“Too bad we ain’t got a bitch in heat for you, Juice, old boy; this one’ll have to do us both.” His horrible fingers bruised my thigh in five round places. Then he picked up his beer and opened the car door. “C’mon, darlin’,” he said. “Juice. Bring her pack.”

I gripped the steering wheel until my fingers ached. I just stared ahead, trying to think, trying to decide, but the stuff with which decisions are made seemed to have fled my mind. The men sat on the benches in the starlight and spoke in low voices. They finished their six-­packs, then fetched two others from the trunk of the car. Still I sat—silent, unmoving, trying to make sense of the mush inside my head.

It seemed I ought to run, yet I had a tie to my belongings. They had my entire life in their posses­sion. The idea that two old men could rape me, kill me and throw me in the lake where no one would ever, ever, ever even miss me was somehow out­weighed by the fact that I couldn’t leave my pack. And I couldn’t run down that terrible tunnel with them chasing me in the car. I didn’t know where to go or what to do.

I started to cry in frustration. I couldn’t think. But then from somewhere came the knowledge, the surety, that everything would end as it should. Some deeper, more powerful force was patiently at work here. My mind was befuddled for a purpose, to keep me from acting on my own. It was like tapping into a survival state, where the conscious mind is drugged so that Nature, which is infinitely wiser than man, can proceed without interference.

The car door opened and the interior light came on, blinding me for a moment. Earl stood there, his stained T-­shirt stretched tight over his bulging belly.

“Now, now, little Angelina. Don’t cry, darlin’.”

I looked up at his repugnant face, twisted with drink and lit by an unearthly fire. Something deep within me roiled. He smiled a square smile, his lips pulled away from those awful gums, while his eyes burned into me.

“C’mon now, Angelina. Give old Earl a little kiss and he’ll let you go.” He grabbed my arm and pulled me from the driver’s seat. I fell to the ground, rather he kick me than kiss me. I stuck my finger down my throat, hoping if I could retch, they would think me ill and take me somewhere, or leave me alone at the very least.

But there was nothing in my stomach to come up. I managed two or three gags, and Juice said, “She’s sick, Earl.”

His reply: “Them dirty hippies is always sick with somethin’.”

So I just lay there, on the gravel, between the car and the picnic table, and I cried.