CHAPTER ONE

    To be suspended between choices is unfortunate; to be paralyzed by a choice which does not exist is pathetic. This is not what her mother said, it was what her mother meant.

    She watched him walk off to his car. He was a good man, intelligent and funny. He had shown himself to be honest. He was a good business man. She should love him. Perhaps she could love him if she tried. She didn’t and wouldn’t.

    The worst of it was yet to come. She still had to go back in the house and talk to her mother. She knew most of what would be said. It had all been said before. The only real hope was that this man might be the last man and she wouldn’t have to hear any of it again.

    “Well, you sent him packing didn’t you?”, her mother’s accusation came in a question. “Girl, when are you going to grow up? You are almost thirty now, time will soon turn mean. You better get over that white boy. You throwing your life away on some one who never thinks about you. He don’t know you exist.”

    “Momma, leave me alone about that.”, she answered. “I am not throwing my life away. I just don’t want to marry. I am happy the way I am”

    “Girl, it a sin to lie and damnable sin to lie to your Momma!”

    “Good night Momma.”, she said, limping off the battlefield toward bed.

    Undressed and in bed, staring at the ceiling, it was hard not to dwell on where she was right and where she was wrong. The “white boy” wasn’t ruining her life, she didn’t love him or some romanticized memory of him. She had worried about that in the past. She had gone to the archives and read all the newspaper coverage. It was all still there. At least most of it. The part the world knew. It was the way she remembered it. He had been real. The most real person in her life. That was the tragedy of it. If he hadn’t been real, she would be over all this by now. She didn’t think she would ever get over it.

    The Spring of 1967 was an exciting and tumultuous time in South Carolina. She was seventeen, a senior at Dreher High School in Columbia. Her class wasn’t the first to be integrated but it was one of the first to have almost as many blacks as whites. She had been one of the first black children in the white schools. She had started as a freshman, when there were only four of them. One in each grade. Now almost thirty percent of the junior and senior classes were black and the sophomore and freshman classes were almost fifty-fifty.
    Everywhere in the South blacks were establishing “firsts”. The first black principal of an integrated  school, the first black resident in the Richland County Hospital, the first black deputy sheriff in Richland County, the first black member on the South Carolina General Assembly, and on and on. In the Spring of 1967 it was good to be young and black. It was fine. Blacks were winning. Truly winning for the first time in the long sorrowful history of Africans in America. Whites looked at them with a new respect. Of course, many looked at them with a renewed hatred and were willing to commit violence and terror to turn them back. This time the terror wasn’t working. You could see in the whites’ eyes that they knew it wasn’t working.

    Just looking in their eyes was new. Blacks weren’t supposed, weren’t allowed to look a white man or woman in the eyes. It was uppity. They all knew why in the Spring of 1967. There was fear in white eyes. Fear they were never supposed to see. Blacks could see it now and it was dangerous. But it was dangerous for whites too and knowing that made everything different. Knowing that leveled everything.

    Her senior year had been the best of her life. She had discovered she was pretty and had discovered the power that gave her over boys and men. For the first time, she had a social life and school activities. Before, she was encouraged to make the best grades in the school, which she did, but was told to go home “straight away”.

    After her junior year, the district had closed Booker T. Washington, the inner city black high school, and consolidated the students into Dreher and two other previously all white high schools. Now she had friends she could hang out with, boys she could flirt with and date. Friends to eat lunch with. The first half of the year had been the wonderful.

    Fred showed up in March. He just appeared, first in her physics class then, here and there. Parctically speaking, Dreher was still segregated since none of the blacks had much to do with any of the whites and vice versa. If it hadn’t been for physics she wouldn’t have known Fred, not known him at all.

    Fred’s father had recently died. His mother moved back to Columbia to be with her family. Fred’s mother’s family were Funderbrucks. The Funderbrucks were one of the richest and most powerful families in South Carolina, had been for many generations. The family had arrived early on the American shore and had done very well. They had been one of the first planter families in the central part of the state, predating the founding of the state and the city.

    Fred’s mother had been educated up North and had married into a wealthy Yankee family. Fred had been raised in New York and at prep school. His only previous contact with Columbia had been occasional visits to his grand parents.

    Just before Christmas 1966, Fred’s father, Morgan Hamilton, died. Fred’s mother decided to move back to the city of her youth. In her grief, she took Fred out of his school in mid year and enrolled him in Dreher. At first there was foolish speculation that the family had lost its money.

    The upheaval must have created insecurity in Fred. Yet, during those first few weeks, he moved so effortlessly through the paces of high school life that no one thought him insecure about anything.

    He was far ahead of the rest of the physics class. He came from an advanced class in a very good school. She was the only person anywhere near his proficiency level. As a consequence, the two of them were assigned three special projects. The teacher thought this might be a way for her to benefit from his superior education and keep the rest of the year from being a complete bust for Fred.

    She recalled the first two projects as a stretch, but neither seemed to pose a challenge for Fred. The third was different. They were assigned a complex series of proofs demonstrating the laws governing laser technology. From the start they ran into trouble. They knew the result expected but could not achieve it. She remembered being aggravated at the pleasure their teacher took in their struggle. A shared sense of purpose, proving themselves equal to the challenge, was first to bring Fred and her together. They spent long hours designing the work agenda and assigning the tasks between themselves. They began to think as a team. There were many moments of shared frustration, tedious and repetitive work tasks, leading to a joyous success. Their proofs came just in time to satisfy the grade requirement.

    She felt she really knew Fred. He was the first white person she had known as an equal and friend. She had tried all the black guilt scams on him. Once she even told him that it was weird working on a project with someone who had an ancestor who may have owned one of her ancestors.

    “I hadn’t given it any thought,” he replied, “it is possible I suppose. Tell me some of your family names and the communities they lived in and I’ll check the old records.”

    “You have old records?”, she stammered in reply.

    “Oh sure. My Grandfather kept all that stuff”, was Fred’s offhand response. “He likes to look up things like that. The most fun he has is discovering old connections. He may discover that both of us have an ancestor who once owned one of your ancestors.”

    The response contained the commonly held belief that, by now, virtually all Southern Negroes possessed some White genetic connection. Years of close proximity, an unequal power relationship and natural human cravings made clandestine sexual encounters between the races common. No one kept records of all of it, but everyone knew. Some “Whites” were Negroes who could “pass” or were descended from such persons.

    The response both shocked and pleased her. Though such an allusion to taboo relations was sometimes a topic between friends of the same race, it was exceedingly rare in conversations between the races. The response could have been an “in your face” retort to her attempt to impose a sense of guilt or a bold admission of their shared humanity.

    She still didn’t know if he was calling her bluff. His response was so guileless and nonchalant. He may have been genuinely interested in the question. He may have been letting her know that he had no interest in “white guilt”. He did ask her twice to give him the family names. He said he had spoken to his grandfather about it.

    During the May of that year she had finished track practice and was walking out the back of the building. It was quite late and close to dark. As she approached the back exit she ran into three white boys, Bobby Haynie and two of his cohorts. Bobby Haynie’s father was the Chief of Police in Columbia. Bobby was a red neck and racist. He enjoyed a certain immunity due to his father and he pushed it all the time.

    “Whoo, look here!”, you could hear the leer in Bobby’s voice. “You are good looking, for colored. I know you colored girls like it. How about showing me and the boys a good time?”

    “Bobby, you are a disgusting slug.” was her reply. She tried to be as imperious as possible from what was a defenseless position. She thought she could bluff her way out of the situation. She was wrong.

    “Look here niggar!”, Bobby was red with anger and excitement. “Don’t you think you can get away with calling me names. Things ain’t changed that much. Not yet.”

    He grabbed her and pinned her against the wall. His face was directly in front of her, his body pressed against her’s, pinning her arms behind her back with one hand and beginning to explore with the other. Bobby’s friends cackled and chortled on both sides.

    “Clam down boys. You’ll get your turn.” Bobby’s announcement was petrifying. “She’ll be plenty for all of us.”

    It occurred to her, even Bobby wouldn’t rape her if he thought anyone might be around. Her position must be hopeless. Even so, she screamed. Bobby and his friends seemed surprised. It angered them all the more. She was hit hard in the stomach. She doubled up and vomited. Even that didn’t deter Bobby. He spun her over on her back and had his hands under her clothes stripping her. This was done with such efficiency it flashed through her mind she might not be his first assault. Her clothes were ripped and removed, she was half naked and he was on top of and about to be in her.

    She didn’t remember saying anything or hearing anything more. She did remember someone picking Bobby up with such force that she was lifted  with him. Bobby and she were separated in the ensuing fight between Bobby and his friends and Fred.

    As it happened, Fred was bigger than any of his adversaries and he fought well. Unfortunately, there were three of them and, after the initial advantages of surprise and complete commitment to the effort wore off, Fred began to get the worst of it. She didn’t know how it would have turned out had the football coach not turned up.

    Bobby and his buddies played football. Fred did not. The Coach was white. She didn’t think they were saved after Coach broke up the fight. He surveyed the scene with a sneer. A lurid one for her as she tried to cover herself with Fred’s torn shirt and the tatters of her clothes. Then Coach noticed Rufus Johnson, the janitor. Too many witnesses.

    “What happened here?”, Coach demanded.

    “This gal was wanting us. Coach.” Bobby stated. “she damn near tore her and my clothes off. This stupid son of a bitch”, pointing toward Fred, “jumped in and started a fight.”

    She was crying, unable to say anything. Caught in rage, humiliation and shock, she was momentarily without the ability to protest Bobby’s outrageous lie.

    He’s a liar.” the voice was Fred’s. “He assaulted this girl and tried to rape her. His friends were waiting their turn at her.”

    “Don’t call me a liar you Yankee bastard!”, this from Bobby.

    “We didn’t want no niggar pussy!” this from his friends.

    “Now everybody settle down. Rufus fetch me a wrap for this girl.” the Coach tried to take charge. “This looks like a misunderstanding that got way out of hand. It is a good thing I came along when I did.”

    “Yeah, Coach.”, Bobby chimed in, “It was a misunderstanding. We didn’t attack nobody.”

    Fred broke in, “It was rape”. Looking directly at Coach, Fred continued, “You better call the police.”

    Everybody looked at Fred like he was crazy. He obviously did not know Bobby’s relationship to the Police Chief.

    “I’ve heard you say rape,” the Coach shot back, “I haven’t heard her say rape.”

    Everybody turned to her. She spoke in a whisper, looking at Fred, “It was rape.”

-----------------------------------------
    The next several days were a blur of frantic activity. She had accused the son of the Chief of Police of attempted rape and assault and battery. It would be an understatement to say that the police department was antagonistic toward her charges. She was harassed at every turn. In school and during the official investigation. The more she stuck to the charge the more strident the harassment became. She remembered the time as a constant adrenaline rush. Looking back, she knew she must have been scared, but that is not the sensation she recalled now.

    Her family and friends stood by her. Even so, they would have been crushed by the weight of the white establishment’s anger and resentment had Fred wavered at all. He did not. His story remained consistent and his recollection of what he saw and heard stayed clear. He was shunned by the white kids at school. The pressure on him must have been unbearable. She didn’t know because communication between them became difficult.

    After some time, Fred’s consistency and her attorney’s complaints attracted the attention of the US Justice Department. This changed the investigation immediately. She began to have real hope. The local police no longer controlled the inquiry once the fed’s were involved.

    Twenty-five days after Fred and she leveled the rape charge and only days after the fed’s expressed an interest in the case, she was called into the small office of her father’s machine shop.

    “Come over here and sit down, Baby.” The sad sound in her father’s voice should have given her some warning of what was to come. “Baby, you know Reverend Allison, this is Mr. Morris with Carolina Bank.”

    Reverend Allison she had know since her earliest days. He was and is the Pastor of her church.

    Mr. Morris she had heard of but had never met. Morris was the head of the largest bank in South Carolina. He was a leading citizen of Columbia. He had lead the effort to create the Multi Racial Council in Columbia. The Council was then the only place were prominent whites and blacks met together to discuss the issues of the day. All other community service organizations remained segregated. Only the tremendous prestige of Mr. Morris had allowed the Council to get started. Though white, he was something of a hero in the black community. This day Morris looked terrible. It appeared he had been in a car crash. As no one else mentioned it, she let it pass.

    “Baby, Mr. Morris says that the boys that attacked you are real sorry”, my father’s voice explained. “He says they want to apologize and forget the whole thing.”

    “Daddy, how can I forget it?”, her voice did not disguise the anger she still felt. “Tell them to go to the Federal Attorney and say they’re sorry! I don’t want to hear it.”

    “Baby, they are sorry.”, her father sadly replied.

    “Child,” this from the Reverend Allison, “this thing is ripping the whole town apart. In my whole life I have never seen the races more hostile toward each other. If you don’t accept the apology and drop the charges people are going to get killed. I know you don’t want that on your head, now do you.”

    She thought of Fred. All the pressure he had been under. He hadn’t backed away or even equivocated. If she dropped the charges after all he and she had been through, what would he think of her?

    Mr. Morris must have read her mind. “Ma’am, I know what we are asking is a hard thing. But the boys are admitting that they were wrong. Forgiving them is the strong thing to do. Besides, the Reverend is right, if this doesn’t come to an end, people like us in this room are going to lose control of this city and people will die. Your friend Fred may be one of the first.”

    Eyes downcast, softly she asked, “Does Fred know what you are asking?”

    “No”, Morris replied, “he doesn't know. He won’t back away from his statement. His mother is worried sick. He probably will be sent away. You know he is all she has left. It will be a painful separation.”

    She looked to her father. He returned her gaze for only an instant. In that instant she saw that he had already made some decision about this, one more painful than he could bear. He quickly looked away, but she already knew that she had no choice.

    She never asked what Mr. Morris had offered to Reverend Allison and her father. She did not want to know. In the coming months and years, her father began to do business with white owned companies which had never given work to him before. Her father did good work at low prices and he kept a lot of this business. Her family prospered as never before. Her father was now banking with Carolina Bank and could get loans for big lathes and controls he had only dreamed about before. Still, he was never as happy as he had been before. Her mother said all the new work kept him so busy he didn’t have time to smile.

    A month and one half after she dropped the charges, Reverend Allison announced in church that the long stalled fund raising drive for the new church gymnasium had been successful and they would break ground the following month. Also, the church had been notified that its application for a elderly housing apartment had received state and federal approval and would begin the design phase. It would be built and ready by the following year.

    How much of all this was due to Mr. Morris and how much to good fortune she never knew. She did pick up on the general impression in the black community that Mr. Morris was one white man who would keep his part of a bargain.

    All that came later. First, she had to go back to school and face the consequences of her decision to drop the charges. She still had to face Fred. She told herself she was doing this, at least in part, to protect him.

    The morning she was to return, three senior black boys showed up at her door. Reverend Allison assigned these boys to escort her everywhere at school. This was to continue until she felt secure without them.

    She arrived at school and stood outside prior to the opening bell. Black/white tension was still high and there was no interaction between the two races, only a suspicious, hostile silence.

    She knew Fred was there because the white kids were separating into two groups, parting as still water by an idle finger. Fred was still being shunned by his race. In almost a month he had but one conversation with anybody his age. She could only guess at his isolation.

    She saw him as he walked straight toward her. He was not downcast or tentative. She dreaded hearing what he was going to say. She never did.

    She was immediately surrounded by her escort. “Go away white boy.” This from the leader of her protectors, “No one here needs or wants you.”

    For along time there was silence. She looked at the ground. She could feel his eyes on her. Her head was filled with the knowledge that when she needed him he had been there. She wanted him there right then.

    Fred said, “Goodbye.”

    The entry bell rang. Everyone began moving into the school. Everyone but Fred. She looked out the window and caught a glimpse of him alone on the sidewalk. She was a long way from him and couldn’t be sure, it looked as if he had tears in his eyes. After a time he turned and got into a car. She never saw him again.

    All that is in the past now. It is a past so real that it interferes with her present. She tried not to think about it, she had to try all too often.

     She worked for the school district now. She was in charge of the library resources center and library budget for the district. Its a good job and a good career. She had gone as high in her profession as she could, if she stayed in Columbia, but it is secure, well paid and important work.

    The work took her to Washington occasionally for conferences and seminars. Everyone in the profession complains about these trips but the truth is the trips are among the real fringe benefits of the profession. She is active in the state and national professional organizations and takes these trips frequently. She has become used to the travel and enjoys it.

    Normally she flew Eastern Airlines from Washington National Airport and connected to Columbia in Charlotte. Today she couldn’t. First, for some reason, the meeting was scheduled in Tyson’s Corner instead of D.C. and she couldn’t make any reasonable connections. So today she ended up at the Delta counter at Dulles International Airport.

    Unfamiliar with Dulles, she was not paying much attention to people around her. She was fussing with her ticket and rechecking the gate. She looked up after the first boarding call. Fred looked up at the same time.

    It surprised her how both experienced instant recognition, after more than ten years. After all, they really never spent that much time talking to each other. It had been an intense time. Even so, she doubted she would have recognized Bobby and he had almost raped her.

    Once again, she was standing still and Fred was walking toward her. As direct and purposeful as all those years gone by, he walked and smiled.

    “Hello, I don’t know if you remember me”, Fred said, “I’m....”

    “Fred I remember you very well and fondly.”, she was able to get out.

    She was relieved to see his smile turn to a beam at her statement.

    “It is good to see you again, and good to see you looking so well.”, she continued. “Are you on this flight?”

    “Yes, I’m headed home.”

    “Where is home now-a-days?” she tried to sound disinterested but genuinely wanted to know.

    “Atlanta.”, he answered. “How about you? Columbia still?”

    “Oh yes, I still live in Columbia.”, and with some embarrassment she added, “I still live at home with Mother.”

    She was going to ask him what he was doing now, what was his life like, did he ever think of those days long ago, what had happened to him since then, where had he been, and a million other questions but time ran out. It was time to board. He sat in the front in First Class. She sat in the back because somewhere she had heard that you could survive a crash from the back and the district only paid for coach. They said hasty goodbyes as they boarded.

    She was sure he would be well on his way to the terminal by the time she could get off the plane in Atlanta. She stood up the moment the secure bell rang but there was a plane full of people between her and Fred. She couldn’t see him from where she stood. She could see people moving off the plane but everyone stayed put in the back. She had to wait for those in front to collect their bags and parcels and shuffle forward toward the exit. She died several times from the anticipation as she slowly began to move toward the front. She could not remember such frustration.

    She finally cleared the gate. Fred was nowhere to be seen. Disappointed, she fumbled with her ticket to check the departure time and began the comforting ritual of scanning the screens for the next CAE listing. She could ask an agent but wanted and needed the diversion.

    She couldn’t believe it! After years of alternately obsessing on this man and sublimating all thought of him and the circumstances of their original acquaintance, she had seen him, talked to him, learned nothing and lost him again.

The Rape (ISBN 1-59286-951-3) by T. M. Copeland
Is available at amazon.com or where ever fine books are sold