by B. M. Hardin
What?
“What place?”
Eddie smiled.
“Take these cuffs off of me Eddie.”
“No Vanessa.”
“What? I’m not Vanessa Eddie. I’m Sassi.”
“Whatever you say Vanessa ,” he said.
Eddie had been the one to kill Vanessa and Polo had covered up for him.
Then thinking about Eddie’s statement to Polo on the tape that day, Polo must have killed someone else.
“So if you killed Vanessa,” I started.
“You are Vanessa,” Eddie said.
I’m not Vanessa!
But obviously he was going crazy or something so I went along.
“If you killed the “other” Vanessa, on the tape why did you ask Polo to do it like last time?”
“Oh. Is that what I said on the tape? I must have misunderstood what you were saying to me back then. I thought you heard me say something about the “other” Vanessa. If I’d said that, then I was talking about my mother. My real one. Polo killed my biological mother for me.”
His what?
“I’m not really my parent’s son Sassi. They took me in when I was five. The woman that raised me, the woman that you know as my mother, is my aunt. At five, she took me from my mother and raised me as her own. That’s when I met Polo.”
What!
“So your real mother is dead? Polo killed her?”
“Yes. She’s the reason I’m so messed up. I only remember pieces of things that happened while I was with her, but what little I can recall, wasn’t good. She was a stripper and prostitute. She loved men. And she hated real life responsibilities. She couldn’t even remember who my real father was. Anyway, my aunt and uncle took me in because she couldn’t have kids and because she didn’t think her sister was the best mother figure for me. But no matter what, I loved her, my real mother, and all I ever wanted was for her to love me back. But she wouldn’t. No one ever loved me the way that I loved them. The story of my life.”
Eddie wasn’t his parent’s real child!
You have got to be freaking kidding me!
They had baby pictures of him and everything but I guess they would have considering that they were still his relatives.
I felt so deceived.
“Anyway after the incident with the “other” Vanessa, after a while, I went to find her. Actually Polo had found her for me. I went to see her. It was suggested that maybe I get some kind of closure or try expressing to her how empty I felt to have been unwanted and rejected by my birth mother. But guess what? She barely had two words to say to me. She saw Polo and her whore radar went bananas. She pretty much ignored everything that I said and focused more on trying to get Polo in her bedroom.”
“And Polo killed her.”
“He knows me better than anybody. He saw how heartbroken I was. He tried to get her to see how damaged I was because of her. But she wouldn’t listen to him either. We left and he told me that I would never have to worry about her again. He told me that she didn’t deserve to be my mother. And he told me that he had a plan. Literally the next day we got a call and she was dead. They said that she’d fallen asleep with a cigarette in her hand and caught the house on fire. But I knew in the back of my mind that Polo had something to do with it. I never said a word about it and neither did he. But I knew that he had taken care of the problem for me, yet again. The day at the funeral, my mind seemed to be set free. I seemed to instantly get better. I stopped taking my pills and everything. I didn’t need them anymore. Well for a while I didn’t. I didn’t need them again until all of the financial stuff with my business started going on and I started to feel like I was tripping out. I started stressing. So, I had to go back on my medication. That’s what happened to the sex by the way. Taking the pills seemed to affect my sex. When I don’t take them, sex is fine. In case you haven’t noticed that lately. The pills that Polo got me were supposed to help me balance it all out but they seemed to be messing up other things.”
“Pills what pills?”
“Don’t worry about that Vanessa.”
“I’m Sassi!” I screamed in frustration and terror.
“I know. But you’re just like Vanessa. So, as of now, you are Vanessa and you have to die.”
Eddie stood up.
“Please Eddie. Please. I love you. I love you not Polo. I swear. I just want you. I just want us.”
“Liar! You don’t want me. No one ever wants me!”
“I do. I swear I do. I want just you.”
“You’re trying to trick me Vanessa.”
“Eddie I’m Sassi. Your wife. The mother of your kids. You promised you would never hurt me. I’m not Vanessa. I’m not her.”
“You might as well be her. You’re going to die today Vanessa.”
I started to wail loudly!
I am not Vanessa damn it!
“Eddie I’m not Vanessa baby. I’m not her. Wait, was Vanessa really Micki’s sister?”
“What? No.”
Damn!
What hadn't Micki lied about?
And why would she lie in the first place?
How did she play into all of this?
And if Vanessa wasn’t really her sister then how did she know about her?
“Please Eddie. Please,” I started to cry as he pointed the knife at me.
“It’s too late. But don’t worry. I’m going to die with you. I can’t live without you. I won’t let him have you. No, not you. Polo will not have you. I got to you first. You married me, not him. And I won’t let him take you from me. Killing you and then killing myself is the only way.”
“Eddie, who will take care of the kids?”
“They will be fine. My parents will be good to them, just like they were to me Vanessa.”
“Eddie I’m Sassi. Baby, I’m Sassi.”
“Okay Vanessa.”
I whined and looked at my ringing phone. I could see that it was Mama again. I wished I’d answered her call or that I could tell her that I was in trouble and I needed her help.
Eddie’s phone started to ring too but he didn’t answer it.
“Well, let’s get this over with shall we?”
He cut one of his wrists with the knife without hesitating.
“Eddie no!” I screamed as he grunted in pain.
He grabbed my hands.
They were both still in handcuffs, but he attempted to move them so that he can cut one of my wrists too.
“No!”
I started to kick at him and I squirmed all over the place.
I kicked him and moved but he finally put his weight on top of me and slit my left wrist.
“Owww!” I screamed.
Eddie just stood there as I cried and watched the blood ooze out of my wrist.
“Please Eddie. Please.”
“All you had to do was love me. That’s all you had to do. I love you so much.”
“I love you too and I do love you. I promise you, I do Eddie. Please.”
“It’s too late,” Eddie said about to slit his other wrist.
“Were going to sit here and die together,” Eddie said but just as he finished his sentence, there was beating on the front door.
Eddie ignored it, and his ringing phone and headed to cut his wrist.
“Help!” I screamed at the top of my lungs.
Boom!
Boom!
After another bang or two, the front door flew open.
Eddie didn’t move from over me but I could see that it was Polo.
Oh thank goodness.
“No Eddie! Stop. Not this time bro,” Polo said.
“She doesn’t love me anymore Polo. She loves you. They always love you.”
“No Eddie. She loves you. I swear. She told me that today.”
“You’re lying for her Polo! Don’t lie to me!”
Eddie was screaming. I’d never seen him act this way.
I cried underneath him and tried to get him off of me but he didn’t budge.
“I’m not lying to you. I swear,” Polo said and tried to walk closer but Eddie held the knife up as though he was going to stab me.
“Don’t come near me Polo or I’ll stab her. You know I’ll do it!”
“Okay Eddie. Do you need a pill? Where are they? Let me get them. Let me help you like always.”
Eddie shook his head.
“No more pills. No more pills. I’m tired of feeling this way. Everyone hurts me. People always hurt me. Even you.”
“I didn’t mean to. We had this talk already didn’t we? I let my feelings get the best of me but it didn’t happen anymore I promise. I let you have her. To let you win. You won her Eddie. She loves you. Believe me. She loves you. Trust me brother. Trust me.”
Polo seemed to keep his eyes on the knife as well as both of our wrists that were dripping in blood.
“Put the knife down Eddie. Come on,” Polo said.
I could feel Eddie’s body relax on top of me and he acted as though he was going to get up but suddenly he shook his head.
“No. No. Not this time. You can’t have her!”
Eddie screamed, put the knife high in the air and just as he started to bring the knife down on me, I heard the gun shot.
I started to scream once I saw it was Mama holding the gun.
Eddie slowly fell to the floor and I hurried to my knees beside of him.
“No Eddie! Stay with me baby. Look at me. Call 9-1-1! Now! Please!”
Mama stood there and I saw Polo fall to his knees.
“Call 9-1-1!” I screamed as Eddie’s eyes started to flutter.
Mama moved but she didn’t walk towards me or a phone.
Instead she shut the front door.
“I-I-I love you Sassi,” Eddie mumbled.
He called me Sassi! He called me Sassi and not Vanessa!
“I love you too baby. Help is on the way,” I struggled to grab my phone with the handcuffs on and Mama hurried to me and took it out of my hand.
“Give me my phone Mama! Call the police! Hurry!”
Polo was still on his knees. His head was hung low.
“Eddie. Eddie. Open your eyes baby.”
“I just wanted you to love me.”
“And I do. I promise you I do. Come one baby. Call the fucking police now! Now! Now!” I was crying and screaming at the same time, but still Mama nor Polo moved.
Eddie coughed and blood came out of his mouth.
“Goodbye Sassi,” he mumbled and with those last words, he took one last breath.
And that was it.
Eddie was gone.
“No!” I started to scream at the top of my lungs.
I cried hysterically, but Polo was even louder than I was.
He started to cry. And I do mean, cry.
He cried so hard that it shook my soul and almost made me focus more on him than on myself.
“Why! Why didn’t you call for help? Why!”
I cried. I screamed at Mama but she didn’t say anything.
“I could’ve saved him. I could’ve saved him. He would have listened to me,” Polo mumbled through his tears.
“No he wouldn’t have. And you know it. That’s why you called me Polo. That’s why you called me and told me to come and to be prepared,” Mama said.
I laid my head on Eddie’s chest.
He was gone. He was really gone.
“You killed him Mama.”
“I had to. I had to shoot him to save you,” she said.
Mama placed the gun on the table and stuck her hands in Eddie’s pocket.
She found the keys to the handcuffs, took them off, disappeared for a second and came back with a scarf to tie tightly around my bleeding wrist.
Polo was sitting now, up against the door.
He was still crying but he was very, very still.
“How did you know? How did you know to come here? How did you know what he was going to do?”
Polo nodded towards the fireplace.
I looked at it.
After a moment or two, he stood up and went to grab one of the crystal vases. He stuck his hand in it and at the bottom there was a little camera.
Thank goodness for his stalking ass!
“One day while you and Eddie were out, I came in and placed a few over the house. I’d gotten a print of Eddie’s key why he was over one day from his keys, and took it to have a copy made. I happened to log on, just to watch you, like I do sometimes, and I saw Eddie with the knife. I rushed over here as fast as I could. I thought that I wasn’t going to make it in time. Like last time. Then I got here and I forgot that the key was hidden in my dashboard, but I didn’t have any time to waste. I was just trying to get in to stop him. I’d called your mother on the way just in case I couldn’t. I wasn’t sure but I was going to try. I was going to try to stop him because had I had to choose…”
“You wouldn’t have chosen me,” I finished his sentence.
There was no doubt in my mind that Polo would have let Eddie kill me and cleaned up the mess.
“Actually, I think I would have.”
Mama was quiet. She just seemed to be watching me.
“What was wrong with him? And why didn’t anyone tell me? Why didn’t I know that something was wrong with my own husband?” I questioned Polo.
He looked at Mama. She still looked at me.
“No one had to tell you what you already knew Sassi,” he said.
“Where did you meet Eddie?” Polo asked me.
“At the bar with you.”
“No. Where did you meet Eddie, Sassi?”
I just told him! I tried to think.
Mama opened her mouth to speak.
“Where did you meet Patrice?”
Where did I meet Patrice? I’d known her for over twenty years. I started to think.
Where did I meet Patrice?
Something came back to my memory and I gasped.
“At the hospital.”
“Where did you meet Eddie? Where did you see Eddie for the first time?”
I closed my eyes and tears started to fall from my eyes.
“At the hospital.”
“The first time you went you were twelve. That’s where you first met Patrice. That’s where you also first met Eddie.”
“And me,” Polo said.
I was so confused. I’d thought it was the night at the bar but some other visions started to pop in my head.
“Do you know what dementia is Sassi?”
“What? The thing that old people have? That makes them forget?”
“Not only old people have it. It’s more common in elderly people but there are cases where children have it too. Maybe not as advanced, but they still do.”
“So I have dementia? Memory loss?”
“Amongst other things. It got worse after the incident. We actually didn’t know that you had it until the incident. I’d never paid attention to it being an issue that sometimes you couldn’t remember things. And it was backwards because certain things, you could remember; like school things in such. But like memories, even from the day before or even minutes, sometimes, you just couldn’t remember them. The doctors only classified it as dementia because they couldn’t classify it as much else. But your memory really got shaky after the incident. You didn’t really remember much before then and you only remembered what you wanted to remember after that.”
“What incident?”
“When you were twelve, you saw your brother get kidnapped remember?”
“What?”
“Think Sassi.”
I closed my eyes again.
“Your brother was picked up while you were outside playing one day. Remember? You were outside with him, while I’d gone into the house to answer the phone.”
I was trying to remember.
“I came back outside and he was gone. I asked you where he was but you’d said that you didn’t know. You were right there, yet you couldn’t remember the car or the person that snatched him. You couldn
’t remember anything. We found him three days later. In the woods. Dead.”
What? My brother was dead?
What the hell was she talking about?
Maybe I’d had another brother that I’d forgotten about.
“You blamed yourself. You were never the same after that. None of us were. That’s when your father turned into an alcoholic remember?”
I shook my head. I was still stuck on the other part.
“I don’t understand.”
“You had to be sent to the hospital for a little while after that. You started acting weird. You were so bothered. You blamed yourself for your brother’s death. At first you acted depressed. And then you just started acting out. So we tried to get you some help.”
“Wait. What are you talking about Mama? So there’s something else wrong with me? Other than memory loss?”
“Those doctors didn’t know what they were talking about. They started trying to say all kinds of stuff about you, and even had me send you to a hospital to try to figure it out. That’s where you met Patrice. Patrice was having problems dealing with her mother’s death. But really I think that she was just acting out. She had decent sense to me. Her father was just ashamed of her and kept sticking her in there every chance that he could. That’s where you met her. Even after a while, whenever she would have to go back you started saying that she was at camp, or cheerleading or something. But she was always at the hospital. But I always wanted you home. You only had to go there twice and after the second time, I said never again. I love you. And whatever was going on with you, I just thought that love would cure you.”
I just couldn’t put it all together.
“The doctors thought you were acting out on depression and guilt and things like that. You stayed there for a little while, but you seemed to improve. Then you had a few episodes and I sent you back; it was one time in your teens, and you came back with Micki.”
Huh?
“How? I met Micki through Patrice.”
“No baby. You met Micki in your mind. She’s made up. She doesn’t really exist. We all just pretend with you as if she does.”
What the fuck!
“No. You’re lying!”
“No. I’m not. Call her then.”
I grabbed my phone.
“I can’t call her that number is disconnected. When she moved she cut off the number.”