Peeling Back the Top Layer 🇯🇲

15| Go to hell!

⚠️ Trigger warning! This chapter mentions acts of sexual assault. Warning symbols mark the beginning and end of the specific chapter.

Professor Shitup's death unlocks the doors to Marsha's distressing past, which is marred with betrayal, trauma, and anguish. Mr. Smith, his correct name, was our physical education teacher at the all-girls high school we attended.

Marsha was brilliant (still is), vivacious and most of all, an innocent teenager. Despite growing up in the ghetto, her mother did her best to shelter her from the darkness of their surroundings. School and church were the only two places she was allowed to attend.

Males easily mistook her affability for flirting, something Gillian and I often witnessed when we traveled home from our Kingston school to Spanish Town together each day.

One October evening when we were in the fifth form, we stayed back late to complete our school's based assessments, and, being a bright spark, Marsha was done before Gillian and I could put the finishing touches on our projects.

The school was mostly empty at that time of day and darkness had already covered the sky. Marsha left the classroom we occupied with our supervising teacher to use the restroom but we grew suspicious when she took longer than usual to get back.

Gillian and I became more worried when we handed in our finished work and she still had not returned. Back then, cellular phones were not so common among students, and even if we owned one, we were forbidden from having it at school. So we couldn't call her.

We had to walk around the compound in search of her. She was found huddled in the corner of another classroom. Had it not been for her sobs we would have walked right by without checking.

She didn't tell us what was wrong at first and only said she needed to go home. Over the course of two weeks, we noticed a complete change in her personality. She became withdrawn and whenever it was time for our PE sessions anxiety kicked in.

Her spirit was broken. The usual bubbly and confident Marsha was gone. So was her focus. It was Gillian who coaxed her into talking by threatening to tell the guidance counselor about the sudden change in her demeanor.

⚠️⚠️⚠️The burdensome secret she kept from us was that Mr. Smith had fondled her breasts and fingered her that evening inside the classroom. She detailed how the despicable man put a condom onto his dick then rubbed it through the folds of her vagina and inserted the tip a few times. He threatened to hurt her and said no one would believe her because there would be no evidence. ⚠️⚠️⚠️

Marsha begged us not to tell anyone out of shame and feeling like she was at fault. Despite our best efforts to convince her that she did nothing wrong, she would not take our advice to report the incident. But I could not sit back and do nothing. Not when my friend was hurting.

One day, I brought some of my grandmother's laxatives to school, and during devotion, I snuck off to the PE department, where I dumped a good portion of the powdered pills into Mr. Smith's protein shake.

He spent the whole day experiencing diarrhea, shitting on himself during one of his PE sessions, and becoming the laughing stock of the school. It was quite a hilarious sight to see him hobbling off the netball court with watery feces streaming down his leg while the girls stood aside covering their noses and snickering.

The student population began referring to him as Professor Shitup from then on, but most importantly, Marsha no longer saw him only as the monster who assaulted her but also as the man who shit himself in front of his students.

She never recovered fully though. Who could go back to their old self after such a grand betrayal by someone put in place to guide and protect them?

While Marsha was no longer anxious around Professor Shitup and her schoolwork got back on track, she became boisterous and crass, especially towards men. The ordeal however cemented our friendship and we went from calling ourselves the 'fatherless trio' to having a blood-like bond — we became sisters.