Beauty Is in the Eye

© 2008 by Preston L. Allen

Beauty Is in the Eye


The first day back from the hospital, Lesy Quesada told them that she was ready to tell her story.

They set up the interview in the kitchen area of her Miami Beach condo. She was not quite yet ready to face a large number of people, so she limited it to the three police officers who had rescued her, one print reporter from Miami Crime Writer and one camera crew from EyewitnessNewsSouth. Behind her was an arched window that let in the morning sun and a birdcage that held the two chattering white finches, Abraham and Isaac. Lesy Quesada, in a dark blue dress and a blue sun hat, cleared her throat and looked determinedly into the camera.

“I was dumping the garbage downstairs like I did every other morning, and I came back up to find my front door wide open. Well, this is a safe building, I never really bothered to lock it when I went downstairs like that, but usually I would close it at least. Maybe I just forgot to close it, I said to myself. When I went inside, I thought I saw a shadow pass across the floor. I stood there for about a minute with the garbage pail in my hand trying to decide if I had seen something or not. Something told me to run back outside. I was sure that I had seen movement. After a minute when nothing had happened, I came in here, in the kitchen, and I put a new liner in the garbage pail. I heard a sound. I turned around and boom. Something hit me in the face. I fell to the ground. I tried to scream but now a hand was clamped over my mouth. A voice was shouting at me to shut up. Shut up. But I could not say anything. He had his hand over my mouth.”

Lesy Quesada was a small woman with pale blue eyes and a tan complexion. She was in her early sixties, but even with a broken nose, a fattened lip, and an ugly red scar over her swollen right eye, it was clear to all that she was, under normal circumstances, a strikingly beautiful woman. There was something—like a patch of scars on her throat—but they were hard to make out because of the shadows from the hat on her head.

“The other hand,” she said, putting one hand over her mouth and one on her throat to show them the position he had had her in, “was choking me. I could not turn my head to see him.”

Now Lesy Quesada looked faint. The nurse who was with her handed her a cup with water or maybe something stronger in it, and she took three small sips.

She put the cup down and said, “I didn’t want to get hurt. I imagined he was here for my money. So I nodded to let him know that I would do as he wanted. He relaxed the grip on my throat as he pushed me slowly down to the ground. He pressed my face down into the carpet and kept it down with one hand. I was wearing a housecoat. I felt him pull down my under things, and he . . . raped me.”

She nodded her head and the shadow from the sun hat fell across her face.

“Then he tied something across my eyes so that I could not see. He tied my hands behind my back. He tied a gag over my mouth. He left me on the ground like that for about an hour. I imagined that he was going through my possessions, because I could hear him opening and closing things. I could hear his heavy feet plodding across my floor. I could hear him in here playing with the birds. He was singing to them and talking to them. Hey pretty birdie, hey pretty birdie, like that. They were chirping like crazy. Then it got real quiet and he came over and spoke to me very calmly, and I knew he was a black man, a negro. He said, ‘How you doing? You not hurt too bad I hope. I’m not gonna have to kill you I hope. Am I gonna have to kill you?’ I shook my head back and forth no. He said, ‘Good.’ Then he got behind me and pulled my legs apart and he sodomized me.”

One of the three police officers who had rescued her was black and female, and the cameraman from EyewitnessNewsSouth panned the police, but paused on the black police officer until she frowned at him.

Lesy Quesada continued, “Then he left me there like that for I would say six hours at least. I could hear him still moving around in here, going through my things, but I could also hear him at times in the den watching television. He kept the television on the sports channel. He kept it on loud. I had this idea that my neighbors would pass by and hear the sports noise from the television and come to my aid because they all know that I do not watch sports. I had friends in the building. Maybe someone would knock on my door. Maybe someone would call. I was praying to God. Save me. I was talking in my head to my dead husband. He is my guardian angel in heaven watching over me. Somebody, save me. Somebody, please help me. God, help me. The birds were chirping. I was scared, but I did not give up hope. More time passed. I heard the shower running. I could not believe it. He was taking a shower. Later I heard the stove and smelled food cooking. I couldn’t make out what it was, but I could smell the grease and peppers and something else . . . my cilantro. I think he was making tacos. I had left the ground beef out to thaw. All this time I was just lying on the ground with my hands tied behind my back. I did not sleep. I just kept waiting and listening. More time passed. I knew it was morning again when Abraham and Isaac began to sing. They always sing at about 6:00 in the morning. That meant that I had been there on the ground in that same position for nearly a whole day because I had taken out the garbage the day before at about seven in the morning when he first attacked me and it was almost seven in the morning again. I had not slept a wink. He came to me and said, ‘Where you keep the bird seed? The birds is hungry.’ He loosened the gag on my mouth so that I could answer and I told him where I kept it in the cabinet under the sink, and I begged him to please, please let me go, but he tied the gag back over my mouth, climbed onto my back, raped me, got off, rested a few minutes, got back on and sodomized me, then rolled off me and sighed like someone very pleased with himself, ‘Ahhh. That was good.’ That’s what he said, can you believe it? I could not believe my ears. This was a crazy man. Someone with a mental problem. Then after that he said, ‘Time to go feed the birdies.’ Just like that. Left me lying there on the ground in my filth.”

She closed her eyes and put a hand over her mouth. The nurse came to her and she leaned on the nurse’s shoulder. Clinging to the nurse, she wept in great trembling heaves. The cameraman panned in close to get a close up of the tears and to see if he could get a look at whatever that was on her neck.

The nurse whispered something to her, and Lesy Quesada said, “No. I am going to tell it. I will tell it. Today. Now.” Then she took another few sips from the nurse’s cup, composed herself, and faced the camera again.

“That is how it went for two days. For two days I did not sleep a wink, at least I do not think so. For two days I lay on that floor in the same clothes, thirsty, hungry, so hungry, starving, gagging on the reeking smell of my own waste, which did not seem to bother him at all. He raped me or sodomized me at least ten times each day. At least ten.” She nodded.

“After two days, he came to me and said, ‘How you doing? You still okay?’ I nodded. What could I tell him? He leaned in close to my face. ‘You want somethin’ to eat?’ What could I say? I was starving. The idea of eating food that this guy had prepared was upsetting, but what could I say? I nodded yes. I was hungry. He said cheerfully, ‘Okay, I’ll fix you up somethin’. Then we’ll get you cleaned up and out of dese stinky clothes. What you want to wear? You got somethin’ special you like?’ He loosened my gag so that I could answer and I told him where he could find my underwear and a nice dress for me to wear, and I begged him and pleaded with him to release me, but he tied the gag back over my mouth and said, ‘Okay now. Calm down.’ Then he climbed on and sodomized me again, then went into the kitchen and scrambled eggs, mixed up a bowl of hot oatmeal, toasted some bread and brought them and placed them on the ground nearby so I could hear the plates and bowls clinking. So I could smell the food—the salt, the black pepper, the grease. I was so hungry. Then he went to my bedroom to get a new outfit for me. He came back and said, ‘We got a problem. I can’t put dis on you all stinky like that. I’m gonna have to wash you up in the shower first.’ Then I felt him lift me and carry me away from the smell of the food and into the bathroom. He undid my hands, but not my gag or the thing he had tied over my eyes. He stood me up in the shower—it was so hard to stand. My legs were wobbly. I was so hungry. He held me up and turned on the water. Hot. I lifted my head and started gulping the water down through the gag. It burned my face and mouth it was so hot, but oh, it felt so good in my dry throat. He laughed, ‘You thirsty, huh?’ as he washed my . . . ass with a soapy towel. When the shower was finished, he stretched me out on the cold tiles on my back and towel-dried me, rubbed lotion on my body, and sprayed me with too much perfume. Then he sprayed me with too much of another fragrance. He cried out suddenly, ‘Here’s one I really like!’ And sprayed me too much with a third fragrance. He made me lift my arms and he put the new dress on me, without any underwear. At that point, I had learned him well enough to believe I knew what was coming. Turning me over, he re-tied my hands behind my back. They hurt terribly after being bound so long and then being freed for a short while and then being bound again. I groaned as he re-tied them. I was certain I knew what was coming. I was on my stomach with no underwear on, right? But he loosened the gag and flipped me over and kissed me on the mouth. He said, ‘I love you,’ then took me out to the living room where the food was and sat me down on the ground with my hands still tied behind my back and the blindfold still on my face and began to spoon the breakfast he had prepared into my hungry mouth. Mental. Completely mental.”

Lesy Quesada fell silent again and her finches, as if on cue, increased the volume of their chattering. She rose from her seat, the nurse at her side to steady her, and went to their cage. She lifted the door of the cage, reached in, and removed the food tray. They all watched as she reached under her sink and found the colorful box of seeds. She said affectionately, “I know what they want. My little alarm clocks. They saved my life, you know? Not these two. The other two.” She dumped the old seeds in the garbage disposal and then re-filled their tray with new seeds. “I know what they want,” the woman in the blue hat sang. She took a slice of white bread from the breadbox, broke it into quarters, and set one quarter of the bread atop the seeds in the food tray then replaced it in the cage. The small white pair attacked the quarter of bread hungrily and grew silent. “They like bread sometimes,” she explained. “He only gave them seeds. He refused to give them bread. I don’t know why. They eat the seeds, but they like a little bread too.”

The nurse helped her back to her seat.

“As far as I could tell, he spent his days in my den watching television. He spent his nights in my bedroom. He locked the bedroom door every morning around six because Abraham and Isaac made too much noise with their morning song and woke him up. He liked to sleep late—until noon. I’d rather not tell you how I know that, but my breakfast usually came around noon, as well as my first attack of the day. I was kept blindfolded and gagged with my hands tied behind my back. I was kept on the ground in the living room, sometimes in my own mess unless he was in the mood to clean me up and move me to a clean spot on the ground. The place stank. It still stinks. Can’t you smell it? That is the reek of my body and his semen you smell in the carpet. I’m going to sell this place. I’m going to get out of here. I’ve lived here twenty years since my husband died. I can’t stay. I’ll move to Aventura or Palmetto Glades, where it’s safer. Maybe I’ll go to Colorado and live with my daughter and her husband. But I have to leave this place. This city. He was crazy. Something was seriously wrong with him. He said he loved me? After he fed me, he hit me hard across the face, threw me down on the ground, pulled my legs open, and did it to me again. That’s how it went everyday. I had to escape, but how? All I knew about him was that he was strong, black, a man, crazy, he liked to have sex a lot, he liked birds. All night and all day I thought about him and that is all I could come up with. If I got my hands free, maybe I could scratch out his eyes. Maybe I could grab his testicles. All night I tried to free my hands, but in the morning, they were bound tight as ever. On the fifth day after breakfast he said, ‘I’m gonna take your blindfold off. I’m gonna show you somethin’. I think I can trust you now. Can I trust you?’ I nodded. He took my blindfold off. It had been five days since my eyes had seen light. It took a while to get used to the light. He was showing me his face. It was hideous . . . ugly. He was black, but that is not what I am saying—it was the scar. As he slowly came into focus I saw that his face was badly scarred. I saw that he had only one eye. He was angrily demanding, ‘What? What? You think I’m ugly?’ If I had seen him suddenly like that, I think I might have shrunk away from his horrible face, but because it took a little time for my eyes to adjust to the light, and also because I realized he was ugly but didn’t want to be ugly, I wisely shook my head, and he loosened my gag. I said, desperately, ‘You’re not ugly. You’re very handsome, just scarred. It is only a scar.’ He said, ‘You lying to me, bitch?’ I said, ‘No.’ He said, ‘I wanna show you somethin’ else.’ He removed a photograph from his pocket. It was a photo of a little black boy—a pretty little child. I said, ‘Is that you?’ He nodded and smiled proudly. He said, ‘Before the accident. That’s what I looked like.’ I said, ‘You still look like that.’ He sighed and his twisted face became sad as he replaced the photograph in his pocket. ‘Thanks,’ he said. Then he kissed me on the mouth again—said he loved me again. My hands were still bound, but we . . . we made out. I did my best to make it romantic. It was upsetting to my stomach to have that monster put his hands on me, but I wanted to live. I wanted to live. I made sounds of approval and arousal when he fondled my breasts. I looked at him with . . . loving eyes. I wanted him to think that I was really enjoying it, that I really liked him. When he rolled me onto my stomach and got behind me and entered me, I said, yes, and oohh, and wonderful, and oh yes I’m coming and all of that stuff they like to hear. And when he forced it into my anus and asked, ‘You like it in the ass, grandma?’ I answered, ‘Yes, it’s very nice.’ He said, ‘I like to put it in old ladies’ asses. They’re the best.’ After he finished, he gave me another violent beating, as I had expected he would, and he replaced the gag in my mouth put the blindfold back over my eyes. He said, ‘Now that you seen my face, I gotta kill you. I’m real sorry about dat, but dat’s how it gotta be, okay, grandma? But not now. In a couple more days when I’m done wid you.’ Then he went into the den to watch sports on the television. Just like that.”

Lesy Quesada said something into the nurse’s ear. The nurse handed her a cigarette from her purse. A police officer and the reporter from the newspaper both leaned forward with a lighter to light Lesy Quesada’s cigarette. She leaned into the police officer’s lighter and lit her cigarette from it. She inhaled deliciously, then tilted her head up so that the smoke shot past the brim of her hat when she exhaled.

“That was his mistake. He left my blindfold off too long. I had seen his face. I knew he was in his late teens or early twenties. I knew how tall he was. 6’2”. With dark skin and braided hair. Two sets of braids, one set that went from side to side across the front of his head and hung down on the left over his missing eye—one set that was combed to the back that ended in a ponytail at the base of his neck. I saw everything. I saw that he had ripped all of my phones out of the wall. I also saw that he did not put the chain on the front door. With that blindfold off, I could see everything—he had smashed every photograph of my husband in his policeman’s uniform. He was killed twenty years ago by somebody just like this. I could hear him talking to me. Telling me to remain calm. Telling me to pay attention to everything. Telling me to find a way to save myself. I wish I had bought a gun like he had told me to. I wish I had taken it downstairs with me every morning when I took out the trash. That night I lay on the floor until he picked himself up from the couch in the den, turned off all the lights, and went into my bedroom, but I did not hear the click. He slept with the door open, listening for me maybe. At some point I heard snoring coming from the bedroom, but I waited because it could be a trap. I waited because I had a plan. I waited all night. At about six in the morning Abraham and Isaac began to sing their morning song. I heard the mattress springs as he got up from the bed. He said, ‘Damn birds!’ and slammed the bedroom door as he did every morning around that time. I waited thirty minutes until I thought he was back asleep, back to snoring. Abraham and Isaac were still chattering. I was on my stomach, so I inched over to the couch like a worm. I got up on my knees and rested my head against the seat of the couch—I pressed my face against the couch and rubbed and rubbed until the blindfold was up above my eyes and I could see. Then I used my neck and my shoulders to pull myself up onto the couch. Then I scooted over to the armrest, leaned into it, and forced myself up. Up. I rose up on my legs. They were wobbly, but I was standing. I gave my legs a minute and no more to regain their strength and then I walked creakily to the front door. Oh the pain. Every part of my body hurt. With my hands behind my back, I had to face away from the door to work the lock. I fumbled with it as quietly as I could for a minute, two minutes, three minutes—everything felt backwards and upside down—it was confusing—and the strength in my fingers was gone—I couldn’t even work a simple lock. And though I was trying to work quietly, it was making a click-click noise, but he could not hear because the birds were singing. Keep singing, babies. Keep singing, mama needs you. The sun was rising. I fiddled with the lock with my numb fingers and I could feel it finally turning the way it should when I heard the bedroom door swing open. I froze. He came halfway out into the living room. I did not breathe. He yawned. He scratched himself. My heart pounded. If he looked this way, he would see me standing at the door. Oh god. He stood there. And the birds kept singing, louder than they ever had. ‘Damned birds,’ he muttered, turning toward the bathroom. When he went into the bathroom, I prayed, Close the door. Close the door. Please, close the door. And he closed the bathroom door. I heard the toilet seat accept his weight. I heard the loud grunts as he relieved his bowels, the same disgusting sounds he made when he relieved himself in me. I grabbed that lock with my numb, backward-facing fingers and I worked it hard. And God was good. I heard it give. I opened that door, and I propelled myself down the hall on my two wobbly legs. I have heard people say that they were so scared that they became paralyzed by fear. Paralysis was a luxury I could not afford that day, let me tell you. I found new strength when I went through that door. I ran, I hobbled, I limped, I ran. I rounded that corner and got to that elevator. Pushed that call button. And when that door opened, I flung myself inside and leaned against the controls and found button 3. I lived on the 10th floor. I wanted to get as far away from him as possible, but I dared not go to the bottom. When he realized I was gone, that would be the first place that he would look. But on the 3rd floor, I had a friend, Mr. Gagne, who left for work around this time every morning. The elevator went down to 3. It seemed to take so long. It seemed so loud, so noisy. The elevator doors opened and I ran to Mr. Gagne’s door. I banged on his door with my head. I banged. I banged. I heard a cough from inside and then a voice. ‘Who is it?’ he demanded. I put my face in front of his peep and mumbled through my gag as loudly as I could, ‘Mmmmmmm.’ A year ago he had told me I was beautiful and asked me out on a date. I had turned him down because I didn’t like the idea of dating someone in the building. Beautiful? I must have looked like hell when he opened that door. My face was all busted up. I had a gag over my mouth. My hands were bound behind my back. I was wearing a dress caked with my own feces and dripping urine onto the ground because the psychopath hadn’t washed me yet that day. My hair looked like hell. But Mr. Gagne pulled me inside, and I collapsed in his arms.”
Her cigarette was smoked down to a glowing stub, and she seemed dazed as she looked for somewhere to mash it out before the nurse relieved her of it.

“Thank you,” she said to the nurse, “but I think I will need another.” The nurse gave her another cigarette and the same officer lit it for her again and she grabbed his hand and held it. Her hand was trembling clutching his. She sucked hard on the cigarette, then took it out of her mouth and gave it to the officer.

“But he was gone when they got upstairs. He was gone. He had fled my apartment. And my poor Abraham and Isaac, my poor little birdies, they saved my life, and they were dead. He had killed them. He took them out of their cage and he, and he, and he . . .” Lesy Quesada sobbed. She could not find the words to say what he did to them.
She pointed to the two birds in the cage.

“These new ones were given to me by these kind officers of the Metro Miami-Dade Police Department. Thank you so much. But find him. Do your job, find him! Get him off the streets!” she said to the officer holding her trembling hand. He nodded, grim-faced.

When Lesy Quesada removed the blue hat from her head, the shadows went away. She lowered the collar of her dress so that they could see her neck and shoulders. The camera came in for a close up. Her neck and shoulders, like those of a teenaged girl, were covered with love bites. Hickies.

“When you find him,” she said to the camera, “I would not object at all if you killed him.”