Rosalee is skipping over the crooked lines in the asphalt that cut into the sidewalk on Avenue D, deliberately avoiding the cracks that hold everything in. Something bad will happen to you, that internal voice tells her, or is it coming from the outside? She often wonders. That voice that’s always been there-—like the moving shadows that creep over her bedroom walls at night when she is trying to sleep, or the scar that’s tatooed on her inner thigh-—reminding her of certain things. She can still hear the words from the night her father left home and never returned. The words convincing her that the sharp, silver tooth of the box-cutter would not hurt, if you stand still-—don’t move. That voice is always right. She didn’t even feel a sting. In fact, she is certain that it numbed everything. Yes, the silent pleasure of numbing. Only few knew.

     And gliding over the sidewalk, it sort of grounds her in some way. She much prefers walking to being driven. Next year, she will be of legal age to apply for her learner’s permit, though she has no intention of earning this so-called privilege. As she leaps over the cracks, just barely touching them at times, she watches the blur of her red, suede Timberland boots moving ahead of her. Rosalee is glad that she picked the red instead of the tan. She likes looking at the fiery rush at her feet. It reminds her of the Road Runner, from that cartoon that she watched as a child with her father, his stoned laughter momentarily saving her from-—she stops herself from thinking about that. And recalls what the school counselor tells her during their grounding exercises: "Let’s focus on the here and now, Rosalee." Mrs. Jenkins speaks to her as if she is a Down’s Syndrome child. "Feel the smooth, wooden arms of the chair beneath your skin, the strong, flat, linoleum floor holding your feet firmly into the ground. You’re in the office of Eastside Community High School with Mrs. Jenkins, the school counselor, and you’re safe here, Rosalee." Rosalee feels nothing but says yes because that’s what they always want to hear. A no would mean more probing and prodding and prying. She nods her head yes at Mrs. Jenkins. She can tell Mrs. Jenkins likes to see the nodding. It makes her appear more at ease, puts a mark of relief on her face. Like she’s done her job. People are so easy to please.

     Rosalee continues walking, eyeing the tall, dark silhouette of the Baruch Houses in the distance ahead. She thinks about her friend, Terasa, who was beaten and raped by a black man in one of the Baruch elevators. All happening while her eleven-month-old-baby was watching and wailing at his mother who did not respond to his frightened cries. Everyone was grateful that little Osmond was left unharmed. The next day, Terasa’s brother hand-delivered the photocopied sketches of the black man with the wool cap-—that looked like every other black man who wore a wool cap-—and asked Rosalee to pass along the stoic image to everyone she knew. He boasted a one thousand dollar reward to anyone who could provide information that would lead to the rapist’s capture and arrest. The sketch of the one thousand dollar black man was posted on every mailbox, lamppost, public payphone and tree on the Lower East Side. After a few weeks, the papers began to weather away, disappear. Nine months later, little Osmond had a little brother, Ronald. Little Ronald’s father was never found.

     Rosalee could not understand how Terasa was able to keep that baby. She herself did not feel attached to such things and is glad that she never let that firecracker bursting inside of her make its way past four months. She rubs the smooth trace of her flat waistline as she is walking down the noisy Avenue. Her denim jeans strangle her hips as she takes a new step, revealing the top of her G-string panties-—her favorite pair that she stole from Victoria’s Secret, the color of strawberry licorice-—matching the words, Sweet and Vicious, on her micro tee-shirt. She purposefully bought the tee-shirt one size too small to accentuate her C cup bosom that she wears proudly like a family heirloom, passed on from generation to generation. Rosalee feels the vibration of her cell phone buzzing into her right hip. She pulls the phone off the top band of her jeans and presses into the large button below the neon screen that announces the caller: Manny.

     "What’s up baby, I was just coming to see you," she says.

     "Got another hour to go Roe-—chill out man, I’m on the phone with my girl," Manny says to someone she cannot hear or see. "Meet me at the park at eight o’clock, I have something for you." The phone goes silent. "Ga’forbid he could say goodbye," she says.

     Rosalee decides to stop at the SUPERFOOD to surprise him, convincing herself that it is on her way to the park. She sees a few of her friends smoking cigarettes outside a bodega across the street. "Hey, you hookers, go home," she hollers at them. They wave for her to come by. "Get your ass over here, girl," her closest friend, Maria, says. She shakes her head. "I can’t, gotta go meet Manny," she tells her. "I’ll call you later." Rosalee keeps walking, passing by some former classmates who have dropped out of school since picking up full-time jobs selling drugs out by the Wald Houses. Like the way Guiliani and his clean up crew just skipped over Avenue D, Rosalee thinks to herself. "Hey, Rosalee, lookin’ good today," one of them says. "Wish I could say the same to you," she sneers back, her legs moving ahead of her. "Yeah, you better keep walking," he says, as she is halfway down the block. She gives him the finger behind her.

     When Rosalee arrives at the SUPERFOOD, she pushes herself through the broken automatic doors and sees Manny behind the deli counter, biting his lower lip and staring at some woman who appears to be twice Rosalee’s age, standing in line, ordering food. "A quarter pound of honey ham, and a quarter of Muenster cheese," the woman says, while her eyes travel over Manny’s massive shoulders down to his mitt-sized fist.

     "I don’t know why people gotta look at other people’s man when they order some damn cheese," Rosalee snaps. The woman glances at Rosalee and turns away, as if she does not hear the young girl, or else she thinks the comment must not be meant for her.

     "Excuse me, Miss-—" Manny tells his confused customer. He squirms around the counter and pulls Rosalee’s shoulder up to his chin, her ear to his mouth. "Rosalee-—I said at the park-—why’d you gotta try to fuck with my shit?"

     "Why I can’t come see my man at his job, huh?-—so you can have some sluts lookin’ at you like they gonna order you for dinner?" she says loud enough for everyone in aisle one and two to hear.

     "Shut-up Rosalee." He twists her arm closer to him. Rosalee likes the way her arm feels contorted in that unusual position, so she talks louder, "Don’t gimme none of your bull-shit."

     "Get out of here bitch-—go wait at the park before you get me screwed."

     "I’d be doing you a favor, with this piece-a-shit job, trust me."

     Manny thrusts all of his weight into his forearm, pushing Rosalee hard. She stumbles back a step or two, but catches her balance, avoiding a fall.

     "Maybe I’ll wait for somebody else in that park," Rosalee says, as she turns away.

     She kicks open the wide, glass door that advertises Bumble Bee tuna on sale, two for a dollar, and reaches for the headphones in her faux-Coach bag once she is outside. She has learned to be prepared a step ahead of the intrusive clamor in her head, blocking the rabid noise out with the combative blast of music-—her own army of sound.

     Usher’s lyrics are accompanied by the voice that tells Rosalee to cut her wrists, or jump in front of an SUV. She grinds her teeth and whispers back, Fuck off, turning the audio up to maximum volume on her Walkman. The sun begins to disappear behind the tall buildings around her—the large structures she fears will topple down as she walks by, burying her in brick and glass and concrete. She walks faster, cannot walk fast enough.

     Once she enters the southeast corner of Tompkins Square Park, Rosalee is greeted by the whistles and cackles of the black-and-grey-haired, unemployed men who collect welfare or disability, sitting on the benches near the edge of the park. "Gotta cigarette, pretty girl?" she thinks she hears over Usher’s breathy moans.

     "Not for you," she says.

     Rosalee keeps moving, never stopping, looking straight ahead at the blur of dogs and moving baby carriages, the doped out fools and the old women being carted in wheelchairs. The ones who never look back at anything at all.

     She stops at the peach-colored flower painted on the tar with a bright red border and a pale blue circle marked in its center. Next to the rusted trash can that is spilling out with newspapers and coffee cups, cigarette packs and white paper bags of half-eaten food. A shiny, empty bottle of Budweiser stands on the surface of debris like a golden star perched high on top of a Christmas tree. The ones she sees in the movies with people who live in real houses, with picture windows and loft ceilings.

     Rosalee sits at the bench by the hand-painted flower. It’s something that she might have drawn as a child. She has stopped making her artwork since they’d always end up pulled from the refrigerator, utilized to jot down phone numbers, or as a calculator for her mother to add up the overdue bills that needed to be paid.

     Halfway through the compact disc, Rosalee shuts the music off. She watches the people passing by. A Muslim woman is walking her two young children, her face is severely burned-—only mouth and eyes. Rosalee wonders what people see when they look at her-—her tweezed, penciled brows?-—her cherry-painted lips? As she stops to consider this, her gaze meets the hungry gawk of some biker’s darting eyes that drop down to her breasts. Guys are so damn predictable, she thinks to herself.

     Rosalee’s cell phone rumbles against her skin, she picks it up.

     "What."

     "You at the park?"

     "Why should it concern you where I am all of a sudden?"

     "Rosalee-—come on, be nice. You want your present, don’t you?"

     "What present?"

     "It’s a surprise."

     "You know I don’t like surprises."

     "Well I can’t bring it back, but you’ll like it. You know I take care of you-—don’t I always take care of my girl?"

     "Yeah, whatever."

     "Where you at?"

     "Where’d you think?"

     "I’ll be there in a dime."

     She doesn’t need to move, Manny will know where to find her. By the pink flower and the rusted trashcan. He will come with one forty ounce in a brown paper bag for himself and a Styrofoam cup of frozen Margarita for her. He will remove the paper straw with his teeth when he sees her, kiss her with his open mouth, and place the plastic straw between her lips. The bottom of her panties will become cool and damp.

     A drop of water lands on Rosalee’s wrist. Then another on her cheek. Soon there is more. Raindrops begin to multiply and beat down all over her body. Rosalee leaps from the bench and stretches her legs over the iron fence that stands as tall as the top of her chest. She takes refuge beside a large tree that is four times the width of her body. The bent trunk of the tree stands in a gnarled position in the middle of the random patches of grass. The entire park empties of its inhabitants like roaches scrambling from view at the sudden switch of a light. She is thankful for the thick brush of leaves that guard her from the battering rain, but her body shivers from the dank air that smothers the unclothed parts of her skin. She bends down, leaning her back against the coarse bark of oak and crosses her bare, goose-pimpled arms over her chest.

     Where the hell is this guy? she says to herself, and bends to reach for her cell phone.

     Just as she is about to call Manny, something fast and hard kicks her elbow from behind. The phone darts several feet away. Before she can turn around, or scream, she feels a sharp blade against the side of her neck and the callused palm of a hand fixed over the tip of her nose and the entire circle of her mouth. She has trouble breathing, and feels her heart beating against her chest like the heavy rain pounding into concrete. Her muffled sounds are buried beneath the abrasive cave of skin that feels like plaster hardening over her face. "Shut the fuck up and you don’t get hurt," a voice grinds into her ears. Her mouth whimpers through his blocky hand.

     Rosalee feels the quick blade, the break of skin, the cool liquid, trickling from her neck. She stops moaning, she stops squirming, stops fighting. She knows that this is the part they like best-—the quiet surrender. He removes his hand from her mouth, pressing his body against her, forcing her limbs and torso to comply with the ground. She feels his erection pushing into her backside, his hand shoving down the back of her head, until her face is buried in the damp grass.

     Her denim jeans are yanked down, the strawberry licorice panties kept on, one delicate string pushed off to the side. "Red is my favorite color," he says, while circling the tip of his penis over her fleshy cheeks, around and around. "Maybe you just waiting for me to come by tonight, pretty girl." He pushes his meaty flesh into her narrow hole, the one no person has ever entered before-—it bounces in, then out-—he cannot keep it in. "Got me a virgin ass, do we?" Rosalee hears the strange man ask, and refuses to believe that this is happening to her. This is happening to someone else, someone not me. She feels a finger poking into her tight crack, forcing its way in, "Don’t worry, I’ll get you warmed up, pretty girl." She looks up and sees Manny in the distance with his brown bag in one hand, a Margarita in the other. By their bench, the rusted trashcan, the painted flower, calling her name-—Rosalee. Her body clenches around the finger, she moves her lips, Manny-—but is not capable of producing sound. A finger pulls out-—Manny-—a penis pushes in-—Manny-—out and in. She sees Manny pick up his phone, calling her, and listens to the muffled sound of her cell phone vibrating into the ground. He puts his phone down, tosses the cup, and walks away. Further-—and further. Manny’s silhouette becomes smaller and smaller, everything blurry and then she does not see anything at all. The violent force subsides and warm liquid spills out from her ripped opening. Rosalee feels her body emptying out from the rupture in her neck, the break of her rectum. She finds a sense of relief in that there is nothing left to take from her.

     "You good, pretty girl-—nice and quiet. Told you nobody’d get hurt." Rosalee hears the zip of his pants, the slap of her ass. "You got a boyfriend, pretty girl? Yeah, all pretty girls got boyfriends-—tell him I said, Thanks."