by Naomi West
I search the room and find a tent mallet under the bed, left over from the time Dad, Mom, Travis, and I went camping. I remember stuffing the tent mallet under here and shouting down to Dad that I’d bring it down later, only then Dad went overseas and everybody forgot about it. It’s a small thing, light and unthreatening. I hold it in front of me.
Then, just as the drawers collapse and the top half of the door caves inwards, I reach into my pocket and take out the lighter.
Greg kicks at the door, dislodging large pieces of shrapnel, grinning madly as his belly wobbles with each kick. He scowls at me, shaking his head. “Wait until I get in there,” he says. “I heard your little trick with the kid. You think I give a damn? It’s better for me. It’ll give us time to be alone.”
“Stay away from me,” I tell him, brandishing the mallet. “I mean it.”
“You mean it?” He chokes out a laugh. “What do you mean? What’re you goin’ to do with that little thing?” He kicks the remainder of the wood away and then clambers over. This is my chance to strike; then my chance passes in a matter of moments as he hops from the dresser to the floor. “Look at that.” He grins at the mallet. “What a big, scary lady you are, Marilee, the sort of lady to make a man quake in his goddamn boots. Look at me.” He holds his hand flat, steady as a rock. “I’m shaking.”
I lash out at him with a scream. He laughs and grabs my forearm, squeezing and twisting. I drop the mallet and he shoves me back on the bed. The force of him is ridiculous. This fat man shouldn’t be able to move like this, but he has the power of sickening hunger in him. He pushes me back and then grips my thigh with his meaty hand.
“This is it,” he says, staring straight into my eyes. There’s so much evil there, so much sadism. It’s like looking into the eyes of a mugshot photograph. “You’re finally going to do what you’re good for. It’s all you’re good for. You know that.”
I bring the lighter to his shirt and run my thumb along the flint wheel, but the spark doesn’t catch. His hand worries at my legs, grasping and squeezing and moving toward the place he cannot touch under any circumstances.
“Little bitch,” he says. “Little slut.”
Finally the spark catches and the flame lights, a beautiful triangle of yellow which darts at his shirt, catches, and spreads upwards. He leaps back, flapping his arms. “What the—What the—”
Chapter Twenty-One
Dusty
I growl to a stop outside her house. At first I think it’s the bike growling but then I realize that it’s me, growling from deep in my throat, growling so that my throat hurts. I run toward the porch, reaching into my pocket for my knuckle-duster. I left my gun at home; that was a mistake. I just have to hope that Greg isn’t tooled up.
When I get to the porch, Travis leaps out at me. “It’s you!” He points to the house. “You have to get up there, sir. I tried kicking the door down but it’s locked and you’re stronger than me and he’s trying to hurt her. He’s trying to do grownup things with her!”
Grownup things. My blood runs cold. My future warps and becomes steam. I need to grasp onto it. I can’t let it go. Marilee and my child, wrenched away from me by this sicko’s sick hands. I barge into the door, giving it a test shove with my shoulder. It’s locked tight, but not so tight that it won’t go down. All doors go down in the end. I take a step back and kick the door with all my might, straining my leg with the effort. All the locks fly away from the wood, the door exploding almost off its hinges. I kick it again to clear the remaining pieces and then run up the stairs, something heavy pounding in my ears. I don’t know if it’s my heartbeat or fate or what. Strange things happen to a man when he’s on the verge of bloodshed. I reach the top of the stairs with my knuckle-duster clasped in my hand.
“What the—What the—”
I leap to the bedroom and over the wrecked door. Greg leaps around the room, patting a small, smoldering patch on his back. Marilee stands on the other side of him, the Zippo lighter I gave her burning before her, lighting up her eyes. “Dusty!” she screams.
I jump toward Greg but the man’s quicker than he has any right to be. He spins away from my punch and grabs Marilee by the throat, using her as a human shield. “I’ll snap her neck,” he says. “You know I can do it.”
I want to press on and finish this asshole, but his fingers are buried deep in Marilee’s throat and her face is turning red. I think about my kid in her belly, desperate for air, and this prick cutting both of them off because he didn’t have a good childhood or some girl snubbed him or whatever the fuck reason pricks like this have for acting how they do. I take a step back, raising my hands.
“Toss that fancy ring to the floor, will you?”
I drop the knuckle-duster. “This is a big mistake,” I say. “Why don’t you let her go and we can settle this like men?”
“What, so you can sucker punch me again? That’s really a good idea, isn’t it? Do you think I’m stupid or something? Back up.”
“Stop squeezing her throat like that,” I say. “Then I’ll back up.”
He shrugs. “Fine.” When he releases her throat just a little, she gasps and almost collapses, maybe would collapse if it wasn’t for his hand holding her up. “Now your turn.”
I do as he says, hating every goddamn second of it. I back right up to the drawers and stand there with my hands at my sides, feeling helpless. My only hope right now is that Marilee does something, kicks him in the balls or head-butts him with the back of her head or something drastic so I can close the distance. “What now?” I ask. “Where do you reckon this is gonna go?”
“I try not to think too far ahead.” He smiles as his hand rides up her leg. “I just live in the moment.”
“Let me tell you something,” I say. “If you touch her in any way a stepfather ought not to touch his daughter, I’m going to kill you. I won’t be able to stop myself. I mean that. If I see it, I’ll lose control, so I’m asking you nicely not to do that.”
“You really think you’re a tough guy, don’t you?”
“No,” I say. “I just know myself. I don’t want this to end with anyone getting hurt.” That’s a lie. I want this to end with him getting hurt. But I’m also telling the truth about losing control. If he touches her like that, both of them could end up dead: Marilee by his hand and him by mine.
“Fine.” He stops sliding up her leg. “You think I give a damn? You really think I care? I don’t care about nothing. I’m just having fun.”
“You’re sick,” Marilee whispers. “There’s something wrong with you.”
“Ha!” He throws his head back. “Can you believe this whore? My hand on her throat, and she thinks it’s a good idea to insult me. Still, what can you expect of somebody who failed more than half her subjects in high school, eh? She’s never been too smart.”
“Oh, I reckon she’s smarter than you,” I say, smiling at the sound of bike engines outside. “You’re so stupid you think I’d come here without backup.”
“I’ll kill her!” Greg snaps when he hears footsteps on the stairs. “I mean it!”
“He means it,” Dagger says, his blade making a whistling sound as he climbs over the drawers.
“Does he?” Lex wheezes as he climbs over, but he climbs over all the same.
“Means what?” Clint doesn’t mess around with climbing over. He just kicks the drawers out of the way. The wood disintegrates and clothes spill over the floor, some of them clinging to his ankles like damp grass. “Why is he holding her like that?” He turns to me. “Dusty, why are you letting him do that?”
“I forgot my goddamn gun.”
“Oh.” Clint smiles. “We didn’t. Here, have my spare.”
He takes out a pistol and hands me one, too. The four of us aim our weapons right at him. Suddenly, Greg doesn’t look so tough. Marilee half-crouches, her hands on her belly now that Greg is more concerned with the weapons than her.
“You’ll hit her,” he says, lips trembling, tears streami
ng down his cheeks.
“I doubt it.” Dagger flings his blade across the room. It pins dead-center in a reproduction Mona Lisa, right between her eyes. “Now just think what I can do with a gun. I think it’s in everyone’s best interests that you let the lady go. Right now.”
“I’d do like he tells you,” Clint says. “He’s not a very patient person. One time we were at the DMV to get his license—what’d’you call it, renewed—and we weren’t there longer’n five minutes before he got up and kicked his chair and walked right outta there. He ain’t had a license since.”
“Come on,” Lex says, approaching Greg and Marilee in an old man’s hobble. “Time to let the girl go, before you really make us angry.”
Greg has no choice but to let her go. He steps aside and watches helplessly as Marilee runs to me. Then I forget all about Greg. He doesn’t exist in Marilee’s warm embrace. I wrap my arms around her and grip her back, pulling her close to me, wishing that I could pull her so close that we’d become one person, that we could sink into another world, live in a place where there aren’t perverted men trying to hurt the woman I love . . . the woman I love. The revelation hits me like a twelve-gauge shot. I whisper it in her ear: “I love you, Marilee. I love you so much.”
She leans back, tears blurring her vision. No—tears blurring my vision. “I love you too,” she whispers.
We hold each other for several minutes, the world forgotten. It’s like our emotions leap from our bodies and fuse, joining us inextricably. It’s like nothing I have ever felt or dreamed I could feel. All at once, the bone-white pieces don’t matter anymore, ’cause I have a new life, and this new life is mine to protect and live and enjoy and love. When we step away from each other, I feel like a new man. I’ve never been one for religion, even though a few of the fellas are at the club, but I reckon this is what baptism must feel like. I went into the hug the old Dusty; now I’m the new Dusty.
Marilee smiles up at me, looking cuter and more beautiful than ever. “I love you,” she says. “I love you. I love you. Sorry, I just can’t stop saying it—Wait! Travis!” She shakes her head as though furious with herself. “How could I be so stupid?”
“Let’s go find him.” I take her by the hand and together we go downstairs.
The men sit in the kitchen with Greg between them, looking much less tough and much smaller with Clint leaning over him. He tries to make himself small as Dagger flings his knife around, flinching every time the blade hisses by his ear.
“You see, kid,” Lex says, leaning close to Travis, “he ain’t so scary, is he? You’ve gotta remember this, as you get older. There are gonna be folks who want to make you feel small or scared, who want to make you feel like you ain’t worth nothing, but it’s only ’cause they’re small and scared when you get right down to it. It’s only ’cause they feel like they ain’t worth nothing. Look at him. Does he look tough to you? Does he look scary?”
“No, sir,” Travis says.
Marilee goes to him, kneels down next to him, and the two of them disappear into whispers. I go with Dagger into the living room.
“What we doing with him, then?” he asks.
“I want him gone,” I say. “I don’t give a damn about the details. If you can fix him up for somethin’ and get him put away, fine; if you need to put him in the ground, fine. He was going to rape Marilee. Rape her, Dagger. He’s her fucking stepdad.”
“He doesn’t deserve to live,” Dagger agrees. “Do you reckon we should put it to your girl? Maybe she’ll want to show him some mercy.”
“Maybe she will, but what if he comes back? He’s done it once. He’ll do it again. I want him gone. That’s it.”
Dagger nods. “You can count on it, Dusty.”
We return to the kitchen and Dagger swaggers over to Greg, grabs him under the shoulder, and wrenches him to his feet. “All right, tough guy, it’s time to take a ride.”
“Where are you taking me?” Greg whimpers.
“Somewhere,” Clint says, grabbing his other shoulder.
Lex stands behind him, prodding him in the small of the back with his pistol. “Don’t make us angry, fat man. I’m too old to get angry.”
They lead him to the door. Then Travis speaks up. “Wait a sec!” The men pause. Travis marches right up to Greg, around the men and stares up at him. “I want you to know that I was never scared of you. I always knew you were a stupid, sad man and I was never once scared of you. You’re just a big, dumb idiot and you were too stupid to be an engineer. It wasn’t your mom. You’re just an idiot!” He folds his arms and marches away.
“You little shit!” Greg roars, but anything else is cut off by Dagger’s blade, pressed against his throat.
“Say one more word,” Dagger mutters, voice calm.
The men leave us, growling away on their motorbikes with Clint and Lex riding behind Dagger with Greg riding bitch with Dagger. Any other man’d be scared that Greg would try something, but Dagger knows that if he does, Lex and Clint’ll take care of it. Soon the sound of their engines is distant and growing quieter, and then it disappears completely beneath the sound of traffic and music playing from nearby houses and all the other sounds of normal suburban life. From a house across the way, an old lady sings the national anthem. I can’t tell if it’s from a TV or radio or if there really is an old lady singing into the midday sun.
“You might wanna call the motel,” I tell Marilee. “See what they did with your mom.”
“Good idea,” she says. She goes into the other room.
I sit down near Travis. “How you doing, kid?”
“I’m okay . . .” He looks strong for a second, but then the weight of it all becomes too much for him. He collapses into a heap of tears, his face red with them. He buries his face in his hands and weeps violently. “I just . . . I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”
“No, kid. Don’t be sorry.” I take him by the arm and bring him to me, putting one arm around him and using the other to pull his hands away from his face. “You can cry right here.” I nod to my shoulder. “There ain’t no shame in it. I used to think there was, once: shame in feeling and shame in showing that you felt, shame in being a normal person, shame in not always being brave. But that ain’t the way of things. A man can be strong without being ashamed all the time. Your sister taught me that.”
So Travis presses his face into my shoulder and cries for a long while. Marilee returns just as he’s wiping his cheeks with some kitchen towel.
“She’s in the hospital. They think she’s okay, but they’re keeping her for observation. We should go and visit her.”
“Let’s go!” Travis tosses the kitchen towel to the floor and almost sprints onto the porch.
“What do you think?” Marilee says, sitting on my knees and kissing me on the forehead. “Are we ready for a child of our own?”
I grin at her, kiss her on the nose, tickle her belly, and then lift her up. We don’t need to say anything else.
Epilogue
Marilee
I could watch him for hours. I could watch him for days. Hell, I could watch him for years. Little Jack—named for my father—grins up at me with all the happiness in the world squeezed into his face. He claws for my hand, trying and failing to say Mama. I kneel down next to the crib and reach down for his face, tickling him under the chin. Jack giggles and throws his head back, and in his laughter I hear the past year, echoing around his bedroom, almost as though the past is rising into the air around me.
I think about the first few days back in this house, Dusty moving into the master bedroom and Mom taking my bedroom, all of us determined to live together as peaceful and happily as this place will allow. Dusty and I wanted to get our own place, but it was clear that Mom wasn’t ready yet. She had lived through a personal hell and was struggling to come to terms with the fact that she’d inflicted that hell on her children. Once she broke down in tears, knocking on our bedroom door in the middle of the night and sitting on the edge of the bed crying like sh
e’d just discovered the extent of her actions.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered through the sobs. “I’m so, so sorry. I never dreamed. I never guessed . . . No, that’s a lie. I did dream. I heard. I knew. I saw. And that’s even worse, isn’t it? Because that means that it was partly my fault. No, not partly. That means it was my fault . . .” She threw herself into the tears.
Even then, I found it difficult to go to her, comfort her, knowing that all those times Greg had hit me, she had heard and done nothing. It’s a difficult thing, to face the fact that your mother never truly cared about you, or if she did, she never had the courage to put her love before her cowardice. But then Dusty sat up in bed and nodded to me, and I knew exactly what he was saying without the need of words. Go to her, do what has to be done, there’s plenty of time to sort out this mess. So that’s what I did. I comforted her, because I didn’t want to see her cry, and I put everything else side.