Chapter 9

Autumn

Lanh’s tongue peeked out from between her lips as she concentrated. She could milk cows alone, she could (almost) birth calves by herself, she can cut hay, she can bale hay, she can stack hay (sort of), why can’t she hook this worm? And why is it so active? It’s freezing out, it should be almost unconscious. With more effort than it may have been worth, she hooked the squirming worm and cast the line. It was a chilly autumn morning in mid-October, the sun reluctantly melted the frost from the grass and corn stubble.

They should be goose hunting, the season opens soon, and landowners will start early before the “city folk” mess up the hunt, but Lanh is terrified of shotguns, so she will leave the goose and duck hunting to Don and Huy. She was more comfortable with her .22 rifle and woe be to any gopher who dare dig its burrow in the cow pasture and threaten the safety of her “girls.” No broken legs from stepping in a gopher hole while Lanh is on patrol.

Lanh’s oldest brother Huy fell in love with shooting clay pigeons with Don on a visit this past summer and shooting clays has become a passion for waterfowl hunting for the two. Lanh noticed with some jealousy that Don and Huy were becoming good friends, their seven-year age difference meaning nothing to them. It was interesting to see a first-year corporate lawyer paling around with a high school junior. While Don taught Huy to hunt and fish, Huy taught Don to play golf and play handball up in the hayloft.

Lanh cast the line into the pond off the stern of the rowboat and when the ripples stopped radiating from the bobber, she handed the pole to Don, who sat in the middle seat facing the stern of the boat. Lanh then baited another hook and cast her line forward, and they sat side by side, Lanh facing the bow, Don facing the stern. Neither spoke in the early morning calm. They relished their closeness and the last chance to use the boat this year and they ached to get one last fish. They leaned on each other, and both prayed that the fish were sleeping in this morning. When they reel in their lines for the day, they have to pull the floating dock ashore and load the rowboat on the trailer and haul it back to the barn for her annual rest and maintenance and that will be it, summer will officially be over.

Right now, the hunting and handball were at a stop, and both Huy and Trung promised to show up and help land the dock and the boat. Lanh looked at Don’s bandaged left hand, his arm in a sling yet still holding the pole. He was turned so she couldn’t see his left side, the bruises, the swelling, but she knew it was there. She stifled a sob, but he tried to calm her with a “Shhhhh,” and he pointed to his bobber in the water, showing she should be quiet because of the fish. She sighed and leaned on his shoulder. A perfect moment on such a horrible day.

It was a few days ago when Lanh was excused early from her AP Lit class and she headed over to the Industrial Arts wing of the building. Don was in class over there and she was planning to wait in the hallway for Don’s computer class to let out so they could walk together to lunch and enjoy nearly an entire hour together, a luxury that was becoming rare with their hectic schedules. The computer class was in the old Drafting classroom, and it was here because this wing of the building was the only part of the building that had the electrical grid to handle that many computers and monitors and the only classroom that had enough room for that much equipment.

Lanh was a stranger to the Industrial Arts wing of the school. It was a different student that inhabited these hallways, a rougher, more tactile oriented person than the academic centered students she meets daily on the other side of the building. Over here, the average student was lucky to be able to read their textbooks, yet they could tune an engine blindfolded.

She was leaning against the wall outside of the computer class and was reading a paper she was going to turn in later in the day and feeling entirely uncomfortable in these dim hallways. The sounds that filled the air here did not sound like a school, screaming saws from the wood shop, the banging of hammers from the metal shop, the churning of the presses from the print shop and the revving of engines in the auto shop mate a cacophony of noise that set her nerves on edge and caused a headache.

Then she heard a gruff voice and the scuff of boots getting closer. “Hey!” She looked up and saw Joshua Grimes approaching her. He was the biggest movable object in the school. He was a senior and stood six foot two and weighed almost three hundred pounds. It’s said that he was thrown off a high school football team in Minneapolis for being too violent. He had two hangers-on with him, and all three boys eyed her like a prime cut of beef. “Hey cunt,” grinned Joshua. “Is chink pussy slanted like they say it is?” His grin resembled an alligator as it prepared to swallow an unwary egret.

Lanh tried to ignore them, but Joshua shouted, “Hey!” again. Lanh simply turned to move away from them, but found herself in a dead end hallway. They had her blocked in. “I was talking to you!” snarled Joshua. He reached out and slapped her books out of her hands. “You don’t turn your back on me!” He reached for her again and this time he tore her blouse open.

Buttons flew everywhere, and she screamed “NO!” at the top of her lungs. Angered by being told “no” Joshua slapped her, which almost drove her head through a locker and that set off a frenzy between himself and his two toadies. Now their hands were everywhere, touching, grabbing, and ripping. They tore her bra off and sneered at her tiny breasts, and Joshua grabbed a breast and squeezed it hard, causing Lanh to shriek. Then Joshua asked again, “Answer me bitch, is chink pussy slanted?”

He grabbed at a terrified Lanh’s panties, and she started screaming, “Không phải anh! Không phải anh!” which in English means “Not you! Not you!” She was reserving her body for only one male on earth, and it wasn’t Joshua. But that male suddenly appeared.

Lanh’s shrieks of outrage and terror could be heard by Don through his classroom door and over the noise of the industrial arts wing. He bolted from his computer class and the entire class looked on in confusion. The teacher, Mr. Calgon, followed. Don followed the sound of Lanh’s shrieks of pain and terror and, turning the corner, he saw it all. When he saw Joshua slap Lanh in the face, his blood ran ice cold. His vision went red with rage. How dare they touch MY love! And without thought he put his head down and charged as hard as he could and slammed bodily into Joshua Grimes, driving him into one of his toadies and drove the two of them into the lockers with a loud metallic clang. All Lanh remembered was Don suddenly crashing into Joshua, who was more than twice his size, and she was free.

A surprised Joshua grabbed Don and threw him across the hall, where the slim boy slammed into the lockers. The clang of Don hitting the lockers was drowned out by Lanh’s screech of horror. Joshua then pulled Don to his feet and beat Don to a bloody pulp, helped along by his two lackies. Lanh’s last shriek of terror drew entire classes out of their shops into the hall, but they just stood in silence and watched.

They didn’t start chanting “fight! Fight! Fight!” like usual because this wasn’t a school fight; this was attempted murder. This was an enormous monster trying to kill someone with his fists just for fun. The shops grew silent as students poured out into the hallway to watch. The word went out from student to student, “Joshua was going to kill somebody.” Joshua grabbed Don by the neck and squeezed, then he lifted Don up by his throat. He spit in Don’s face, then roared, “I’m going to snap you in half and fuck your chink cunt on your grave!”

Don almost lost consciousness. His vision faded, and he tried to bring a knee up into Joshua’s crotch, which enraged the huge behemoth, and he began pounding Don even more. Between the sickening thumps of a fist on flesh, she heard Don say, “Lanh, run...” and the beating never slowed. A beating that would cause Lanh nightmares for months.

Don slumped to the floor semi-conscious, and Joshua and his thugs began kicking Don. They kicked him in the head, in the ribs, in the gut and in the balls. “Mister Grimes!” cried Mr. Calgon, the computer science teacher, but Joshua didn’t stop kicking. Mr. Calgon tried to pull Joshua away, but Mister Calgon wasn’t much bigger than Don. He was new to teaching and they don’t cover “murderous rampages” in college. Joshua threw him against a wall and spit in the second year teacher’s face.

“Fuck you,” sneered Joshua and he slumped away with his two remora like minions following.

Even when it was over, it was horrible. The cowards ran when they realized Lanh’s screaming drew a crowd of teachers, and Lanh refused to leave Don’s side. She stayed through the beating; she heard every thud, every grunt, every crack as Joshua Grimes beat Don senseless. She stayed through those horrible long minutes waiting for first aid to arrive. He didn’t move, he would only gasp and groan. He wanted to cry, but Lanh was here; he had to stay strong. She stayed and carefully hugged him, his blood staining the remains of her pretty blouse. She whispered to him, telling him he was going to be ok and in response he would whisper, “Are you ok? Did they hurt you? Did he touch you?”

Lanh wept when she realized his only concern was for her. Classmates tried to pull her away as the EMTs worked on Don, but she turned and demanded to know why no one helped him while he was being beaten so viciously. But they didn’t understand, and she asked again, screaming, and they just shook their heads, not understanding, and they backed away. She was so upset when she screamed at them it came out “Tại sao anh không giúp chúng tôi?” (Why didn’t you help us?) She was shrieking to the students as well as her two blond angels that watched the whole beating in horror as well.

“My god,” whispered the older looking Angel.

“Oh, this is nothing compared to what’s in store for the kid,” said the younger looking angel with purple hair tips.

The Emergency Medical Technicians that responded to the school got Don stabilized and strapped on a backboard, then lifted him onto a gurney. Most of the time, he was babbling incoherently, and refused to answer any questions. Only when Lanh twisted free from the teachers who were questioning her, and she kneeled over Don with the big warm sweater that he bought her wrapped tight around her, did he calm down. And he relaxed when Lanh whispered to him, the fact she was safe made it worth his while.

She stayed with Don as they wheeled the gurney out to the ambulance, but when she tried to get on the ambulance with Don, the younger EMT pushed her aside. “I’m sorry ma’am. Only patients.”

The other EMT, who had teens of his own, realized the emotional trauma these kids were going through and said, “Hold on a second Lance.” They paused a moment before loading Don into the ambulance. The older EMT crouched to speak to Lanh eye to eye when he noticed the condition of her blouse. It was torn and bloody. She had been holding it closed and covered with her sweater, and nobody noticed. Then he noticed the red slap mark on her cheek and her eye slowly swelling up. They were all concentrating on Don, and no one looked at Lanh. Now the EMT realized they had a second victim. He said softly to Lanh, “Did he do this to you?”

She shook her head no and said, “không, thưa ngài,” (no sir).

“Is he your boyfriend?”

She nodded her head and tried to say yes he is, but she was so traumatized that it came out, ”Đúng vậy.” (that’s right)

“Did someone try to rape you?”

She started crying again, and she nodded her head, “Vâng thưa ngài” (yes sir). She felt dirty and ashamed, but she realized why Don did what he did, and she began weeping harder.

“If you sit quietly and stay out of our way, you can come with us, ok?”

“Ok,” Lanh replied. She climbed into the ambulance and their hands reached out to each other and Don didn’t release Lanh’s hand until after the ambulance was at the hospital.

The EMT who was treating Don called to the driver, “Let the ER know that we are transporting two victims and have a detective ready with a rape kit.”

When they arrived at the hospital, several policemen and a social worker were there to meet Don and Lanh. She was so devastated that she could barely speak English, but luckily someone recognized her from the restaurant and in a matter of moments, Duong was heading to the hospital for his little girl.

Lanh tried to explain that Don saved her, but being so stressed, her language was fractured, and the cops got the idea that it was Don who attacked her. A cop was sent to Don’s treatment room to place him under arrest, which sent Lanh into spasms of fear and anger. Finally, her daddy arrived, and she saw him through the doorway as he walked up the hall. She darted out into the hall, her torn, bloody blouse streaming behind her, and she threw herself at him.

Holding her father tight, she explained in Vietnamese how Don saved her from being raped and now the cops think he did it. Her Vietnamese was so rapid and broken, even Duong had a hard time understanding. He eased her back into her examination room and as she calmed; she was able to explain everything and Duong translated it to the hospital staff and the police and the handcuff was soon removed from Don, who never knew he had it on.

Ralph arrived moments later, and Duong met him in the ER and explained what had happened. “Thank you, Ralph,” said Duong, “you raised a good man. He saved my girl.”

Ralph was about to respond when Lanh came flying out of the treatment room again and threw herself at “Poppa Ralph.” Dressed in an oversized hospital gown, she didn’t speak, she just held on to the closest thing to Don that she could touch until Duong and the social worker and the detective that were questioning her convinced her to go back and finish up.

Don was released from the hospital the next day, and Lanh was heartbroken that she couldn’t stay with him. “I have to make sure Don keeps up with his schoolwork!” cried Lanh. He was doing so well this year; he can’t fall back while he convalesces.

“I need you to stay home and get over it yourself,” said Mai.

Suddenly Tam was home from Minneapolis asking her questions about her attack. She kept saying, “It wasn’t you,” until Lanh shrieked, “Tôi biết điều đó chết tiệt!” (I fucking know that) Except for the sound of a pan dropping from Mai’s hands. The kitchen went silent. Lanh never swears. “I just want Don,” she whimpered.

“Your father wants you to take it easy,” said Mai. “And so do I.” With that, Lanh ran from the kitchen.

Tam followed Lanh up to her room and found her lying on her bed, facing the wall. Tam sat on the bed with its brightly colored Sunshine Bunny! bed spread, huge pillows, and a menagerie of stuffed animals. The only sound was the hum of a hidden air pump and the bubbles in Marissa’s tank. Tam took Lanh’s favorite teddy bear and clasped it to her chest. “I suppose you told the whole story to Marissa,” said Tam, but other than a shuddering sniff, Lanh remained quiet. “I didn’t have a Marissa to talk to when I was fifteen,” said Tam. “And I didn’t have a brave boyfriend like Don to save me when Tyler Wallis raped me, so I know what you’re going through, to a point.”

Her admission startled Lanh. “You were raped?”

“I was fifteen, the youngest student in Northwestern, and my lab partner, Tyler Wallis, said, ‘stay close to me, I’ll protect you.’ He had a black Camaro, and we went everywhere. I felt so special, until he drove me nearly to Wisconsin and said, ‘I want to show you something awesome.’” Tam grew silent as the memory of her assault crashed over her. Her well-guarded virginity and her happiness were taken away by some asshole with a Camaro and a dick.

Lanh sat up and hugged Tam and said, “Is that why you don’t date?”

Tam remembered how Tyler told her over and over, “You’re so beautiful” as he violated her. That probably is why she doesn’t date. “You need to know deep in your heart that it wasn’t your fault.”

“I know that” said Lanh. “Why won’t anyone let me go to Don?” The two sisters held each other and wept while Kim-ly watched from the doorway.

Earlier that morning, the Athletic director, Mr. Mach, was filled in on why Don Campbell was not at swim practice. He found out that the Grant Valley Woodcutter’s up and coming star was beaten bloody by Joshua Grimes and his two thugs, and Mr. Mach did a slow burn. He knew Grimes, that toad should never have been admitted to Grant Valley High School. That afternoon, he called his swim team, his volleyball teams, and his football squad together. He glared at them before he started.

“You probably already know this, but Joshua Grimes, Manny Garnier, and Sylvester Joyce attempted to rape one of your fellow students.” He paused, letting that sink in, then he continued. “One of your team mates successfully stopped them but they beat the living...” He caught himself. “ ... tar out of him. Now, sadly, our swim team is down a damn fine swimmer.” He paced back and forth as his anger boiled in his gut. Don was fast becoming a great swimmer who practiced all summer long, unlike most of his teammates.

“Joshua Grimes, Manny Garnier, Sylvester Joyce saw one of your fellow students as a piece of meat and Don Campbell stepped in to stop him, like a true Woodcutter should.” Mr. Mach invoked the name of the teams often.