The Backpack

The year 2013 was jam-packed. It was the year I quit my job, left New York, and flew to LA with no plan of coming back. I stayed there 4 months and lived in five different places. This is a story about what happened to me in one of them.

Downtown LA, Home #3

It was 9 p.m. I was a block away from the house I was subletting when I got hugged. It was a “Hey!” kind of hug, like one you’d get from a friend or cousin, but this person didn’t let go. In fact, he held on and told me I was going to give him “everything.” From the tone of his voice, his grip—not to mention the tap of his gun on my forehead—I knew I would be getting raped soon. He kept his hood pulled over his face, and the rules were that I wasn’t ever allowed to look at him. With his hand clasped over my mouth, he dragged me through a dark alleyway, and all I could feel was sorry for leaving New York the way that I did.

He didn’t seem terribly sharp, and I had a feeling that if I made him feel smart and respected, I’d trick him into trusting me. So whenever he asked me a question, I addressed him as “sir.” If I was going to make him feel respected, I was going to commit.

We got to a secluded spot and he instructed me to take off my backpack. That’s when I got really scared. My backpack holds everything I need—my drawings, my good pens, the short graphic novel that I’d just received that day—and if he ran away with it, this would’ve been rape times two.

I was down on the ground on top of a spray-painted traffic sign when I saw two people walk by. I yelled for help, but they ignored my pleas and instead told me to “trust in the Lord.” At that point, I embraced the idea that this thing was going to happen and told myself that the only way to get through it was to do what he said—and do it well.

I was not allowed to make noise. That was the saddest part. There was noise, but it didn’t come from me. My silence was colored by sounds of the neighborhood. Screen doors cranking open. Cars driving by. Dogs barking. Husbands