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Some of the faces were familiar, or almost.
    Mostly these were white men. The rapists had all been white. Except dark-skinned, unshaven, with dark hair, heavyeyebrows. It scared you now, you could not have described their race . You would have to say white. White-but-dark. Darkish-skinned but white. You would have to say . . .
    Remembering how he’d kicked you. Kick-kick-kicked your back, your thighs and legs, laughing, trying to grab your ankles, clumsy and stumbling and giving up, the little cunt wasn’t worth the effort.
    If you found his face here! He would come back to kill you.
    He was the enemy. They were all the enemy. They knew your name, they knew your mother’s name. And where you lived, they knew. You began to shiver, you could not stop shivering. Your eyes were wet with tears. The detectives stared at you in silence. The Family Services woman took your hands, gently.
    Calling you Bethie. Saying it was all right you would be safe.
    The police would protect you, she said. You and your mother, the police will protect you. Please believe us.
    You did not believe. You did not know what to believe.
    You continued to look at the pictures. Saw a familiar face, and pointed: him?
    No. Changed your mind. No, maybe not. They looked so much like one another, guys you saw every day on the street.
    At the 7-Eleven where Momma was always shopping. At the Huron Shopping Center. Driving by on Ninth Street these muggy hot summer evenings, and through the park, a hallf-dozen yelling, hooting guy hanging out of a noisy old car with oversized tires.
    This one! Suddenly, you were sure.
    The guy with the sand-colored hair falling in his face. Sexy like a rock star except his face was broken out in pimples.
    Jeering and nasty he’d been, rushing at you. Grabbing at your mother and trying to kiss her. Grabbing at her breasts. Teeeena!
    You realized now, he’d led the others. He was their leader. You knew.
    This one . Yes.
    Almost, you knew this guy’s name. Pick?
    On Eleventh Street near the lumberyard there was a family named Pick living in a large yellow-tile house. The front yard was grassless, but the driveway was crammed with vehicles—cars, motorcycles, a motorboat on a trailer. Leila Pick was three years older than you at Baltic Junior High, a fattish, aggressive girl. There were older brothers in the family, one of them named Marvin.
    Excited, you knew this was him: Marvin Pick.
    Later you would identify his brother, though you didn’t know his name: Lloyd. The Pick features were unmistakable. A wide-boned face, thick nose with dark nostrils. A low forehead, sand-colored hair.
    Marvin Pick was twenty-six; his brother Lloyd was twenty-four.
    Here! This one, too.
    Jimmy DeLucca, this young man would be. It scared you to see his picture close up. Sneering at Momma in his angry, nasty voice, Cunt dirty cunt show us your titties cunt!
    You would not find the one who’d kicked you. He’d hada mustache, stubbled jaw. The imprint of his angry fingers in bruised welts on your ankles. Whereya goin’ you little cunt?!
    Except: the detectives said to try again. And you did. And there he was.
    â€œSuspects,” they were called. As if they hadn’t done what they’d done to you and your mother but were only “suspected” of doing it!
    You identified just five of them. By their mug shots, and in lineups at the precinct. Staring at groups of six to eight young men through a one-way window. Assured that they couldn’t see you though you saw them. In the bright unsparing lights of the viewing room, the rapists were not so confident. Their mouths were not so jeering. Their eyes were not so glassy-hard.
    Immediately you saw them, you knew them. You understood then that you would never forget those faces.
    There had been others. Maybe seven, eight. Maybe more. It had been so confusing. And others had come, drawn by the commotion. Out of the park. From the roadway. Maybe.
    You