The Pediatrician’s Office
By Jessica Pierotti
Sitting in neutral, right hand on the gear shift, left hand raised to set teeth to her cuticles. If it were 2010 or 2015 she would have lit a cigarette to pass the time—but not 2012 or 2017. She was always quitting. Reaching for the stereo, she turns up the music hoping it will drown out her intrusive thoughts as her eyes trace the reddish brown brick structure on the corner. It had once been a dusty two bedroom apartment above a bar, perched at a busy intersection a little too close to the freeway. This building, since converted into a pediatrician’s office, was the site of Lyla’s first sexual assault. The new sign was cheerful and brightly colored, with some sort of cartoon animal on it. That’s gentrification for you, a dive bar transformed into a boutique private practice.
This had been her neighborhood when she first moved to Chicago. Five years prior to walking into that dusty apartment too late, too drunk, and too lonely, and a decade before that building became home to vaccinations and tearful toddlers. New to the city, in their early 20s and broke, neither Lyla nor her live-in boyfriend at the time had a car. They splurged on a granny cart one day and started making the hike down to the big grocery store, right past that lively corner dive. No longer reliant on the fickle bus schedule or the depleted mini mart, they felt liberated and filled its black wire frame to the brim with apples, tortillas, black beans, and beer—taking turns pulling or pushing it down California Ave. How disappointing it was when one of the wheels fell off the cart much sooner than it should have.
That grocery store closed years ago but Lyla still crosses through that intersection at least once a month, always hoping to catch the light and sail through and almost always being denied. She wonders if a place can be haunted even if it’s not the site of a death. Perhaps her trauma has permeated the floorboards...although they probably tore out all the drywall. She knows she wasn’t the only one. How much suffering is enough to leave a residue...her shadow self hopes the babies and expectant mothers can feel it, despite their innocence.
***
Lyla had been warned of him. Repeatedly. But it's easy to convince oneself of exceptionalism, of the capacity to outsmart a predator. To be honest, she was tempted by the danger. Driven by a self-destructive streak, she was curious to unravel this character as far as possible without slipping over the edge. They would drink together after work. A lot. Beers and whiskey shots, round after round. They would meet at dive bars, fried chicken joints, patios—daytime, nighttime, summer and winter. And he would always pay. She knew it wasn’t “healthy” per se, but it was an escape, an empty space with no questions and no accountability.
It was a long night like this, the first in months. They no longer worked together and hadn’t seen each other since her last day. She was busy in school, trying to build a new path, succeeding but grinding herself down simultaneously. She had taken up the habit of sleeping with the lights on, and hadn’t cooked a proper meal in weeks, but there was no one there to notice her declining condition. It was winter in Chicago—icy, dirty, dark, depressing. An invite out with him was an excuse to drink to excess with someone more unhinged than herself, so she accepted.
They started at that metal bar with the charmingly shitty service where he was a regular. Sitting side by side, round 4, maybe 5. She carefully peeled the paper label from each bottle of High Life, and began to unravel. Too numb to tear up, she described in monotone just how deep and wide the emptiness in her life had become. His response? He confessed his enduring love for her. Followed by accusing her of being too shallow and pretentious to consider him an option.
He knew that would cut through. That she would feel a pang of guilt upon receiving blame, no matter how unfounded it was. They had known each other long enough for him to observe her pysche and exploit it to his benefit. They sat in silence after that. Lyla occasionally looked over and shook her head at him in frustration, and then proceeded to order another round. All she remembers are fugitive flashes from the rest of the night.
Prior to this he had never explicitly expressed interest beyond an inappropriate comment or two that she could casually swat away. Of course he had tried and failed to get her into his apartment many times before, for just "one more drink." He had pursued her steadily over the years, until she was too weak emotionally and/or physically to resist him. He had finally found her at her most vulnerable. And he struck.
***
Lyla was always careful not to use the R– word when describing this experience to the few people she had told—so wary of “crying wolf” or failing to take responsibility for her complicity, her mistakes, her poor judgement. Everything is on a spectrum; it’s not as simple as consensual and non-consensual sexual activity. She believed it could be her fault and his fault at the same time. She regretted all of the choices that led her through that doorway, to that room with the flickering blue light of the television. She regretted her self-isolating and self-destructive tendencies. But now, more than anything, she empathized with that version of herself. She had been in so much pain, even if it was the wrong form of care or contact—it had, for a fleeting moment, felt better than nothing at all.
She also found this experience frustratingly banal and ubiquitous. Most women understand this scenario, or have lived it themselves. The media’s representation of sexual assault is so often Capital R, R——. It’s the parking garage at night, it’s the person following you home through the alley, it’s the terrifying criminal on the hunt. More often it’s the boss, the neighbor, the boyfriend, the best friend. In comparison, her experience felt too boring, too average, to even be considered a source of trauma. Trauma is a spectrum too. It can be a psyche-splitting nervous system overload, or more like a nasty rainbow bruise that eventually settles into nothing more than a small, knotty lump under the skin. Whatever the scale, it does leave behind its fingerprints—on the body, in the air—matter displaced by the sheer force of fear and grief.
Less than a year after opening, the pediatrician's office closed. For now the building sits empty, soon to be a juice bar, pilates studio, or real estate agency. The residue will likely fade. Let’s be honest, all ground has been soaked with blood at some point in time—but for now, that dusty corner building is no place for children.