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Raped in her own backyard

Don’t let this incident rob you of your self-worth. You fought for your life, and you’re here, and you won. It took a lot of guts to fight that guy off.

Don’t let this incident rob you of your self-worth. You fought for your life, and you’re here, and you won. It took a lot of guts to fight that guy off.

by Dell Franklin

I just get to work at 4 in the afternoon and I’m sent downtown to wait for a lawyer to lead somebody to my cab from the courthouse across the street from the old art deco Fremont Theater. I park in front of the Fremont. There’s activity here: lawyers in double-breasted suits carrying brief cases and talking on cell phones; secretaries in fetching outfits talking on cell phones; a flow going in and out of the coffee house beside the Fremont and the Italian eatery and rib joint on the corner—San Luis Obispo’s beehive.

I keep my eyes on the city hall building. I wait 5 minutes. I do not like to wait. I do not like lawyers. I get out and pace, malevolently eyeing the bee hive. Finally, a short fire-plug of a man, around 35, who fills out a beautiful suit like a weightlifter, scampers across Monterey Street from the courthouse and signals me. We meet on the sidewalk beside my cab.

“Sorry to keep you waiting,” he says right off, taking in my sneakers, thrift store shorts and faded Harvard Business School T-shirt. He offers a hand, introducing himself as Larry. “It’s just that I have a hysterical client. Somebody tried to rape her in Los Osos. She was at the police station. I’m her family lawyer. She’s still in the courthouse. Be patient, please. I’ll take good care of you.”

Please be kind to this lady, ey? She’s been through hell. Right now the police are trying to find the bastard who attacked her. She’s in a lot of distress. She’s very fragile.

I say okay and he hustles back across the street, obviously a one-time high school football fullback. I’ll usually run the meter when I have to wait for somebody, demanding the fare pay for my time, but I’m not going to press a rape victim. Five minutes later he leads her across the street, an attractive but ragged-looking thirty-something woman with long mussed honey-colored hair, dressed in work shorts, and a man’s baggy T-shirt.

The lawyer introduces her to me as Gail. She is still in an extreme state of agitation and perhaps shock and does not look at me as the lawyer helps her into the shotgun seat and continues counseling her. I wait for him on the sidewalk. When he is finished comforting the woman, he hands me his card.

“I don’t have any cash on me right now. Can you come to my office up the street when you get back to town?” Los Osos is 12 miles away.

“Well, we’re not supposed to go out of town without collecting first. And I don’t like coming across town when I can be at the airport. But I also don’t like conducting myself like an asshole, so I guess I have to trust you. If I can’t, maybe I can hire you to sue yourself.”

He chuckles, but he’s not quite sure of me. Still, he says, “I can go down the street to the ATM if you want.”

“Nah, I’ve decided you’re a good lawyer, a very extinct breed.”

“Thanks, pal. Please be kind to this lady, ey? She’s been through hell. Right now the police are trying to find the bastard who attacked her. She’s in a lot of distress. She’s very fragile.”

“I’ll take good care of her. That’s a promise.”

“Thanks.” We shake hands. I get back in the cab. I plow through the beginning of rush-hour traffic, headed for the highway leading to Los Osos. I decide not to initiate conversation with the sniffling figure beside me, who is curled into the side of the door, as if trying to make herself smaller. I fiddle with the radio, find NPR. Once on the highway, we ooze into a 50 mph flow of traffic. I glance at her, offer a reassuring smile, as if saying: “I know it’s tough, but you’ll live through it.”

“Thanks for taking me home,” she says in a wee voice. “I don’t know what I would’ve done without my lawyer. He’s such a great guy.”

“I liked him right off.” She sits up a trifle. “So, you live in Los Osos…you like it?”

“Well, I do…I mean, I’ve lived there a while. I guess I like it, but after today, I don’t know.”

“You look familiar. I used to tend bar at Happy Jack’s in Morro Bay. You ever in there?”

“Uh-huh. I used to go there to dance before I met my husband. I don’t go to bars anymore. My husband doesn’t like them.”

“That’s probably where I saw you.”

She sits up a little and replaces her handkerchief in her purse. “Somebody tried to rape me,” she says. “I was out in the back yard tending to my gardens. I have a really nice yard and garden. I grow tomatoes and peppers and we have an avocado tree and a lemon tree. I love working in the yard. My husband really likes the way I keep things so beautiful and tidy. I was watering my plants, and out of nowhere this guy jumped the fence and threw me down and put his hand over my mouth and tried to rape me! He slapped me and punched me and said he’d kill me if I screamed. Oh God…”

“What did you do?”

Her voice cracks with a slight sob. “I fought him. I fought for my life. I kicked him. I bit him. I scratched his face. I fought and fought. He ripped my clothes off. I punched and scratched at him and I screamed…I didn’t care if he killed me. There was nobody around, everybody at work. I was crying so hard, and fighting so hard, and screaming so loud, he just took off.”

I glance at the scratches and bruises on her face and the discoloring from bruises on her arms and legs. She starts to cry again, quietly, holding her face.

“Go ahead and cry,” I tell her. “It’s good for you. You need to cry it out.”

We are cutting through the bucolic serenity of green farm and ranch land with shadowed foothills on either side, homes and barns nestled into crevices under trees.

“I’m so worried about my husband.” She sobs louder, looking out the window away from me.

“Why?”

“What if he doesn’t believe me?” She’s looking at me, near hysterical.

“What do you mean—doesn’t believe you? There’s a police report, right? You went to the hospital. Look at your bruises and scratches.”

“I know, but maybe he’ll think, well, that I…invited it.”

“Why would he think that?”

“I don’t know. He might, though, think I ASKED for it.”

“No way. What kind of man is he?”

“He’s real macho. He’s a contractor. I’m just so ashamed, so worried he won’t believe me.”

“Look, what you do is you don’t try and convince him of anything. You direct him straight to your lawyer and the police.”

“He’s already talked to my lawyer by phone.”

“Have you talked to your husband?”

She nods, sniffles. “On the phone. I don’t think he believes me. I don’t know what to do.”

I was watering my plants, and out of nowhere this guy jumped the fence and threw me down and put his hand over my mouth.

We approach Los Osos, a swale adjoining Morro Bay Estuary. Big generic shopping center on our right. No main drag. A notoriously scrumptious bakery emitting hellacious aromas every morning to counter the miasma of a thousand septic tanks and sumps. At one time Los Osos was a low-rent encampment of biker types and plenty of meth, but since real estate went crazy in the ‘90s it’s become somewhat gentrified, with a scattering of holdouts intimidating Cal Poly professors and suburban retirees tooling its rutted curb-less side-streets and driving to San Luis Obispo for trendy shops, Trader Joe’s and Costco.

“What you need is a drink,” I say.

“Yes, I think so. I’m not much of a drinker these days.”

“Just get a half pint, enough to take off the edge, and relax you a little. What do you usually drink when you do drink?”

“Bourbon, I guess.”

“What do you like to mix with it?”

“Seven-Up, or Coke.”

“Okay, we’ll find a liquor store. You get a half pint of bourbon and a Seven-Up. Go into your living room, lock up the house, turn on the TV, and have a quiet drink or two, and wait for your husband.”

“If he doesn’t believe me I don’t know what I’ll do,” she wails.

“If he doesn’t believe you, leave him,” I say. “I know it’s none of my business, but how the hell can you have a relationship if your husband doesn’t trust you and he’s not even here after what you’ve been through?”

“I’m so screwed up,” she admits, as we pull into a liquor store parking lot. She sniffles. “I just wanna die.”

“Listen,” I say. “You’ve just been through a traumatic ordeal and you’re not thinking clearly. You’ve been violated and humiliated and made to feel dirty…by some animal, a criminal. It is NOT your fault. Don’t let this incident rob you of your self-worth. You fought for your life, and you’re here, and you won. It took a lot of guts to fight that guy off. You’re a victim. Your husband will understand. Now go in there and get yourself a bottle to calm your nerves and don’t worry about your husband. Everything’ll be okay. I’m positive.”

Still shaky, she enters the liquor store. A few minutes later she returns with a package. I drive through neighborhoods to her modest house. The front yard is tidy with rows of flowers in full bloom and hedges edged sharp as razors.

“I wish I had money to tip you,” she says.

”You owe me nothing. Go on in there and relax. You didn’t invite this. You’re a nice gal. Have faith in yourself. It’s been a bad, nasty day, and things’ll be rough for a week or two, but then you’ll be thankful to be alive and have good days. Hang in there. Good luck. Now go in there, and make your first drink the biggest one.”

She starts to leave. “Look at my yard…isn’t it beautiful?”

“Very much so.”

She looks at me, her red-rimmed eyes well up and register utter despair, almost terror. “I won’t be able to go out there anymore! My back yard, it’s my favorite place in all the world…and I’m afraid to go out there now!”

“Listen, that was a one-shot deal. He’ll never come back. All this will pass.”

She faces me, trembling, leans toward me, ever so slightly, and I take both her hands in mine, give them a little squeeze. Her shapely knees are grass-stained and scratched raw. “Hang tough, kid—sometimes that’s all we can do. It’s not the end of the world. That’s what my mother always tells me, and it’s true.”

I let go of her hands. She gets out of the cab and opens the gate of the short, white picket fence and walks past a cat and up to the porch and front door, opens it, shivers, turns and waves at me, then disappears into the house, the cat right behind her. The door slams shut.

When I get back into town I pull up to her lawyer’s office and get out of my cab. I hear somebody shout, turn to look out onto Marsh Street and see the lawyer, who is encased in a white baggy outfit of the kind of plastic material a vermin exterminator or astronaut might wear. He is heading toward me on a skateboard, sneakers having replaced his Oxfords, his knotted tie the only trace of his former attire. He pulls up to me in a sideway skid and grins. He hands me three twenties for a $36 fare and tells me to keep the change.

“This is therapy, man,” he explains. “How’d it go?”

“I got her to do some talking. She’s still in a panicky state.”

He nods. “Thanks for your trouble. I appreciate it.”

“Well, I hope she’ll be okay.”

He shrugs, rolling his eyes in a helpless manner. “We do the best we can, man.” Then he smiles and we shake hands and he zooms off on his skateboard, expertly gauging traffic on the street, like a teenager. §

Dell Franklin writes from his home in Cayucos, Calif., where he lives with his rescue dog, Wilbur, a very needy chocolate lab. He writes of his years as a cabbie, bartender and athelte on his website, dellfranklin.com.

Night Life in Happy Jack’s: Moolyaks

IMG_6070by Dell Franklin

Jessi, my fellow bartender, pulls me aside on a busy Friday night around 10, the band on a break. She points at the two men sitting on my end of the bar, up front. “Dell,” she says, stressing, “those guys gimme the creeps. They scare me.”

For a woman as blustery, foul-mouthed and often intimidating and confrontational as Jessie, she is easily spooked. Blond Amazon ex-nude stripper and biker moll from down south, her sensing of danger leads to immediate panic; one minute cloyingly needy, the next she has physically attacked men and women in this bar. I see her point with these two guys—the way they stare at women—but so far I have managed to build a sort of rapport with them, if that is possible.

“They’re from Crescent City, Jess,” I explain. “They’re commercial fishermen and loggers. They’re down here for the albacore run.”

“But all the boys are out fishin’,” she says. “Even my Bruce, with his bad back, he’s fishin’.” She stares at the men. She’s got a voice like a meat-grinder from booze, smokes and drugs. “Dell, they look like those apes they showed us in high school.”

“You mean, Neanderthals.”

“Yeh! Like…gorillas. They got weird, slitty eyes. They don’t look like other people. They don’t even look like Rafe Monk. I wish Rafe was here. Those guys give me the willies.”

Fact is, these two are giving a few folks up front a case of the heebie-jeebies. There are crude wooden booths adjacent the tables ringing the dance floor, and sitting in one closest to the door, directly behind the Neanderthals, are two slumming yuppie couples I’d guess are in their thirties. They sip foofoo drinks and left me two quarters instead of a dollar or two as tip, which immediately places them on my shit list.

The man who ordered the drinks has perm-frizzed hair and eyeglasses and keeps gazing over at me as if to get my attention as one of the thugs turns in their direction and says something to the table. Both men are around thirty-five, probably stand 5 feet 9 inches, and their squat, thick trunks hold block heads on no-neck shoulders. In Levi’s and tank-tops, heavily tattooed, their eyes possess a challenging surliness

The women in the booth are attractively presented and well endowed, and when I ask Jessi if she thinks their boobs are real, she says with decisive defiance, “They’re phony. Mine are real, baby. I’m thirty-six and my titties still stand tall and proud.” She grins at me. She wears a red skin-tight mini-skirt and halter top exposing cleavage. “Those high-end bitches think their shit don’t stink. They oughta be down on the embarcadero in the fancy joints. Let’s do a shot, honey.”

We do shots of Crown Royal, her preference. The thugs leer at me. I mosey over to them after mixing some drinks. One of them has short blond hair and blunt, snubbed features, while the other has long greasy black hair and could be part Indian. The blond says, “That’s yer wife, huh? You own this joint?”

“Nah, don’t own anything, pal.”

“She yer woman?”

“Nah. Just work together.”

“That’s some woman. Reminds me of the barmaid at the Bear Flag in Moss Landing.”

“I’ve heard that before.”

“Them two fags in the booth behind us, they mouth off t’ me one more time I’m gonna kick ass. Me and Shep, we don’t take no shit from no man.”

Shep adds, “Them bitches, they give us the come-on, man.”

I offer my hand to Jed, the blond, and then shake with Shep. Jessi, mixing highballs, watches. “Welcome to Morro Bay,” I say, my hand still feeling their crushing grips, which I matched. “Try and ignore those folks.”

I get busy. The frizzy-haired yuppie comes up for another round. Makes sure to wedge in at the middle of the bar, places his order. I fill it. He pays, leaving fifty cents. Then he leans forward, peers down the bar at my new friends, who are eyeing us, and says, “Those two sub-humans, you shouldn’t be serving them; they’re really too drunk. Isn’t there a policy on cutting people off these days?”

I fold my arms. “I have my own policy. This is Happy Jack’s.”

“The blond bozo, he flicked his tongue at my lady and grabbed his crotch. They’re bad news. You’re the bartender here. If this were my bar, I’d have those two out of here before they start big trouble. Don’t you have a bouncer?”

“No. Sometimes the fishermen help, but they’re all out to sea.”

“Well, I’m an attorney in San Luis Obispo, and my advice right now is to get the cops in here and get those two out of here for lewd behavior.” He hands me a business card from his wallet. “This is your responsibility. I’m holding you to that. Those two are beyond offensive. They’re downright…ghoulish.” He issues me a look of disappointment and takes his drinks back to his table.

The thugs, who’ve watched our conversation, motion me over. “What’d that faggot tell yah?” Jed asks.

I fold my arms. “He thinks you’re making a pass at his wife.”

Shep almost comes off his stool. “She done made a pass at US!”

“She give us the goo-goo eye,” Jed adds.

“She wants it,” Shep maintains. “Them girly boys ain’t givin’ her no play. They starvin’ for real men.”

Jed grins at me. “Where we come from, them punks be fucked over already.”

I place my palms wide apart on the bar and lean forward. “Look, best thing to do, if those babes really got the hots for you, is wait for them to make THEIR move. Right now you can’t be horning in on ‘em if they’re sitting with those stiffs.”

“We gotcha.” Jed says. “We don’t aim to make no trouble for YOU. We just wanna get laid, and if we can’t do that, we wanna get in a good fight.”

Shep grins. He’s missing two teeth on the side and his nose is dented. “We rather fuck than fight.”

They order another round. I mix it, bring it over. The band starts up. Now the lawyer comes to the middle of the bar. “You’ve lost control of your bar, mister. Those two apes are taking over, and you’re allowing it. They are blatantly sticking their tongues out and grabbing their crotches and making obscene comments to our girl friends. If YOU can’t get rid if them, I’LL call the cops.”

“You’ll sit your ass back down and do nothing of the sort,” I tell him. “You don’t tell me how to run my bar, motherfucker.”

“Oh that’s cool, calling me a ‘motherfucker.’ Lots of class. Look, anything happens to us with those bozos, we’ll sue this bar and you, especially.” He issues me a withering you’d better-believe-I-can fuck-up-your-life look, and adds. “You’re afraid to stand up to those apes and protect your clientele.” He walks back to the booth with his drinks.

Jessi is beside me. My hands are shaking. My stomach flip-flops and roils with heat. “Dell, I feel big trouble comin’, honey. Let’s do a shot.”

We do shots. Jed is now at the booth asking the girl with the lawyer to dance, I would guess. I quickly move past Jessi and out from behind the bar and push through the crowd to the booth, where Shep stands beside Jed as they have words with the lawyer and his friend while their women shrink in mortal fear. I get between them. Frizzy hair stands and starts in on me about taking charge.

“Sit the fuck down!” I roar at him.

He sits down.

“This is my bar! I’m bartender! You keep to your profession and shut your hole, mister, this is MY turf!” I turn to Jed and Shep. “Let’s go outside a minute, guys, we need to talk.”

“We ain’t got no beef with you,” Jed says.

“I know you don’t, Jed.”

The lawyer rises. “You’re kissin’ their asses,” he whines.

“Sit down, motherfucker! Now!”

He sits down.

I gently place my hands on the wrecking-ball shoulders of the two moolyaks and lead them toward the front door while the band roars on and the crowd of wild dancers parts. It is warm and balmy outside.

I stand before Jed and Shep on the sidewalk. “Look, guys, you gotta help me here. Those geeks are lawyers and they’re tryna get me in a position to sue me and my boss, who’s a Marine veteran of the Second World War.”

“We win’t got no beef with you, man,” Jed says. “Do we, Shep?”

“Fuck no, we ain’t got no beef with you.”

“But we got a beef with them punks,” says Jed.

“They’re not worth having a beef with,” I tell Jed.

“We’re gonna kick their asses and take their fuckin’ bitches, cuz they been fuckin’ with us.”

“We ain’t backin’ down from no man,” Shep adds.

“Look, as a favor, guys, I don’t want you fighting in my bar.”

They look at each other. They’re pretty wobbly. Jed grins at me. “But we drove alla way down here cuz we wanna get in a fight.”

“We come a long way to get in a fight in Happy Jack’s,” Shep explains.

“We been in fights in every fisherman’s bar on the coast, clear from Alaska, but we ain’t been in a fight in Happy Jack’s.”

“Look, if you get in a fight in my bar, you’ll end up in jail. I don’t wanna see you guys in jail. I consider you guests of mine to look out for.”

“We ‘preciate that,” Jed says. “But we don’t mind goin’ t’ jail. We been thrown in jail in every port on the coast.”

“Nobody fucks with us in jail,” Shep grins.

“Look,” I say, “there’s nobody in the bar worth fighting. Those lawyers, you can’t fight them—they’re sissies. You won’t get no satisfaction beating up sissies, will yah?”

“Well,” Jed says. “We got to fight somebody in there if them sissy boys won’t fight us.”

“But that’s all we got in the bar tonight. You guys came down at the very worst time to get in a fight. All the tough guys, they’re on the albacore run, won’t be back for a day or two.”

Jed and Shep look at each other. “Shit,” Jed says.

“Fuck,” Shep says.

“Look,” I say. “You guys, you look like you been at it for a long time. How long you been drinking?”

“We been drinkin’ for two days, since we left Moss Landing.” Jed says proudly.

“When’s the last time you ate?”

“Well, we didn’t have no breakfast, did we, Shep?”

“Nah, don’t think so. Just chips and stuff.”

“Well, dammit, guys, since there’s nobody worth a shit to fight in the goddamn bar, and you ain’t eaten all day, why don’t you go on down the street to the Fisherman’s Roost. Serve breakfast day and night. And you get a real steak and eggs, not a runty little thing. All the fisherman in town eat breakfast there before they go out in the morning. You go on down there and tell ‘em Jessi and Dell from Happy Jack’s sent you. They’ll give you the royal treatment.”

Jed glances at Shep. “Well, I’m starvin’, Shep.”

“Yeh, me, too. Best to eat, I guess.” He’s dispirited.

“You guys get a good meal in yah, come on back and see me. Look, around the corner from the diner’s the Anchor Motel; it’s real cheap and clean, get a good night’s sleep. You guys’ve put in a long day.”

They discuss the situation. I fold my arms. They nod. “Guess we’ll eat,” Jed says. “Thanks for the tip, bro’. We ain’t got no beef with you. You been real fair, and we ‘preciate it.”

“Far as I’m concerned, you’re my guest’s in Happy Jack’s, and I aim to look out for you, just like you’d do for me if I was in Crescent City and drank in your bar.”

“Any time you come to Crescent City, we got yer back, bro’.”

We shake hands all around and I watch them wobble down the sidewalk. I take a big breath, exhale. Re-entering the steaming cauldron, as I pass the first booth, frizzy hair stands.

“I don’t appreciate being insulted by you and cursed by you in front of our ladies,” he states, issuing me an official look of reprimand and possible threat.

“I just kept you and your friend from getting beaten to death.”

“That’s your job. You did a lousy job. I’m contacting the owner of this establishment and inform him of what an incompetent jerk you are, and I’m going to make it a point to get your job.”

I pound the table with my fist, shaking their drinks. The girls shrink back as the lawyer jumps. “You want my job, you piss-ant, take it! Get behind the bar! You wanna talk to my boss? He’s a combat vet from the Great War and I’m a vet and we stick together like fucking brothers. Now you get the fuck out of here! You and your trashy bitches are eighty-sixed.” I toss a bill on the table and grab their drinks and walk over and place them on the bar. Jessi grins at me as I shake a fist at the lawyer, who starts to protest. “Get the fuck out! You’re banned for life on the grounds you’re a weasel and a puke, now move OUT!” I’m waving my arms wildly, frothing at the mouth, and they rise, the women grabbing purses, and scurry out the front door.

I receive a standing ovation from the crowd and a toot from the band. Behind the bar, Jessi has two shots of Crown Royal waiting for us. Before we down them, still grinning, she high-fives me.§

Dell Franklin writes from his home in Cayucos, Calif., where he lives with his mate, Wilbur, a very needy chocolate lab he rescued from the animal shelter. He is the founding publisher of The Rogue Voice and is currently working on a book about his dad, The Ball Player’s Son.