Shampoo

Shampoo
October 1990
Deion and Jim were moving into the blue house. The kids were with their grandmother. Jim took the T-Bird to town and picked up a rented rug shampoo machine. Deion was at home and had started the day in the usual manner, drinking enough to get a buzz or smoking enough pot to get slightly lit. She was in adequate shape to arrange things in the house.
Jim had run into Walter and Lisa Smothers. Lisa had mentioned that she had used the machine and knew how to shampoo a carpet. Walter was always looking for free drugs so of course volunteered Lisa to help do the Harris’s rugs. They all arrived at the blue house and Lisa had her baby with them. People began calling Jim asking what was happening, in fact, looking for a “party.” By mid afternoon several couples had arrived, dropping in for drugs to buy or get free if Jim was so inclined.
Lisa set to work helping with the rug-cleaning machine. Walter began mooching marijuana and beer. Some of the couples brought their own beer or some chips to eat. Jim rolled a long “party joint” and passed it around to whoever was there. After providing drugs, Jim took a turn on the shampoo machine. Walter felt obliged to do the same. Most couples were only in the way. As evening came on Lisa had finished what work she was willing to do on the carpet. Her baby, still in diapers, was getting hungry and tired, unable to sleep with the commotion of the adults. Lisa told Walter that she wanted to go home and put the baby to bed. Walter, hoping for better dope, free of course, perhaps some cocaine, told Lisa to go home without him and he would follow later.
M. P. remained with his soon to be wife, as well as Donald P. Jim had passed out from some pills he took with his marijuana and beer. With Jim unconscious on the couch it became clear to all that no cocaine was forthcoming. Donald and Walter began looking for other diversions, preferably sex. Donald was not married and while Walter’s wife was at home, new conquests always interested him. Walter, known to be pushy and a bully, was a person savvy girls avoided. Deion, in Tee shirt and jeans, was actively scurrying around the house picking up empty bottles and cans as well as diligently cleaning after spilled drinks. Walter and Deion began to comment on Deion’s activity and observed that she should be doing something useful, like giving them sex in the bedroom. As they laughed at their jokes they began following Deion around the house invading her body space. Deion diligently avoided them and, staying fairly drunk most of the time, was unperturbed by their harassment and suggestive language. When Walter tried to “get one up” on Donald by following Deion into the bathroom Deion became slightly impatient. M. P., his girlfriend being close friends with Deion, was disgusted at the manner in which Walter and Donald were openly trying to trap Deion for sex. Perhaps the ingratitude toward their host and drug provider disturbed him. He left with his girl and Jim was still passed out on the couch.
Deion looked at the late hour, it was past midnight, and wondered how long the last two guests would stay. Donald and Walter said they were ready to go home but alleged they had no transportation what with everyone else gone. Deion saw that the only way to get rid of them was to take them home, much as she did not want to being that Walter was a person she feared and Donald a person she rather loathed.
They set out in the T-Bird, Deion concentrating on driving in her semi drunk state, Walter in the back seat, Donald in the front seat beside Deion. Donald, being the bachelor, took it as his part to continue trying to entice Deion into sex. He kept telling Deion they should continue the “party” at his house or somewhere else. Deion for her part would only insist that they were going home. Walter would tease Donald from the back seat that his efforts to get Deion were futile.
Arriving at the brown singlewide trailer off Renfroe road Deion pulled up next to it. Donald, seeing his last chance, told Deion he had a needle inside with some dope and if she wanted, she was welcome to it. Deion, in constant need of drugs, agreed to go inside. They entered the darkened mobile home. Donald’s father awoke to ask who was there and Donald responded it was okay since it was just he and a friend. They passed the parent’s bedroom in the semi-dark and entered Donald’s bedroom. He closed the door, turned on the light, and found the needle. Deion offered her right arm and, being that her veins were already damaged from needles, Donald roughly pushed the large needle into the back of her wrist. Deion cried out in pain. What was in the needle was uncertain to Deion, if in fact there was anything like dope in it. After pushing the syringe and setting aside the needle Donald, stung by the fact he’d just expended a $40 hit, unzipped his trousers to recover his investment. He pulled out his erect penis and sat down on the chair next to the bed. Even before Deion could get any rush from the needle, he grasped Deion’s head by her hair he pulled her face down forcing her mouth over his erection. The roughness of his grasp sent it’s message and Deion immediately complied.
Outside, Walter stood with his face to the bedroom window, a voyeur to the whole event. As Donald forced Deion’s mouth over his penis Walter became aroused by the sex in front of him. He was not one to watch another man get sex in front of him if he felt he could bully his way in first. Pounding on the window he shouted,
“Hey, what’s going on there? Cut it out! Deion, let’s go.”
Deion, unable to act on her own, was more than happy to have an excuse to end this activity. As Walter pounded loudly on the window she straightened up and mumbled dazedly “Okay, I’m coming.” Donald was irritated and disappointed. With Walter, whom he wished not to fight, pounding and looking in the window, he declined to force Deion to continue.
Deion quickly exited the mobile home and as she sat down in the car Walter began scolding her immediately.
“What the hell were you doing there?” Walter asked with planned indignation. “Why’d you do that?”
“I was just doing drugs,” said Deion.
“No you weren’t just doing drugs,” shouted Walter, "I saw what you were doing to him.”
Deion tried to avoid the sex part by pleading about the drugs.
“The needle hurt me, it hurt real bad when he stuck it in.”
“Well you deserved that,” said Walter in his still scolding voice.
Walter continued his verbal assault on Deion making it obvious that he considered her actions reprehensible. Deion, flushed with guilt began to cry. Walter, seeing that she was verbally subdued began suggesting Deion stop the car beside the isolated road. Deion shook her head and kept driving. Less than three-quarters of a mile from Donald’s house Walter made his move. He reached over the console and pulled the steering wheel from Deion hands. Simultaneously he stuck his foot over and pushed the car’s brake. They came to a halt in a left bend which offered a driveway and field entrance gravel for vehicles. Walter pushed the shirt lever to Park. He continued his assault on Deion’s guilt.
“I know what you were doing there” said Walter with great emphasis and implied innuendo. “I know what you want.”
Deion tried continue. Walter had turned of the ignition and Deion, recovering from her frustration, reached for the ignition to start the car. The keys were missing.
“You took the keys,” said Deion. She tried to assert herself. “Give me the goddamn keys.”
Her voice was weak and only the alcohol hid the tremble to her voice. She was scared being stopped beside an isolated road with a man she had never been alone with before. The subject on his mind was sex. In spite of the alcoholic buzz, Deion was scared.
Walter held the keys in his lap suggestively. “You know where the keys are and you know what you have to do to get them.”
Deion tried to plead with assertiveness but Walter clearly saw his advantage. He crawled between the bucket seats of the T-Bird and sat in the back. He reached forward and pulled on Deion’s arm. She pulled back saying “No” but Walter increased the pressure of his grip causing the first level of pain to Deion. It was enough. Defeat was clear to her and she only wanted to survive. She allowed him to pull her to the back seat. He took of her jeans and panties. It was the end of her menstrual cycle and she had a tampon in. Walter encountered the tampon with his erection and accusingly said to Deion, “What’s this?" Deion’s guilt increased for her body offending him. He pulled the tampon and threw it to the floor. Then he forced himself in her. She gasped a low moan of hurt.
“I knew you wanted it,” said Walter. He began shoving in and out of Deion as she tried to blank out and go limp. “ I knew it, you like this don’t you.” He kept on and on telling her how good she felt until he ejaculated and stopped. Deion emerged from her black out and totally relieved it was over, began to put back on her clothes. She pulled on her jeans and, frightened of the dark, awkwardly climbed back to the front seat. Walter simply sat in the back seat supremely satisfied with his success. There was a full bottle of beer under the seat. Deion took the beer and quickly swallowed it down. The emotional fog preceded the alcohol’s impact and she felt okay. She had not been badly injured and best of all, it was over.
Deion took the keys from him and started down the road. She drove in a fog of relief. The worst was over. She was not badly injured. He had not beaten her. She could continue on now knowing she had endured the worst Walter had to offer that night.
Walter decided he didn’t want to go straight home. Perhaps he had convinced himself that Deion wanted him and was seeking to prolong and plan for future engagements. He directed Deion to drive down unfamiliar roads. She protested she would soon run out of gas. Walter directed her to a gas station at a four way stop in McKenzie. He told Deion to stay in the car and he would pump the gas. Deion complied and sat in her semi-stupor at the wheel. Walter pumped some gas, hung the pump nozzle. Deion looked up after she heard the nozzle click and Walter did not join her. Instead, he was hunched down over the rear bumper and, unbeknownst to Deion, was bending up the license plate so it could not be read. He sat in the front seat beside Deion and quickly instructed her to drive.
“Get going he commanded.” She started the car. “Go!” was Walter’s forceful demand. When she did not accelerate fast enough he reached his foot over and pushed the gas for her. Deion was flustered but managed to keep control. They wordlessly drove roads according to Walters’s commands. If he spoke of something she did not hear. She drove simply wishing she had more to drink. Empty bottles were all that were under the seat now.
She drove east on State route 70. At the auction house she turned left, down into the dip on Hebron Church Road. The T-Bird climbed out of the depression and crossed the single railroad track. Descending on the other side she noticed a mobile on the left, or perhaps there were four or five. A barn, a building, a series of randomly parked vehicles in fields. Climbing the next hill she threaded her way between the cemetery flanking both sides of the road next to the Hebron Methodist Church. A two step porch set twelve feet off the asphalt led to the double white front doors of the clapboard Church. Another slight depression and around the bend with its field and cows to the right. Past another mobile on the left. A white wood frame house. The car rose to a slight hump and the silver roof of a mobile home, the tops of three windows, was visible beyond the next rise. The sun was above the horizon in the October morning twilight.
“Keep going, keep going,” Walter commanded.
Deion drove past the driveway of the mobile home.
“Turn here,” said Walter and she turned around two hundred feet past the mobile home.
As they approached the mobile home from the opposite direction Walter commanded she stop in the roadway and forty feet from the mobile he left the car only saying “I hope Lisa ain’t up.”
Deion drove slowly west on Highway 70. She dreaded going home. She knew Jim would be angry. She had survived one ordeal for the night. She was tired and not up to a second fight. As she pulled in the driveway of the blue house Jim was on the porch to greet her.
“Where have you been all night?” shouted Jim.
Deion ignored his questions until he repeated them in a threatening voice. She merely answered, ”I drove around.”
Jim persisted against her excuses.
“Where did you go? Who were you with? You were with Walter. Lisa’s called here twice already looking for Walter.”
Deion stepped around him into the house. Jim followed her and continued his interrogation. Deion continued being evasive.
Jim went out to the car and found the tampax on the floor. Holding it aloft he came in the house.
“What’s this?”
Deion put up no defense to his line of questions. She admitted Walter had fucked her. Jim knew Walter well, he also knew Deion and he knew Walter had no drugs.
“Did you want to fuck him?” Jim asked.
“No,” said Deion, “But I couldn’t stop him.”
“He raped you didn’t he?” said Jim.
“I guess” was Deion’s only reply, “I’m tired, I want to sleep.”
Jim was not satisfied. He soon got sufficient details from Deion to fill in the story.
“How could you be so dumb? Why’d you even drive those guys home? You know what Walter’s like.” He harangued Deion putting blame on her.
Deion felt it was all her fault. She just wanted to rest. She wanted to forget the whole thing.
She had just showered when the phone rang.
It was Lisa Smothers
“Did you screw my husband?” Lisa demanded.
Deion was evasive. The answer was not clear.
“Not really,” she said.
“What do you mean?” demanded Lisa, “Did you or did you not screw my husband?”
“Yeah, I guess I did.” Said Deion.
“You guess you did. You fucking bitch did you screw my husband?” demanded Lisa.
“Well it’s not like I wanted to” replied Deion.
“What are you talking about” shouted Lisa, “Are you trying to say he raped you?”
Deion only wanted to get the conversation over. She knew what Lisa wanted to hear.
“No,” said Deion, “I’m not saying he raped me.”
“You bitch, I’ll see you in court.” Was Lisa’s final shout before she slammed down the phone.
Deion and Jim went to pick up Drew and Savannah. When they drove back to the house Lisa and Walter were waiting in their car across the road.
Deion had Savannah in her arms, Drew at her side. Lisa led the way as she and Walter walked across the road.
Lisa started the same shouting.
“You bitch, did you fuck my husband?”
Deion said nothing. Jim entered the argument.
“Leave her alone, it was Walter’s fault.”
“Shut up” shouted Lisa.
Lisa was five feet ten and over two hundred pounds. The former Lisa Simpson, class of ’85. Her step father was the Huntingdon police chief. She intended to bully Deion and continued to confront her in spite of Jim. Walter stood back disgustedly encouraging her to stop listening to them and leave.
Lisa spied the license plate and demanded to know why it was turned up. She knew it was a trick her husband used to steal gas. Deion was mystified and could not answer. Lisa persisted to find the truth of her husbands all night disappearance. Deion neither defended herself nor confirmed. She would not look at Walter. The children started to cry from the raised voices and the shouting. Deion and Jim decided to end the encounter by walking in the house. Lisa stood in the yard shouting. “You bitch, I’ll see you in court.”

Deion was later to meet Donald P. in Casey’s. Donald was a person to keep marijuana on hand. Some he would sell. He would use regularly.
Deion was likely living in the mobile with her parents since she relates she was ‘alone’ at the time. It was before noon that she went to Casey’s Bar and Grill. She sat at the bar drinking a beer and fending off men she did not know. Donald came in and said hello. He sat down to have a beer with her and eventually suggested they “go out and smoke a joint.” Donald did not own a car or truck and they left in Deion’s T-Bird. They went not far to find a deserted road and stop. They smoked pot and somehow Deion found herself in the back seat with Donald. He began taking off her pants and Deion knew she did not want sex with him. She had not had too much beer to drive and she never could smoke enough pot to prevent her from driving. Even so, she was not up to fighting off Donald. She went into her shell of self-hypnosis and endured until he was finished. Then she calmly opened the car door, got into the driver’s seat and drove back to the bar. She stayed there the rest of the day drinking beer and staying buzzed long after Donald left.
Some months later Donald encountered her under the same circumstances and she was experienced enough to insist they remain in the parking lot of Casey’s to smoke his joint. She escaped his persistent moves on her by leaving her car and joining Jeanne and David Bradley as they came by and drove her away. She came back the next day and got her car. She left her car often at places.
Last year Donald wrote Deion and recalled their sex. He was in prison and wanted her to write. He said it was the best night he ever had. Deion threw his letter away.