I Bring Sorrow_And Other Stories of Transgression

by Patricia Abbott

  November 23, 2097

  They are coming. I can hear their feet in the hallway. My Annas! I leap up, opening the door. The Annas are not carrying tanks of oxygen after all. What have they done with them? Their arms are empty, swinging at their sides. Their shoes seem heavy in the silence. Thunderous even. Their faces are stony masks of purpose.

  Where are those tanks? I try to peer around them, but their number blocks me. An Anna, one that I can’t name, comes through the door first. Who is she? Anastasia, Alice, Ardys? I know she’s an Anna but I never learned her name. Why didn’t I? She didn’t seem like head girl material. Her face looks frozen. She stares at me coldly as she seizes my tank of oxygen. Rips it from my back, from my clutching fingers. They swarm about me now, like birds waiting to feast. I am whispering into my recorder as I realize this death will not be pain free. Not the calm extinction I expected.

  Not at all.

  What Baghdad Did to Us

  US Army Specialist, Ronnie Bixby was shipped to Baghdad in 2004. She’d become a member of the US Army Marksmanship Unit before her rotation began, but never fired her weapon, except in target practice, during her entire stint. Guarding Halliburton trucks never drew direct fire on her watch, and she was asleep in her bunk when one of the trucks was carpet bombed, killing two soldiers.

  Ronnie was quartered with women and developed a close relationship with several. Most had a husband or boyfriend at home, someone waiting for them. Neither she nor any of her closest female friends were lesbians despite the ubiquitous catcalls.

  Her CO created camaraderie among the men by humiliating the women. But it wasn’t the sort of hazing that could be grievanced. The CO never laid a hand on a female soldier or encouraged a male soldier to do so. Never used the more vulgar euphemisms women in some units complained about.

  So the women in Ronnie’s company felt like pussies for complaining about his tactics. Most had experienced far worse in high school—being the sort of women they were. It was trivial, wasn’t it; the sort of teasing that went on in their unit. It seemed too insignificant to get upset about.

  A point of agreement among the female soldiers though was that trips to the latrine at night were a risk. Few drank liquids after three in the afternoon, so late-night urination became a remote concern. It was difficult in the summer heat, but necessary.

  Unfortunately, it was diarrhea that sent Ronnie to the john one night. She considered asking another woman to go with her but rejected the idea since it was nearly dawn. Cramping badly, she barely made it to the latrine, and when she exited a few minutes later, someone grabbed her.

  “Are you a bitch, a whore, or a dyke?” the man asked when she struggled with him. The noise from the idling Halliburton trucks masked any sound.

  When he was finished, he wiped himself, saying, “I’ve had better lays than you out back at Flo’s Escapades in Austin.”

  It was dawn and Ronnie had gotten a good look at the soldier’s face; thin, hatchet-like, as pale as the moon disappearing from the morning sky. She considered the rest of him as he walked away: the height, the build, the physique, his peculiar way of walking. Later, she saw him on the base and managed to catch his name. PFC Loomis. Hal Loomis.

  She didn’t report the assault, but filed the information away. None of the women who’d been raped got anywhere with their charges. Two women had died of dehydration in the heat the summer before and still been ignored. Reporting such incidents only brought shame on the tattletale. It interfered with camaraderie and the esprit de corps, one woman was told.

  Ronnie didn’t re-up, and back in the States, it took surprisingly little time to find Flo’s Escapades on the Internet. She rented a place in South Austin and got herself a job cleaning the cages at an animal shelter. She was good at the work, good with the animals. Soon she was offered a better job. But advancing in the shelter was not the point. She was waiting for the return of PFC Loomis. She knew he’d be back. The directory was filled with probable relatives. She cruised their houses, saw yellow ribbons on a few trees.

  It was a nearly a year before Loomis swaggered out of Flo’s.

  “Loomis,” Ronnie called from her car. Loomis looked up. “Are you a corpse, a casualty, or a dead civilian?”

  He looked at her as if she were crazy, which she probably was. She pulled the trigger on her gun and killed him with one shot, proving her inclusion in the U.S. Army Marksmanship Unit was merited.

  Burned the Fire

  “Coming out with us tonight, Pearl?’ Sam asked, poking his head inside her trailer. He caught a glimpse of her in the hazy moonlight, seconds before the gauze curtains blew inward, obscuring her. The candle on the dressing table shivered. Her hands looked unusually white, but then he realized she was wearing elbow-length gloves. How many months had it been since he’d seen her without specialty makeup, long-sleeved blouses, outsized veiled hats.

  He blamed himself. It was he who discovered Ray in Miami and brought the two together. Ray wasn’t like her other partners; he had a hair-trigger temper and acted on it. But Pearl liked his volatility, insisting it complimented her more docile demeanor in the ring. They looked perfect together too. It had seemed like a good fit.

  “I don’t have the heart for a party tonight, Sammy,” she finally answered. “But tell the gang to have one on me.” She reached for her handbag.

  “Come for a little while. Do you good to…” He tried to peek inside, to catch her eye.

  “I couldn’t—not tonight.” She stepped further into the shadows.

  “Let me see all of you. What he did to you,” he said, voice shaking.

  “What happened was between us.”

  “You shouldn’t be defending him.”

  “We had a lot of good years, me and Ray.” She looked around for reminders, but someone—Sam, perhaps—had cleared Ray’s things away. “You can’t fight what’s natural, can you?”

  “When did we ever keep the bad stuff from each other?”

  “Maybe tomorrow I’ll get dolled up and we’ll walk the boards. Ride the Ferris wheel. After dark—when it’s magical.”

  “You ain’t been out in the sunlight in years, Pearlie.”

  She laughed, lighting her gas lamp. “Some folks say too much sun ain’t so good for a fair-skinned gal. Those bathing beauties, letting their faces brown, are just a passing fad.” She shook her head. “I’ve never liked the sun. It’s too real.” She reached out a hand, as if to pat his cheek.

  They listened as their friends assembled outside. “You two comin’?” someone yelled.

  “Go ahead with ’em, Sam.”

  “You’re putting salve on those wounds, right? Don’t want more scars.”

  “I don’t really mind the scars.”

  “What…like war wounds?”

  “No, like medals.” There was some pride, or perhaps defiance, in her voice.

  Shaking his head, Sam closed the door behind him.

  It was then she raised the light on her lamp and methodically stripped down to her naked fifty-year-old body, still as slim as on her eighteenth birthday. But there the resemblance ended in a frightening display of ruined flesh.

  Ray, and the six that came before him, had made a mess of her. The older scars resembled tattoos. Raised tattoos where flesh had been sewn back together inexpertly: sometimes by her own hand, sometimes by an amateur surgeon. Once by poor Sam, in fact. But it had never been like this before. She was raw meat.

  Ray had gone crazy in Iowa City last month. It wasn’t his fault. She’d slipped on the mud brought on by a week’s worth of rain and fell on top of him in the ring. In a rage, he almost ripped off her leg, lacerated her in a dozen places, and tore her left eyelid off.

  He’d been shot on the spot. A man in a straw bowler hat rose in the bleachers, let out a roar to rival Ray’s, and fired a gun. She’d hear the screech of the bullet from some farawa
y place, somewhere the pain had taken her. Their ten years together came to an end in an instant as Ray slumped to the ground. The crowd cheered, then booed, and then a low keening began. That was her voice as she looked at the cat. The last tiger she’d ever own. The last cat she’d share her trailer with, the ring, the road, a life. She really hadn’t minded the scars—but Ray’s carnage—that she couldn’t live with.

  The one possession she’d salvaged was his pearl-studded collar, which she put around her waist now. Reaching out, she toppled the gas lamp and threw the candle into the curtains. In seconds, fire rushed across the small room.

  She didn’t mind when the fire began to nip at her satin slippers, the hem of her garment. Ray had prepared her well.

  Ten Things I Hate

  About My Wife

  I’m laid up at the minute—several weeks past a right knee replacement. I took a medical leave and that absence made it clear I’m no longer the indispensible company man. Oh, sure, a flurry of impersonal cards and emails came the first week or two, wishing me well, but that soon dried up. Day after day of television, spy novels, and computer games becomes trying. Even more tiresome is the constant harping of my wife, insisting I hop on the recumbent bike to put in my hour. Or her reminder that a recovery spent in my pajamas was not on the instruction sheet the hospital provided. She’s confiscated the pain meds now and doles them out as stingily as she supplies the dog with treats.

  I’ve begun to work up a chronicle of sorts—a record detailing my wife’s principal deficits—which have become glaringly clear over the past month. It’s given me an unexpected thrill—laying it all out. Nothing’s in plain sight though. I’m no fool. Ten things I hate about her. That sounds a little harsh, doesn’t it? So many, then why remain married? Out of habit, commitment, financial reasons, ennui? Perhaps getting it off my chest will serve as a balm.

  Number one: no one knows more about almost anything than Kerrie. No kidding. You might think your degree in social anthropology makes you an expert in gang practices in modern L.A, but I’m telling you that Kerrie, despite only being in Los Angeles once, knows more about the subject than Mayor Garcetti. She can spew out the history of tags, explaining comfortably what terms like “all-city,” “pull a jab,” and “a job man,” mean. She’s also an authority in such unrelated fields as woodworking, how to stop the spread of Ebola, the history of badminton, and the proper way to make bananas foster.

  This is especially hard on our children. Oh, yes, we have the requisite two. When Ella joined the Girl Scouts, Kerrie went right along with her, wrestling the leadership of the troop away from poor Nancy Mellon, a childless woman who’d devoted herself to Troop #1381 for two decades.

  “Do you know how long it’s been since a girl in her troop has earned a badge requiring venturing beyond the stove or sewing machine?” she explained. “I thought it strange until I realized her handbook dated from the forties.”

  When Max began Little League, Kerrie learned to keep score, becoming indispensible to the team. Her demonstration of the proper way to bunt with a runner on third base is legendary. Max accepted his lot, inheriting his docility from me, I’m sure.

  Number two: her worst trait might be her refusal to engage in oral sex. After nearly twenty years, she continues to see it as aberrant behavior. Despite the fact that legions of fifteen-year-old girls put any dick in their mouth, Kerrie has only twice allowed mine entry to hers. Likewise, she has no interest in my pleasuring her. Any attempt to sidle downward is met with an upward thrust of her pelvis, a signal she’s not happy with the direction things are going. A discussion of my wishes in this area is usually shrugged off, winced at, and once or twice, was met with a stinging slap.

  “I am more than happy to have normal sex as often as you like. Do I ever deny you? I like to think I’m pretty skilled at it too.” Which is true—she has her tricks, after all.

  “I’d be happy to sterilize it,” I say, thinking perhaps her fear of germs might be affecting her enthusiasm. “I don’t mind dipping my wick.”

  “You’re sick, Robert Bayer.” Her face spasms with loathing. It’s fascinating to watch her pretty face go through the contortions necessary to achieve a look of pure hatred. But it’s a practiced move.

  Number three: Kerry has considerable difficulty with losing. Early in our marriage, before tiny screens captured our attention, we played a fair amount of bridge, tennis, and Scrabble. If you’ll notice, these are fairly disparate pastimes, and although you might understand a need to win in one or two of them, needing to win in all three—and several more, like Canasta and horseshoes—indicates a competitiveness you can’t judge attractive. Take tennis, for instance. Kerry was the beneficiary of countless tennis lessons in childhood—something I, living in the rural Midwest, was never offered. Tennis was as exotic in Americus, Indiana as lacrosse or water polo, but Kerrie never acknowledges her privileged youth. In her mind, it is only from a lack of ambition or laziness that I lose game after game.

  “You just want to run a bit more,” she shouts when I miss her well-placed volley. “You’re twisting your wrist again. What happened to that brace I bought you?” She shakes her head, disgusted with such poor competition. I won’t even bring up the years I competed as her doubles partner—our bickering nearly had us banned from the club. In Scrabble, she’s luck itself, drawing every S and the highly valued X and Z. She has statistics to back up the argument that over time a Scrabble player will be dealt a fair share of the better letters. And years of doing the NYT crossword puzzle with a timer set to ten minutes has ratcheted up her knowledge of obscure two-letter words.

  She cares so much about winning, and I so little. What seemed like an ideal match has soured.

  Number four: although Kerry accuses me of suffering from obsessive-compulsive tendencies—“OCD this, Batman,”—she’s unable to allow a dirty dish or crusty pot to sit on a counter for more than a few minutes. Last week, she invited the Ryans over for dinner. The Ryans are easily my least favorite couple, but Kerry finds them tolerable—I’m wondering if she sleeps with Tom. Tom Ryan’s prone to droning on about his portfolio, and Melanie’s sure to pull out her iPad to show photos of their latest trip, their garden, which I can see from my window, or her dog, Bullseye, who tramples my flowers and veggies whenever he gets loose. While I listen to their drivel, first him, then her, in some sort of maddening syncopation, Kerrie is cleaning the kitchen, making sure no evidence of any meal preparation remains. She shuts the door firmly, saying, “I don’t want to disturb your conversation.”

  “You should see this too, Kerrie,” Melanie calls. “Kerrie! It’s Venice! VENICE!”

  “She’s a wonder, all right, Bob,” Tom says.

  I’m not sure which woman he means, and as he reaches inside his jacket pocket, a small sigh leaks from his spouse. Melanie has started her slideshow—Venice in two hundred forty shots—and doesn’t tolerate interruptions well.

  Is Kerrie deliberately skipping out on a part of the evening she dislikes? No, her absence is actually about the maintenance of our kitchen. She won’t return with dessert until every dirty plate is scraped, rinsed, and loaded into the machine; until every counter has been wiped with her vinegar mixture; until the floor is mopped with her wet Swiffer. This isn’t Kerrie’s worst habit, but I loathe it.

  Number five: I am telling Kerrie about the new fellow at the office, laying out my reasons for regarding him as a threat to my position, when I see she has surreptitiously added a word on her Words with Friends app. My wife often has as many as ten games going at once, all with players she has never met. She’s also moved up a level or two in that ridiculous game based on pieces of candy. If I were to challenge her about a lack of attentiveness, she’d assure me she’d heard every word and, in fact, probably has. But a man likes to think he’s worthy of his wife’s complete attention when he’s baring his soul.

  Kerrie has never paid complete attention
to anyone as far as I know. She can be speaking in court on behalf of a client at the same time she’s eyeing a pair of shoes on a juror, calculating how she can best approach the woman about the place of purchase without jeopardizing the outcome of the trial. I’ve watched her in action, and nothing, not even the most spectacular piece of evidence, commands her full concentration in a trial. Her client might think she is scribbling away madly on his behalf when she is making a grocery list or writing a note to an irksome teacher at the kids’ school.

  Number six: okay, this is going to seem trivial, but it’s one of my wife’s most annoying traits. Kerrie cannot allow any object in our house to sit parallel to a wall. Every chair, items on a tabletop, articles on the kitchen counter, every tool on the basement corkboard has to be angled. She doesn’t have a preference for a left or right slant, but slanted it must be.

  Each morning, I line up the items in my bathroom in a nice straight row, and every night, I find them angled. Lest you think I share her compulsion, it never bothers me when she angles everything else in the house. But I think I have a right to place the items in my own bathroom where I see fit.

  “Sorry, honey,” she says when I confront her. “I do it without even thinking. I’ll stop at once.” But she never does. And to eliminate such a trivial source of friction between us, I let it go.

  Not to go on too long, but I have even seen her rearrange items at the homes of our friends. If I follow her into their bathroom, I immediately recognize her handiwork.

  “I can’t help it. Things look stiff and unfriendly when they’re lined up like suspects in a lineup. A chair at an angle invites conversation. Things placed on a slant look homey.”