Excerpt from Too Little Too Late

I cried silently to myself, hoping the monster hadn’t come back. Tielle knocked harder, yelling my name this time. As she tugged on the door handle, I raised up to a sitting position. I looked out to make sure that it was her and manually unlocked the door. Once she opened it and the interior light came on, she immediately looked concerned.

"What happened to your face? What’s wrong, Meka? Why are you shakin’ like that?"
I just looked at her and said, with my voice trembling, "Tielle, I didn’t ask for this."
"You didn’t ask for what?" she asked.
"I’ma go get the car," Kaelin said. She ran down the alley.
"He said he wouldn’t ever let anything happen to me," I continued. I clenched the jacket tightly and rocked back and forth. "I shoulda went home."
"Tameka, you gotta tell me what happened. Where’s TJ? Did he beat you up?"
I shook my head, no. More tears welled up in my eyes. "He raped me," I blurted. As soon as I said it, I had another outburst of tears.
"TJ raped you?" Tielle asked, enraged. I shook my head again. When she asked who did it, I just shrugged my shoulders. "Oh my God," she said. I could see the tears in her eyes. She helped me out of the car, into the back seat of Kaelin’s car.
"So what happened?" Kaelin asked.
"Somebody raped her," Tielle answered. "We’re goin’ to her house."
"Shouldn’t we be goin’ to the hospital?"
"We’re goin’ to her house first. We need to get Lexis."

I was still shaking when we walked in the house. Kaelin and Tielle helped me to the couch where I curled my body tightly into a little ball. Tielle yelled up the steps for Alexis. Finally, she came dragging down the steps in her robe.

"What you come in here screamin’ for? Some people are sleep," she said with an attitude. "Meka, you just gettin’ here?"
"You need to get dressed," Tielle told her. "We gotta go to the hospital."
"For what?"
"Somebody raped Meka," Tielle replied, trying not to cry."
"They what?" Alexis asked. She walked over to the couch and sat down beside me. She pushed my hair away from my face and hugged me. "Meka, I’m so sorry." She wiped away her tears as more fell.
"We found her in TJ’s car in the alley behind the IHOP," Tielle continued.
"I can call the hospital and tell them we comin’," Kaelin said.
"Yeah, that’s a good idea," Alexis replied. In a comforting voice, she asked, "Did TJ do this to you?" "No," I answered.
"Who did it?"
"I don’t know. I don’t wanna know. I don’t wanna talk about it," I said, my voice cold and frightened. "I just wanna take a shower and lay down." Kaelin came back into the living room. "They want you at the hospital," she said.
"I’m not going," I said, staring into space.
"Tameka, you have to," Alexis said.
"I’m not going."
Kaelin stepped in. "Tameka, you can’t be stubborn about this. You have to get this done so they can find the guy who did it."

I knew they were right, but I didn’t care. I just wanted to forget about the whole night. I wanted every trace of that man washed off of me, and I couldn’t wait to burn the clothes I had on.

"I’ma go start the car," Tielle said. She went outside.
"Kaelin, can you get Meka a jacket out of the closet over there?" Alexis asked.
"I wanna change my clothes," I said.
"Baby, you can’t do that yet. The police might find something-a hair, a piece of skin-anything that leads them to this guy," Alexis said.

I started crying again. Kaelin helped me put my jacket on, and she walked me to the car. Alexis ran upstairs, changed her clothes, and left Robert a note.

As we walked into the emergency room, I felt like all eyes were on me. There were two police officers waiting at the front desk, ready to hear all the details of my disgraceful encounter. The receptionist checked me in, and a nurse took me back to Room 5. Alexis joined me in the small space, and Tielle and Kaelin waited in the designated area.

I was told to undress and put on a backless gown. The nurse placed my panties in a special bag and put the rest of my clothing in another container. She drew blood for HIV and pregnancy tests and swabbed the inside of my mouth with an oversized Q-Tip. A female doctor entered the room and examined me, trying her best to make me feel comfortable. I felt nothing but humiliation, though, as she combed through my pubic hairs and dabbed blood and semen from my inner thigh with a wet gauze pad. After the exam, the nurse tended to the cuts, scrapes, and bruises on my face, arms, and legs.

The police took my clothes as evidence, and I was given hospital scrubs to wear home. The detectives asked me tons of questions, most of which I couldn’t answer. I couldn’t tell them anything about what the guy looked like, except that he had dark brown eyes and wore a black hoodie with tan Dickies. They were relying on the DNA tests that could be run on hairs or bodily fluids found on my clothes and hoping they could find the dude before he changed clothes.

Before I left the hospital, they let me take a shower. Even after I was done, I still felt grimy and nasty. The smell of his saliva lingered on my upper lip, and I felt like his greasy fingerprints were still on me. If I washed another time, though, I was afraid that I would remove skin.

As we were on our way out the door, something on the front desk caught my eye. It was one of those daily calendars that had the big number in the center and small words. It read, "Today is June 6" and served as a reminder of the worst day of my life.

I took off work for two weeks and spent the first two days cooped up in my room with the curtains and blinds closed. Mary J. Blige’s My Life, Toni Braxton’s Secrets, and Whitney Houston’s Greatest Hits: Disc 1 were on repeat in my CD player in that order, and every time the songs, "My Life," "How Could an Angel Break My Heart," and "All At Once" came on, I’d cry like it was the first time I’d ever heard them.

I only left my bed to go to the bathroom and take showers. Alexis brought my meals to me. It was killing her that she couldn’t do anything else to help me. I didn’t feel like talking, so the most I would say to her was, "Thanks" when she handed me the food, and I wouldn’t accept any phone calls-not even from Tielle.

Alexis called our parents to let them know what happened. She couldn’t reach our dad. His 28 year-old fiancé said he was in Vegas for a week with his boss and that she couldn’t get in touch with him. Our mom was supposedly upset. I don’t understand how she can be so upset but have to ask if her daughter really needs her because she has to work (even though she’s been living off of my dad’s alimony for years). Once Alexis told me her response, I remembered why I only talked to her every four or five months.

By the third day, the phone was ringing off the hook. The incident had been reported in the news, the paper, and on the streets. Before long, people knew I was the rape victim. We all know I don’t have that many friends, so who was calling? Nosey-ass people. TJ hadn’t even called, and that hurt me deeply. I guess he really didn’t give a damn when it came down to it. If something happened to him that night, most likely it would’ve made the news, but Travis M. Jones’ name wasn’t reported at all.

At the end of the week, I migrated downstairs. I still didn’t have much to say to anyone, which was beginning to piss Alexis off. I heard her on the phone with the doctor when she called to check on me. Lexis asked her why I was still so withdrawn and what she could do to help me. I felt bad, but I just didn’t have any meaningful conversation, and the only thing everybody wanted to discuss was the rape.

The following Monday, Dr. Crenshaw called with the results of my STD tests. She said I didn’t have anything, and I was totally relieved. She informed me that my HIV test results wouldn’t be in for about another week, but I knew I didn’t have to worry about that. I figured I’d get something small like chlamydia or gonorrhea before I got HIV.

Later that afternoon, Detective Nelson called. He was one of the men who initially questioned me. He told me that they had a possible suspect in custody.

"Who is it?" I asked.
"I really don’t want to get into that over the phone," Detective Nelson answered.
"Well, why did you call me?" I asked with an attitude. The police had been pissing me off all week because they weren’t doing their job. They kept feeding me bullshit about how things take time. They had plenty of time to catch the dude who did that to me, and he’d had plenty of time to skip town.
"We need to see if you can identify the man in a lineup," the detective continued.
"If he’s gon’ have on a hat and a bandana covering his face, I’ll point him out with no problem."

I arrived at the police station at four. Detective Nelson and a fat white cop led me into a room like the one I always saw on New York Undercover, with glass on one side and a mirror on the other. They told me to let them know if I recognized any of the guys once they brought them in.

"Before we start, I have a question," I said. "How did y’all find this guy?"
"We were able to match a hair found on your shirt to this guy’s DNA. There’s also another guy who was just picked up for raping a young lady behind the corner store on the block where you were raped," the fat guy said.
"Alright. Bring ‘em on," I said. Seven guys came out and stood against the wall. "Oh my God!"