anything but poor protection from the sun. I don’t like how my age was brought up as much as the fact that I’m female either. If anyone asks if I have a boyfriend, I should run far, far away. They will disturb me, ask me personal questions about marriage, spray me with racism, and then offer me money because I am obviously a white girl who needs protection from her innocent self. They are to be avoided at all cost.
I got sick that night. Hot fever which wracked me with chattering teeth and chills. Wrecked and ruined from a day of attack, I was hot like everything was carved from ice, cold to the touch. My skin hurt except once, my hands on a hallucinatory cat, large and black with green gold eyes. He purred for me. Blinked twice. Once I woke with a cracked throat, skin peeling from the inside like sun bleached wood, lying on a slick crimson bed, blood everywhere. It was dark and the sheets were throbbing skinned flesh. I could feel the heat of my body scorching the air, I could see etched clouds of burn. The silence killing me in a pool of black blazing liquid.
Death walked, pressure in my blood pouring from me in heat. Incalescence with no escape. Mirrors would burn before me, the silver crackling and the glass melting into charred amber blobs at the base of the bathroom counter.
The fever broke by mid-morning.