Case History 3

Subject: Alexandria McB. Age: 14

INTERVIEW ONE

Alexandria McB was about as lovely and charming a young girl as a person could ever hope to meet. She was as delicate as a spring flower, and I felt personally sorry for her because of the terrible thing that she had had to endure as so young and impressionable an age.

Oh, Doctor, I ... I just don't know how to tell you about ... about what happened to me. But Mommie and Daddie and the Police said I should try and be brave and try to tell you what happened ... so I guess I will.

You ... you won't repeat this to anybody, will you?

Oh, I'm so glad, because I'd just die if everybody knew!

Mommie and Daddie and everybody who does know have been real nice and they've promised me not to say anything about it.

And so you can understand how I feel, but since you say you won't repeat anything either, well ... then I will tell you.

Yes, I will tell you all about it.

But, then ... then I never want to talk about it again, never.

And I won't.

I don't care who asks me.

Mommie and Daddy say I'll have to tell the lawyer and then the Judge and some other people about it, too.

Someday soon, they say.

But I won't!

I just won't, that's all!

And they can't make me, no they can't! I don't care who 'has' to know! I'm just not going to say another word about it to anybody ever again, and I don't care what anybody has to say.

And that includes Mommie and Daddy and you, too.

So! Well! It ... it all started last week, on Friday afternoon.

That was the day of the big snow storm. You remember that? Well, that was the afternoon it ... it happened.

School let out and the place was almost deserted.

Except for ... him!

He was still there!

But everybody else was gone! The school usually does empty out pretty fast when it closes, especially on a Friday.

Everybody is in a big hurry to get their weekend started.

Plus last Friday was the night of the big football game, so it was especially quiet that day.

You see, I know because I'm in charge of the chalk-art.

Oh, don't you know what that is?

Well, in Annie Bell's ... er, Miss Patterson's homeroom, there's a big blackboard on the side of the wall opposite the window.

And that blackboard is always used for the chalk-art. They're big murals that take up the whole board.

And that's what I'm in charge of, because I'm ... well, I'm the best artist in the class.

I really love art!

I like all kinds of art. Mommie and Daddy even let me have special art lessons three times a week.

I study with Mr. William J. Killengrew. He's got a lot of his work on display in museums and in galleries and in places like that.

He's already a real artist.

And I am his student. I'm the best student he has, he says.

And, well ... anyway, I'm in charge of drawing the weekly mural on the blackboard.

Every week we have a different theme, and I draw it.

There are certain holiday themes and special subject-matter themes, like space travel and undersea life and that sort of thing.

That Friday the theme was winter sports and I was really looking forward to doing the mural.

It was going to be my best, my absolute best so far.

Because Mommie and Daddy and I spent two weeks in Aspen the week before and I could still see the beautiful mountains and the beautiful snow and I was just so very, very inspired!

So I didn't mind that the school was empty and that I was the only one left in the place. In fact, it was all the better for me. That way no one would come around and distract me.

Art is very demanding, you know. And once the artist is interrupted, sometimes it's very, very hard for me to get started again.

So there I was, all alone and ready to begin.

I was so pleased and excited I was actually trembling.

You know how it is.

Sometimes happiness can be a thing that has to be endured, too.

Yes, I'm just fourteen. Why do you ask, Doctor.

Oh, you think I'm mature for my age?

Why, thank you! I guess maybe you're right. I am mature for my age.

So where was I? Oh, yes!

I was just getting ready to start the week's chalk-art mural.

The basic outline was already up on the board.

I had made a kind of basic sketch during the recess periods during the week.

Annie Bell ... er, Miss Patterson lets me do that.

She's real nice to me. She says she thinks I have talent, too, and she does everything she can to encourage me.

I love Miss Patterson.

I want to be just like her when I grow up. She's beautiful!

Anyhow, I was all ready to begin.

But then I noticed that there wasn't any chalk! None at all!

Usually, it's left right out on the ledge in front of the blackboard, all the colors and as much of it as I need.

But someone must have cleaned it up or something, I don't know, but it was certainly gone, all right.

And I needed it!

There was no way to work without it! How can you have chalk-art without chalk?

Well, when I couldn't find that chalk I was really disappointed.

Miss Patterson would be disappointed, too. And so would all the other kids in the class.

We all looked forward to the chalk-murals.

It had become a regular thing with everybody, and now-because the chalk was missing-everybody would just have to do with last week's mural staying on the blackboard for two weeks instead of the usual time!

I didn't know what to do.

So I looked through Miss Patterson's desk, hoping I'd find some chalk to work with.

But there wasn't any there either.

And I was just about ready to give up and call the whole thing off. What more was there to do?

And then Mr. MacDonald showed up. Honestly, he scared me. One minute I was alone in the room, and the next minute there he was, standing right there next to me.

He was as quiet as a cat!

All the kids were afraid of him, the way he stared at us was the reason why.

Yes, he had a terrible habit of just staring at you instead of looking at you like a normal, ordinary person.

I guess some of the kids had even complained about him, but the teachers and the principal and all the adults just ignored the complaints.

And I guess they were right.

After all, Mr. MacDonald didn't actually ever do anything to anybody.

He just made all of us nervous.

"What are you looking for, little Miss?" he asked me, staring like he always did in that sort of crazy way of his.

"Why, I ... I'm just looking for the colored chalk. I do the murals after school every week, and I can't find the chalk. It seems to have just disappeared," I told him.

I really didn't even want to talk with him.

But I couldn't very well just ignore Mr. MacDonald.

It wouldn't have been polite.

And then he said, "Yes, I know you stay after SGhool every Friday, don't you?"

That surprised me.

I had never noticed him around before, but I guess he was there all right.

It was only logical.

I mean, he was the janitor.

And the janitor would have to stay late in the school when everybody else was gone. It only made sense.

"And I like your pretty pictures," Mr. MacDonald then told me.

He was staring harder and stranger then he usually did.

He seemed to be getting worse and worse every year.

All the kids said so.

And now, thinking about it, I wish ... I wish they had fired him a long time ago, even if it would have been unfair.

Then ... then he wouldn't have ... have raped me!

Well, there it was! Poor, little Alexandria McB finally got around to actually saying what had happened to her. But, unfortunately, the hour was already up and I had to call her narrative to an end, much to my own grief. But there was no avoiding it. Other patients were waiting, and they had their problems, too.

INTERVIEW TWO

Of course, at the next session, Alexandria was on time. That didn't surprise me. But what did surprise me was that she was early! Not only that, but she seemed anxious to talk, to continue telling me her story. It was a promising change from the hesitation she had demonstrated the week before. I was very encouraged by her apparent change of heart.

Well, Doctor, I've been thinking a lot since we last met and talked.

And, of course, Mommie and Daddy and I have had a lot of talks, too.

And I've decided that I'll tell you my story in all the details I can think of and remember.

I want to tell you everything.

Now I want all the facts to come out.

You want to know why I've changed my mind? Well, I'll be more than glad to tell you.

It's Mr. MacDonald. I want the poor old man to get some professional help, just like I'm getting.

And one sure, good way to see to it that he gets the help he needs is to be sure he goes to jail for what he did to me!

Yes, to jail with him!

And I hope he stays there for a long, long, long time!

I mean, he deserves all the help he can get, doesn't he? He should definitely get what he's got coming to him. That's what both Mommie and Daddy say about it.

And I agree with them!

That way Mr. MacDonald won't do to other poor children what he did to me! He won't be able to.

Not if he's locked up good and tight and getting the proper medical attention he so richly deserves.

Doctor, it makes me happy to know that Mr. MacDonald is going to get what he deserves, yes it really makes me happy.

Because ... remember where I was last week with my story?

Well, it was just at about the point where I was ready to go and get my coat and go home when Mr. MacDonald suddenly told me that he had some chalk down in his workroom in the basement.

And he wanted me to go with him to go get it.

I said I didn't want to, Doctor! But he wouldn't accept that, no he wouldn't!

He said he was too busy to go down there and come back with the chalk, and that if I didn't want to bother to go with him and that if I was too lazy to make even that small an effort, then he wasn't about to make any effort for it either, because he was busier and older than I was.

So I went with him.

Oh, I wish I hadn't!

I should have known better, but ... but it was too late then.

Like Daddy says, ... there's no use crying over spilt milk! Oh, I wish he wouldn't say that!

I don't like being spilt milk!

No, no, Doctor ... it's ... it's all right! I'll stop crying.

Just give me a minute.

I know ... I know I can't cry and talk at the same time.

There! There, I'm better now.

Well, anyhow I went with Mr. McDonald out of Miss Patterson's room, down the hall, over to the exit door near the principal's office and down into the gloom and dark and funny smell of the basement.

Gee, it was really scarey and spooky.

But I decided to be brave and went on with him anyhow.

I really wanted that chalk.

At last we got to a part of the basement that was so dark, I couldn't see anything.

Not a thing. It was pitch black.

And Mr. MacDonald was gone!

He had just disappeared. Just like the chalk.

And then I was really scared!

Why, I wasn't even able to find my way back to the door that lead down into the basement, the door next to the principal's office.

I didn't know what to do.

So I just stood there ... trembling and scared out of my wits, not knowing what to do or where to turn or how to behave or anything.

It was awful!

It was just like a terrible, terrible nightmare. But it wasn't a nightmare, not at all. It was real!

Then I heard a frightful sound! It was laughter!

Someone was laughing in the dark! Yes!

Oh, I tell you, Doctor, the hair stood up on the back of my neck!

I almost fainted with shock and fear and the terrible thought that something awful was going to happen to me and there was no way I could get away or call for help or anything at all!

And then the laughing got louder and even stranger sounding than it had been!

"Mr. MacDonald! Mr. MacDonald! I remember crying out to him. "Please! I'm scared! Somebody turned the lights off and I can't see anything and we must have got separated or something? Won't you please come and get me and take me back up stairs now?"

But there was no answer to my pleas. Just that insane, quiet, intense laughing going madly on and on and on and on, over and over again like a broken record.

Or a broken mind!

And then his hands were on me!

Oh, it was awful, terrible!

"Now I've got you, little Miss!" he said to me!

I knew it was Mr. MacDonald because I could recognise his voice and the very definite sound of his accent.

"Please...." I cried out, almost out of my mind with fear and ... disgust.

Yes, disgust!

Because he was taking my clothes off! Not all of them, no. Just my skirt!

He had hooked his old, dirty fingers into the waistband of my skirt and was slowly, horribly pulling it down!

"Oh, please don't, Mr. MacDonald! Please don't do that! Let me go! Just let me go, won't you please! I won't tell anybody! I won't say a word, honest I won't! Just let me go and I'll never tell anybody! Never!

Nobody!"

But he didn't let me go!

He just laughed in my face!

Literally! He just laughed in my face!

And when he did that, I could smell his bad breath and I could smell the cheap wine on his breath and I could smell his rotten teeth!

Oh, it was so horrible and so disgusting!

I wished I was dead!

Or I wished he would die! Yes, I wished he would die! Oh!

And by then he had my skirt pulled completely off my body!

I don't know what he did with it. I guess he just threw it aside. As I told you, it was pitch dark in the basement and I couldn't see a thing, nothing at all.

Maybe I was lucky that way, I don't know!

Or maybe it made the whole thing even worse!

But by then he was pulling my panties off!

God, yes, he was pulling my panties off my body and laughing and giggling all the time he was doing it.

I wanted to scream then!

I wanted to strike out at him and beat him with my fists and scratch him with my fingernails and kick him and hurt him and make him ... make him ... force him to let me go!

But I couldn't move!

Oh, god, I was frozen stiff with fear and horror and disgust!

And that was frightening too, because I didn't know what was happening to me.

I imagined all sorts of things about that.

I thought maybe I was having a stroke or a heart attack or something.

I didn't know. I just didn't know, and that made it even worse. It added even more to the terrible things Mr. MacDonald was doing to me!

"Oh, that's a nice little miss!" Mr. MacDonald was saying.

He was saying it over and over and over again!

"Oh, that's a nice little miss!"

And all the time he kept repeating himself insanely, he was touching me ... touching me ... all over!

You know what I mean, Doctor?

He was touching me ... here ... in front!

He was touching me ... here ... in back!

Oh, I still remember his horrible, old hands touching me and pawing me like I was some kind of animal or ... some kind of unfeeling piece of meat or something!

And then ... and then ... I could ... f eel ... something ... ru bbing in between ... my legs!

It was Mr. MacDonald's ... it was his ... it ... oh, you know what it was, don't you?! Don't make me say it!

His ... penis! There! Yes, there! I said it! It was his horrible penis!

And he had it between my legs!

He was rubbing it back and forth, back and forth in between my legs, over and over and over again, just rubbing and rubbing and rubbing, mindlessly, insanely, stupidly, not caring that I was going crazy with fear and disgust.

Oh, god, it was terrible, Doctor!

If only it had stopped there!

That, in itself, was terrible and awful enough to have to endure!

But he didn't stop there!

No, he did even more, and now I WANT to tell you ALL about it, Doctor.

I want to tell you and the police and the judge and any and everybody else who will listen to it all about it, every single detail, because I want Mr. MacDonald to get to jail and suffer as much as possible!

I want him hurt!

I want him to hurt and suffer and be as unhappy as he made me!

I want dear, old, sweet, crazy Mr. MacDonald to spend the last years of his life in total and complete and unending suffering!

I want the rest of his disgusting life on the surface of this beautiful planet to be a horrible and disgusting thing for him!

I want him to be put in a big cage like the ugly, disgusting animal he is and I want him to rot there!

I want him to be put away and I want him to spend the rest of his days there!

And I hope he has a long, long, long, long life!

I hope he sets a new world's record for living, and I hope he spends each and ever one of his disgusting days in prison, were he belongs!

Then hell know what it's like to hurt!

Then hell know what it's like to be frightened out of your wits and be afraid that you'll never see the sun again, never feel the wind on your face again, never be free to walk around and enjoy nature when you feel like it!

I know that sounds vicious and mean, Doctor, but do you know what he did to me then?

Do you?

No? Well, then, I'll tell you, yes I will. I'll tell you all right.

Then, when Daddy and Mommie and I go to court, you can come with us and you can tell the judge and jury all about it, and maybe you can help make things worse for nasty old Mr.

MacDonald!

Well, okay, here it is!

After he took my panties off, he just laid me down on the ground, there in the basement.

There were some dirty old smelly rags or something like that on the ground. Maybe they were old newspapers, I don't know for sure.

But they smelled of gasoline and maybe cleaning fluids and filth.

And then, when he had me on that pile of evil-smelling filth, then he pulled my legs apart as far as they would go, and then he crawled between them!

Not ... not with his ... with his ... penis, no.

But with his head!

God, what a creep he was!

No, wait, that's wrong! What a creep he is!

Does a man like him deserve to live, Doctor?

I mean, shouldn't they Mil a man like that? I mean, a man who would do what he did to a girl ... shouldn't they just ... kill a man like that?

Electrocute him, maybe? Or hang him? Or maybe ... oh, how should I say it?

Maybe ... de-man him?

You know what I mean?

Shouldn't they take a filthy, evil, old man who does things like that and ... cut him up?

Shouldn't they fix him so he couldn't do things like that anymore?

Well, anyhow, there he was! With me laid out on the floor not able to move so much as a single muscle!

And then ... then he started ... licking me!

Down there! You know, down there!

In between my legs! That's where he started licking me with his filthy tongue.

He ran that horrible, disgusting, old tongue of his up and down, up and down in between my legs!

And then he ... then he rolled me over on my stomach!

Yes, he rolled me over on my stomach like some kind of nightmarish ragdoll!

And I lay there completely exposed and completely helpless!

And I could feel his hands touching my bottom.

He was rubbing my bottom with his hands, rubbing and rubbing and rubbing!

And then he was rubbing my bottom with his ... his penis!

I could feel the awful thing rubbing against my cheeks!

It was long and thick, I think, and it was hot and kind of silky feeling!

And he rubbed it all over my cheeks until my cheeks started getting all sticky with his ... his fluids!

His fluids were getting all over my cheeks!

I was all sticky and soaking wet with his disgusting fluids and I was going crazy!

And I screamed!

I screamed!

My voice came back to me suddenly and suddenly I could hear myself screaming and screaming and screaming!

And then, and then I ... I saw the lights going on!

And there was Mr. Custer, the school policeman. He was standing at the bottom of the stairs, and he just couldn't seem to believe his eyes!

And then Mr. Carver ran right up and hit Mr. MacDonald! And I was happy!

Oh, I was so happy that Mr. Carver was hitting Mr. MacDonald!

Yes! Yes!

"Hit him, Mr. Carver! Hit him! Kill him!"

And Mr. Carver heard me and he hit Mr. MacDonald with his big, heavy nightstick!

He hit him over and over and over again!

And Mr. MacDonald started bleeding!

The blood was pouring from his disgusting, filthy, old head and the blood was like a river, it was streaming out of him in hot jets.

And I was screaming, "Hit him! Hit him!"