Pistol Fanny's Hank & Delilah

by Welch, Annie Rose

  “Maybe you should ask them, Cotton. They’d tell you.”

  “They would?”

  “Yes, indeed. Nobody even cares to ask. If they did, maybe they’d talk more. All them baby girls are are sheep in wolves clothing. That’s all. Lord, that’s all.”

  “I see. They’re just a little scary.” Pause. “Pepsi.”

  “Yeah, baby.”

  “I think you really need to call Delilah, now. That wind is picking up and he’s in there causing more damage.”

  “Don’t worry, she’s already on her way.”

  The line went dead. Dylan and his imaginary partner, Sgt. Pepper, headed back over to the girls, who were still watching the guys run around in the rain. Dylan took a seat next to Jo, who was sitting on an old wooden fruit crate. He noticed when she laughed that she almost seemed pained, like a statue cracking at first emotion.

  “Jo, I hope you don’t mind me askin’, but what happened to you girls?”

  Jo stopped smiling. “I thought you’d never ask.” She whistled and her sisters gathered around. “Dylan here wants to know what happened to us.”

  “All right,” they all answered.

  “Is this something everybody knows about?” Dylan said.

  Jo shook her head. “We only tell people who care enough to ask. Not many people do.”

  The boys crowded around, taking a seat in the sloshy mud. The girls started to tell their stories, only calling the man “mean ole devil”. Dylan and those boys had never hated someone so much. They had never hurt so much than for these women.

  Just as Hazel was talking about the burns she endured, Delilah pulled up. At first Dylan thought the car was a black hawk flying down the street, until he realized the tires had been rolling and were sinking in mud.

  When she stepped out, Dylan narrowed his eyes at her. He had only met her a few times, and something about her was different. She wore a blue-jean dress that gathered at the waist and flared out until it rested right above her knees. A black sweater covered her arms. There was a difference. It was right in front of him, like a word on the tip of your tongue. But Dylan couldn’t place what.

  Delilah stopped for just a moment, staring at the condition of the house, when another set of saucers hurled out of the window. Then she ran inside, disappearing behind those titling, haunted walls.

  Dylan had to admit that his friend had found himself a beautiful woman. Her face was soft, her hair thick and long. She had dynamite legs and a nice behind. Her ankles and legs were thin, like she had stolen them from a table, but they were perfectly shaped. He was a breast man himself. It’s what first attracted him to Perkie.

  God, she was the love of his life. And he missed her and the baby more than anything, but he was glad she was away. Especially now, he was in a gun battle.

  Most importantly, though, he was glad his friend had found him someone who loved him. She was a good person, one of those women who were not the ordinary kind of beautiful, and she had a good sense of humor. She rolled along with him, both of them seeming to be in the same windstorm together.

  Delilah wasn’t a nagger, and that’s exactly what Hank needed. Dylan needed a nagger. He never got things done unless you pestered him about it, and Perkie always did. She was always right, though, and he knew Delilah would always be for Hank.

  The girls continued their stories, warning the boys that they would remember, but like a message through a dream, maybe not remember who it was that told them.

  “And then ya’ll will forget, just like the rest of the world,” Melody whispered, tenderly running a finger around her scarred throat.

  Hank couldn’t control himself anymore. He had come here to take her back, and she was nowhere to be found. Just like a damn ghost. He had seen someone walking toward him. Then he passed out cold, only to wake up to a bunch of screaming men running in the rain, and a bunch of woman laughing saucily at them. He knew that woman walking toward him. He knew that voice. But she was so different.

  It was infuriating and confusing, and quite honestly, frightening. It was meeting the love of your life and knowing she was half ghost. Knowing damn well you met her before, but something was different. How do you even explain that? Hank wanted to know. Hank wanted explanations. He was through with the games, with the need-to-know basis, the poison, the rotten root beer. The anger had reached his surface, and he was directing all that frustration at the four corners of the devil’s leaking skeleton around him.

  His head still twitched, his body trembling right along with it. He threw plates out of the window like he was exercising the demons out of a person’s soul. He was tearing apart the heart, the kitchen, with his hands. His nails dug into the wood, pulling it apart, shouting as he did.

  The walls seemed to sway with the wind, and he knew at any moment it was going to collapse in on itself, but he didn’t give a damn. If he could help it, the whole place was going to burn. He was going to snatch the legs right out from underneath it.

  Out of everything he hated the most—the separation. He hated the separation of the perfect china and the chipped dog bowls. He hated the separation between the perfect dresses and the raggedy old things. He hated the bloodstains on the floor and on that dress.

  Hank had never felt the fires of hate so much.

  Just as he was ripping the dresses off the hangers, putting his fists through the back of the closets, he felt a cool hand touch his shoulder. He hadn’t even heard her come in. He knew it was her though; he could smell the exotic coconut and fresh rain. He knew her proximity to him. Everything around him was heightened in light of her entrance. He felt alive, and she’d done nothing but walk into the same room. Her hand sent a thrill of excitement through his lungs. He could breathe again. He could feel the blood pumping in his veins and his heart drumming like it never had a beat before her.

  She said nothing as she stood behind him, her hand on his shoulder. She slowly leaned forward, wrapping her arms around him, resting her head on his back.

  “Heaven Almighty, Delilah, I missed you so much.” Hank’s voice was hoarse, low.

  “I missed you, Hank.” She kissed his back. He could feel the water from her body seeping through his shirt. “We have to go now, baby. We have to get you out of this house.”

  “Are you really here?”

  “Yes, I’m here. Come on now, let’s go.”

  Hank wrapped his hands around her arms, feeling her skin next to his. “I’m not leaving here. I need for you to sit down and talk to me for a while.”

  She let go of him, walked over to the mattress that was nothing but thin fabric and rusty springs, and sat down so quietly that he heard nothing. He stood with his back to her, almost afraid to turn around in fear she would disappear, or not be there at all. His mind continued to jump.

  “Delilah.”

  “Yes, Hank.”

  “I need to know what happened here. What happened to you, darlin’? Why are there bloodstains on the floor? Why are your clothes blood-stained? And those plates, those damn plates. I hate those damn plates, Delilah.”

  “Well, Hank. I was beat real bad here, all the time. I was afraid here, day and night, not a moment of rest. I was afraid of my own shadow, and I hardly ever spoke, because I was afraid of my own voice. I was afraid of the thoughts in my head, that they could be wrong. One time, I picked these pretty little roses, you know the kind I have over in Magnolia Springs, and, well, he didn’t like them, I suppose. He beat me until I couldn’t see. He broke my fingers because he said I would think twice before picking anything with thorns again. Thorns that could hurt him…”

  Delilah went on. She went on and never missed a beat. She told him of all the horrendous things he’d done to her. She asked him not to say anything about what had happened. She didn’t want an apology. She didn’t need it. After all, he wasn’t the one who owed it to her. After she was done, she was never going to speak of it again. And he couldn’t either.

  So Hank just allowed her to speak, until she took a
deep breath and the room filled up with the sounds of the hard, sheeting rain. It was running like a river, flowing through the cracks and holes. Everything was swelling.

  Hank turned to her, her face dreamily staring at his. He knelt down in front of her, buried his face in her waist. She was soaking wet, the droplets skidding off her skin like water on an oiled hourglass. There was so much movement, everything was twitching and clacking and jumping and beating. He was trembling for her. She ran her hands through his hair. And he took a deep, steadying breath, looking up at her.

  “I need you to look me in the eye and tell me you love him. I need you to tell me you’re marrying him and he’s going to make you happy.”

  “Oh, darlin’, I don’t think you want me to do that. I’m a very good liar, Hank.”

  “Lie to me, darlin’. Tell me all those things you want me to believe.”

  “I do love him, and I’m going to marry him, no matter what you say. I don’t love you and I never have. I slept with him. It wasn’t Melody in my office. I never told Pepsi to lie to you. I’d pay any price to have you away from me. I sleep like a baby every night in this bed that we made. My body doesn’t ache for your touch. I’m not on fire when I dream about it.”

  Hank had to take a breather. She was damn good at the lying. When he found his air again, he said, “I’ll be damned if I crawl, Delilah. Come home with me. I’m a good man, with good intentions, as long as you don’t cheat. And I mean that, with every breath in me. I want you to come home with me and marry me. I want you to make an honest man out of me. I’ll walk the line for you.”

  “Hank,” Delilah started.

  “Let me finish now, darlin’. We are perfect for each other, not meant for anyone else. I’ll take care of you, all of you, for the rest of my life. This I promise in this God-forsaken hell of a grave. We can make a little love on Saturday nights; go to church on Sunday mornings. I know this real nice preacher man that would love that. For you, I’m as steady as a rock, even in a fast-moving river. My love is your ticket away from here, from this loneliness.

  “But I won’t tolerate you lying just to push me away. I won’t tolerate the rotten root beer either. I don’t particularly like it when you climb the rafters and disappear like the wind. I’m not the mouse, Delilah. You can’t do those things to me, darlin’. I love you, and if this is going to work, we have to be a team. Hank & Delilah & Freud the gentleman dog.”

  Hank slipped his hands underneath her dress, watching as a bead of water rolled down her leg from her thigh. He had been away from her for too long. There was never a wrong time with her, a wasted moment. He didn’t care if they were here or there; there was no separation between him and her. He was the chipped plate. She was the perfect china. He was the ratty clothes. She was the purty dress. It was them, imperfect as they were, and he couldn’t stop touching her. He couldn’t stop watching her as she stared back with those bedroom eyes.

  She shook her head—not here. She took him by the hand and led him out into the rain, into another one of the houses. This one was a home. It still had decent furniture with patchwork quilts and nice pictures hanging on the walls.

  On one of the tables was a framed black-and-white picture of a woman (who was almost the spitting image of Gladys Knight when she was with The Pips) sitting next to a bear of a man with a wide smile on his alabaster face.

  Hank recognized that smile. It was Pepsi and her husband Moses.

  When they were in the bedroom, their bodies started to move in a slow dance around the room.

  “I hope you remember this,” Delilah whispered against his lips.

  “You’re all I know now, Delilah Mae.”

  She ran her trembling fingers through his hair, pulled his mouth down to hers, licked the sweat from above his lip. They danced a little quicker, a little closer, easily sliding into a perfect rhythm that was all they ever wanted to know.

  “Why do you tremble when you touch me? Why, darlin’?”

  “Lord have mercy, Hank. Because I feel everything with you and it terrifies me. I feel like I’m just a girl again, running in those fields, feeling the coolness of the breeze against my skin, and I’m not afraid of a damn thing, all because I know you’ll be with me one day. I can feel that old Louisiana sun, hot on my skin, and it feels so damn good ’cause you’re next to me, just holding my hand. I can taste the salt on your lips, and that makes me feel like the luckiest women alive. I can feel it when you smile on my skin, and my heart skips a beat. I’m terrified of you, Hank. I tremble when you’re near me because just by walking away from me, you could destroy me.”

  Hank held her closer, whispering, “Tell me, darlin’, all those things you want to say. Mmm, I want to hear you.”

  She told him all the love words that had been building up in her, and then she sighed as they started to sway and dance even quicker. Hank had figured out how to keep those storm clouds at bay. She had to be free to speak her mind.

  “I’m going to apologize now. I’m not going to be too careful with you, darlin’.” Hank stopped the motion for just a second to look her in the eye. “I’ve missed you something short of not breathing, and I don’t think I can control myself.”

  She rolled her tongue over his lip again. “You were never careful with me, darlin’. You’ve always hit me like a hurricane, Hank. I’m just the helpless coast.”

  “Lie to me, darlin’. That’s it, just keep on lying to me.”

  And they smiled against each other’s lips as they danced their way to the bed.

  Hank knew he was playing it dangerous. He was playing more dangerous with her than he was with those thugs after him. The love game had him going insane with longing and want for his Delilah. He wanted nothing between them. He wanted Delilah to get pregnant with his child. Clack, clack, clack, he wanted to secure the most important thing in the world to him before that storm blew everything else away.

  He wanted every man to look at her and know he’d done that. No more Joe Crackers. Delilah was his, and he was damn proud of that fact. He always wanted to be connected to her, and if she had his baby, she always would be. They’d always be connected through blood. The sensation of her ran deeper than his body. It ran through his blood, through his mind, through his soul, just like that ole poison, but she wasn’t poison. She was the healing remedy to all his troubles.

  “Hank,” Delilah said, standing by the door. “I have to go now, baby.”

  He shot straight up, his bare chest pale white in the night. He was sleeping so soundly, all those root beers burning away with his dreams. But he was still light-headed, his head mildly twitching. He could hardly remember anything. He remembered destroying parts of the house, her telling him about that mean ole devil, and them making love. He couldn’t remember anything else. He especially didn’t remember the part about her leaving again.

  “Where to?”

  “I meant every word that I said to you, Hank. But I have to go. If you trust me, you’re going to have to let it be, just for now. I won’t do you wrong while we’re apart. I’ll miss you more than you could ever dream of missing me. Just please, stay put, Hank. Listen to me for once. Stay put. Go home, and go to work. If you have a friend that’s a girl, take her out once or twice. It’s make believe, Hank. It has to be. For now. For your sake. Only for your sake.”

  Hank rubbed at his eyes. “Is this because you and Pistollette are turning against each other? I’m sorry for that. If I could go back and do it over, I would do a million things differently.”

  “Ah, Pepsi could never turn down sweets.” Delilah smiled. “And that’s all you are to her, just a big ole sweet. Yes, Pistollette and I, we have turned down separate highways. But it’s too late for regrets. Some things have been set into motion, and there is no turning back. Listen to me, Hank. I need you to promise me something. Promise me that you’ll always love me. I need to hear you say it.”

  “Darlin’, I love you. I’ll never stop. I don’t want you to leave. Stay with me. Come back to b
ed. We can work everything out tomorrow. We can go home.”

  “I can’t, Hank.” She sat beside him on the bed. “If something were to happen… Go and see Pepsi, all right? She has something for you. Let Freud smell it and he’ll take you where you need to be. I know…I know I don’t tell you everything I should. Sometimes I forget how to use my words, but I’ve written things for you. Things I didn’t know how else to tell you. If I’m not here anymore, my words will be.”

  Hank took her hand and she brought his to her face, closing her eyes fiercely. Hank cleared his throat. “One of these days, after you burn all those miles on all those highways you travel, they’re going to come to an end, and you’re going to understand then that I’ve been the man beside you in your shotgun seat all along, always along for the ride. Those old highways don’t give a damn about you, darlin’. They don’t love you. I love you. I will always love you.”

  “Only if all my prayers come true.” She kissed him again, her mouth lingering on his like warm fire. They froze when she pulled away.

  He knew she was going to run. He went to grab her hand, but she was already gone. He ran behind her, making it to the porch just in time to see the red lights fade into the darkness. Hank stumbled over Dylan, all of the guys sprawled around the screened-in porch, half asleep. They looked like the mice the cats dragged in.

  Dylan looked up at Hank. “You’re not going to go buggy again, are you? Wait, you did go buggy, right? You just about tore down that house. God, I can’t remember anything. Why are you missing your shirt?”

  Hank was staring toward the empty road. “Dylan, can you give me a ride to Spell’s?”

  “Sure, why?”

  “I’m going to burn this son of bitch down. I have the matches. All I need is a few gallons of gas.”

  “Hank, you sure you’re all right?” Dylan started slapping all the guys around him. Jesse was so tired only one of his eyes would open. “Hey, boys, it looks like not only are we going to be accessory to robbery crimes, we’re going down in flames. We’re about to add arson to our list. Perkie is going to kill this good boy.”