The Sacrifice

Grabbed me from behind where I was walkin from school in the alley behind the car wash on Camden some kind of canvas they pulled down over my head like a hood and I was screamin but couldn’t get free to breathe Thought I would die an was cryin Mama! Mama! till they stuffed a rag in my mouth near to choking me O Jesus

It was in the back of a van it was a police van, I think there was a siren they were laughin to use a cop can use a siren any time he wishes they drove to underneath the bridge I could hear the echo up under the bridge I could recognize that sound like when we were little and played there, and put our hands to our mouths and called up under the bridge and it was like pigeons cooing and the echo coming back and the water lapping except now, I could not hear any echo the white men were laughin at me took turns kicking and beating and strangling me raped me like with they guns and fingers sayin they would not put their pricks in a dirty nasty disease nigra cunt they jerked themselves off onto my face that’s what they done they said, swallow that, you ignorant nigra bitch how many times how many of them they was who hurt me, I could not see I thought five, maybe five—their faces were white faces—there was a badge this one was wearin, shiny spit-in-your-face badge like a cop wear or a state trooper an they laughin at me sayin nobody will believe a dirty nigra cunt taking her word against the word of decent white men

The van, they drove somewhere else then here was maybe other men came into it it was a night and a day and a night I was hurt so bad, my eyes was puffed shut I was fainted from the bad hurt and bleedin up inside me it was all sore and bleedin and my mouth, and my throat they’d stuck the gun barrel down into my throat too there was more than one of them did it they said, this is what you like black nigra cunt aint it

Tied me so tight like you’d tie a hog no water and no food, they was hopin I would weaken and die some of them went away, an other ones came in their place Nigra hoar of babyland they was laughin

I could not see their faces mostly I heard their voices

There was one of them, a young one he was sayin why dint they let him blow out the nigra cunt’s brains he would do it, he said

In my hair and on my body they smeared dog shit to shame me when they was don with me two of them dragged me from the van to that place in the cellar they put they foot on the back of my head to press into the earth they would leave me there, they said beetles would eat me and nobody give a damn about some ugly nappy lit nigra girl if she live or die and nobody believe her, that a joke to think!

O Jesus help me I am afraid to die, Jesus help me I have been a bad girl is this how I am punished, Jesus an Jesus say, the last shall be first an the first shall be last an a litl child shall lead them AMEN

St. Anne’s Emergency (#ulink_b6c35b9e-0bfb-521c-9938-91f99d85434f)

OCTOBER 7, 1987

She’d been left to die.

She’d been beaten, and raped, and left to die.

She’d been hog-tied, beaten and raped and left to die.

Just a girl, a young black girl. Dragged into the cellar of the old fish-factory and if she hadn’t worked the gag out of her mouth, to call for help, she’d have died there in all that filth.

It was that 911 call. That call you’d been waiting for.

You’d expect it to be late Saturday night. Or Friday night. Could be Thursday night. You would not expect the call to be Sunday morning.

And that neighborhood by the river, East Ventor and Depp. Those blocks east of Camden Avenue. High-crime area the newspapers call it. After the fires and looting of August 1967 spilling over from the massive riot in Newark, the neighborhood hadn’t ever recovered, Camden Avenue west for five or six miles looking like a war zone twenty years later, shuttered storefronts, dilapidated and abandoned houses, burnt-out shells of houses, littered vacant lots and crudely hand-lettered signs for rent for sale that looked as if they’d been there for years.

Many times, the calls come too late. The gunfire-victim is dead, bled out in the street. The baby has suffocated, or has been burnt to death in a spillage of boiling water off a stove. Or the baby’s brains have been shaken past repair. Or there’s been a “gas accident.” Or a child has discovered a (loaded) firearm wanting to play with his younger sister. Or a man has returned to his home at the wrong time. Or a drug deal has gone wrong. (This is frequent.) Or a drug dose has gone wrong. (This is frequent.) Or a space heater has caught fire. Or a carelessly flung burning cigarette has caught fire. Or a woman has swallowed Drano and has lain down to die. Or a gang of boys has exchanged multiple shots with another gang of boys. Or a pit bull maddened by hunger has attacked, sunk its fangs into an ankle and will not release the crushed bones until shots from a police service revolver are fired into its brain.

Calls of desperation, dread. But exhilaration in being so summoned, in a speeding ambulance, siren piercing the air like a glittering scimitar.

You are propelled by this speed. You are addicted to the thrill of danger, this not-knowing into which you plunge like a swimmer diving into a swirling river to “rescue” whoever he can.

But now there is this call—to change your life in a way you will regret.

Damn it wasn’t true the ambulance had taken its time getting there! Sixteen minutes but we’d been slowed down on the bridge and the 911 dispatcher had given us an incomplete address.

It being a black neighborhood, it would be claimed. The EMTs from St. Anne’s had taken their time.

We’d responded to the dispatcher as we always did.

We said, there was no difference between this emergency summons and any other—except what would be made of it, later.

When we arrived at the corner of East Ventor and Depp we hadn’t known immediately where to go. The dispatcher hadn’t been told clearly where the injured girl was.

Something about a factory. Factory cellar.

So we’d wasted minutes determining what this meant. We’d been told “cellar”—so we had flashlights in case flashlights were needed. Searching for a way through the chain-link fence until a woman appeared and screamed at us about a “dying girl”—a girl “bleeding to death”—and directed us where she was.

First thing we observed was that the girl (later identified as “Sybilla Frye”) lying on her side on the cellar floor on a strip of tarpaulin seemed to be conscious but would not respond to us, as if she was unconscious.

When we came running down into the cellar with flashlights we saw that the girl’s eyes were open but immediately then she shut them when the light came onto her face. We saw her lift her hands to hide her face from the bright light.

It was our concern that the girl was in severe physical distress, in shock, or bleeding internally, we had to determine immediately, or try to determine, before lifting her onto a stretcher.

Her face was bloodied and battered. There was a towel or a rag partly tied around her head and her hair was matted with filth.

There were no evident deep lacerations of the kind made with a sharp weapon or gunshot. Wounds were superficial, though bloody. There did not appear to be a severe or life-threatening loss of blood.

There was a strong smell of excrement—possibly human, or animal.

It looked like the girl had been tied with a clothesline but when we arrived, the clothesline had been untied. The woman who’d met us outside said she’d found the girl tied and had untied the girl. Her wrists and ankles had been tied behind her—“hog-tied.”

Well, we thought there was something strange—the injured girl had been communicating with the woman who’d found her, the woman told us—but then, she wouldn’t communicate with us.

She was limp and her arms were, like, falling loose—like a person would be if she was unconscious. But when we touched her she stiffened up. She’d shut her eyes tight and kept them shut.

That girl was in a state of shock! She didn’t know who we were.

We identified ourselves. She had to know we were a rescue team.

But she was scared! She was terrified. She was just a girl and somebody had almost killed her. She might’ve thought we were her assailants coming back. She was shivering—her skin felt clammy when I touched her.

She never did talk to us. Not a word.

It was possible, I thought, she was—you know—mentally disabled like retarded, or autistic. She communicated with me …

She did not communicate with you. She was not observed communicating with you.

She didn’t talk to me exactly but, but she—communicated …

Look—this was not a “cooperative” individual. First thing when we came down into the cellar with flashlights we saw the girl’s eyes were open and she’s staring at us—then, she shut her eyes. We saw her lifting her hands to hide her face from the bright light—which you wouldn’t do if you were unconscious.

The lights blinded her and scared her …

Had a damn hard time taking her blood pressure and pulse and trying to check for injuries, she kept bending her legs and wouldn’t lay them flat so we could strap her down.

Sometimes it happens, an injured person is panicked and doesn’t want to be taken to the ER.

But this girl refused to talk to us. She wasn’t screaming or saying she didn’t want medical treatment. She wasn’t hysterical or crazy. She was trying to simulate being unconscious but she was awake and alert. You could see her eyeballs kind of jerking around behind her eyelids. You could see she’d been assaulted, a strong possibility she’d been raped, her clothes were torn partly off except she was still wearing jeans—bloodied jeans.

The visible injuries were lacerations and bruises on her face, her chest, her belly—where her clothes had been ripped, you could see.