Lilac Street

When we walked onto the dingy floor of the bar that brisk autumn afternoon, all eyes landed on her. Vivica had a way of parting crowds and turning heads. I just followed like a motherless child watching desperate men beg at her feet for just a minute of small talk. Once when we were walking back to the dorms a guy walked up to us (her) to ask if his forehead was bleeding like she was a nurse or always carried a first aid kit.

“Nah, I think you’re good,” she said.

“Are you sure? It feels pretty bad.”

“You’re definitely not bleeding.”

I stood off to the side. He wouldn’t be asking me for a second opinion.

“That was weird,” she said, and shrugged it off with a laugh.

I wanted to ask her how she couldn’t see how badly he wanted to fuck her.

I know this makes me sound jealous. That’s because I was. Any attention, even unwanted, would’ve meant the world to me.

I loved and hated that she picked this bar as our first stop. It was called Lilac Street. I assumed the name was arbitrary or had some other historical significance because the bar was not on or near any Lilac Street. But it had a rooftop and it wasn’t small and stuffy like the other ones in town. The bodies made it warm.

I left Vivica, because I wanted to switch it up for once, and headed for the staircase past flailing limbs, raised glasses, and a bunch of girls dressed in black bandeau tops and blue jean mini skirts. They all looked the same. Somebody told a joke I wasn’t in on. The DJ played a song I didn’t know.

Vivica thought I was lying when I told her I’d never drank before.

“Why would I lie about something like that?”

“I don’t know. I thought you were a recovering alcoholic or something.

“Are you serious?”

“That’s like one of the only excuses I know for people not drinking. That and religion. Are you Muslim?”

“No.”

“Then don’t be a pussy.”

The rooftop was a sausage fest, but the sun was over our heads in a cloudless sky and that made me feel warm in a way that wasn’t just physical even though I was grateful for that too. I felt the goosebumps running along my arms deflate under the thin blood orange crop top she made me wear as I slipped my way to a corner to watch the people below us on the street. I saw five friends try and fail to take a selfie, a biker in a Domino’s uniform weaving back and forth through car and human traffic, a girl on the ground slumped against a trash can. I tried to see as many things as I could to tune out the guy beside me.

“Hey!” He yelled over the guitar solo in “Hotel California”.

I saw two girls sharing one slice of pizza on a bench, the long line outside the pizza shop they were sitting outside of, two guys in a no door Jeep dancing to that song about the reaper.

“What’s your name, beautiful? What you doing out here by yourself?”

I could feel him inching closer. The alcohol on his breath mixed with the cigarette smoke in the air made me nauseous.

“Oh so it’s like that?”

At that point I couldn’t notice anything but his hot breath and spit flying into my face. I turned around in an attempt to bolt, but a wall of bodies was blocking me. Maybe I shouldn’t have moved at all because before I could push through the crowd he put his hand in the back pocket of my jeans to pull me back and forced his hand up my shirt. I could tell he was saying something, but I couldn’t hear it. He had me right up against him and I could feel how hard he was through his pants. Maybe I was screaming. Maybe someone saw because I felt someone else grab me and yank me away. I didn’t realize it was Vivica until we were outside on the not Lilac street.

She told me to open my mouth but I didn’t get a chance before she shoved a stick of gum in my mouth.

“What does it taste like?”

“Huh?”

“What does it taste like?” she urged.

“Cinnamon.”

Then she put her fuzzy keychain in my hand and asked, “What does this feel like?”

“It’s soft.”

Then she took out a tube of lip gloss and asked, “What does this smell like?”

“I don’t know. Like a fruit.”

“Good.”

“What the fuck was that?”

“They taught it in psych. Thank me later.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Let’s just go.”

“We don’t have to go to another bar, do we?”

“Why would I make you do that?”

I didn’t know. Maybe because it was only 4 pm. Maybe because she told me not to be a pussy.

“Come on, we’ll get some food and head back.”

We stood in that long pizza line for dollar slices. It was even longer now, but we figured it’d be worth it. It took half an hour. I got spinach and feta, Vivica got cheese.

“You can sleep over if you want,” she offered.

She wasn’t just being nice. That much I could tell. Still, I didn’t want to force myself on her, make her sleep on the couch, or make me breakfast. Even though I knew she’d do it in a heartbeat. I didn’t get to turn her down.

“Wait a second,” she said. She grabbed my arm and pulled me back. “That’s him. That’s the guy. The one that assaulted you.”

I looked at where she was pointing. It was him. Same clothes, same hair, same everything. “I mean, yeah, that’s him.” I figured she wanted to turn back. Find another way to go.

“Let’s follow him,” she whispered. “I just want to see where he’s headed.” She grabbed my hand and squeezed and I put on the most defensive face I could muster given the circumstances. She looked back with those pouty lips and big moony eyes of hers. I just knew she wanted to say, “don’t be a pussy.”

We stayed well behind and tried to blend into the crowd. I felt like a man stalking a girl on her way home. It happened to me before, but I kept trying to deny it while it was happening because it was in broad daylight. Bad stuff like that didn’t happen in broad daylight.

I was walking back to my apartment from class once and a guy was behind me. I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt, but when I sped up so did he. When I turned on my street so did he. The women at church would say things like, “Always have your keys out, just in case”, “Never go straight to your house if someone’s following you. Just keep passing by it and if they’re still following, get the police on the phone.” The whole thing sounded like an episode of Law and Order: SVU. Creepy man follows you home and breaks into your apartment to rape you. Now we were doing it to him. He probably didn’t even notice. Men don’t have to notice that kind of thing.

“Viv, what exactly are we trying to do? It’s starting-” She shushed me before I could finish.

“This is perfect.” I didn’t know what she meant, but I was too afraid to ask.

It felt like we’d been following the guy for hours, but when I brought it up Viv told me it’d only been 10 minutes. Trudging up and down steep hills and valleys behind a drunk man made me miss the stifling, stickiness of the bars. I craved the warmth of whatever drinks Vivica gave me because I didn’t know what they were and she wouldn’t tell me until I’d had a sip. I had a mind to leave her again, but that was when she started walking faster, closing the space between us and the drunk man. She’d gotten up to a jog when I realized what she was trying to do. I wanted to call out to her or to him, but my throat was too dry. I stood frozen by an ivy-choked steel fence and watched her, taser in hand, kick the man in the back of his knee. He was already drunk so it didn’t take much force to topple him. Before he could turn over she aimed the taser straight at his back and pressed down on the trigger so hard her high yellow knuckles went almost white. She kicked him, turning him over to reveal his terrified expression and piss soaked shorts. He looked first at Vivica, then at me. Recognition taking the place of fear for a split second before the tears began to roll. I almost pitied him, laying there with raised hands, trembling.

“Get over here,” she said, out of breath. “It’s your turn.”

My body didn’t protest. It was like I wasn’t in control anymore when I walked over and kicked him between his legs. He didn’t even scream. Just a whimper and a tiny stream of yellow vomit. I kicked him again in the same spot and he started to choke and retch. I did it over and over and over again like it was nothing. And really it wasn’t because that’s when Vivica started stomping on his face with her chunky heeled boots. It took mere seconds for his eyes to swell shut, but even then she kept stomping. On his eyes, his cheek, his nose. I couldn’t find my voice. I stood in awe as his breathing became shallow and his blood dribbled onto the pavement like water from a leaky faucet. No one saw anything. No students walking their dogs, no burnout boarders, no elderly couples on mid-afternoon walks, no cars coming or going. Just the three of us and the sun above our heads.

“Let’s go.” She broke me out of my trance, grabbed my hand, and took me back downtown to Lilac Street.