Fred Pelka

THE MAN WHO RAPED ME had a remarkable self-assurance which could only have
come from practice. He picked me up just outside Cleveland, heading east in a
van filled with construction equipment. That early morning in May I'd already
spent a sleepless 24 hours trying to hitchhike from Oxford, Mississippi to Buffalo,
New York, so it felt good when I was offered a ride through the western fringe of
Pennsylvania. First, though, the driver told me he needed to stop along the way,
to pick up some building supplies. We drove to a country club undergoing reno-
vation, where I hung out with his co-workers while he signed for several boxes of
equipment which we carried back to his van. Getting back onto the turnpike he
told me about one more stop he had to make.

As a man, I've been socialized never to admit to being vulnerable, to discuss
those moments when I wasn't in control. I know also how women and children
are routinely punished when they speak out about abuse, how they are blamed
for their own victimization. The examples are endless: Witness the contempt
with which Anita Hill was treated. For these reasons and more I'm still reticent,
years after it happened, to recount what happened to me that day in Ohio. This
article marks the first time in 15 years I have publicly discussed it under my own
name.

The second building seemed deserted. We went up a flight of stairs, down a
corridor into a side room. I looked around for the equipment he'd mentioned,
and noticed him locking the door behind us. He slugged me before I could react,
forced me down with his hands around my throat. As I began to lose conscious-
ness I heard him say, "If you scream, if you make one wrong move, I'll kill you."

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