“Graciela,” Brother Berkin begins, “now is not the time for such talk and-”
“Yeah, I know,” I pat him on the shoulder, “never is, is it?”
I take off like a prison escapee and bolt through the double doors and into the ICU hallway. Nurses are calling out for me to stop but I keep moving, scanning the name plates until I find Chloe’s. I duck inside her room, stop short, and try not to scream.
10
I’ve never seen her so soon after it happened.
“Oh my God, Chloe,” I whisper and I can’t move my feet. I bend over and throw up in the floor.
I raise my head and look at her swollen, purple face and start feeling like I might pass out for real. I struggle to catch my breath, but I can’t so I put my hands on my knees and throw up again. I raise up, wipe my face on my shirt, then put my arms around her legs and start to cry.
A herd of Bugtussle’s heaviest nurses bustle into the room and grab me, then the doctor bursts through the door with a passel of security guards. I’m hugging Chloe’s legs and telling her it’s going to be alright, but she doesn’t say anything because she’s unconscious.
“Miss Jones, you have to leave. Now,” Dr. Rain says in his usual condescending tone. “We have a strict privacy policy and I expect you to honor that!”
“She was pregnant and he beat her up and killed her baby.” I can’t stop crying. “All she’s ever wanted her whole life is to have a baby and you’re going to stand there and protect him.”
“I’m not protecting him, I’m protecting her,” he says dryly like he couldn’t care less.
“Well, it looks like you should’ve started a little sooner, doesn’t it?”
“I don’t know where you get your information from, young lady, but you need to verify your facts before you start throwing around such serious accusations.”
Verify my facts?
My mind starts to reel. How did Lilly know Chloe was in the hospital? Obviously Chloe didn’t call her and Richard Stacks damn sure didn’t. And where did Lilly get the idea that Chloe was pregnant? She just told me in the lobby that she didn’t know about it until tonight.
I push past the bumfuzzled security guards and bolt down the hallway to the waiting room where Richard Stacks is soothing the crowd in his best used car salesman tone. Brother Berkin is sitting apart from the crowd over by the windows and I make a dash to where he is.
“Go look at her, Brother Berkin. That’s all I ask. Just go look at her face.”
“Graciela, I won’t go against Mr. Stacks’ wishes.”
“He beat her so bad she lost a child,” I whisper in a fanatic, hushed voice, “that is murder. You are a preacher!”
He looks up nervously and I turn to see Richard Stacks coming our way, taking long strides with both fists clenched. It dawns on me that no woman has ever stood up to the great coward Richard Stacks. Not his beautiful, delicate wife and certainly not his bridge troll of a mother.
“The police are waiting on you downstairs, Miss Jones, scurry along now.”
“The police need to be waiting on you, dick face, because I’m not the criminal here. You are.” I turn to the pastor, “Sorry for the language, Brother Berkin.”
Richard Stacks takes a deep breath and I can tell that he is teetering between upholding his fine Bugtussle image and choking me to death. He goes with his image.
“Miss Jones, would you please leave now?” His face is blood red.
“I’m still waiting on you to do something,” I lift my chin and say, “be a man, do something I’ll regret.”
“Oh, you can bet I will,” he whispers through clenched teeth.
“Bet you will what, Mr. Stacks, if you don’t mind my asking?” Brother Berkin asks, giving Richard a curious look.
“I do mind you asking,” Richard Stacks the Fourth tells his spiritual leader, “now have a seat somewhere else please, Brother Berkin.”
“Well, listen to Mr. Holy Roller talking to his preacher like a yard dog,” I say loud enough for everyone in the waiting room to hear and since I have a captive audience, I decide to take full advantage. “Hey everybody,” I yell to the increasingly nervous crowd, “would you like to know what really happened to Chloe?” I look at Richard and he looks like he’s about to blow a gasket. “Richard Stacks the Fourth beats his wife! And this ain’t the first time, people, so keep that in mind while you’re standing around praying here for him, okay?” The security guards are coming my way, but I keep talking. “She was pregnant and he beat her up so bad she had a miscarriage. He killed their baby. And now this scumbag has called the police on me? On me? What do y’all think about that?”
Gasps and covered mouths all around.
“Shut your fucking mouth, you stupid whore!” He comes at me with his right fist in the air and I jump on his ass like a bitch dog that’s lost a pup. He tries to get his hands around my throat but I’m beating him so hard in the face that all he can do is flail around and cuss.
The security guards grab me and pull me back and Richard Stacks opens his mouth to say something and I spit in his face and scream, “I am going to kill you! I am going to fucking kill you if it’s the last fucking thing I do on earth.”
Brother Berkin steps forward and holds out his arms, “Please, please in the name of God, please stop!”
I jerk and wiggle away from the security guards and grab Brother Berkin by the hand.
“Just go look at her!” I whisper and take off running toward the stairs. I get to the lobby and see two police cars parked outside and Lilly and Ethan talking to Sheriff J.J. Jackson, who is looking down at the pavement and shaking his head. I stop running, try to catch my breath, and walk slowly through the sliding doors.
Sheriff Jackson looks at me, makes an awful face and says, “Ace, what in the hell are you doing? Look at you.”
I turn to check my reflection in the glass doors that just slid shut behind me and I am truly shocked by what I see. My hair is frizzy and wild and wet with sweat. My face is beet red and my cheeks are streaked with mascara. My Pineapple Willy’s tee shirt has vomit all over it and somewhere along the way I lost a flip flop. I turn to look at my friends and they are staring at me like I’m a wild animal. With rabies.
“You know you gotta come with me now, right?” Sheriff Jackson says in a quiet voice.
I nod my head and another cop, new to the area and apparently anxious for action, comes up and tries to cuff me, but Sheriff Jackson orders him back to his patrol car. The Sheriff opens the back door of his squad car and motions for me to get inside.
In a calm voice I say, “If you want to arrest someone, go arrest that fucking murderer, Richard Stacks.”
“Ace, aren’t you being just a little dramatic?” the Sheriff asks with obvious skepticism. James Jacob Jackson graduated three years ahead of me at Bugtussle High School. We were both on the basketball team, so between that and him being the Sheriff, he’s been exposed to more than a few of my crazy antics.
“Would somebody please just go look at her? Go look at her sweet little face that’s all bruised and swollen up. That’s all I ask. She’s fucking unconscious and her jaw is wired shut and she just lost a baby. A baby. And y’all are standing here and looking at me like I’m the criminal?”
The hospital doors slide open again and Richard Stacks comes running toward us screaming obscenities and I notice with great satisfaction that his nose is bleeding and his left eye is slightly swollen. I start to go after him but Sheriff Jackson grabs me and wrestles me into the back of his patrol car.
Richard keeps yelling and cussing and just before the Sheriff slams the door I hear Ethan say, “Hey buddy, why don’t you shut your mouth before I bust your other eye?”
Deputy Dumbass jumps out of his car and runs up to the fray with his hand on his pistol and all of a sudden the big bad Richard Stacks isn’t saying a word. Sheriff Jackson walks over to him and says something I can’t hear and Richard gets in the Sheriff’s face and they have what looks like a
heated exchange. Then, in the blink of an eye, the Sheriff spins him around, slaps cuffs on him, and barks something at his deputy, who runs to his patrol car and opens the back door.
I say a silent prayer that we’ll be in same cell. My Mamaw Essie used to warn me about praying for things that weren’t what she called “issues of the Lord” but I think she would let this one slide.
As luck would have it, however, neither of us go any further than the holding area. Ethan is waiting for me and Richard’s swamp-thing mama is waiting for him and before that lard bucket leaves, she makes all kinds of threats that everyone within ten miles hears because she’s running around yelling like the idiot that she is. According to her, nobody in the Bugtussle County Jail would have a job when she finished the phone calls she was about to go home and make.
Ethan walks me out, helps me into his truck, and we ride in silence back to my house. His cell phone rings and when he hangs up, he tells me that Adriana Lane, Lilly’s cousin and head nurse of the ICU, was just quietly escorted out the back door of the Bugtussle Memorial with her all of her personal effects.
Dr. Sebastian Rain and Mr. Richard Stacks are big time golfing buddies and they had every intention of sweeping this incident under the rug just like they have every other time Chloe needed medical attention for wounds sustained while trying to make her marriage work.
I hope Adriana Lane sues the hell out of Bugtussle Memorial Hospital and gets filthy rich and never has to work again. Unless she just wants to.
11
Tuesday morning I call in sick to work for ten thousand different reasons, not the least of which is my pounding head and aching body. I sleep the entire day away in a pain pill induced stupor.
Wednesday morning when the alarm goes off for the fifth time, I roll over and tell Buster Loo that I’d rather be shot in the face as to go to work today. He snuggles down further into the covers as if to rub it in my face that he can spend all day in bed if he so desires. A dog’s life, indeed.
I get to school ten minutes late and wish it would’ve been twenty. Coach Hatter is in his usual spot between our classrooms and I can tell by the look on his face that he’s heard all about it.
“You alright?” he asks.
“Fine,” I mumble. I walk in my classroom and plop down in my chair. Coach Hatter leans against the door frame and raises his eyebrows at me.
“So what’d you hear?” I ask, not really wanting to know.
“Well,” he says, smiling a big mischievous smile, “I heard you had a tell-all session with Brother Berkin at the hospital, then beat one of Rich Stacks’ eyes shut.” He starts that ridiculous sniggering and I smile despite myself.
“Well, Hatt, I guess that’d be one way to put it,” I say and suddenly realize how lucky I am that Logan Hatter’s classroom is right next door to mine. In this school, I could do a lot worse.
“Been a long time comin’,” he says, shaking his head, “just didn’t think you’d be the one dolin’ it out on him.”
“Fuck him,” I whisper and Coach Hatter cracks up again.
“How’s Chloe?” he asks, looking down at his shoes.
“Oh God, Logan,” I say and squeeze my eyes shut. “Oh, you don’t even want to know.”
“She should leave him and go out with the Sheriff,” he says.
“Yeah, she should. Right after she blows Richard’s worthless brains out.”
He continues to look at the floor and we don’t say anything for a few minutes.
“Let’s go to Ethan Allen’s tonight, Ace, I wanna be the man on your elbow when you walk in down there.” He pauses and looks at me sideways, “You know Ethan is just dyin’ for you to come down there and tell everybody your side of the story. Says he can only say so much until you come in to verify the details. I swear, he’s worse than a woman.”
“What’s that supposed to mean, Hatt?” I ask with mock sarcasm just as the bell rings.
“Saved by the bell,” he chirps. “Pick you up at eight?”
“Maybe.”
Just before lunch, I check my email and, lo and behold, there’s a message from the Queen of Hate herself summoning me to her nasty little office. During lunch. Great. Hatter will just have to tough it out again today with Coach Wills. Ha.
When the time comes, I reluctantly make my way up the hallway and through the commons area to the office. When I walk into the lobby, I notice a hand-written note on Chloe’s door and go over to inspect it. Mrs. Stacks will be out of the office until further notice. Please see Mrs. Marshall for all counseling issues.
Until now, the most time Chloe has ever taken off work due to domestic violence was five consecutive days. I think about her swollen, bruised-up face and wonder if she’ll be back before the school year ends next month.
“Miss Jones,” Catherine Hilliard booms from behind me and I jump like somebody stuck a hot poker to my ass.
“Yes ma’am?” My stomach knots up as I turn around.
“In here, please, ma’am,” she piles on the sarcasm when she says ma’am and motions me into her office.
I sit down in a dusty, navy blue chair that looks like it had its hey-day back when Axl Rose could still sing. Mrs. Hilliard comes in and starts digging through a junky filing cabinet behind her desk and pulls out a yellow slip of paper and I realize with no small amount of apprehension what this meeting is about.
I thought I’d rejoice when this day came but, in all honesty, I’m not feeling too peppy about this.
“For you, Miss Jones,” she says in her most vindictive tone, “to reward you for your most inappropriate conduct which resulted in your arrest Monday night.” She looks at me with pure disgust. “Such unbecoming behavior for an educational professional and I’m using that term loosely in reference to you. You should be ashamed of yourself.”
“Why?” I ask sarcastically. “Did he have a miscarriage after I hit him?”
She doesn’t say a word. She just stares at me like I have an arm growing out of my forehead.
“It would be in your best interest to start keeping your mouth shut and minding your own business, Miss Jones,” she says curtly and slides the ominous yellow slip between her thumb and forefinger, revealing two slips instead of just one. She flashes her big yellow-toothed smile. “One more write-up and you will be suspended.” She places the two slips on her desk side by side. “Without pay.”
“What?” I practically shout. “What’s the second one for?”
“Excessive tardiness,” she says with no small amount of delight. “Surely this doesn’t surprise you since you manage to get to work on time about two times a month, if that.” She slides the two pieces of paper across her desk and they leave a trail in the dust.
I feel the fury welling up in my gut and I am overcome with the urge to jump across her junky ass desk and beat the ugly off her face with that 1979 model calculator.
But I don’t because I can’t. She’s got me by my metaphorical balls.
I get up and snatch the papers off her filthy desk and turn to leave.
“Toodle-loo, Miss Jones,” she calls as I walk out the door. “Have a great day!”
I resist the urge to give her the finger.
12
I am a celebrity. At least at Ethan Allen’s anyway.
I walk in to a standing ovation and Logan Hatter puts his arm around me and smiles like he’s Clint Eastwood and I’m Hillary Swank with a much wider ass. Ha.
Ethan pours up a Killian’s Red and puts it down on the bar with great theatrical flair and people form a line on either side of me like I’m the winning quarterback at the state championship football game. I get hugs and pats on the back and pats on the ass and high fives and smiles and winks from the working people of Bugtussle who love nothing more than a good story about a white collar asshole getting punched in the eyeball.
I polish off a few beers and, after much pomp and circumstance, I enthrall them with the details of everything that happened from the moment I stepped off the elevator
on the ICU floor until Sheriff Jackson stuffed me in the back of his patrol car. And I’m quite the storyteller, if I do say so myself.
The place erupts with laughter and cheers and a few guys from the feed store break out in an Irish Jig. I don’t mention that I puked my brains out when I saw Chloe. Instead, while I have the floor, I decide to tell them about Catherine Hilliard calling me into her dirty, stinking office and telling me to mind my own business and keep my mouth shut and that I was about to get fired because I wouldn’t get to work on time. Then I do what I believe is a fantastic impersonation of her and, judging from the laughs I get when I pretend to eat the barstool next to me, the crowd agrees it’s a good one.
It didn’t occur to me that everyone dining on the patio over at Pier 57 could hear every word I said. Obviously it didn’t occur to anyone else at Ethan Allen’s either because no one brought it to my attention.
I feel a tap on my shoulder and turn around to see Pete the Tire Man. He’s a cool little dude who has more money than the bank, but you can’t tell it by looking at his overalls and dusty mesh hat.
“Hey Ace,” he asks, “where’s ol’ Lilly Lane at tonight?”
“Aw, I don’t know, Pete,” I shrug, “I guess she’s at home.”
“Well, call her and tell her she’s missing the party!” I assume by this interchange that word isn’t out about the allegations against Lilly and, for some reason, I feel a wave of relief. I look to Ethan for help.
“Hey Petey,” he hollers, “I talked to her earlier and she’s watchin’ The Bachelorette tonight.” Ethan winks at me and pours four shots of Jack Daniels.
“The what?” Pete asks and makes a funny face.
“C’mon, Petey,” I grab him by the arm. “Let’s dance.”
Everyone drinks and laughs and has a good time and Ethan drives Logan and me home. On the way, we rehash the moment again and again when Ethan threatened to bust Rich Stack’s other eye.
Diary of a Mad Fat Girl Page 4