by J. T. Warren
“What should we do?” Paul grunted in throaty gurgles.
“You brought us out here.”
“You wanted to come here.”
“You broke the railing.”
Paul hesitated, shrugged. “We might as well finish.” He shook the spray paint bottle and resumed his threatening, almost illegible, note. After a few letters, he stopped. “You going to do anything productive?”
Tyler glanced at the house, then off to the street and then back to Paul. He still held the bat in both hands.
“Bust the bitch’s car.” Paul pointed toward the driveway.
There was no garage, so any cars would have to be parked in the driveway, which was barely large enough for two vehicles. The only car parked there was Sasha’s Oldsmobile that was rusting in so many spots it looked like it had leprosy. Tyler turned back to Paul to ask if he really expected Tyler to do something to Sasha’s car but Paul had returned to his spray-painted note and was laughing at his own wittiness.
Tyler walked toward the car. He could just dent the door a little bit. That would get the message across (in case she didn’t notice her destroyed railing or the paint on her front steps) and not be too damaging.
But you need to be damaging, a voice told him. This girl thinks you raped her and now she’s pregnant. She’s trying to frame you. She wants to force you to love her. She’s lost her mind and she doesn’t care how much pain she causes you. She doesn’t care that Delaney is dead. Even if her mother didn’t cast some spell, Sasha is still out of her mind. She’s been going around school telling everyone you two are practically married. If you don’t get her to back off now, you will never be rid of her. SEND THE BITCH A MESSAGE!
Tyler’s hands had slipped down to the bottom of the bat and he held it out at his side like he was expecting a baseball to come flying out of the dark. He approached the car with sure-footed steps and nodded with every indictment from his mind. Sasha was crazy. She did need to be stopped. She was fucking up his life. She was a dangerous cunt-trap who needed to be stopped.
He brought the bat back and swung it forward so quickly he barely realized he was doing it. The meat of the bat bounced off the front fender, leaving only a minor dent. That’s nothing, the voice said. She won’t even notice that. Send a REAL message!
He brought the bat back again and swung forward with all his force. Halfway through the swing a different voice asked him what the hell he was doing and he screamed not out of rage but out of fear. He had lost control so easily.
Like when you raped her.
The bat crashed into and then through the windshield. The glass crumpled and shattered simultaneously. Tiny pieces of glass exploded in all directions. The bat bounced off the dashboard and Tyler stumbled backward. He dropped the bat and watched it roll under the car. What was he doing? What the fuck had he done? Nausea flooded his stomach and all his muscles cramped together as if on cue. He hunched over, grabbed his knees, sucked at the cold night air.
Paul stopped spray painting. “Nice hit, man. Didn’t think you had it in you.”
“We have to leave,” Tyler said through gasps.
“No shit.”
The light above the front door blared on and then the door swung wide. Instead of a long-haired witch dressed in black, Sasha stepped onto the porch dressed in pajama bottoms and a T-shirt. The shirt made her breasts look almost as big as he remembered.
What Paul had sprayed on the steps resembled the crayon doodles of a child. If there was a message in his painting (was that an “f” and maybe a “u”?) it had been completely lost somewhere between Paul’s brain and his hand.
“Tyler?” Sasha sounded small, like a child.
Neither Tyler nor Paul said anything. They resumed their mannequin postures.
“What’s going on?”
“We …” Tyler started and could say no more.
Her eyes expanded. “My car? What did you do?”
Paul stepped forward, jumped onto the bottom step, thrust the can at her, and yelled: “Fuck you, bitch,” and then sprayed black paint on her face.
The No! wasn’t even out of Tyler’s mouth before the paint hit her. She rocked back as if struck with something, tripped on the entryway ledge, and fell.
Paul stood in place for a moment, and then leaped off the step and scrambled toward his car. He screamed for Tyler to follow him, to come on and get in before the cops showed up but Tyler couldn’t move. Sasha wasn’t screaming—she was writhing on the floor and sobbing. It wasn’t supposed to go down like this. At least she’ll get the message.
Paul’s car rumbled to life and he screamed out the window for Tyler to come the fuck on already. Tyler shook himself out of his empathetic trance and ran to the car.
“It’s not my fault!” Sasha cried. “Not my fault!”
Tyler hopped in the car but didn’t shut the door. “Wait. We can’t just leave.”
Paul laughed. “Right. We can drive straight to the police station.”
“You shouldn’t have sprayed her.”
“She’s lucky I didn’t use the persuader. Shut the fucking door.”
Sasha’s pained scream grabbed Tyler with cold, invisible hands and squeezed his stomach. He stepped out of the car, shut the door. “I can’t leave her like this.”
“You’re as nuts as she is.” Then Paul’s car jolted forward and he peeled out, howling down the hill deeper into Trailer Trash Town. Only the two black skid marks from his tires remained.
Slowly, Tyler walked back up Sasha’s lawn. She was still laying in the open doorway, sobs pouring out of her. Her legs rolled back and forth with her sobs as if the physical expression of her pain was something experienced throughout her entire body.
I did this.
I caused this.
She deserved it, that other voice offered. Now you can make your move and get this bitch to do what’s right.
He walked up the steps. “Sasha, I’m—”
She sprang up, on all fours, screamed, and frantically tried crab-walking backward. In the light over the entrance, the black paint resembled a giant smudge like she had rubbed her face against a car engine. Her eyes twitched frantically: some of the paint had seeped into them. Would that blind her?
He approached her quickly, knelt beside her. “Sasha, relax, please.”
She stopped trying to back up, afraid perhaps she’d misjudge her direction and spill down the stairs. She shrunk away from him but her rushing tears prevented another scream. She gagged on a wad of phlegm and then cried even harder.
“Why are you doing this?”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I freaked out, that’s all, and Paul, he’s nuts, this was … ah, shit, your face. I’m so sorry.”
“None of this is my fault.” She buried her face in the crook of her arm.
He wanted to touch her but he was afraid she might scream or try to get away. “Let me help you to the bathroom. Let me help you get cleaned up.”
Her sobbing eased. “Why?”
“Because I deserve to be arrested,” he said.
She thought about that for a moment. “It’s upstairs on the right.”
Carefully, Tyler helped Sasha stand and allowed her to use him as a crutch as she took the stairs one step at a time like an old woman. Even if he did end up arrested, this was the right thing to do. Stupid maybe, but the right thing nonetheless.
He sat her on the toilet and wet a hand towel in the tub. He dumped some body wash onto the towel and started to clean the paint from her face. She let him do it for a moment and then she took the towel and started scrubbing vigorously at her eyes. She scrubbed and wept and Tyler felt so small, pathetic and helpless that he didn’t notice Sasha’s mother was standing in the doorway until she spoke.
“I was afraid this might happen,” the woman said. “We must perform the love child rites immediately.”
2
Anthony left the First Church of Jesus Christ the Empowered with a startlingly clear image of what he had to d
o. It wouldn’t be pretty; but it was what God expected. Tyler’s car (keys in the ignition) was waiting. He drove home and went immediately to his wife.
He flicked on the overhead fan light in the bedroom. Chloe lay in a shriveled lump under the sheets while her sister Stephanie was sprawled out, fully clothed, next to Chloe on the comforter.
“Wake up,” he said.
Chloe was so heavily drugged that there was no chance she would simply wake up, but Stephanie came out of her doze with an awkward spasm. She sat up, squinted against the light. “Anthony? What time is it?”
“I need to talk to my wife,” he said.
She hesitated at his tone. “She’s … asleep.”
“No, Stephanie, she’s not. She’s fucking drugged.”
The f-bomb was a cold splash of water on her face. After a moment, Stephanie’s mouth slowly closed and then she was fumbling for words but managing only to produce nonsensical burps of vowel sounds.
Anthony moved toward her so quickly and with, no doubt, a slightly crazed expression on his face, that Stephanie scrambled off the bed, smacked the nightstand, and stumbled into the wall. She raised her hands slightly, either in a gesture meant to calm him or to protect herself.
“I need to talk to my wife,” he said again.
“She’s not well, Anthony, you know that. You’re only going to upset her.”
“Ha!” he said so loudly it echoed around the room. “I doubt anything could upset her, not in this condition.”
“She’s almost due for her nighttime pills.”
Stephanie tried to slide across the wall to go around him, but he seized her arm.
“No more pills.”
“But Dr. Carroll.”
“And no more Dr. Carroll, either.”
She started to respond, rethought her approach. “What’s gotten into you?”
The question was a tranquilizer of its own. His grip loosened on her arm and then his hand dropped free. The pressure that had gathered near his temples eased. His jaw relaxed and he realized he had been clenching it. What had gotten into him? That was easy to answer, though not likely easy for his sister-in-law to accept. She had her loyalty and no matter what he said right now, she would continue to opine how Chloe needed her pills, how devastated she was, how not just her heart had been broken but her soul as well. She was, as Ellis phrased it, “another obstacle to empowerment.”
And you know what we do obstacles, don’t you? Ellis had asked.
Find a way around them?
Ellis smiled. That doesn’t sound very empowering. No, when we cross an obstacle, we break right through it.
“I’m sorry,” Anthony said. It was always the best response to a woman no matter the situation. “I’ve been really stressed. Everything seems like it’s spiraling out of control. Like I’m going crazy.”
She resisted her empathetic side for a moment, perhaps afraid this was some kind of set-up, and then touched his cheek. “You poor man. You’ve been carrying this burden all by yourself.”
Burden. Was that a coincidence or God’s intrusion? Was there a difference?
Her hand was soft. He hadn’t shaved in days. He’d completely forgotten about shaving until just now. Hopefully, Delaney wasn’t insulted.
“I’ve been so concerned about Chloe that I haven’t tried to help you. I’m sorry, Anthony. I truly am.”
Tears threatened for a moment; he forced them back. Stephanie could be annoying (sometimes talking his ear off for an hour or more when Chloe wasn’t around to take the phone), but she was a good sister to his wife, a good aunt to his kids. “I really just need some time alone with her, okay?”
Her eyes searched his. “Of course. You’re sure you’re okay?”
Stephanie knew damn well he wasn’t okay, not even slightly close to okay, but it was one of those things people asked. He nodded. He was fine, please, he just needed a few minutes with his wife.
He shut the door behind her, locked it, scanned the room, and dragged his chest of drawers from the opposite wall to the bedroom door. He stopped, appraised his work. He hadn’t even broken a sweat. This is what God wanted. It might not feel like God’s way, might seem even contrary to His path, but that was okay. God’s work is messy, Ellis said. And sometimes, very painful.
He went to her, sat on the edge of the bed. She squirmed at the vibrations. Her eyes were moving back and forth beneath her lids. He touched the side of her face, brushed her hair back behind her ear. She stirred but did not step out from the comfort of her drug-addled slumber. In one gesture, he grabbed the edge of the comforter and flung it down off of her shoulders, exposing her body all the way to her knees.
She wore a pink T-shirt and a pair of blue gym shorts. Curled with her knees near her chest, she was a fetal corpse left to rot on a tray. Since the baby’s death, Chloe had lost at least thirty pounds. He traced his hand over her skinny leg, across her skeletal hips, and hooked a finger under her shirt and dragged it up to her breasts that had once overflowed a C-cup but were barely A-cup material now. Her ribs pushed out from her skin like the bony fingers of some alien gestating inside her. Yet, the worst was her face, which almost resembled its old self when it was pressed against the pillow. When he took her chin and raised her head, her skin tightened over her cheek bones like plastic wrap sealing over a chicken leg bone.
This would be painful, but it had to be done. “Fruta de la vagina,” he whispered. It was funny how something so ridiculous as having sex in an old Pontiac while some guy was selling bad fruit outside could bury itself so deeply in your heart. He and Chloe would relive that moment again and again for the rest of their lives and every time they would laugh and rekindle, at least for a moment, a lost piece of their love. That sounded true, and he wanted it to be, but he was just fooling himself.
The call from Sergeant Fratto had ruined their last attempt at reminiscing on Saturday. He shouldn’t have answered that call; he should have just let it ring and kept sleeping, Chloe curled against him, the memory of their recent laughter fresh in the room. Maybe the phone would have stopped ringing and Delaney wouldn’t be dead.
Now, who’s fooling himself?
“Honey,” he said. “Wake up. We need to talk. Please.”
She grumbled something, rolled on her back and then onto her other side facing away from him. Her butt had shriveled into a boney angle.
He nudged her. She mumbled something that was probably go away. He grabbed her shoulder, pulled her toward him so she was on her back again, and shook her. He shook her until her eyes opened like the lethargic blooming of a flower. Instead of blue carnations, her eyes were gray marbles cracked with bloody veins.
“You want your Pilly Billies?” he asked.
Her tongue slithered from her mouth and traced a thin line of saliva across dry lips. “Where’s Stephanie?”
“Taking a break. Having a smoke.”
“What?” She was still in the throes of her slumber and spoke as if she might collapse back into sleep. “She doesn’t smoke.”
“Well. Whatever. You want your precious little Pilly Billies?”
A smile rose on her face and faded. “That’s Brendan’s. For sillies.”
For sillies. She hadn’t said that in years. That used to be what they said anytime either one of them did something unintentionally ridiculous or stupid and the other merely stared in disbelief. He’d put the milk in the pantry and the cereal box in the fridge without realizing and then her stare would clue him in. “For sillies,” he’d say and they’d start cracking up.
Was old Chloe, the woman he had fallen in love with, straining to be free? Were the drugs helping or hurting?
Ellis had the unequivocal answer to that one: All addictions impede our ability to experience empowerment.
“I’ll get you your pills,” he said, “but first I want you to listen to me.”
She chuckled to herself. “For sillies.”
“No, not for sillies anymore.” He hesitated. He had either to take th
e step forward and suffer the pain or retreat and try again later. “I’ve been somewhere tonight. Seen some things that have really helped.”
“Dr. Pilly Billie.”
“No. God.”
She considered this, as best she could in her state, and then burst out laughing.
He knew this was going to be difficult, knew his anger was liable to come back in full gale-force wind strength, but he hadn’t expected it would get so difficult so quickly. “Stop it,” he said.
Her laughter rolled out of her like the maniacal hiccuping laughs of a clown. In between bursts of laughter, she repeated, “ … saw God … oh, Jesus … good one, Anthony …” He could have taken the laughter (she was drugged, after all), but it was those stupid little editorializing comments that gnawed at him with the speed and veracity of piranhas.
“Shut up!” He punched the headboard and it vibrated against the wall.
Her laughter died quickly and she stared at him with wide, red-stained eyes. The dark crescents beneath her eyes made it seem like she hadn’t slept for days. Oh, the irony. She could play a zombie in one of those Living Dead movies without any makeup. If she wanted to be dead so badly, why didn’t she just overdose on her precious little pills? That would solve everything.
A new voice, one that hadn’t spoken in months, struggled to break through the angry chatter burning his brain. You don’t mean that, the voice said. This is the woman in front of whom you got naked and performed jumping jacks because she wanted to watch your “little soldier” jump, too. This is the woman who, on your wedding day during your first dance, whispered in your ear that she now knew what heaven was like. This is the woman with whom you had four children. This is the woman you love.
The voice stayed his next move for a moment but only a moment. That voice could tweak his heart whenever it wished, but sometimes it said the wrong things. It never should have mentioned the children. Four born, only two left. The woman he loved had died with those children, and this drug-addicted slop was all that remained.