Jackboot

by Will Van Allen

  He stated matter-of-factly: “Eight hundred and forty-seven. You’re an 847, sweetheart.”

  He spat on her face as he pushed himself off and stood over her. He gave her a swift kick in the side that wheezed the air out of her again. “You bled on me, you cunt,” he said in a bizarrely offhand fashion.

  He reiterated his promise to kill her if she told the police but it was a bluff and she knew it, he wasn’t a killer, not of life, just your soul, and wishing he was wouldn’t make it so. He wiped himself clean with her grandmother’s quilt from the back of the rocker the cats liked to sit on though they weren’t anywhere to be found now. Whistling and grinning he zipped up his fly, straightened his shirt, gave her one more farewell punt for good measure and left, calmly pulling the door closed behind him.

  She lay there among the cat hair and vomit for some time. She wasn’t going to die.

  All she could think was how badly she needed to vacuum.

  CHAPTER 2

  JANUARY

  Spokane, Washington

  It was a Wednesday.

  He got the mail tore open bills threw away the junk turned on the news listened to more bitching about the goddamned bankers who were robbing people of their goddamned homes and people losing their goddamned jobs changed into old sweats and a holey T-shirt nuked some Hot Pockets—

  His cell rang. He checked the caller ID. “Hey, Anj. Happy New Year. How’s the new gig?”

  She whispered something.

  “Didn’t catch that.” She said it again. Still not audible. “I can’t hear—”

  “I was raped.”

  Silence. As heavy as a house. He wanted to ask if he had heard right but knew he had.

  “Hello?”

  “I’m here. Are you—where are you?”

  “I’m at the hospital.”

  “What hospital?”

  “Legacy Emanuel. Don’t come. I’m okay.”

  He was already heading for the door.

  “Johnny!”

  “What?”

  She let out a ragged breath. “Don’t—don’t tell my mom? Okay? Or Missy. Anyone,” her voice cracked.

  “Anj—”

  “No! Promise me.” A wave of cold nostalgia washed over him. No. Déjà vu.

  “I promise.”

  Portland, Oregon

  She couldn’t get comfortable.

  It wasn’t the unyielding lumpy mattress, the dry, itchy sheets, the room’s austere sterility or not having her cats curled up next to her. It was the four stitches they had sown into her tender, raw rectum. She tried fervently to ignore them (ignore many things), but they were an irritating, achy reminder (of many things) whenever she adjusted the slightest bit in the bed. Or if she breathed too deep. Coughed. Cried too hard. Who knew your rectum contracted when you cried? Now she knew all too well.

  Emotional exhaustion had set in hours ago but she resisted sleep. As she should have resisted her rapist. The sutures kept her from being comfortable, the fear kept her from sleep, but the humiliation was the worst. She was now a victim. A victim who had lain there on her apartment floor in shock and terror. Choked on spoiled wine, her own blood and the impossibility of telling her mother and sister. Drowned in the shame of the damned.

  Her cats had finally surfaced from hiding and meowed at her. Get up and do something for Christ’s sake! As death did not seem imminent enough to ignore them she crawled to the phone and tremblingly dialed 911 then hung up.

  That was just what she needed; new girl in the complex being wheeled out to an ambulance amid an escort of police, a victim’s parade for her neighbors’ delight. Been here just a few months, poor thing. What a horrible shame. Single girl with cats, says a lot doesn’t it? Wasn’t there another rape just down the street? What’s this neighborhood coming to?

  Of course that was the shock thinking. Later she would be amazed at the amount of blood that had pooled in the seams of her Honda’s leather seat.

  Painfully aware of the need to preserve evidence, she pulled on her discarded jeans, stuffed her torn underwear into a pocket, filled the cat dish with food and, after carefully navigating down the rain-slicked stairs, gingerly drove herself to Emanuel.

  She got the distinct impression that the young doctor sans wedding band thought she was blessed that her rapist had ejaculated into her anus and not her vagina. At least she didn’t have to worry about getting knocked up, eh? One less thing!

  The lady with the rape kit was much more compassionate. She kept by her side even after her shift ended while Anj gave her statement to two sets of cops two separate times. Nothing like reliving horrible events while they are so vividly fixated in your mind. Not that they would ever go away.

  Her rapist had been arrested that morning.

  Even so, every time a shadow crossed the crack beneath the door or a nurse stepped in to check on her, she jerked wide-awake, which of course kept her anal stitches singing. She refused any sedation, screamed how lovely a case that would make if they tried to force her to take medication and her sister just happened to be a lawyer with the ACLU (Marissa did have aspirations). A rape counselor had been by twice but he was young and though well versed in the Rape Counseling for Dummies manual he had never had another man’s penis tear through his rectum while his head was pounded against the floor. She had asked. He had left her alone and not come back. She had insisted.

  But that was the problem; she was all alone. She hadn’t any friends, save a few nine-to-five colleagues at work and God knew she couldn’t tell her mother or sister. She was all on her own. Except, maybe…

  He arrived around 10:30 that night, his out-of-place heavy winter coat slick with rain. That god-awful beard—it made him look ten years older than his thirty-seven. The coat did little to hide that his six-foot-two frame had gained more weight.

  “Anj,” was all he could manage as he squeezed his eyes tight.

  She knew she looked rough. Her lip a swollen mass of gashed plum, her puffy nose, purplish-black bruises beneath both eyes, the left fighting not to swell shut. Rug burn blotched her forehead and face like alien measles and a big piece of her hair was simply gone, revealing pale, irritated scalp.

  All that would heal. It was the other stuff that would never be the same.

  “Looks worse than it feels,” she lied. Her mouth was chopped hamburger and talking made all those lacerations want to come alive.

  “Anj—”

  “No.” She took a deep, ragged breath, sharp jabs in her side reminding her of her bruised ribs. “No, I’m not okay. And I don’t think I’ll ever be okay, again.” She had decided she wasn’t going to cry anymore but a tear trickled down her brutalized cheek. “But you’re here now. I know you’re so busy, Johnny, you didn’t have to—”

  “Shut up.” His eyes brimmed with tenderness. Now those were gorgeous eyes; the hazel so warm, sincere, so different from…How could she have been so blind? So stupid?

  “You still haven’t lost that heinous beard,” she heard herself saying. Her eyes were so heavy from lack of sleep but that beard was undeniable. “You’re too good looking to hide behind all that hair. Makes you look old.”

  “I am old.” He scratched at his thickly covered chin. It came in with reddish highlights; she wouldn’t have guessed that. The top of his head was still sandy blond.

  “I’m older than you by two months,” she said.

  “I feel older. Who did this?” She sensed the change. It reminded her of high school. He was there for her, there was no doubt, but their familiar sparring was over. The wave of anger that was beginning at the tips of his toes and swelling exponentially with every inch it climbed up his body was palpable. His right hand kept clenching into a fist.

  She shook her head.

  “Who?”

  She sniffed. “He seemed so nice.”

  She began to cry. There hadn’t been any of the signs. Had there? She couldn’t think straight anymore.

  “They arrested him. He’s in jail.” As if that would pla
cate him. “I don’t need your anger, Johnny. I need you.”

  He sighed, nodded, sat down and simmered next to her. He took her hand. It felt good, feeling her small hand within his strong one. Johnny had always been so good at holding her hand.

  All the cameras and security guards and doors and locks in the hospital, in the world, and all she needed was Johnny’s hand. Only now did she feel safe.

  “What can I do?”

  “Nothing. Just…be here. I just needed someone…from home.”

  “You hate home.”

  “But I don’t hate you.” She squeezed his hand. The rain was really coming down now outside. Must be windy, the drops rat-a-tatting against the window though she couldn’t see them for the darkness that pressed its peering face to the glass. They sat silently, each to their own thoughts, listening. Rat-a-tat-tat-tat.

  “I know how he felt,” she whispered.

  “Stop it.”

  “I know now. What he went through,” she continued softly. “How horrible it must’ve been. How horrible he must feel now.”

  John cleared his throat. He was at a loss for what to say, like all those years ago.

  “Anj, what can I do?”

  She sighed. “Oh Johnny, always needing to do something. How’s your daughter?”

  “She’s fine.”

  “And your brother?”

  “He’s fine.”

  “You rarely speak to her, he’s in a warzone and they’re both fine?” She arched an eyebrow and winced at the same time.

  “He got extended with this surge bullshit. What do you want me to tell you?”

  “Don’t get snippety.” She watched him remember where they were and why. She patted his hand. “How long are you here?”

  “As long as you need me.”

  “That could be a long time.”

  He shrugged.

  She smiled faintly. It hurt, but everything hurt. She needed sleep. She wanted sleep. Her eyelids wanted to close and she thought she could now let them. Johnny was there, keeping the darkness at bay outside the window, steadfast between her and the demons on the other side of the door.

  With a lump of impotent fury in his throat John McConnell watched his first love and heartbreak sleep.

  They had dated through high school. She had been there for him when his father was killed and he had become the man of the house, and they had endured almost through her first year of college. The distance taking its toll, it was no real surprise when she had left him for a communications major, and he had been there for her the following year when she was abruptly dumped for a pre-med. Though they had dabbled with the rare sexual rendezvous through the years, more out of familiarity than ardor, they had matured into simply old friends. The best kind.

  The Anj of yesteryear had been serious, driven and overflowing with rambunctious perkiness.

  She wasn’t so perky now.

  His foot was tapping an exigent beat. He willed it to stop. What could he do?

  Déjà vu.

  He stared out the window at the dark, watery world beyond. The adrenaline that had been building and burning finally exhausted itself, and him with it.

  But he wouldn’t sleep. He settled into the chair and watched her, their hands entwined.

  What could he do? He could be there.

  They left the hospital the next day, her gait stiff, baseball cap covering the barren patch on her head, oversized tortoise shell sunglasses hiding her bruises. She was still pretty under the cuts and scrapes and swelling and trepidation. Maybe she didn’t know it. She couldn’t hide it, though maybe she wanted to.

  Going back to her apartment was out of the question. He had found her a new one on Craigslist that morning—a small, quiet twelve-unit complex in Hillsdale—with a big bathtub, one of those clawed, cast-iron monstrosities, Anj’s only request—and he paid double for some movers to drop another job and with him leading the charge they had her packed and moved in by evening, cats included. His back groaned with every box but he didn’t dare stop moving, a rage stirring every time his eye caught the garish stains on her old apartment’s carpet.

  He became caretaker, errand boy, nightmare chaser, night-terror soother, constant companion, cook, video renter, cat feeder—you name it, whatever she needed, in whatever capacity, he did it. Always positive and unflinchingly supportive. Smiled more than he could remember doing in years, so much so his face hurt at the end of each day. Despite his best efforts she dropped twenty pounds before rediscovering her appetite, or at least pretending to enjoy eating and not dispassionately pushing food around on her plate. They watched a lot of comedies, the occasional Meg Ryan rom-com, a plethora of nature documentaries. Sometimes she would fall asleep during an Obama speech or a Clinton rally. He slept on the sofa when she was having a good night; lay unmoving next to her fitful tossing on her bed during the bad ones. Often he sat awake in a chair by the window. All of this with a compassionate patience that surprised him.

  Twice a week he drove her to a shrink, who was optimistic that Anj was improving, moving on, putting it behind her, whatever one did after being brutally sexually assaulted. Maybe she was. The bruises faded, the cuts healed. But she was different.

  Testiness and mood swings were as common as periods of extended silence, but they subsided just as quickly as they erupted. They were usually predictable, no real fire in her, except when it came to her mother and sister. She adamantly refused to tell them. He didn’t press it, not after the first time, the day he had taken her to the hospital to remove the sutures. It was the only time she had told him to leave her and go back to Spokane, she didn’t need him. He had quickly apologized.

  “And don’t even think about being tricky, Johnny,” she said catching him thinking about being tricky. “There’s no guile in you.”

  Well. That could account for some things.

  She needed her family, though. Support was an imperative, he knew that much without the shrink telling him. At least Anj had confided in her boss, Karen, who had told her to take all the time she needed.

  His own work was less understanding. He had racked up vacation but that didn’t mean the small network firm, IPFusion, wanted you to take it. Rich had wanted to knock John down a peg or two for years and here was his golden ticket to do so. He assured John that he would have to start at the bottom of the ladder when he returned, which better be sooner than later, it was only fair to the other technical consultants. “You make your bed,” Rich said sagely.

  Which wasn’t true, not at the moment. He made Anj’s bed. And he would keep making it until she told him to stop. And he wasn’t sure if that would be ever.

  Which was why he was surprised one evening when she came out of the bathroom freshly showered and humming, one peach towel wrapped around her, drying her hair with another. Van Morrison blared behind her, a nice reprieve from the usual songs of soulful sadness. How much Tori Amos could a man suffer?

  John had been lying on the bed absently petting Crockett, both of them there to keep the demons at bay. He affixed his smile.

  “I’m doing much better,” she said.

  “You are,” he agreed, still smiling.

  “Tubbs really digs you.”

  “Is this Tubbs?”

  “Duh. I told you, Miami Vice? Tubbs is the black one, Crockett the white.”

  “Right. Yeah.”

  “What good are you if you don’t remember the eighties?”

  “Not much, I suppose,” he smiled.

  She dropped next to him on the bed, tucking the towel tight against her bosom, scratching at the cat’s ears. “I’m doing better, Johnny. Seriously. Thank you.” She leaned forward and hugged him. She was still damp. He could smell pear and coconut. Her skin was soft against his cheek.

  She pulled back, smiled. “What I’m trying to tell you is—you can go home. I’m going to be okay.”

  Her positivity could be traced to the prosecution’s assertion the day before that her case was a “slam dunk.” Alan Cordell wa
s being held on million-dollar bail. The prosecutor was confident with the weight of the physical evidence Cordell would cop a plea and he intended to put the bastard away for a very long time. Anj wouldn’t be required to testify, a great relief, you could see the weight fall away as she breathed deep and straightened her shoulders in the prosecutor’s office.

  But John wasn’t sure. He scratched at his beard. “I dunno, Anj.”

  She patted his hand. “I do. You worry too much. You’ve been wonderful, but it’s time. You’re needed back home. I’ve monopolized you enough.” She smiled. It appeared to be the genuine article. Maybe it was time.

  He did need to get home. His clients were agitated, not so much with his absence as with the shoddy service that had replaced him, and Rich was whining daily about it. And of course there was Katie. Her cold, mute disinterest spoke volumes. He hadn’t seen her since Christmas Eve, when she wouldn’t even look at him, grumbling a “thank you” for her presents that she casually tossed towards the tree. Things had soured the past year, and they weren’t getting any better with his absence.

  And then there was his brother. They had Skyped twice while he was here, both calls brief. Sean wasn’t fine so much as “doing alright.” It was true that John being back in Spokane wouldn’t make much difference but it felt right to be there. Like fixing a broken compass. At least he could get his bearings.

  “You sure?”

  “I’m sure, Johnny. Go see your daughter.” She took his hand and grew serious. “I want you to go. I need you to. I have to be able to do it on my own. You’ve been a terrific crutch but if you stay any longer I’m afraid I’ll make you permanent. And we both know I could do it.”

  He stayed a couple more days just to be sure. She did seem better. She drove herself to work, slept through the night, cracked jokes. He reassured himself that if there was a setback, he was only a five-hour drive or an eighty-minute flight away. His last night in town they went to dinner and as they nibbled at a rich, dark chocolate truffle cake for dessert she placed a small jewelry box on the table and slid it his way.