After Shock // (Veronica, Lamb, Keith) NC-17
My toes reach just past the ends of my shoes- which I slipped into after planting my foot on a patch of sun-baked asphalt -and get a taste of white concrete stairs. I jack my chin up and look at a building that used to be a symbol of comfort for me. It was the place I went when I needed reassurance that there was justice in the world. Where I’d find my Dad working hard to catch even the pettiest of criminals.
Now, it’s a menacing beast. Staring down at me with all the sympathy of a grizzly bear. Daring me to walk up the stairs and embrace what I am right now. Make it official.
I’m a victim. A victim who’s going to the authorities for help.
There’s a little girl trembling inside me, and the wiser portions of my persona crouch down to rub her back. Assure her that everything’s going to be okay. That once they collect the evidence, run the DNA samples, interview witnesses, and get warrants, I won’t be the only one whose life was ruined last night.
He’ll spend time behind bars.
When the story eventually gets out- it always does -I might have to go through the rest of my life with the word ‘rape victim’ hanging over my head.
But him?
He gets an even better title.
Rapist.
Might as well walk around wearing handcuffs and having his mug shots taped to his shirt for the next forty years.
I keep that in mind as I walk up the staircase. Knowing that he’s going to pay for this gives me the strength I need to fight against the lead bricks slung around my ankles, trying to hold me back.
Inga is the first one to see me when I navigate past the front foyer and saunter up to the receptionist’s desk. “Veronica? Little Veronica, what happened?” she asks after a two-second perusal from a distance of about fifteen feet. I must look as bad as I feel.
This is the first time I’ll speak since waking up this morning. For a second I wonder if my voice will even sound the same. Strength is sucked from every muscle in my body and shunted to my vocal cords. “I need to report a crime.” The words shiver as they’re forced into the atmosphere. My statement wasn’t that of an angry lioness who’s ready to exact justice on the poachers that just killed her cubs. It’s more like an infant rabbit sticking her nose out of her burrow for the first time. Afraid of the world and everything that’s in it.
The woman who was like an old aunt to me for so many years leads me into the Sheriff’s office. Lamb is inside, and he looks up when the door opens. Sees me, takes in this most recent moving photo of Veronica Mars, and smirks.
“Can I get you anything Veronica?” Inga asks me, her accent playing with the consonants in my name. “Water? Some coffee?”
“No thank you, Inga. I’m all right,” I tell her, though I’m not really sure if my answer is accurate. I touch the hand she rests on my shoulder in appreciation of the gesture, but I’m just as glad when it disappears. Human contact isn’t something I’m aching for at the moment.
“So, what’s up Veronica?” Lamb asks once she’s left the room, copying the way she shaped my name. Only with a sardonic twinge to it. He leans forward in his chair, clasping his hands in front of him.
There’s something I already don’t like about his body language. Like he’s getting ready to play a game rather than hear a victim’s statement.
Can’t he see that there’s something wrong with me?
I don’t have any choice but to speak to him though. Even if I made my report to some other deputy, it would eventually end up here. Might as well go straight to the top rung of the command ladder.
I take a few deep breaths before starting. To regulate the dizziness that’s overtaken me even though I’m sitting down. To calm the nerves that are vibrating in every cubic inch of my body, like the cables of a suspension bridge caught in a hurricane. I try to make myself look him in the eye a couple of times, but each attempt ends in failure. I can’t. Not yet. I don’t know whether it’s because it’s Lamb, or because he happens to possess a Y chromosome, but my vision trembles when it meets his. So I stare at the base of the lamp on his desk. The one whose gaze is aimed suspiciously toward my soul.
“Last night, I went to a party at Shelly Pomeroy’s house. Got there around nine.” I’m not sure if he needs to know when I got there, but my Dad always used to say that witnesses never gave enough detail. Often, something they didn’t think was worth mentioning ended up being the one thing that broke the case days, weeks, or months later. “I wasn’t there long, and someone handed me a rum and coke. Except, it wasn’t just a rum and coke. I think it was spiked with a drug, like a roofie or something.”
I look up to make sure he’s listening, and am struck by his stare. That’s what it is. A stare. Like maybe he’s listening, or maybe he’s not. Maybe he cares, maybe he doesn’t. After a short pause to regroup, my eyes flicker back down to the lamp, and I continue. “Anyway, after that I don’t remember much. I passed out on a patio chair at some point. But this morning…”
My mouth wants to stop moving at this point, and my brain is almost happy to oblige. But the angry, violated woman inside of me forces me to continue. She forces me to keep talking, not caring what words come out. Not caring if they make sense individually or as a group, only that they get the point across. Enough that Lamb can jump out of his chair and hunt down the bastard that did this to her. To me. “This morning I woke up in a bed. I was alone, but… I could tell that last night… Someone had… Someone…”
Someone had what? Had sex with me? Raped me? Which of those two should I choose? Which one will elicit the right reaction from him? Which one will be the easiest for me to say?
“I get it,” Lamb says. Apparently he wants to hear it about as much as I want to say it.
“Yeah…” I mutter weakly, looking around the cubbyhole we’re sitting in.
“Okay. Let me just go over this again. Fill in some of the blanks,” he says. There’s a hint of condescension in the way he speaks, as if he’s addressing a four-year-old who’s telling him about the monsters under her bed. Looking for ways to make her understand that what she’s saying is absurd. Can’t possibly be real.
“You show up at a party where everyone is no doubt ecstatic to see you. Someone hands you a drink that you know has alcohol in it, which you willfully consume. We good so far?”
As far as the details go? Yes. Where his attitude is concerned though? I’m not so sure. But I nod anyway.
“All right, and, after that, by your own admission, you have no idea what happens. Ten hours just… slip by.” He flicks his hand in demonstration. “All you know is, at some point you had sex with someone.”
Hearing it aloud makes bile bubble up in my throat. My stomach clenches. I haven’t eaten anything in… probably more than fourteen hours, but I feel nauseous.
“What you don’t know though, is whether or not it was consensual.” There’s a triumphant curve in his lips that makes me think the acid eating away at my esophagus might actually go airborne.
He’s actually smiling.
I can’t think of a single moment during the reporting of a rape that it would be appropriate to smile in the vicinity of the victim. Even when assuring her that the offender would be caught and his testicles effectively removed, a cop should wear a frown of determination. A sturdy expression that says he’s going to catch the two-legged beast and make him pay. But he won’t find a single moment of joy in his life until that happens, because he knows she won’t either.
Lamb sits back in his chair, and the arch of his mouth still doesn’t flatten out. Sunlight ricochets off his nametag, drawing my gaze toward the letters inscribed on it. LAMB. That’s when I realize how erroneous a label it is for this man. He isn’t a lamb. He isn’t a cute, harmless, newborn creature covered in puffs of cotton. He’s a rattlesnake. A compassionless reptile that hides in the bushes and waits for his moment to strike. When his target is most vulnerable. Or maybe he’s a hyena. An animal that will attack anyone and anything. Dead or alive. Weak or strong.
“See, what it sounds like to me is… You went to this party, had a few too many, and jumped into bed with the first guy that offered.” He fixes me with a gaze that says he expects he’s right. That it’s only a matter of time before I agree. “Then, this morning you wake up to find out that, uh oh! Maybe you made a mistake. So you come down here looking to humiliate the guy that was looking for his pants and sprinting for the exit when you woke up instead of snuggling up next to you.” He smirks again. “When really, all you had to do in the first place was say ‘no’. Either to him, or the last few shots you knocked back before the fun started.”
There is so much wrong with what he’s saying, I have trouble finding a starting point as far as contradicting him. So I just fix on the last thing he says. “But I only had-”
“Only had one drink.” Lamb finishes my sentence for me, already knowing what was coming. “Well, I guess that means you’re just a bit more of a lightweight than your dear Mommy. Maybe you two should get together. Have a little seminar on how to better hold your liquor so something like this doesn’t happen a second time,” he suggests. “Then again, I guess you’d have to find her first.”
This time, when he finishes, his chest vibrates as laughter sputters through his grin. Like it’s a joke that’s been told a thousand times around the station, but only now has he found his ideal audience. The daughter of the subject he’s roasting.
At that moment, I’m not sure whether I want to curl up into the fetal position and implode on myself, or vault across the desk and tackle him to the ground. Grab the letter opener off his desk mid-flight and hold it up against his throat. Maybe then he’d stop laughing.
I do neither though. I continue to just sit there, waiting for him to finish. Waiting for the moment where maybe the minute shred of humanity he possesses remembers that he’s sitting across from a sixteen-year-old girl who’s just been raped, and is looking for a little retribution.
“Tell me Veronica.” When he leans forward, he looks serious. He clasps his hands in front of him and for a split second, I think that maybe he’s ready to do some actual policing. But then that stupid mouth of his opens and the hope drains out of me again. “Is there anyone in particular you want me to arrest, or should I just round up the sons of the most important families in town?”
My eyebrows knit a little closer together. Like perhaps my ears are playing a trick on me. With the right tone, his words could maybe be those of a Sheriff who intends to do something. Who will either go right after the man I name as the culprit, or hunt down every guy in my age group until he finds the one.
But the way Lamb says it, that’s not what he means. Yet again, he’s mocking me. As if I’m being unreasonable. As if my suggestion that he do something about my being raped is somehow an alien concept to a man in his occupation.
“I’ve got not a shred of evidence to work with here, but that doesn’t really matter to your family, now does it?”
That’s when the first tears start tumbling down my cheeks. When I let the hurt and anguish that he’s evoking in me twist my features into the appropriate shapes.
For the first time, I really do feel helpless. I feel… I feel like a victim. It’s like being raped for a second time, only now I’m conscious for it. He’s forcing me to relive the reality of what happened to me, and he’s making it worse. Lamb is attacking me in his own special way. Making me out to be the dirty one. The aberrant one. Like I’m the criminal in this whole freak show.
He’s really not going to do anything about this. And he’s enjoying it.
“Hmm, look at this. She cries,” Lamb’s voice drills through the haze of disgusted horror that’s clouding everything in my mind. He leans back in his chair again, his pose casual. Like he could just as easily be talking to one of his buddies about last Sunday’s baseball game. He looks satisfied with himself. Pleased with everything he’s just said and done.
“I’ll tell you what, Veronica Mars. Why don’t you go see the Wizard? Ask for a little backbone.” Yet again he slaps me in the face with his ‘drunken mistake’ theory. Blaming me. Blaming the victim. Talking to me as if none of this even matters. Like I came in here asking him to find my lost Oompa Loompah instead of the guy who raped me.
I swallow down whatever retort my subconscious has been concocting as it observed this little play. There’s nothing I could say right now that would get him to start moving. To start doing something. Lamb has clearly made up his mind about me.
My situation… my being raped… isn’t even important enough for him to scribble down a note or two. Even make a phone call.
It’s something he decided needed to be laughed at. Like some sick comedy sketch.
By the time I get up and leave, I’m numb. In my body, my mind, and my soul. I mutter a salutation to Inga and stumble out the front door. My only focus now, the only thing I have the strength to process, is getting home.
|#|+---+---+---+---+|#|
For the first time since we moved, I’m happy when I walk through the front door to find myself in the dollhouse where we now live. Walls that once coiled around me like a python, tight and suffocating, are now the arms of a dear friend. Scooping me up in a warm and gentle embrace. Being able to see every square inch of the main living area is a comfort to me. Assurance that no one’s hiding around a corner or behind a door. Waiting to attack me for the second- no, third time that day.
Yesterday this place was a prison cell. Today it’s my sanctuary. My bunker. The only place in the world where I feel safe.
“Dad?” I call out, my voice creaking like the floorboards in a turn-of-the-century home. “…Dad?”
I don’t expect him to be here. Dad’s weeks are eight days long now, and he works every one of them. Doesn’t have a choice if he wants to pay the rent and buy food for us. Still, there’s a chance that he might’ve come home for lunch. Maybe ran home to grab a case file or take Backup out for a walk between appointments with clients.
No answer comes though. Except for the soft clicking of toenails as a sandy brown blob wanders out of my bedroom.
“Hi pal.” For some reason, the sight of him threatens to bring a powerful tide of tears with it. I gulp down a sob.
A pink ribbon curls through my fingers as Backup gives them a loving lick. My body is rattled by the impulse to collapse on the floor. I can’t though. If I fall down now I might never get up. My father will trip over me when he walks through the door as Backup whimpers to be released from the wrestling hold I’ve got him trapped in.
If that happens, I’ll never get out of this dress.
And I need… I need to get out of it.
With movements that are as coordinated as those of a drunken zombie, I direct myself toward the bathroom. Backup follows behind me and I scratch the crown of his head. He flops down in my father’s bedroom doorway when he sees me turn left, knowing the bathroom can’t accommodate us both.
I lock the door. Then wonder when the next time will be that I don’t choose to lock a door behind me if the option is there.
Peeling the dress off my tiny frame, I expect to feel dread… embarrassment… shame… or some other awful, unidentifiable emotion at being naked. Exposed.
Instead I feel relief. Freedom. Glad to be released from that cotton prison. Until now, it felt like he was still on me in some way. Like he had his hand closed around my whole body. Squeezing. Not enough to exert any pain… but with just enough pressure to let me know that he was still there. Still with me.
I kick the crumpled up heap of trash into the far corner of the bathroom. Discard my hair-band. Yank the choker off my neck. No way will I ever wear any of these things again.
The only thing I take care of is Lilly’s necklace. I hang it around the doorknob, away from the drains and wastebasket. It’ll have to be cleaned before I can wear it again. Maybe twice.
Tiny, watery fists massage me for the next forty minutes. Unlike what I always see in movies and on TV, the temperature of my shower isn’t set to ‘scalding’. I don’t want to hurt myself more than he already has. I just want to erase him. Wash him away.
Every droplet of water goes to work on accomplishing just that. Digging into my pores. Wringing out every strand of hair. Sliding down my limbs and running a nice, big squeegee down my back.
Not every moment of my shower is a pleasant one though. Cleaning out my most private parts is as distressful as it is alleviating. Once or twice my fingers slide over certain nerve bundles, and bolts of pleasure- pleasure -slice through my brain.
I despise my body in those instances. For not knowing why I’m touching myself right then. For being completely oblivious to the fact that the last thing I want to feel is anything resembling sexual excitement. I want to be immune to it. To be able to just scrub myself clean without my body parts exercising ideas of their own.
So although it was my intention to be gentle in this area, to treat myself with a tenderness I’m sure wasn’t shown to me last night, I don’t have a choice. I have to be rough. Clinical. Uncaring. Like a drill sergeant waking his cadets up in the morning. Get in, do what I have to do, and get back out again.
Overall though, when I’m finished I feel… better. Marginally, but right now that’s enough for me.
I feel lighter, and not just because I’ve washed away one or two layers of skin. It’s because I sent him packing along with them. I watched him sink down the drain. Into the sewers, where he’d be forced to mingle with the likes of vomit, moldy tomato sauce, and whatever else people flushed down the toilet these days.
Snuggling into my housecoat after attacking my now almost-dry hair with a towel, I open the door to find Backup still lounging in the hall. For a vicious attack dog, he has really mastered the art of laziness.
Quiet, careful footsteps carry me into my bedroom. Like a robot working on autopilot, every movement directed by someone with a remote control, I sit down on my bed. Mechanically. Bending at the knees and flexing only a few degrees at my hips. My hands press into the mattress.
I wish so badly that this is where I’d woken up this morning. Alone. Undamaged.
Lying back, I pivot and roll onto my side so that I’m facing the wall. Knees bent, arms curled under my head even though a pillow is just inches away, I lie there. Still. Silent. Wondering if I even exist anymore.
I can’t stop the thoughts when they come.
Like the vicious, creeping flood of an oil spill, they ooze through my brain. Dripping into every fissure, coating every fold. Contaminating every blood vessel until my neurons have nothing to feed upon except their own misery.
Images of joy- sunshine, puppy dogs, rainbows, daisies… all of them are foreign concepts to me during these moments. All I can envision is the awful, yawning eternity of outer space. The snarling, angry maw of a rabid dog. A sky torn apart by thunder and lightning. A whole meadow wilted by drought and pollution.
Besides that, the only thing I think about is the details of my rape.
My rape. It hurts, but I force myself to repeat it. To make it real for the parts of my mind that are still hiding behind their walls of denial.
Halfway through asking myself the same string of questions…
Who?
When?
…Why?
I begin to wonder if I was wrong about my whole ‘ignorance is bliss’ theory. If my drug-induced mind-wipe isn’t something I should feel lucky about. For the very reason that… I don’t know what happened to me last night.
Who did this to me? Am I the only victim?
Was it just one guy, or…
Did anyone else see it happen? Did they try to stop it?
Did I fight back, or… was I… oh, God… was I into it?
These are questions that I’ll never have answers to. For the rest of my life I’ll be tortured by them. I’ll have to wonder. And just keep wondering…
[ Follow me to the Conclusion of After Shock ]