Sally was an easy lay, but Boska preferred Angela. Each encounter was accompanied by threats of what would happen to her if she didn’t keep her mouth shut. Angela was so afraid of Boska that she often lost her voice when he asked her questions. When he smacked her, she could only get out the words she knew he wanted to hear.
In order to stay alive, she submitted to him.
With no one to protect her and no way to escape her new hell, Angela learned to survive those encounters in her bedroom by letting her mind go to another place. What Boska was doing to her dimmed into insignificance. She wasn’t there. She was gone.
While Boska was on top of her and her mind was in another place, she was nearly as comatose as her mother.
When Boska was finished, the threats at knifepoint, and on occasion gunpoint, brought her back from that distant peace and scared her witless. She knew that if she angered him, he wouldn’t hesitate to slash her face, or cut her throat. He promised her a face full of acid if she ever crossed him.
One time when she did say something snotty to him as he was zipping up his pants, he said that if she ever smart-mouthed him again he would give her as a gift to the motorcycle gang that sold drugs for him. She could see in his eyes that he was not making idle threats.
After he left her room and then went to sleep with Sally, Angela would tremble for hours, unable to go to sleep, knowing that there was nothing she could do about it, no one who could help her, and that there would be more to come.
Her fear of Boska kept her from telling anyone at school about the things he did to her. She also knew that Mr. Ericsson wouldn’t be inclined to believe her, and would be even less inclined to help her. She was quite sure that Mr. Ericsson would be pleased to hear that she was getting what was coming to her.
She knew the police wouldn’t help her—Boska had been arrested dozens of times for all kinds of things and he always got out. He was released for time served, the charges were dropped, the charges were reduced to a misdemeanor, or he received probation. He never went to jail for the things he did. He always got away with it. She knew that if she went to the police, Boska would get out, and then when he had her alone she would pay the price for snitching. As far as Angela was concerned, the law was meaningless.
It all left Angela feeling totally alone and helpless. Frankie had been once, but Boska seemed perpetually aroused. He was an ever-present threat.
At one point she began to spend nights sleeping in hidden places in alleys, or in bushes behind other trailers, shivering in the cold but glad to be alone. One day when she came home from school, Boska grabbed her hair in his big fist and warned her that if she didn’t stay at home at night he’d come looking for her, and she sure as hell wouldn’t like what would happen to her when he found her.
After that, Angela stayed at home where he would have ready access to her. Her mother wouldn’t help her, the school wouldn’t help her, and the law wouldn’t protect her. There was nothing she could do but endure it while her mind drifted away to distant places.
She knew that the worst thing in the world would be to get pregnant, so she started on the pill. She got a supply each month from a women’s health clinic in a run-down rented storefront. She had just turned fifteen, and they thought she was too young to have sex, so at first they turned her down. She asked them if they thought she was old enough to have a baby. They relented and let her start on the pill.
Because they knew that some girls had difficult, and even dangerous, situations at home, it was their policy not to call the parents if the underage girl asked them not to. Angela asked them not to.
She seriously doubted that her mother would care if she thought Angela was screwing boys, but Angela knew she would be blamed if she told her mother the truth. She knew it was all too likely to blow up into a screaming fit. Sally would say that Angela had asked for it, and then, when her mother was out of it, Boska would do his worst to her for saying something.
Angela wasn’t sure she cared if he killed her, as long as it was quick, but she feared his threat of acid in her face.
She was relieved when the women’s clinic agreed to provide her with the pill and confidentiality.
After the money from the sale of her grandparents’ house ran out, Angela often became the unspoken source of payment for her mother’s drugs, so she knew that her mother would have a vested interest in looking the other way. If the men got what they wanted, Sally got what she wanted. That was all there was to it. Oftentimes Boska was the gatekeeper for which men could have her in exchange for what Sally received. He told Angela that he was protecting her from the guys who had diseases.
More days than she could count, Angela walked to school spitting out the taste of semen.
As time went on, she slipped into a deep depression. She felt like a trapped animal. There was no escape from the situation and no hope.
She did as she was told by men she dared not cross. She did as her mother told her as well, shopping for groceries and cooking, taking care of chores around the house, and in general doing her mother’s bidding.
She was the girl in the moon passing silently through the gloomy trailer, at the beck and call of psychopaths.
She knew that the only way the abuse would stop was if she were able to get totally out of her mother’s place. If she had a car, she could drive to her grandparents’ cabin—her cabin—and live there. But it would be nearly a year before she was old enough to get a driver’s license. The fact that she had no money to get a car even then only left her feeling even more hopeless.
She lost all interest in everything. She didn’t care about anything or anyone. She only did the minimum to pass her classes at school. Every person she knew used her for one thing or another. She wanted everyone to leave her alone.
At fifteen and a half, Angela started dyeing her hair different colors. In a way, it was the only thing she had any say over. She got piercings. With change she collected from the floor and couches in the trailer she could buy clothes from the thrift store and put them together in a way that in addition to her dyed hair and piercings gave her a forbidding look.
The kids at school were already leery of her. She was the girl who had messed up the face of a much older, popular girl. Now she, too, was older, and bigger. She didn’t take crap from anyone. On top of that, they thought she was a freak, and, because of the standoffish way she acted, possibly crazy. She had no friends. All of that kept them all far away from her.
As far as Angela was concerned, mission accomplished.
She knew that no one was going to protect her. No one was going to help her. She was going to have to protect herself.
In the back of her mind, she knew she had to get away from her mother and the trailer park. To do that, she would need to get older. When she turned sixteen she could get her driver’s license. But she would need a car. Realizing that a car was ultimately her only real salvation, getting money to buy a car became her central goal.
She was able to get a job with a housecleaning service, working a few hours every day after school without being missed much at home. She saved every dime she earned toward a car. Once she could drive and had a car, she would be able to get away.
Because she worked hard at the cleaning service, a manager at a clothing store offered her a job on weekends stocking shelves. Her savings continued to build. She gladly accepted tips she received from some of the people she cleaned house for.
The only money she wouldn’t take was the cash some of the men who abused her would push at her. It was their way of taking the crime out of what they did. If she was selling herself, then they weren’t really raping her. She always refused the money they offered. If they left money in her room, she put it out on the coffee table. She was not about to absolve them of their crime.
Her school had a driver education course, and when she turned sixteen she got her license through the course. As soon as she had her license, she went to a car dealership she had visited a few times previously. Wit
h the money she saved, she bought the car she had been eyeing and could afford. It was a well-used silver Honda, but to her eyes it was the most beautiful car in the world, not because she cared about the car itself, but because it meant escape from the abuse.
The day she picked up the car, she drove to the trailer park and packed up her things while her mother was sleeping off a party. There wasn’t much she really cared about, and she didn’t want Boska to come home and catch her, so as soon as she had the basics together in a couple of black plastic bags, she left for the cabin.
Before she left, she wrote a brief note, telling her mother that she was moving away and would not be back.
Driving up to the cabin and seeing those two mountains, one to either side, felt like the warm embrace of her grandparents. She knew she was at last safe. The first thing she did when she got inside the cabin was to load the Walther P22. If they figured out where she was and Boska came to haul her back to the trailer, she intended to blow his brains out.
Angela didn’t worry about her mother coming to bring her home. She was a lot stronger than her mother, and besides, her mother was more likely to smoke some crack as her reaction to the situation than come get her. Drugs were her answer to everything.
Once she put her things away in the bedroom, Angela sat down on the bed and cried with grief that her grandparents weren’t there, and cried with joy that she had finally escaped the abuse at home.
As it happened, there was no need to worry about Boska. He was unexpectedly killed in a motorcycle accident. He ran a stop sign running from the police and was broadsided by a woman in a minivan.
Karma was a bitch.
FIFTEEN
The next time one of those unexpected mental doorways opened was several years after she had moved to the cabin. She had made sure to keep her grades high enough that she was able to graduate high school. Being out of high school was a huge relief. Graduation was a joyful event, because it meant formally leaving the misery of childhood behind.
Angela had always thought of herself as an adult trapped in a child’s body. At long last, her body and mind had reached parity. She was truly an adult, even if not legally until she was twenty-one.
Being done with school and on her own, she was finally able to work full-time. One of the houses she cleaned was for a couple who were both lawyers. Mr. and Mrs. Bollard appreciated the job Angela did at their house, so they asked her to clean their office as well. Since they were pleasant and treated her fairly, Angela was happy to do it.
One day, as she was emptying wastebaskets, she overheard Mr. Bollard telling his wife that he needed to get some papers across town. They were debating how they would do it, since it was urgent they get some signatures but neither could leave the office right then.
Angela straightened. “I’ll do it.”
The both looked up at her. “What?” Mr. Bollard asked.
“I’d be happy to do it.” When they stared at her for a moment, she added, “I have a courier service,” she lied. “I can deliver the papers for you.”
They shared a “why not?” look with each other. Mrs. Bollard slid the papers into an envelope, wrote a name and address on it, and handed the manila envelope to Angela.
“Ask him to sign the papers. When he’s done, please bring them right back here.”
“No problem,” Angela said.
After that, they gradually came to depend on her to deliver things like court documents on a regular basis. One day when she brought a package to them, Mr. and Mrs. Bollard asked her to sit down.
“You do know that you’re charging half the going rate other courier services charge, don’t you?”
Angela shrugged. “It’s enough to cover my costs and make me some money. I appreciate the work and I’m satisfied with what I make doing it. It’s an attractive enough price that you keep using me instead of anyone else. You’re happy, I’m happy.”
Mr. Bollard leaned back in his leather chair and tapped a finger on the armrest as he studied her face.
“You’re more than you appear.”
Angela frowned. “Excuse me?”
He shrugged. “You look … well, you don’t exactly look like the determined and meticulous young woman you really are.”
Angela frowned. “Are you unhappy with something I do?”
“No,” he said. “No, not at all. It’s just that we’ve learned we can depend on you. You don’t screw up. You get contracts and papers where they need to go, when they need to be there.”
“So, what’s the problem?”
“You don’t have a business license, do you?”
“Well …”
“Insurance?”
“I have insurance.”
“I don’t mean on your car. I mean, do you have a business license and business insurance? Are you insured and bonded? Did you post a bond to have a courier service?”
Angela let out a sigh. She didn’t have any of that. She imagined that the money she made with her new courier service was about to evaporate.
“No,” she admitted.
He appraised her for a time, considering something.
“You do a good job, Angela, taking care of our house, and the office, as well as the other places you clean, and you always get documents where they need to go on time, and get them back to us on time. But you need to have a business license if you are going to do this kind of service for us, and you need to be bonded to have a courier service. We’re lawyers. We can’t use you without everything being legal.”
Angela could feel herself sinking into her chair. “I see.”
“I’ll tell you what. My wife and I can handle all the legal matters. You’ll need to have an official business name and the money for the bond, but we can take care of the paperwork and filings for you so that you don’t get into legal trouble.”
Angela sat up straighter. “You would do that for me?”
“Sure,” Mrs. Bollard said. “You’ve helped us out of spots enough times.”
“What would the bond cost?”
Mr. Bollard smiled. “We’ll make you a deal. We’ll handle all that and in return, you just deliver documents for us for two months for no charge. That should cover the costs. After you’re legal, then we can not only use you, we can recommend your courier service to other lawyers and people we know.”
“That would be great. Thank you both.”
With that deal, Angela moved up from maid service to courier service. Once she had a business name that played on the meaning of her name, and her license, she bought herself a plastic, magnetic sign for the door of her car. ANGELA’S MESSENGER SERVICE. GIVE YOUR PACKAGE WINGS.
Some of the clients the Bollards dealt with were people in a variety of legal trouble. Some were criminals. The people in legal trouble started to ask her to deliver documents for them as well. Besides the lawyers she handled, she became known among people in legal trouble as a trustworthy courier service. They liked that she made a point of her service being confidential.
She never asked questions and she never talked about her other clients. She discovered that the more confidential she kept everything, the more business she got. Not only from people in legal trouble, but even from places like the hospital, where the law required patient privacy.
It was the end of one hot summer day, during one of those deliveries, that the new mental doorway opened for her.
Mrs. Bollard had given her a package of legal documents to deliver to a seedy little bar at the edge of town, called Barry’s Place. The plain block building was rather dark inside. There were people at small tables and a few at the bar. A rotating ball in the ceiling projected sparkling light over everything.
When she spotted a man behind the bar, she crossed the room, weaving her way among the patrons. He watched her out of the corner of an eye as he dried glasses.
She leaned in over the bar to be heard over the rock music.
“I’m looking for Barry.”
“I’m Barry. I own the place
. What can I do for you?”
Angela handed him the envelope with legal papers.
He looked at the return address of the law firm. “Ah, good. Thanks.”
Angela turned to leave, but he told her to hold on. She turned back.
He smiled, but not in a slimy way. Angela knew slimy smiles filled with meaning when she saw them. Barry’s smile was pleasant and respectful.
“I don’t mean this in a sleazy way,” he said, “but you have some damn fine legs.”
Angela was wearing low-rise shorts. She knew he had been looking at her legs when she walked across the room.
“Thanks,” she said cautiously, fearing a proposal.
“Have you ever thought about tending bar?”
That wasn’t what she had been expecting. Angela made a bit of a face. “No. I don’t know anything about being a bartender.”
“It’s not all that hard.” He gestured around. “This isn’t a fancy place. I can teach you all you need to know. Besides, you have the most important part down pat already.”
She frowned. “The most important part?”
He gestured with the hand holding the rag. “Those legs of yours. I mean … damn. Legs like that bring in business and they could earn you more in tips than you could ever make delivering packages.”
“Really?”
“How old are you?”
“Twenty.”
Barry sighed. “Crap. You need to be twenty-one. How long until you’re legal age?”
“Five months.”
He made a face as he considered the obstacle. “You come back here on your birthday and I can give you some part-time work. If it doesn’t make you at least double what you make with your courier service, I’ll make up the difference, but I guarantee you, it’s not going to cost me a dime.”
Angela thought about it briefly. She would certainly like to make more money. If she worked at the bar at night, she could get a better car and still have her courier service. She didn’t want to give that up.
“My name is Angela. I’ll see you on my birthday.”
Barry flipped the towel back to lay it across his shoulder. “Cut those shorts shorter when you come back, Angela, and you’ll make triple what you make now.”