COMMUNE OF WOMEN

by SUZAN STILL

  But them fellers knowed this trick. They’d done it afore an they knowed the outcome long afore Pearl figgered it out.

  Afore long, thar ain’t no more screamin an Pearl’s thinkin that them fellers has made a widder outta her. But she sees theys shovin one another in the ribs with they elbows an sayin thins low that makes em all laugh.

  An she thinks, Everthin I ever heerd about these here Baptists is true, an then some! Good Lord! These here is even worse heathens then Abel Johns.

  At least he gots the good grace ta feel guilty over what he done ta poor Abner – even if his way a havin it is ta punish Pearl. But these fellers here, theys laughin an hootin an carryin on lak killin is nothin but good sport.

  Finally, the buildin burns rat down ta the ground. Theys nothin but smokin timbers an the stench a burning poop. An them fellers is crowdin rat in thar, anyhow, as if this was the best part. An theys laughin an howlin an pointin.

  And finally, Pearl gets it: Abel Johns is still alive! An he’s took the only escape route available – which is down. Down through the wooden potty hole inta a pit a shit!

  Well, then Pearl starts ta hear him screamin again, beggin ta be pullt up from the depths. But theys not a one a them fellers who’s about ta lend a hand ta a hand covered in shit.

  Theys had they good time an theys tared of it. One by one, they turns an shuffles back ta the parkin lot, gets in they cars an drives away. Theys purdy quiet then, lak dogs that done kilt the chickens an know theys done wrong – but is lickin they lips jes the same.

  The first feller is the last ta leave an Pearl hears him talkin down inta the pit. “Yer a fornicator an a pimp,” he says. “An yer turnin yer good wife inta a whore. Get a taste a Hell, my friend, cuz that’s whar you’re goin. Don’t ask me fer a hand out. Ask God. High time you started prayin, instead a pimpin.” And with that, he turns an leaves, with Abel Johns still down in the hole.

  As he comes by, he sees Pearl cowerin thar in the shadders. He reaches inta his pocket an pulls out some bills an hands em ta her. “Take this an get outta town,” he says, an then he hops inta his car an tears off inta the nat.

  Well, Pearl’s more’n ready ta take his advice but – here is her downfall – she’s jes gotta see that man a hers swimmin in sewage. God hep her, but that was a sat too rich ta miss. A gal could wait a lifetime an never get such a chance again.

  So she tiptoes up ta the lip. Theys still boards layin on the ground, smokin an winkin with lil red coals. The smell’d gag a maggot. Jes revoltin. An down in the blackness whar she cain barely see em, thars this figger sloshin round, most up ta his neck in muck. He’s swearin an flailin an sobbin, all at once.

  Pearl heerd once that they was this thin called the Divine Comedy. She reckons this was a scene straight outta that. If’n that din’t make God laugh, He’s too straitlaced an that’s the plain fact a it. It was enough ta make the angels pee they pants. She knows she did hers. She ain’t laughed lak that afore or since.

  “Heeeee! Heeeee!

  “Lordie! Listen ta me whinny! It makes me laugh still!

  “Heeee, heeeee, heeee!

  “Whar’s mah hankie? Lord! I’m plum outta breath!

  “Heeeeee, heeeee! “Who-eeee!

  Well! When she’d had her fill a that, she turns an makes fer the car. She ain’t never drove one but she figgers this is the time ta learn. A gal cain be a quick study when a shit-covered demon’s on her tail.

  Cuz one thin she knowed fer sure: Abel Johns’d find a way outta that pit. Fer all she knowed, a devil straight from Hell’d come an lift him out, jes so’s his deviltry’d keep on a-goin.

  So, she’s out thar in the parkin lot, tryin ta get under way. But she cain’t co-ordinate the gas an the clutch. Her an her chicks is lurchin round that lot, the gas is roarin, an the car is jerkin lak its got a fit, an Pearl’s still half crazy with laughin, so’s the kids got it by contak, lak a bad cold. Theys all in that ol jalopy jerkin along, howlin lak a cage a crazed monkeys, when...

  Good God! Some kinda monster throwed itsef onta the hood!

  It’s black an glistenin an stinks lak the holds a Hell. It plasters itsef against the windshield, a-hangin onta the whapers lak they was reins. Pearl cain’t see the face – but two big red eyes is starin rat at her through the glass – an she ain’t laughin no more.

  Pearl tries ta step on the gas an throw the thin off but she stalls the car instead. And thar they are.

  “Lock the doors!” she screams. But it’s too late. The thin is rippin the door open an pullin her out onta the ground.

  Well, thar ain’t much more a that ta tell. The beatin she took near kilt her. An the kids din’t fare much better. The only thin that stopped him from killin em all was he was so exhausted.

  Pearl reckons his own smell did him in. He jes collapsed right thar in the parkin lot an slept til dawn, with the hair on his head still smokin, an covered in slime lak some creature vomited up out a the gorge a Hell.

  Then, after sun-up, he had Pearl hose him down an off they went, silent an stinkin an beaten lak a carload a the damned.

  Well, that incident set Abel Johns inta a foul mood that lasted fer weeks an it spurred his ambitions concernin Pearl. He’d drag any ol drunk out ta screw her, even if the feller din’t have any money. He’d let him do it jes fer the spite a it.

  Pearl’s spirit was bout broke. She was thinkin she’d cut her wrists an be done with it. She couldn’t even think ta defend her lil ones no more.

  But then one day, she come inta the motor court whar they was stayin, luggin a basket a wet laundry from the crick. An she stops dead in her tracks cuz thar’s Abel Johns an he’s got his mouth on her daughter, Annabelle, who is only six, in a place whar no man outta have it.

  Somethin happened ta Pearl then. Her blood run cold as ice. Her mind settled down from the chaos that was its daily habit ta a focus hard an sharp as a whetted axe.

  Maybe some shred a decency was left in that monster, after all. When he saw Pearl come in, he stopped his un-holy act an even had the good grace ta look ashamed.

  A course, that only made him worse that nat. He took Pearl from tavern ta roadhouse ta bar til she was so sore she screamed when they touched her down thar, an her knees was so weak them bastards had ta hold her up against the car trunk or she’d a just crumpled down in a heap.

  But all the while, she’s keen as a hawk’s beak. Her mind never rests on the pain but skips over it ta what’s ta come – cuz she knows that bastard, Abel Johns, is gettin drunker an drunker. An sooner or later, he’ll be fallin inta a stupor that a air horn cain’t rouse him from.

  Back at the motor court, jes as she figgered, he stumbles onta the bed an is snorin fore his feet leaves the floor. Quick as a lizard, she hurries the kids inta the car an tells em not ta come out unless God Hissef comes fer em.

  “What’s God look lak?” Buford, her second boy, axed. He wuz bout ten then, she reckons.

  “He’s a great, huge man with a long white beard an his eyes glows lak the full moon. Lessen you see Him, don’t you dare move a muscle til I get back.”

  Now, out back, she’d seed a woodshed with a choppin block an a axe. An now she went out thar, bold as brass, an took that axe an marched inta that room an stood over the sleepin body a Abel Johns an searched her heart fer one tiny bit a compassion.

  An then, findin none, she raised that axe high up above her head an brung it down with all her mat, an she chopped that bastard’s head clean off!

  Whar she found the strength, tared an battered as she was, she’ll never know. But she’s guessin it was a divine dispensation, pure an simple.

  She found her a shovel in that same shed an she went out back in a weedy field an dug an dug an dug lak a woman possessed. Then she went back in an she drug that bastard an his head in the bedclothes, out the door, round the back an inta that field. An she din’t roll him inta that grave. She kicked him in.

  An then she took a notion. With that shovel, she dug another hole an put his head
in that one, separate, so the two a em – body an head – cain never unite again even if they was some kinda reintarnation.

  An afore she buried it, she done spat inta that gapin mouth an says inta them eyes that done sprung open, “This here is fer you, Abel Johns,” an she pullt up her skirt an squatted down an peed, rat in his face.

  An then she buried the body an covered the dirt with weeds an put back the shovel an the axe, an then she went in an turnt the mattress an scrubbed down that room all nat til the dawn come.

  An then she showered off all the gore an sweat, an then went an brung her babies in an says, ‘You been up all nat. You sleep tat now fer a few hours an I’ll be rat back.’

  An then she marches hersef down ta the police station an reports Abel Johns missin – run off on her an her kids. An she makes sure they know that he’s wanted fer murder a his own child back in Oklahoma. An then she marched back an axed the manager a that motel fer a job cleanin rooms an he give it ta her on the spot. An she worked that day, straight through. An in the evenin, she gots her pay an fed her chicks the food she done bought with it. An then, she crawlt inta bed an slept fer three days straight.

  Sophia

  Sophia can’t wait any longer. She has to tell them what’s been growing in her for the last hour.

  “Excuse me, Pearl, but...”

  She glances at Pearl, wondering if she’s affronted by being interrupted just at the climax of her story. But Pearl’s gone into that space of reverie she slips into periodically, looking serene as the Virgin.

  “Ladies, I have a feeling. My Little Voice is telling me that our ordeal will soon be over.”

  “When? Right now?” Betty perks up considerably.

  “No, Betty, I can’t give you an exact time. All I can tell you is that the energy’s shifting. Something’s happening. The oppressive weight is lifting...but the energy’s getting more...more...I don’t know...more urgent.”

  Sophia stops to listen but the only sounds are their breathing, the ticking of the wall clock and the faint purr of the drink machines.

  “How do you know?” Heddi asks acerbically.

  Sophia questions that herself: how can she be so sure of what she’s feeling – no, knowing – right now? After all these years, she still has to remind herself: all her life, she’s moved among mysteries and she knows when the Mysteries are moving in her!

  The smell of water in an arid landscape; of snow before it falls, of ozone just before lightning strikes. Her nervous system dances with these and sings with them in ancient harmonies.

  And always, out in the woods at the periphery of sight and sound and touch and smell, there is the flicker of something deeper, wilder, older still. Beings armored in exoskeletons of old ivory, winged like butterflies, singing like the stars, powerful, uncanny and evasive, with the black, lustrous eyes of goats, sensual, amoral, humorous, vengeful and wise.

  They could morph from the gnarled roots of trees, from rocks scaled in lichens, from shadows glimmering through the deep trees. Their songs drifted through the air of the woods like fishing lures sinking through the shallows. They sank their hooks deep in her flesh and reeled her in. She was theirs. They took her and changed her and taught her their ways and then threw her out again to wander home in twilight or dawn light – dazed, blissful and only nominally human.

  Heddi is staring at her with a look half hopeful and half profoundly dubious.

  “If you think I’m crazy, Heddi, then so be it,” Sophia snaps.

  Heddi just shakes her head but keeps on staring, as if Sophia might suddenly grow horns, or vanish with a poof.

  “Maybe I am crazy.” Sophia shrugs. “Sometimes, I have doubts, myself...but then, madness must be an absolute form of truth because sometimes I just know things.”

  Pump her full of Thorazine; light her up with electroshock like a Christmas tree; paste her with labels from the DSM IV like an old steamer trunk – she will never recant!

  She’s lived in alternate dimensions. Only a part of her soul belongs to what this world calls reality. The bigger part has colored wings and kites through the canyons, baying like a wolf!

  “If you want to know how I know...” Sophia shrugs brusquely. “I’ve seen things.”

  Ondine

  That’s the first time any of them has heard Sophia being snappish. She’s been a rock of patience, but Heddi’s so bitchy it would drive anyone over the edge.

  It’s clear Sophia’s feeling the pressure, too. She’s scarcely slept for three nights, tending Erika. She’s rallied them all.

  Now she’s standing there kind of swaying, with her long gray hair all wild about her shoulders like some mad Cassandra. It’s obvious she sees no one. Whatever it is she’s looking at, it’s written in the ether.

  Ondine looks around and sees it on every face – except Pearl’s, of course. There’s a kind of unspeakable desperation. They want OUT – even if they’re being carried out on a stretcher to a hearse!

  Heddi

  “Well, Sophia, I hope you’re right about... What?”

  Sophia is suddenly motioning Heddi to be quiet. In an instant, a strange change has come over her. Her whole body is tensed, her eyes wide, as if her entire being were one big ear, listening. She brings her finger to her lips. They all freeze. She points toward the door and mouths, “Someone’s out there.”

  Heddi feels the strangest sensation, a powerful electrical surge through her armpits, as if every pore has opened and is squirting sweat. There’s a strange metallic taste back in her jaws and her breath is coming in short gasps. Her whole body, like Sophia’s, suddenly knows that Death is lurking.

  Now she can hear it, too. It’s a faint, whispering scuttle of feet in the hall outside, and then silence. They sit staring at one another, eyes wide in alarm, watching Sophia from odd postures, as if frozen in a game of Statues.

  Slowly, a kind of thaw comes over her. “It’s okay,” she mouths, “they’re gone.” And as a woman, they release a collective sigh of relief.

  She creeps over, circling them in closer with a gesture of her arms.

  “Something’s happening. I don’t know what. I feel it, though,” she whispers. “The energy’s definitely changing.”

  She looks around their bedraggled circle like a general marshalling her troops. “Now is the time of greatest danger. Anything can happen. You have to prepare yourselves.”

  She looks at each of them, in turn. No – not looks – gazes. Her eyes seem to go right through Heddi’s into her brain, as if she could read her readiness for self-defense there – or for death.

  “Things will happen fast, once they start. Very fast. If we’re lucky, we’ll be able to defend ourselves. Everything depends on keeping that machine barricading the door. If there’s gunfire, that won’t be easy. If there is, get down on the floor. Get into the corners, away from the door...”

  X

  When she comes back to herself, she is still lying on the floor and her screams have turned to sobs. The Brothers were right. She is no warrior – but for the first time, this brings her no shame.

  She knows what they are doing, those cowards! She knows that the Brothers are tired of waiting for something to happen, for someone to pay attention to them. This is the thing they promised her that they would not do under any circumstances. And whom have they chosen to carry out their insane plan? Jamal! The kindest, gentlest, most poetic of them all. The one who will not resist.

  And when he is gone they will still be alive, full of their conviction that they are brave warriors. They are sacrificing him on the altar of their own arrogance and cowardice.

  And this is also retribution: Jamal and she love one another. The message is clear. There is no place for love in the warrior’s world. The lover will be sacrificed. He is a useful example.

  And how did they convince him? By lying! By telling him she was dead. So cowardly, these men who think themselves brave!

  And suddenly, she realizes that they planned this from the beginning. Othe
rwise, how would there be the explosive vest? The work is so delicate; she should have been the one to make it. No, they made that thing without her knowledge because they always planned to do this. That is why they made the vest so it could not be removed. It is their revenge against her happiness; against her very existence among them.

  Somehow, she finds the strength to pull herself up by the edge of the desk. Jamal was moving very quickly. He must be near his target now.

  Her heart feels as if it will explode. She holds onto the chair to keep from collapsing and forces herself to look at the video screens, barely breathing as she scans them.

  Please Allah-God! Please! Let that terrible vest fail! Please do not let Jamal be killed in this horrible way!

  At last she finds him, crouching behind an airline counter very near the main entrance.

  She looks at the clock. It is just five o’clock. She turns to the television and the news is just beginning...

  Of course! That is how they have planned it! How stupid she is! The live news coverage of every major television station in America is focused on this building. The Brothers will give to them the explosive news for which they lust!

  Now it is like a tennis match. She turns her head to see Jamal. She flips it back to see the newswoman, with her blonde hair blowing in the dry Los Angeles afternoon. She turns back to Jamal. Again and again. Everything seems to be happening in slow motion.

  She sees him take something white from inside his vest.

  She hears the reporter say, “Good evening from Los Angeles International Airport, where we are in the fourth day of a standoff with terrorists who are still holding an estimated 65 hostages...”

  She sees Jamal stand from behind the counter and straighten the wadded white thing that is just a rectangle of white cloth.

  She watches as the TV camera pans over the front of the terminal, the tanks, the hunched SWAT teams, the men in black jackets with FBI in big white letters on the back.