BECOMING A STATISTIC

Kelli Jae Baeli

What a horrible way to feel. So alone, so isolated, so totally helpless. Me against the world. And the world was suddenly big and mean.
   By the time I realized the danger, it was too late. I was the proverbial sitting duck. It must have seemed the perfect crime to them; A deserted road, a stranded young woman, and the cover of darkness to top it all off.
   A survey of my surroundings stilled my footsteps. A blanket of darkness had settled over the long, blacktop, devoid of nightlamps. I studied the pavement behind me, stretching out of sight like a black snake. Ahead of me was the same. What's wrong with me? A girl had just been killed under the same circumstances only days before- and wasn't it on this road that it happened?
   I had this awful, clenching feeling in my gut. This was bad. Something was wrong. I spun on my heel to go back to the ballfield. Back to at least a place where there were lights, other people, safety in numbers. I would get a ride from one of my classmates after the game.
   My eyes were caught by the double beam of headlights. My stomach pulled into a knot, and I felt the adrenaline rush to my heart, like some electrical appliance had just been plugged into my chest. It's nothing. Just a car. Don't panic. Could be anyone. . .the local mailman, the pastor from the church, the freakin' Good Humor Man.
   The car was approaching too fast for me to decide between the weak alternatives. I had trouble deciding between paper and plastic at the grocery store. This was not going to happen in the nanosecond I had available to me. Still, I scanned my surroundings again, looking for a means of escape until the vehicle passed. I searched the brush along the roadside, but my attention was brought back abruptly by the high-beams which clicked up into my eyes, blinding me. I imagined my pupils shrinking to tiny dots, just like my options. Aware of my heartbeat pulsing at every part of my body, I was one giant heart muscle. Turning my back on the glare, I made a snap decision the hysteria of the moment, to walk deliberately as if I had a place to go and knew exactly how to get there. They've already seen you, idiot. They know you don't have a place to go, and you don't know how to get there. . .My mind whirled stupidly with what I would say if they stopped to ask me what I was doing out here all alone, and I knew that the usual answer, "I'm waiting for my linebacker-for-the-Rams-boyfriend to pick me up, he'll be along any minute now" would not do.
   I watched the oval shards of light from the corner of my eye as they moved closer and became larger upon the blacktop. I could measure almost exactly where the car was by the position of the beams on the roadway, and noticed they were veering toward my side of the road. Was it possible it was one of my friends from school? They were going to offer me a ride, and then all this brain-chatter and paranoid meanderings would be silly.
   Before I could stop my brain from offering a hundred different "if's", I felt a sharp blow to my neck. I was thrown to the ground with the force of it. I touched my head, waited for it to clear, and peered up from the gravel and dirt. Something flapped onto the outside door of the car. . .a sleeved arm. . .he was pounding the outside of the car with his hand. Someone had actually knocked me down, like the limb of a tree would dismount a horseback rider in one of those comedy westerns. Except this wasn't funny.
   I pulled myself to my feet and brushed the dirt from my jeans, dusting methodically at the particles of gravel embedded in the palms of my hands. The car tires screeched and the brake lights flashed as they moved back toward me. My heart leaped in my chest, and amid my helplessness came paralysis. I could not make my feet move. I just stood there waiting like a confused child. This was bad. This was bad. The car was beside me and two hands reached out from inside the window, and grabbed my shirt at the lapels, slamming me against the body of the car. I struggled to free myself, getting twisted around with my back to him, but could not break away. I heard male laughter.
   My karate lessons came to mind, and through the habit I had grumbled into form, I managed to react. Doubling my fist, I pushed it into the palm of my other hand and thrust my elbow into his face. Bone met flesh and I heard him yelp. He released me.
   I willed myself to run and although I didn't want to, I looked back. I saw a flannel-shirted figure leaping out after me. I ran toward the ditch, jumping over the muddy water and stopped before a barbed-wire fence. I tried to climb over it. Where was I going to go? Off into the field, further away from help, deeper into the darkness? My sleeve caught on a barb, and when I tried to jerk it free, I pricked my skin with a barb. My shirt stayed hung.
   And then he was there. He shoved me against the fence and I felt more punctures onto my back and legs. He grabbed me again and pulled me off the fence. I heard my shirt tearing. This is not happening. This is a dream. A bad dream. Wake up! Wake up! Wrapping an arm around my neck and displayed a hunting knife in front of my face, he said, "I'm gonna cut you into pieces, if you fuckin' hit me again." He dragged me toward the car and I broke free by the ditch, knocking him off balance. He fell, lurching toward me, grabbing my ankles, pulling me through the muddy-watered ditch. He hit me in the side of the face with his fist still wrapped around the handle of the knife, and my head began to pound. Dragging me back toward the car, I struggled, and he twisted my arm painfully high behind my back. My shoulder burned, and I wondered if the bone was being forced out of its socket. My efforts to defend myself seemed so pointless; I felt the difference in my strength and his, and for the first time, cursed my own gender. What was it my instructor had said in karate class? Strength doesn't matter. It seemed to matter a great deal at that point.
   The Flannel Shirt shoved me head first into the front seat growling, "Fuckin' bitch!" and I felt the Driver's forearm under my chin, his fingers closing around my left collar, thereby pinning me against the seat. The Flannel Shirt was climbing in, trying to reach the door handle in spite of my kicking. Several of my mad thrashings met target and he fell before getting in. When he scrambled up to lean back in, I lashed out again, this time striking him on the side of the face. He pinned my right leg down. "Goddammit! You cunt!" He lunged forward to vise-grip my neck with the powerful fingers of his left hand, and with the other doubled fist, he pounded my ribs several times. An excruciating pain shot through me where his blows had landed, and I would have cried out if I could have pushed any breath through my windpipe-- he had been clutching with such ferocity, that I could feel the veins in my temples straining and expanding. His voice came cold and taunting: "Gonna fight it, baby? Huh?" He grabbed the waistband of my jeans, unsnapped the button and tried to pin my arms, as the Driver continued his chokehold on me. Then he reached for the button of his own pants, preparing to reveal the weapon that all men have. Preparing to conquer the threat that women somehow represent to men like this.
   I broke free a few times and tried to swing at his face, but the unbearable ache in my side prevented me from putting any force behind it. It reminded me of those dreams I'd had of running through waist-deep water, or being underwater and trying to hit someone who was trying to hurt me, and everything was in slow motion, ineffectual. Once, in those dreams, I pointed a gun at someone and fired it, but the bullet came out in slow motion and I knew it would never protect me from the person who was after me. Now, I was not under water, but just as feeble. I'd never felt so weak in my life. He was angered by my palsied attempts at self-defense, and illustrated that fact by striking me several more times, almost as a warning not to resist again.
   The inside of the car was dark, except for some tiny inside light source, which now reflected off the hunting knife he was holding again. The Driver grabbed my arms, and tears began to fall in streams from my eyes. I watched the Flannel Shirt drag the blade down my left leg, and I felt my skin open behind it. He laughed at my scream and settled back in the seat, reaching for the door handle.
   I realized that if he succeeded in closing the door, it would be like closing the door on my life. I had no doubts about their intentions. The one behind the wheel had said nothing, but he had held me down while the other cut my leg, and I knew he would hold me down later, while his friend raped me. They would think nothing of leaving me for dead, or maybe watching me die, while they helped it along. . .
   Oh God, no! My life is about to be over--like this--is this the way I'm going out? Is this going to be the sad story my friends and relatives avoid telling at Thanksgiving and Christmas gatherings? "What a shame. . .she didn't have a chance. . .it's a cruel world out there. . ."
   This knowledge was suddenly very sharp, and it cut me to the soul. It made me angry. I gritted my teeth, and stomped his knuckles on the door handle. He cursed me again, but released his hold to shake his swollen hand spasmodically. I felt the car bump forward, and saw above and to my left that the Driver had put the car in gear. On impulse, I reached up and slammed the shift in park. The Flannel Shirt had pulled the door almost closed again, but fell forward, striking his head on the dash. I repeated my previous action, sure that the cracking sounds I heard were his knuckles, but knowing he didn't feel anywhere near the pain I wanted him to feel. Then it became a battle of endurance: the Driver trying to keep the car in gear, fend off my reaching hands as I continued to slam it into park; the other trying to secure his seat and close the door, with me kicking him. Several times, he turned to punch me in the face, and my mind would whirl in horror--why is he beating me? How can anyone do this?
   Amid the battle the door was opened wide, and the Flannel Shirt yelled, "No, dammit! don't go 'til I'm in!"
   I saw this as an opportunity.
   I grabbed the gear shift and pulled it down, pounding my fist into the Driver's kneecap. The action forced him to push the accelerator just enough to make the car lurch forward. The Flannel Shirt fell outside, and while he shouted profanities, half dragged along by the car as it moved forward, I took the open door as my cue to leave. I raised myself painfully on one elbow, trying desperately to forget the protest throbbing in my side, and threw a backhanded punch at the Driver's throat. I heard him gurgle a cry of pain, and I then I sat up, twisted and sent the heel of my hand to his nose. I leaped out of the car with the grotesque sound of breaking cartilage still in my ears. I know the whole thing only took a few seconds, but it was all moving in slow motion like I was in that dream, underwater. I felt this odd emotional quickening. . .like a small, hopeful portal had opened in the wall of Hell.
   The Flannel Shirt popped up in the car doorway on my way out, and I caught him in the face with my knee, and jumped over him. He caught my ankle as I went over, and I slammed face-first into the ground a few feet away. The impact was stunning, and my ribs became tiny knives in my side. I heard myself cry out in pain, and at the same instant my fingers closed around a large object. I gripped it, and found it was a very large stone. . .the texture felt like hardened lava. I wrapped my weakened fingers around it with as much determination as I could muster, and forced myself to stand in a crouched position, which was as straight as I could stand, anyway. My eyes met with his, and his face was a mass of dark stains, which I guessed was blood. He looked across at me and somehow through the darkness, saw something--or sensed it--which made him hesitate. He stood where he was, lifting a flannelled sleeve to his nose, both of us breathing heavily. I stood my painful ground, the rock cocked back in anticipation of the coming blow. I found my voice and growled hoarsely, "Come on and get me, fucker, I'll bash your skull in. . ."
   He studied me for a long moment, and I tightened my grip, almost wanting him to advance, so I could prove my vow. I wanted to kill him with my own bare hands. He turned back to the car, saying, "C'mon, man, she's not worth it--" and spat on me.
   The car sped away, and I wiped his spittle off my face, allowed the rock to drop to the ground. It suddenly felt very heavy. In fact, I suddenly felt very heavy myself. Like I was an empty vessel and concrete was being poured into me. My knees began to tremble uncontrollably, and my head was swirling. My whole body began to throb with a violence I had never known.
   I watched the tail-lights brighten, and then I saw the car turn around in the street and come back toward me. I stood dazed, knowing I had not an ounce of fight left in me, watching it pass me and then seeing the headlights on the roadway again. Just like they had been at the beginning of this nightmare.
   I strained through my tears to see where they were, afraid to turn around. Is it all going to start again? Without warning, the lights were suddenly at my back. I half-turned, taking the full force of light into my eyes. They're going to run me down. Reflexively, I jumped to the right and pulled my arms up to my chest, bowing tensely for the inevitable impact, as the fender brushed by me, barely missing. But I felt the impact of his open door a nanosecond later. It sent me sliding into the ditch. I heard tires squealing and saw through blurry vision the retreat of the tail-lights. All I could feel was the cold, sodden ground beneath me, and the scent of moist earth, before my awareness slipped away entirely.
   My eyes came open, and I was immediately confused. Where am I? I focused on a large blade of grass. . .why am I looking at a blade of grass? My eyes searched the area around me, and then it all came back to me. Had I really lived through it? Or was this heaven? Did heaven have something as simplistic as blades of grass? I thought of that Stephen Crane poem. . .oh best little blade of grass. . .
   Swallowing proved difficult without moisture in my mouth. My dry tongue played at my swollen lip and tasted dried blood. I told myself to move, but my body wouldn't listen to my brain. I felt numb. No, less than numb. I felt nothing. . . Oh, God. I was paralyzed! I imagined myself in a wheelchair with a neck brace holding my head up, and loved ones feeding me, changing my diapers. . .I began to cry. I tried again, desperately, to move and received the same fearfully empty results. A tear welled up in my eye and I could not even reach up to brush it away. I lay there. . .wondering if anyone would find me. Wondering if I would lay there until I literally became part of the soil, until an odd collection of woodland animals made a meal of me. Wondering if this was what it felt like to die.
   Later, I figured out I laid there for about an hour-- an hour that seemed endless. Several cars went by, but none of them saw me. I tried madly to lift my arm to wave them down. My arm, my hand, my finger, even, but could not. The irony was that they were probably friends of mine, returning from the football game. I had a rude conversation with God, in which I told Him that I would come back in spirit form and terrorize every God-Loving person on earth if He allowed this to end this way. I wanted to just say FUCK YOU to God. I wanted to flip him off. . .then I felt my finger move, and my hand.
   I didn't give God the finger. I just reached up slowly to brush away tears, and clear the grime from my eyes. The grime I had seen, the grime I had felt. The grime that had entered my life for a few brief, terrifying moments.
   It took me the better part of fifteen minutes to stand, and in that time, not one car came by. I had crawled and stumbled, sobbed and cursed, stood and fallen, but at last my efforts were successful, and I began to walk back to the dorm. As the numbness seeped out of me, pain seeped in. Pain, it seemed, from every spot on my body. My body throbbed. There were hot spots in certain areas that seemed to radiate heat. There were knives in my side, barbed wire vises around my head, and what felt like a pitchfork in my spine. Every fiber of my body ached and burned and tortured me, and I knew I had never felt agony like this before, and hoped I never would again.
   The blacktop road snaked ahead of me like an inky river, and the world seemed little more than a dark, empty void. I was all alone.
   It occurred to me, ruefully, that I had just become a statistic.