Sharp Objects(36)

He stared me down. “I want to know about its violence. Every place has its own particular strain. Is it in the open, is it hidden? Is it committed as a group—bar fights, gang rapes—or is it specific, personal? Who commits it? Who’s the target?”

“Well, I don’t know that I can just make a sweeping statement of the entire history of violence here.”

“Name a truly violent incident you saw growing up.”

My mother with the baby.

“I saw a woman hurt a child.”

“Spanking? Hitting?”

“She bit it.”

“Okay. Boy or girl?”

“Girl, I think.”

“The child was hers?”

“No.”

“Okay, okay, this is good. So a very personal act of violence on a female child. Who committed it, I’ll check it out.”

“I don’t know the person’s name. It was someone’s relative from out of town.”

“Well, who would know her name? I mean, if she has ties here, it’d be worth looking into.”

I could feel my limbs disconnecting, floating nearby like driftwood on an oily lake. I pressed my fingertips against my fork tines. Just saying the story aloud panicked me. I hadn’t even thought Richard might want specifics.

“Hey, I thought this was just supposed to be a profile of violence,” I said, my voice hollow behind the blood in my ears. “I don’t have any details. It was a woman I didn’t recognize, and I don’t know who she was with. I just assumed she was from out of town.”

“I thought reporters didn’t assume.” He was smiling again.

“I wasn’t a reporter at the time, I was only a girl….”

“Camille, I’m giving you a hard time, I’m sorry.” He plucked the fork from my fingers, placed it deliberately on his side of the table, picked my hand up and kissed it. I could see the word lipstick crawling out from my right shirtsleeve. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to grill you. I was playing bad cop.”

“I find it difficult to see you as bad cop.”

He grinned. “True, it’s a stretch. Curse these boyish good looks!”

We sipped our drinks for a second. He twirled the salt shaker and said, “Can I ask a few more questions?” I nodded. “What’s the next incident you can think of?”

The overpowering smell of the tuna salad on my plate was making my stomach twist. I looked for Kathy to get another beer.

“Fifth grade. Two boys cornered a girl at recess and had her put a stick inside herself.”

“Against her will? They forced her?”

“Mmmm…a little bit I guess. They were bullies, they told her to, and she did.”

“And you saw this or heard about it?”

“They told a few of us to watch. When the teacher found out, we had to apologize.”

“To the girl?”

“No, the girl had to apologize too, to the class. ‘Young ladies must be in control of their bodies because boys are not.’”

“Jesus. You forget sometimes how different things were, and not that many years ago. How just…uninformed.” Richard jotted in his notebook, slid some Jell-O down his throat. “What else do you remember?”

“Once, an eighth-grade girl got drunk at a high-school party and four or five guys on the football team had sex with her, kind of passed her around. Does that count?”

“Camille. Of course it counts. You know that, right?”

“Well, I just didn’t know if that counted as outright violence or…”

“Yeah, I’d count a bunch of punks raping a thirteen-year-old outright violence, yes I sure would.”

“How is everything?” Kathy was suddenly smiling over us.

“You think you could sneak me one more beer?”

“Two.” Richard said.

“All right, this one I do only as a favor to Richard, since he’s the best tipper in town.”

“Thanks, Kathy.” Richard smiled.

I leaned across the table. “I’m not arguing that it’s wrong, Richard; I’m just trying to get your criteria for violence.”

“Right, and I’m getting a good picture of exactly the kind of violence we’re dealing with here, just by the fact that you’re asking me if that counts. Were the police notified?”

“Of course not.”

“I’m surprised she wasn’t made to apologize for allowing them to rape her in the first place. Eighth grade. That makes me sick.” He tried to take my hand again, but I tucked it away in my lap.

“So it’s the age that makes it rape.”

“It’d be rape at any age.”

“If I got a little too drunk tonight, and was out of my head and had sex with four guys, that would be rape?”

“Legally, I don’t know, it’d depend on a lot of things—like your attorney. But ethically, hell yes.”

“You’re sexist.”

“What?”

“You’re sexist. I’m so sick of liberal lefty men practicing sexual discrimination under the guise of protecting women against sexual discrimination.”

“I can assure you I am doing nothing of the sort.”