We're Going to Need More Wine - Gabrielle Union Page 0,33

had positively identified him because he robbed the same store where he used to work. They had a description, even his driver’s license information. Then he hit a second store. Mind you, Payless would send you a storewide alert to change the price of a shoe or tell you how to display new sandals. They had the ability to warn us about this guy, tell us to be on the lookout for this former employee. They had pictures and a driver’s license. And since our store was in a predominantly white community, if a black guy walked in, we would pick up on him right away. And yet, we weren’t told a thing. Not a peep about the robberies.

Our store had even been hit before, but by someone else. Goth Girl had been there then, but no one got hurt. Every other Payless store that had ever been robbed now had security measures, like cameras and panic buttons. Not ours. And we were right by the freeway, such an easy mark.

So a black man walks into a Payless just before closing . . .

When he first walked in, I was in the back of the store straightening up a display of fake Timberlands in the men’s department. When it was two to the store, one person worked the register, one worked the floor. He came up behind me and asked me about the boots. I don’t remember what he asked, because I took one look at him and I immediately wanted to run. I didn’t. I ignored my instincts. Part of that was the racial component of where I lived. I was very aware of how my coworkers and the people in the community viewed black people. So my instincts said, “Run. Run. This is a bad situation.” But my racial solidarity and my “good home training” as a “polite” woman said, “Stay put. Don’t feed a stereotype. Don’t be rude.”

He went back to the front and I started vacuuming. This was at eight forty-five. We weren’t supposed to vacuum until the store actually closed at nine, but this was a trick staffers did to tell customers that it was closing time, get the fuck out.

The vacuum was so loud, and I heard Goth Girl scream to me to come to the register. Something in her voice told me to run. Again, I didn’t. I overruled my instincts and walked to the front, where he was holding a gun on her. He motioned to me with the gun to get behind the register. As Goth Girl gave him the money, he was incredulous that there was only a couple of hundred. As a former employee, he knew there should be more.

“I already did the drop,” she said, referring to walking the pouch of money to the nearby bank. It was another way we cut closing corners to clock out early. She sounded more annoyed than frightened. She had been there during the previous robbery and wasn’t hurt. And being an entitled young person, she had the luxury of being angry.

“Go in the back,” he said when he had emptied the cash into his bag.

Goth was in front of me, and the gun was in my back as he marched us to the storeroom. The gun was in my back, and she was still cursing him out, kicking boxes all the way in.

“This is such bullshit,” she said as he closed the storeroom door behind us. “I can’t believe this is happening.”

“Take off your clothes.”

Goth was still pissed. “I’m not taking my clothes off.”

Mind you, I was naked in a second. It never even occurred to me to say no.

We’ll be naked and dead when they find us, I thought.

And then he told us to both get in the bathroom.

Okay, I thought, maybe he’ll just put us in the bathroom. Maybe he’s doing this to buy time so he can leave.

So we crammed into the tiny little bathroom. And then, seconds later, he ordered me out.

He threw me to the ground and was suddenly on me, spreading my legs as he kept the gun on my head.

As he raped me, I began to hover over myself. I could see the whole room. I looked at that poor crying girl as she was being raped and thought, Things like this happen to bad people. Things like this don’t happen to people like me. My psyche, my body, my soul, simply could not take it. Though people say things like “I saw my