Chapter 3: Sister Solidarity? Unfortunately, no.

That new voice was just what Shawna needed in order to face her ongoing and terrifying ordeal. Slowly, the pretty Catholic mom now got to her feet, visibly shaking as she pressed against the bus seat for support. This was all going to be over soon. The adults were going to regain control of the situation. Life was going to return to the way it always should be, and Shawna now relished the thought of this impudent little pervert being severely, even physically, punished. She raised her head while her body still trembled and when she saw what lay around her Shawna froze in her tracks. The boys on the bus had completely encircled Jason, Damon and her. As she turned Shawna could see several students stood in the aisle behind her.

They were staggered 3 or 4 deep and they completely blocked her path towards the front of the bus. In the seats to either side of her more boys stood and stared. In these they also packed in at least three to a seat and, Shawna somehow knew, if she had turned to look the other way, there would be another mass of boys who blocked her escape out the emergency exit in the back of the bus. There seemed to be an uncountable number of 14-year-old black boys all crowded around her as if they had been drawn by the sudden commotion that had occurred over the past few seconds. Even worse still, to Shawna’s growing horror, the pretty Catholic mom now saw that each boy was holding a smartphone. They all looked like mirrors of one another; holding their phones out, lengthwise, indicating they were already filming everything that was happening.

Shawna thought about telling them to stop, about ordering each and every one of them to put their cameras away but she knew it would be no use. There weren’t going to listen to her, at least not now. Perhaps later, when all the adults of the bus presented a united front, they could retrieve all the cell phones and erase them or, at least, keep the videos as evidence. So Shawna turned her attention back to the other lady. She must get this other woman on her side. That, the pretty Catholic mom now thought, should be something that wasn’t that hard. In front of all the boys, standing in the center of the bus aisle and also blocking Shawna’s path to the front of the bus, one of the other chaperones now stood. The woman was short and morbidly obese, her two eyes disproportionally small as they peered up at Shawna from the center of her round and porcine face. A nest of black curls quickly going gray ran in a smooth and curving arc over the crown of her head and from one ear to the other.

Those curls glistened in a way that made Shawna think of the Jheri Curl commercials she had seen while growing up. Two flabby arms poked out the sleeves of a dirty white T-shirt that was pockmarked with faded stains and smudges while a frayed collar and a ragged hem made up its edges. Shawna thought the shirt itself a good match for the rest of the other lady’s outfit. That consisted of shabby sweatpants, moth-eaten and grubby, and looking as if they had been bought second hand. Their dingy off-white color stood out even more due to the inky black skin of the still scowling lady. The shock of whirling around only to see so many black faces, all seeming alien, angry and intimidating, and also staring back at her threw Shawna’s mind off balance and, for a moment, she seemed at a loss for words.

“I-uh, this boy-”

Shawna raised her hand and halfheartedly waved it at Damon. It was all coming back to her now. The bus coming away from the curb with a tremendous jerk, her losing her balance and crashing into Damon so that he could grab her and pin her to him. His right-hand tearing at her pantsuit and attempting to touch her in her most private of all places. Shawna’s stomach now heaved with the realization of just how close this disgusting little pervert had come to violating her in the most horrifying of all possible ways. That feeling of nausea; it was almost overwhelming, but it now mixed with a rising anger and indignation. How dare he do that to her? These blacks, they may not have had all the advantages of even lower middle-class white kids but still, they should know better. If they didn’t know better than they must be taught so and if they ignored all common ideas of human decency, then they were making a conscious decision to embrace evil. It was something Shawna wouldn’t stand for, something she couldn’t stand for, and in that moment, the pretty Catholic mom was sure this other lady was going to help her straighten this out.

“Yeah, so what about my boy?”

Again, Shawna found herself caught unaware and it took a few seconds for her to process just what the other lady had said. Shawna was referring to Damon, yet this other lady had referred to ‘my boy’, a child completely unrelated to their current situation. Then, the logical part of Shawna’s mind made the connection, and in that moment, the pretty Catholic mom became even more afraid.

“Wait, what?” Shawna said, slightly taken aback

“I said ‘what about my son’? You said this boy and pointed at my son. What about him?”

The other woman’s tone was moving quickly from impatient to annoyed and, now that Shawna understood their relationship, she had no doubt it would very rapidly progress from annoyed to enraged. The thought of letting the whole matter drop and meekly crawling into the one open seat now entered Shawna’s mind but, as quickly as it entered, it was summarily dismissed. A moral outrage had been perpetrated against her and she couldn’t let it go unpunished. Besides, if she just let the matter drop, then she would be guilty of racism. For it would be racist of her not to believe that this other lady, indeed everyone on the bus other than Damon, would want to see justice done for a nice woman who had been so horribly victimized. She and this other woman were the same. At least, they were both women and Shawna now became sure that the two of them would share solidarity. Even accounting for any differences in race, upbringing and manners, this other woman would still agree that only a woman’s husband should put his hand between her legs. Shawna now forced a pleasant smile onto her face and, since there was still that sick fear growing inside her stomach, the pretty Catholic mom found that the smile was not such an easy thing to do.

“I’m sorry ma’am ... Your name was?”

Shawna desperately wanted to talk to this woman, who glowered at her in a low baleful stare, in a calm and soothing voice and, luckily, the quiet interior of the bus allowed her to do so. For a moment, nothing was said, and the forced smile plastered on Shawna’s face felt increasingly uncomfortable with each passing second. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity of discomfort, the piggish woman spoke.

“Names Zhay’Quan”

The irritated look on the black woman’s face never changed. She pronounced her won name with a soft Z, a letter that was almost a J but not quite; Zhay-Quan. The other lady also seemed to drag out the first syllable of her name as she said it. Zzzhhhhaaay-quan. These nih ... these people and their stupid made-up African sounding names Shawna now thought fearfully. Well, it couldn’t be helped. If she were surrounded by brainless morons, and Shawna was becoming more convinced of this with every passing second, well, that was just something she would have to deal with. She had a moral duty to perform and she was determined that, no matter what, she was going to complete it. The pretty Catholic mom now put a little more effort into her fake smile and pressed forward.

“Zhay-Quan is it?”

Shawna now repeated the same pronunciation back to the other woman.

“Hi, my name’s Shawna. It’s so nice to meet you.”

In her nervousness, Shawna felt as if she were talking incredibly fast, but she couldn’t seem to help herself.

“Your son is Damon, correct?” she now asked not waiting for a response.

“Yes, he, well when the bus took off, he and I, well ... you see what happened was ... we um ... well, we kind of fell together...”

A new and terrible feeling that her point was getting lost in her embarrassed fumbling now added to Shawna’s growing anxiety. The other woman’s expression hadn’t changed at all and Shawna felt as if she might as well be speaking Chinese. The pretty Catholic mom, who had so easily charmed everyone she had ever met back in her Pennsylvania hometown, now seemed incapable of even forming a complete sentence.

“Zhay’Quan,”

By this point, Shawna was now almost completely sick to her stomach with what the other woman’s reaction would be once she told her terrible tale.

“Your son...”

Shawna now gritted her teeth and forged ahead.

“Your son, Damon. When the bus lurched forward, and he and I were thrown together ... well, something awful happened.”

Whatever embarrassment Shawna had previously felt now only grew exponentially larger as the humiliating truth came out. It was not only that she would have to say it but that the group of boys might actually hear it, or worse, successfully record it on their cell phones. Desperately, the 38-year-old statuesque and elegant soccer mom now looked to see if the expression on the other woman’s face had changed and that sick fear grew even larger when she saw that it hadn’t. Only the eyebrows might be different, raised a little more, as if Zhay’Quan might be experiencing some mild curiosity along with her offense and anger. It was not the look Shawna had been hoping for but it was too late to turn back now. Instead, she plunged forward, the forced smile still on her face, as she explained what was, up until that point, the most awful experience of her life.

“Anyway, when I was thrown into him, he grabbed me and well...”

The urge to lower her voice was tremendous. Even though Shawna was sure every boy had witnessed the whole sordid spectacle, it was just so humiliating to retell the embarrassing details when she knew they would hear it or, even worse, record it for all posterity. That one of their friends had tried to stick their hand inside her panties and, indeed, had partially done so, it was a disgrace that was almost unbearable. Shawna now lowered her voice as much as she possibly could while still believing that Zhay’Quan would be able to hear her.

“Your son, when we felt together in the bus, well ... he-he grabbed me. He grabbed me and pinned me to him. Y-You know, he’s very strong so he grabbed me. He grabbed me and pinned me to him and...”

These last words were not just awkward for the prudish Catholic mom to say out loud but physically painful and Shawna realized that, up until then, the full gravity of the situation still hadn’t sunk in. Maybe it was the shock of the sudden attack or maybe her brain had just compartmentalized something so repulsive as a way of dealing with it. Now, having to recount all of the mortifying details to someone else, it made the enormity of what had happened real in a way that was just that much more appalling. As she had told herself before though; it was too late to stop now. She would just have to do it like a Band-Aid; grit her teeth and rip it off in a single painful jerk.

“He pinned me to him with his left arm and with his right hand he ... he tore my jumpsuit” Shawna now moved her hands to where the fabric on her jumpsuit was torn as if it wasn’t as plain as day just where on her favorite outfit this had happened.

“and stuck ... And ... well ... your son ... your son then tried to stick ... to stick his hand inside of my panties.”

The words came jerking out now, one at a time, and Shawna almost couldn’t bring herself to say them. The pretty suburban soccer mom had to steel herself against the overpowering feelings of indignity and awkwardness as she retold the horrible story.

“My God, if the bus hadn’t lurched. You know...”

The 38-year-old virtuous Christian mom now hesitated for a moment still unsure if she wanted to admit this next part.

“His hands, his fingers, his fingertips. Your son could have ... you know ... well ... he could have stuck his fingers ... ih-inside me.”

For a moment the two women just stared at each other and, when Zhay-Quan’s expression still didn’t change and the black woman didn’t move, Shawna could only assume that the other woman still didn’t understand the horrific gravity of just what had happened.

“You ... your son. He ... he tried ... well your son was going to ... to stick his fingers in ... into my vagina.”

It was the most mortifying admission of them all. That, even for a second, a child as young as 14 had gotten the best of her; a fully-grown woman of almost 40 and had done so in the most intimate of ways. It was disgusting, and Shawna felt that disgust all too powerfully as she cast her eyes down at the floor, no longer able to meet the other woman’s gaze. Instead, she looked down to where she held her one broken foot and inch or so off of the floor and, for a moment longer, there was only silence. Her degrading admission hung in the air while Zhay’Quan still stared at Shawna balefully; her pudgy hands on her hips as if she felt nothing but impatience for the taller white woman. Behind her, and to both side of them, the mass of 14-year-old black boys, all of them looking wild-eyed and dirty, formed a circle. Then, like a school of fish all turning as one, the entire group broke out into raucous laughter.

“Man, Damon yeah! You got her! You got her good!” said one.

“Hey Damon man, hey!” said another

“Hey man! You ... You touch her? Man, you touch that stuck up white lady there right on her hairy pussy?”

“You get your hand on it man?” called out still a third boy

“Oh shit man! You get your fingers inside that stuck up white mom’s pussy D!?”.

The howls of laughter and the sordid, demeaning questions now came from every direction. They rang in Shawna ears, and the once self-respecting Catholic mom, who had always held her own dignity as such a major source of personal pride, felt her face flush hot with anger. A million needle like pinpricks now burned in what felt like her every pore. They had all heard. In spite her best efforts, it now seemed that there wasn’t a single boy who hadn’t heard every word of her painful and demeaning admission.

It was humiliating enough that some little kid, some little 14-year-old black kid, had managed to do such an intimate and offensive thing to her and yet, somehow, it was even worse that all these boys were laughing at her. They were now laughing in her face, as if they were all happy that this horrible and unseemly violation had been perpetrated against her. Shawna could now only assume that if every boy had heard what she said that each cell phone must have picked it up too and god only knew where it would go from there. It could be put on the internet. In days she could be world famous, the gorgeous lady up on YouTube admitting that a 14-year-old black boy had very nearly, and single-handedly, got his fingers inside her. If it hadn’t happened, this nightmarish, humiliating event, some of these kids probably would have looked up to her as an authority figure, someone to be respected and admired. Now there was no chance of that happening.

Now she would always be a source of scorn, derision and perhaps worst of all, a source of amusement in their eyes. A person, no just some thing, a mere sexual object whose only purpose was to be debased simply for the sheer joy of it. This painful recognition now made everything that had happened to her that much worse. Every time they looked at her Shawna knew they would be thinking about how one of their 14-year-old classmates had almost gotten his hand between her legs and his fingers almost inside her and then they would laugh. Shawna knew now that she would never again be able to look any of them in the eye and the pretty Catholic mom felt her throat tighten. The shame inside her was becoming so painful that she thought she might cry, here in front of everyone, but Shawna knew that she couldn’t let that happen. Whatever scrap of dignity she might hold onto; if the boys now saw that one of their own had made a 38-year-old female chaperone cry, that last shred of dignity would be lost with each hot tear as it went coursing down her face.

“Lady, I don’t know what you talkin’ about.”

It was Zhay’Quan’s voice and it now snapped Shawna out of her terrified and humiliated daydream.

“My boy, he’s a good boy. He don’t do stuff like what’cho sayin’. Besides, if he wanted to do that to a girl, he’d get a girl his own age and not some full-grown, stuck up white bitch who thinks she’s better than everybody. I should bus you in yo’ mouf for accusing my boy of doing something so dirty. Go on, say it. I dare you to say it. Say my boy done gone and stuck his hand in your panties when you didn’t want him to, see what happens. You stupid fuckin’ white cunt, thinkin’ you betta than everyone else. If my boy done gone and stuck his hand in your panties, it only be ‘cause you wanted him to. ‘Cause you told him to. Who knows what kind of sick stuff you stuck up white bitches be in to? Even now, you still walk around with that big tear in your clothes. Showin’ the top of yo’ panties underneath so every boy can see it. Why you do that? Why you do that white bitch? I know why. You walk around showin’ off yo’ panties because you want some 14-year-old boy to come along and stick his hand down there and touch you on your pussy. Ain’t that right? It’s an invitation. Ain’t’ that right? You walking around purposefully with that tear in your clothes ‘cause you want every black kid to know that you a freak. That you stuck up white moms ... walking around thinkin’ you better than all us niggas ... when what you really want mo’ dan anyting is for some 14-year-old black boy to come along and get his fingers all up in yo’ pussy.”

Shawna stood there frozen in place, her mind unable to comprehend just exactly what she was hearing. Did this woman really just threaten her with violence? Did she really just threaten to punch her in the mouth if she continued to talk about the crime that had been perpetrated against her? Had this other woman then gone on to imply that Shawna wanted it to happen? That she had been so desperate for sexual contact with a child that she had torn her own clothes? While on some level the pretty Catholic mom understood that people were capable of such ugliness and things much, much worse, her sheltered upbringing had left her completely unprepared to deal with anyone so outlandish. Her brain had only a fraction of a second more to process everything she had heard before a new voice spoke up and shocked her out of her own stunned silence.

“I seen her!” this new voice shouted. “I seen her! I seen her tear her own clothes. She done climbed the stairs right up at the front of the bus and then when she turned to walk down the aisle she done like this.”

The boy now mimicked, moving his hands in front of his stomach, and then motioning as if he were grabbing the fabric of his T-shirt and tearing it open just as Damon had done to her jumpsuit a few moments before.