by RM Johnson
“Why the crazy grin?” she asked, looking up at me.
“It’s not crazy, it’s happy. I’ve been worried about everything between me and Asha for I don’t know how long. Partially because she’s my best friend, but also because I didn’t know what our friendship, that is, if we ever got back to that point, would do to my marriage with you. But just your saying that I should call her, and your telling me everything would be all right, made me realize that things really would be all right—not only between me and Asha, but me and you too. And then all of a sudden I just felt every worry, every little disturbance or distraction just kind of lift out of me, leaving nothing but happiness about what’s going to take place tomorrow. That’s why the crazy grin.”
Faith looked up at me for a long moment, her face displaying all sorts of emotions. First she looked like she was about to start bawling, then she grinned like she was about to laugh out loud, then it looked as though she was fighting just to maintain one expression, finally settling on a very content-looking smile.
“Jayson, I love you. You know that don’t you?” she said, placing a hand on the back of my neck.
“Yes, I do,” I said.
“No, Jayson. I really love you. Really,” she said, pulling me down some, raising up some herself to kiss me on the cheek, then on the lips.
“Yes, baby. I really do,” I said, accepting her kisses, kissing her back. “I really, really do.”
“Good.”
Nothing was said after that, she just started pulling at my clothes, seeming to want to take them off.
“Isn’t it bad luck or something to make love the night before the wedding,” I said, starting on her jeans, but having a hell of a time unfastening them.
“No, baby,” Faith said, helping me with the button, then sliding the jeans all the way off. “I think it’s the other way around. It’s bad luck not to make love the night before the wedding.”
“Ohhhh,” I said. “Well, in that case …”
We made love, fantastic love, and as we were doing that, I was thinking about how much I loved her, and that it just kept getting better and better. Then a thought slipped into my head that I wished never would’ve found its way there. And the thought said to me, maybe she’s gotten so good because of the practice she had with Gary. I quickly shut my eyes, trying to quiet that noise in my head, and the painful resentment that came along with it. I refocused on the love I felt for Faith, the wonderful future we would have together.
Afterward, we showered. I put my clothes back on and she dressed for bed. She climbed under the covers, and I tucked her in, kissing her on the forehead.
“So tomorrow you’ll be Mrs. Faith Abrahms, and it’ll be the last time you go to sleep by yourself. Is that okay by you?”
Faith smiled at me. “Yeah,” she said, in a casual tone. “I guess that’ll be okay.” Then she reached up, wrapped her arms around my neck, and playfully pulled me down into the bed with her.
“Are you joking, Mr. Jayson Abrahms? I can’t wait till tomorrow! And you better not be late.”
“Be here to pick you up at eleven, and bells will be ringing by noon,” I said. I pushed myself up from the bed. “Where we gonna live? Here or my place?” She smiled. “Let’s just worry about tomorrow, mister. One day at a time, hunh?”
When I finally got in my car, I looked at the clock. It was fifteen minutes till midnight, and I told myself, I didn’t care what time it was when I got home, I was going to have a talk with Asha and tell her just how much her friendship meant to me.
48
That long, thick object that Big Les was slapping across her hand was a dildo. As Les and the three other women were dragging Asha out of that car, she fought like hell, screaming, “What are you doing! What do you want!” They forced her into the car that Big Les had come out of, one of those huge Ford Excursions. The backseats were folded down, and they threw her in through the tailgate, two of the other big women getting in behind her, holding her down, punching Asha in the stomach and breasts, which hurt like hell, whenever she tried to fight her way out.
The truck went only a short distance, and when the tailgate door opened again, Asha was able to see through the little bit of space between the heads of the women that crowded around. She saw that she was behind one of those huge dilapidated warehouses and she didn’t see anyone around at all who could help her.
Les climbed into the truck, hunched over her, staring down into Asha’s face.
“It’s like a dream, ain’t it, baby? I planned on getting back at your ass, but never thought I’d walk in my spot and see your ass just waiting there for me,” Les said, grabbing Asha’s face and pinching it. “You must’ve wanted this just as much as I did.”
That memory of Les seemed like an eternity ago, and it was so surreal, that if it wasn’t for the pain, and the blood, crawling from the wounds on Asha’s face, out the nostrils of her nose, the wide split on her lip, and from somewhere deep in between her legs and anus, she would’ve thought it was just a rumor about something that happened to someone else.
After the event, which was how Asha would term it forever in her head, she was rolled out of the back of the truck and fell hard onto the dirt. She lay there for a while, the star-filled sky spinning thousands of miles above her.
Her face burned as if she had been bobbing for apples in a tub of acid. Her arms, breasts, and middle were all so sore that with each breath, she felt that the bones there were breaking. And everything below her waist, she could not even feel, and didn’t want to, because for the past however long it had been, she had been experiencing feelings down there far too much. Feelings of excruciating, mind-numbing pain, which she’d blacked out under a number of times.
After ascertaining that nothing had been broken, and she could move, she stirred about in the dirt awhile, doing nothing more than getting dirt in wounds on her hands, arms, and face. She pulled her pants and panties up, and seeing that she still had her purse with her, she slowly raised herself off the ground, and stumbled to a main street, where she was able to thumb a ride home.
Angels were looking out for her now, Asha thought, as she sat slumped, and shaking, hugging herself in the older black woman’s car that picked her up.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to take you to the emergency room?” the woman said, racing down the street.
“Thank you,” Asha said, speaking into her folded arms over her chest, the words barely audible, “but I just want to go home.”
The woman shook her head, her thick eyeglasses glued to the road. A second later, she looked back at Asha, determination on her face. “No, I’m taking you to the hospital,” she demanded.
“Just take me home!” Asha said, raising her voice, turning to look at the woman, the blood starting to dry and harden with the dirt on her face. “Please.”
When Asha pushed her way through the door, it was 11:30 P.M. She didn’t bother closing the door, just headed straight to the bathroom, wanting to see if she looked half as bad as she felt.
She paused a moment, just to the side of the mirror, bracing herself for what she was about to see, and then upon seeing it, she immediately started crying. Instead of being thrown out of that parked truck, it looked as though she had been tossed from one doing eighty miles an hour down the Dan Ryan, and had to use her face to cushion the impact of every bump she hit.
Both her eyes were black and puffy, splotches of purple floating faintly under her swollen cheeks, blood and dirt caked in her nostrils, in her ears, and in the corners of her mouth. Blood was smeared all over her, as if she had gone crazy, and intentionally painted her own face with her blood-covered fingers.
She undid only one button on her shirt, because that was the only one that had not been ripped off. She could only open it, because it was too painful to take it all the way off. Where the bra had gone, she didn’t know, but as she looked down at her bruised breasts, she tried not to remember the awful pain she felt when two of those crazed women were biting
down on them, as if they were mad dogs, tearing at raw flesh.
Asha smoothed a finger over the countless bite marks all over her breasts, most just superficial, a couple that had broken the skin.
She stood in front of the mirror, looking sadly at herself, her legs barley able to hold her up. But Asha did everything in her power to keep herself erect, because she had to take a good look at herself, figure out why all of this had happened to her. It was difficult, because her mind wouldn’t let her think, wouldn’t let her focus on anything but the event itself. And when Asha closed her eyes, and tried to force those pictures out of her head, the sounds would come. The sounds of her screaming. The sounds of those girls, cackling, hollering, cheering Big Les on. “Go on, girl! Show that little bitch that she can’t fuck with you.”
At first, Asha could make out each individual voice, the general direction each comment came from, but as Big Les continued to widen Asha’s legs with her large hips, as Les continued pushing the thing strapped to her waist into Asha, the pain became so intense that everything started to become distorted, started to blur, the hateful sounds all rolling into one big ball of noise.
They’re never going to stop. They’re going to continue this until I die, Asha remembered thinking as she squirmed on her back, both her arms being held by two girls, pulled so hard that they had gone numb long ago. She could no longer feel much of anything down below.
It was the worst agony Asha had ever lived through, and she tried to move her mind away from it. She even tried to imagine she was experiencing a positive pain, like delivering a child. This was what it would feel like if she ever gave birth. This was what it felt like when my mother gave birth to me, Asha thought, as she felt Big Les’s hot breath on the side of her face, heard her grunts as she went about causing Asha as much pain as she could.
But like Asha thought, there were angels looking in on her occasionally, and they would steal her away, allow her to black out. At times, Asha would wake up, feel nothing, no weight over her, nothing tunneling up through her, feeling as though it would erupt out of her chest. She would open her eyes, and think it was over, think that the torture would stop, and then she’d see a new face, a weird sick smile on it, mounting her, and the hollers, the chanting would start again, and her insides would be set afire once more till she blacked out.
When it was all over, when Asha was lying twisted on the ground, Les jumped out of the truck, and stood over her.
“You didn’t have to get me fired. I was just bluffing with you about going to Margee. But no. You fucked with my money, fucked with me being able to take care of my son, so you had to get fucked with. You deserved this. Nothing personal though,” Les said, smirking. Asha could hear the other girls from the truck, laughing, clapping their hands, thrilled with what they had just done.
“Oh yeah, and one more thing. I wouldn’t think about reporting this, ’cause there’s always more where this came from. But even if you do, it’ll be my word against yours, because ain’t no running no DNA on no rubber dick, bitch,” Les said, then spit a heavy clump of saliva down on Asha’s face.
Asha stood in the mirror now, slowly bringing her hand up to that place where she’d felt the spit hit her, wanting to wipe it away, but it had long ago dried in with the rest of the blood and dirt.
You deserved this, Les had said, and as Asha continued to look sadly at herself, she had to ask herself if Les was right. She didn’t have to get Les fired, she could’ve just told her no, and that could’ve been the end of it, because, like she said, she wouldn’t have gone to Margee. I probably did deserve this, Asha thought.
And then Asha thought about Gill. The man loved her and wanted nothing more than to marry her, make her happy for the rest of her life. But what did she do to him? Use him as a way to cover what she was most ashamed of about herself, instead of telling him the truth so he could walk away from her without investing so much of himself, so much of his heart, in a relationship that did nothing but break that heart. I deserved what they had done to me, Asha thought again.
Then there was her dear friend Jayson, whom she lied to as well. All those years they were together, she lied to him. The years after that, she lied to him. He knew her like no one else and still she couldn’t tell him her secret. She’d allowed her lies, her infatuation with herself to go so far that now, he no longer wanted to be friends with her, and no longer wanted her in his building. “I deserve this,” Asha continued to tell herself, but this time said it out loud as well.
And finally, there was Angie. Asha didn’t believe she’d done anything wrong to her, but considering how many bad things she had done to everyone else, she was sure there was something. She loved Angie, but the woman didn’t love her back, and maybe it was because Asha wasn’t worth loving. Maybe because she had done so many people wrong, forsaken all the love that had come her way in the past, that now there was just no more.
Asha looked in the mirror, and realized that all of this, everything happened for a reason. This was her punishment for everything bad she had ever done. From the way she couldn’t even speak to Jayson when she saw him earlier, to the night her sister died. That was the way Asha phrased it now. It was the way the therapist told her to. But Asha knew the truth, had never let it be forgotten. Her sister didn’t die that night. Asha had killed her. She thought about that night, thought about her deep feelings of guilt and anger, and what she’d tried to do to make everything right for what she had done, and wished she had been successful.
Asha stared deeply into the mirror now, not looking at it, but through it, knowing what was there on the shelves behind it. She knew that what was there would make everything right, and if she’d just done it right the last time, none of what just happened would’ve ever taken place.
She raised a hand up to the mirror, opened the cabinet, and there before her in a cloudy orange prescription bottle, with a white cap, sat some sleeping pills for the nights when she couldn’t fall asleep. She grabbed the bottle off the shelf, opened it, and dumped all the pills, which had to be twenty or so, into her hand. She turned on the water with the butt of the hand holding the bottle, filled it up till it overflowed, then turned it off.
She raised both hands, the one holding the pills, and the other, the one holding the bottle filled with water, so that they were reflected in the mirror. She looked intently into her own eyes, and said, “I deserve this.” Then in two quick motions, she popped all the pills in her mouth, then threw her head back, chasing them all down with the water in one huge swallow.
49
Deric put some things in a bag and left after Angie told him she didn’t love him anymore. She didn’t mean to hurt him, but she had to start being real with herself, and what was real, was that she believed she loved Asha. Angie called Asha’s house several times, wanting to tell her that Deric was gone, that she had gotten herself together, and she was ready to pursue something with her. Something serious this time, but Asha never picked up her phone
It was 11:45 P.M. when Angie made her last call, and she stood in her living room waiting for the voice mail to click on again like it had every time. But this time when it did, Angie didn’t leave a message, because she knew that Asha was probably there, checking the Caller ID. Angie knew Asha said that she was going out, but Asha wasn’t that much of an “out” person, especially someone who stayed out this late.
So Angie decided she would go over there. If the girl didn’t want to talk to her over the phone, then she’d have to do it face-to-face.
When Angie pulled up to Asha’s apartment, she couldn’t believe how excited she was, how burden-free and revived she felt, after letting Deric go. She felt like she was about to start her life all over again, but this time do it the right way.
She jumped out of the car, and actually skipped toward the building, she was so happy. As she climbed the steps, she was picturing Asha’s face, how it would light up when she heard Angie’s news. They would hug and laugh, and do whatever else they wanted to d
o, not fearing who saw, or who cared, or anything else.
Angie stepped up to the big door and pushed her way through, but halted when she entered the hallway, seeing Asha’s door open. She looked oddly at the door, moving toward it cautiously, sensing that something was wrong.
“Asha,” she called. When there was no answer, she stuck her head into the room, and said, again, “Asha. It’s me, Angie.” Still there was nothing. Angie took two more steps into the apartment, looking around the room, down at the floor, when she saw blood smeared across the hardwood floor.
“Asha!” Angie cried, knowing now that something was indeed wrong. She raced through the living room, checking the dining room, the bedroom, but saw no sign of Asha. Then Angie stepped in to the bathroom entrance. She shrieked at the sight of Asha’s bloodied, bruised and beaten body, lying out across the cold tile floor. Angie didn’t want to take another step closer at first, because she couldn’t see Asha’s head. It was hidden between the sink vanity and the toilet. She was afraid she’d be dead, that her eyes would be closed, and she would be dead, not breathing. But Angie stepped in anyway, and she cried out again. When she did see her face, it looked even worse than the rest of her body.
“Asha!” Angie cried, dropping to her knees, wanting to touch her, wanting to comfort her, but not knowing if that would cause her any more pain. That was, if she was still alive. Tears came to Angie’s eyes as she looked around the small room for anything that she could use to help Asha, but she realized that even if there was something, she wouldn’t know what it was. She threw her head down against Asha’s chest, pressing her ear to her heart, listening as closely as she could.
She didn’t hear anything at first, and the tears came to her eyes even harder then, but she persisted in her listening, until finally she heard a faint heartbeat. She was alive. Angie raised Asha’s head off the floor gently, and was about to speak to her, when she heard someone entering Asha’s apartment.