WEEP FOR SAPPHIRA by Janelle DuBois A scared skinny white girl from Tyler, Texas sits in the bus station in LA it’s 11pm, dark outside, and dark-skinned faces move past her She clutches her Wal-Mart duffel bag tight, and asks herself: “Why in the Hell did I do something so stupid?” A white-skinned face moves toward her, white as an angel, kindly as the uncle she used to imagine, the one who could have bought her a car and sent her to community college and gotten Momma to stop yelling at everyone His name, it turns out, is Peter, he noticed she might be new to LA, he’d like to help if he could, he thinks she has a pretty name, Sapphira, a pretty name for a pretty young lady Sizing up this latest opportunity, using charm like a scalpel, peeling back still soft and virgin skin, Peter learns that Sapphira is 16, a runaway, alone, exhausted, broke Almost boringly easy, he reflects, as he leads her out into the night There’s no need to tell her story in detail, any schoolchild can connect the dots for herself: dots on Sapphira’s pillow, tears of joy, Uncle Peter (as she calls him) has found her and rescued her, tears that last all of one night, the first night, the night he treats her OK dots of blood on the bed the next night, the first rape, she didn’t see it coming, maybe it’s true what Peter says, she asked for it, she owed it to him for buying her nice clothes and jewelry, she ought to be more friendly, she needs a drink and a toke, she can call home if she wants, he’ll even dial the number right now but what exactly does she think she’s gonna say, and is she really dumb enough to think her Momma would want her back after what she’s done? dots of blood the next morning, the second rape, Peter’s friend this time, why would she be sitting in the kitchen almost naked if she didn’t want it? and the next night, the third rape, she can’t remember who, and on and on, and who would want her sorry ass now, and Uncle Peter takes better care of her than she deserves dots and dots and dots and more dots collect on her heroin-kissed arms dots of her pupils, larger and smaller depending on the extra ingredients in her bloodstream, dots which cease to focus as soon as the customer starts in on his business dots on her skin, ugly, discolored, hidden under spandex: genital warts, syphilis, HIV And finally a single dot between Sapphira’s breasts, a little dot 30 seconds or so of blood, just a scratch, a temporary terrifying stopover on the trip Uncle Peter’s knife takes into her heart 30 seconds: plenty of time for Uncle Peter to enlighten her on one final point: “Little girl, you hold out on me, you die.” And the young men come in, and find her dead, and strip her naked, and leave her in the alley And great fear comes upon all Peter’s girls