Winnie is Attacked

I’ve never thought of myself as a peaceful man, or a pacifist, or as an intentionally non-violent person. My last fist-fight was in the sixth grade and it lasted all of thirty seconds. It was with my best friend and within a couple of minutes we were playing Pac Man again, forgetting about our conflict. That’s how boys do it.

Today, however, I considered homicide preceded by extended periods of painful torture. I imagined my victim screaming in pain and begging for mercy while I turned up the power switch connected to the car battery that was making his private parts feel like all the scorpions on the planet where having their way with him.

Winnie had been violated.

It wasn’t the worst kind of physical violation, but it shouted impropriety, and that unleashed a maggoty darkness in my heart that took me by surprise. Winnie told me about it as she let her cup of tea grow cold while she dabbed her teary eyes with a Kleenex.

“He seemed like a nice person, Maxwell,” she sniffled. “We went to a nice restaurant and had dinner, then sat in a coffee shop and talked for a while. He mostly spoke about himself, and didn’t ask much about me, but I didn’t mind because I was interested in learning about him.”

“Did something bad happen that night?” I asked. I saw Winnie the morning after her big date, and she seemed fine at the time.

“No,” she said. “This happened last night. He came by my apartment—I didn’t know he was coming over, and I hadn’t given him my address—and brought flowers, which I thought was very sweet.”

The hair on the back of my neck was starting to get spiky as I guessed what might be coming next. Every movie about sexual predators played trailers through my mind.

“I let him come inside,” she continued, “and he grabbed me right away. He kept pawing at me until I slapped him in the face.”

I never imagined Winnie as someone who would slap anyone, and I found this new, unexplored area of her life to be intriguing, even though I was having fleeting fantasies that involved weaponry.

“He got really mad and called me a bad name,” she started to cry in earnest. “I can’t even repeat it, Maxwell. It was awful.”

Without forethought I reached across the table and took Winnie’s hand.

“I’m really sorry, Winnie. What can I do to help?” At the moment I wanted to scoot next to her and hold her in my arms, but I suspected she would find that to be scary. She looked up at me with a pleading look.

“Would you go with me to my job, Maxwell? I’m going to quit.”

“Why are you going to do that, Winnie? It’s not you who has done anything wrong.”

“I know, but Alan is a supervisor there, and I just can’t stay.”

I made no attempt to talk Winnie out of her decision. This was clearly a case of sexual harassment, but I doubted that she could make a case since it didn’t happen on company time. She probably wouldn’t have a chance against a veteran employee of the company.

“Sure, Winnie,” I said. “I’ll go with you.”

Within the hour we walked into the Title Insurance company where Winnie had gotten her so-called dream job. Had I shown any interest in her life prior to this I would have known where she worked, and that it seemed like a decent place to be employed. We walked into the reception area where a young woman was sitting behind a desk. Winnie stepped up to the counter that buffered the desk from visitors and spoke to the woman.

“Hello, Sharon. Please inform Mr. Taylor that I will not be working here anymore. I am leaving as of today.”

“Winnie,” she said, glancing at me, “what’s wrong? What happened?”

“I’m just quitting, that’s all,” said Winnie, fighting to keep her composure.

Sharon looked over her shoulder down a hallway that probably led to the offices. When she turned back to Winnie, she spoke quietly.

“Winnie, does this have something to do with Alan?”

Winnie looked down at her hands and fiddled with her fingernails. “I just need to leave, Sharon. I don’t want to talk about it, please.”

“That bastard,” said Sharon.

“Please, Sharon,” said Winnie, “I just need to leave. Tell Mr. Taylor that the job didn’t work out for me. That’s all.”

“That dirty bastard,” said Sharon, with renewed emphasis.

Winnie turned and walked toward the entry doors with me following behind. I felt like excess baggage, but I was glad to be there with her.

We returned to The End of Time, but Winnie stopped at the door.

“I don’t want to talk to anyone about this, Maxwell. And I don’t want to go home yet. Will you walk with me for a while?”

I was happy to do that. We walked without speaking, until we found a bench near a small park just a few blocks away. We sat down and let the city come to life around us.

Once again, I reached for Winnie’s hand. She did not pull away.

I hated Alan and wanted to smash his stupid face. At the same time, I blessed him for creating this new scenario for Winnie and me. It’s funny how life works out sometimes.