Never Scared
tw: this piece discusses sexual assault
I was ready to die after I was raped. It was 2015, I was working at an educational non-profit where days were long and pay was scant. One of my coworkers who I had begun to hang out with outside of work, drugged and raped me. The case went to trial in October of 2016.
What I can tell you about that day, October 6, 2016, was that the Uber that would take me to the courthouse was late. A non-profit in the city I lived in, Pittsburgh Action Against Rape, had offered me free legal counsel, therapy, and transportation to and from court visits. I stood outside my apartment smoking a cigarette and waiting, stones toiling under my heel.
What I can tell you about that day was that weeks before I’d begun building a playlist I called “Rage Suite” that was supposed to help me tap into my anger, and grit. One song stood out, and would become my anthem during that day, Bone Crusher’s “Never Scared,” featuring Killer Mike and T.I.
So I’m outside of the club and you think I’m a punk
So I go to my loaded tech nine that’s off in the trunk
I told that motherfucker
I ain’t never scared (east side)
I ain’t never scared (west side)
I ain’t never scared (south side)
I ain’t never scared (north side)
I ain’t never scared (south side)
I ain’t never scared (east side)
I ain’t never scared (west side)
I grew up on the east side of Pittsburgh, in a neighborhood called Garfield, which, before gentrification, was a place that people would consider rough. If you’re from Pittsburgh, you know that crimes that happened in neighborhoods like mine were met with “who cares? They’re animals anyway” by the city’s racist residents.
In relation to that toughness, I grew up rather soft. I cried a lot. Was deemed overly emotional by my abusive parents. When I tried to tap into my anger, into a thicker skin, I felt like a fraud. Surrounded by Black men and boys who seemed afraid of nothing, I was afraid of my own shadow.
When my drug and alcohol abuse started, things changed. I felt less like my tender belly was exposed at all times, I felt invincible, fun, sexy even. Addiction coupled with an undiagnosed mental health disorder led me to delusions of grandeur, like, I’ll never die.
When I met B, we bonded over music. I let him believe he introduced me to Sarah Vaughan. We drank and popped pills together until the morning hours, I would jump on a bus that got me close to home from his place, then stumble laughing the rest of the way to my apartment. When he raped me, that old fear stuck it’s sick in my stomach, and I cried. I wanted to do anything but: scream, kick, scratch, punch. But I didn’t. I cried.
Killer Mike’s verse on “Never Scared” is my favorite.
I got a hot 4 fever, call that bitch bonita
Knock the apple off any bum with the hollow heat seeker
Red cross bitch niggas, fuck the pint, she take blood by the liter
I’ll never leave her, my viscous vixen
On liquor, send dat ass to god quicker
No matter yo religion, you muslim, hebrew or christian
She indiscriminate with punishment, she send ‘em missin
My gun’s my favourite bitch and
And she got permanent pms so she stay bitchin!
So much vigor, disdain, and anger in that verse. So much cunning and word play. Send dat ass to god quicker. For years after, I would Google my rapist (who had many DUIs to his name) to see if he had died. I wanted him dead, and the reality of being a victim of rape was that I wasn’t supposed to say that out loud.
Eventually, my Uber arrived, and I was carted off to the courthouse downtown. The smell was stale, like sweat and rotting wood. Old, but not like your sweet Nana old, like something putrid.
I remember looking for the officer who took my statement when I reported, the one who arrived at my apartment irritated, one foot in the door and one out. Who rolled his eyes and yelled at me when I couldn’t state the unfettered reality of what happened to me that night (speak up, he put his what where?)
Who I did find, was one of the detectives I first met with. I remember a Black woman detective who also took my statement, but she disappeared. I was left with a tall, white guy who held his head in his hands when I told him I had been drinking the night it happened.
On October 6, 2016, he approached me.
“I just wanted you to know, I saw him and his lawyer talking with the judge, they were laughing and seemed friendly. They are acting like they’ve already won.”
I should have taken that for the warning it was.
If you get up on that stand, they will rip you apart. Take the plea deal.
Bone Crusher’s verse on his song is less strong for me, but still one I repeated to myself over and over as it blared through my headphones that morning.
Let the choppa go blow to your melon
Now the plasma is oozin outta yo cerebellum
Attention! Fuck nigga, now you swellin
You ain’t talkin hardcore, now is ya? Lil’ bitch
Got’em runnin scared of a bigger nigga
‘Cause I put the heat to his ummm hilfiger
Now on dat drank and on some of dat dank
Pistols gettin bursted now I need something to drank
This. The thing I’m not supposed to admit. If I were brave enough, stable enough to own a gun those days without the threat of pressing the barrel to my own forehead, I would have killed him. I was about 6 inches shorter than my rapist, but likely weighed more than him. I was, in fact, the bigger nigga.
He is white, spectacled and lanky. He looked like he wouldn’t hurt a fly.
If given the chance, would I be able to put the heat to his temple? His heart?
The economy of “Never Scared” is what makes it so appealing to me. They’re not mincing words, they make quick and efficient work of their threats. Graphic, explicit, decidedly not scared. Hyping myself up in the morning, in the mirror, I nodded my head along to the beat. He thinks I’m a punk, he thinks he can get away with this, he thinks I’m a punk, a bitch, a pussy.
The video for the song features a larger than life Bone Crusher walking through a city, streets and cars crumbling under his weight. I imagined myself that big, that strong, that threatening.
But, at the end of the day, I was a woman in a black suit. Alone. No family support. My advocate beside me without the right words to say.
The plea deal lay on the table. He wouldn’t go on the registry and he’d plead down to some assault charges. Everyone was looking at me, urging me with their eyes to take it. Something in me folded, I was worried about inconveniencing these people who had made my time with the criminal justice system a certain kind of hell.
I agreed to the deal.
B’s family stood behind him at the reading of the deal. His mom tried to trip me. He laughed when I read my victim impact statement.
At the end of the day, I was still just a scared little girl. Easily frightened, easily defeated.
T.I. comes in with the longest verse on the song:
No, I ain’t bad, just don’t kiss no ass or take shit
And I’m a grown man, find you somebody to play wit
If you don’t like me when you see me, betta not say shit
I’ll choke yo ass out like dre did that bitch
You betta tell these pussies they ain’t fuckin wit no rookie
I’m a bankhead nigga, I’ll take yo cookies
So don’t make it a me or you situation
I’ll have yo partner down in icu visitation
Like, hope for the best, but I don’t think he gon’ make it
Not the way he was shiverin and shakin on the pavement
I’ll tell you what, if you make it, call ‘em grace ‘cause he amazin’
Find out these verses wasn’t the only thing blazin’ and
Just when you thought that I was done I was savin’ the
Best for last, nigga kiss my ass
Like della reese, they my folks, it’s best you just let ‘em be
‘Cause I do the shit precincts and them feds just ain’t never see nigga
It was me shiverin’ and shakin’ on the pavement. I couldn’t get in my Uber home fast enough. The driver was reckless, blowing red lights and stop signs. I experienced, for the first and last time, car sickness.
Where I grew up, the cops were only good for harassing Black men and women and criminalizing children. I can’t believe I thought things would be different for me, that they would somehow help me find justice or peace. I believed in the copaganda that plagues our televisions, thinking that there would be some grand moment where I watched B ushered away in handcuffs.
I never got what I wanted. I’m still scared of most things most of the time.
When I listen to Bone Crusher now, I can’t help but think of 22 -year-old me. Her eyes, the way she partied hard and drank away the pain she felt. I think about the first time I held a gun as a teenager, the weight of it in my hands.
I never got what I wanted: to be a killer. To never be afraid of anything. To be hood, hard, unflinching.
I haven’t Googled B in over a year. Which I consider a kind of win. I can want him dead, still, but I’m not obsessed with being the one pulling the trigger. To be honest, I think he’ll do that on his own.
As for me, if there’s a wasp outside my door, I run back inside. I scream when I see waterbugs. I still think a bear will pop out from behind the dumpster when I take out the trash. There’s no economy, no efficiency in fear.
Maybe, one day, I won’t be so moved by it.