by Gregory F. DeLaurier
(This story contains child abuse.)
1988…
The River listened. Always did, always had. It heard the moans and cries of those in this little city who faced the terror of life, of death, of pain, of fear. It heard their joy, a wedding, a birthing, the quick intimate wonder of sex for the first time in the back seat of a car at the drive-in. It heard their brutality, their kindness, their indifference, their acceptance, their simple wailing against all that conspired against them that they could never name. But still, it listened. And tonight it heard the girl.
He stood in the door way of her bedroom, as he always did, silhouetted by the dim light in the hall as he weaved back and forth, so drunk he could hardly stand. She pulled the blankets tight around her, as if that would protect her.
“Your Daddy’s here,” he said as he stumbled over to her bed. She could feel the fear rising up in her, the dread of what he might try to do to her this time. Her tummy hurt, she wanted to scream, to run, but she was frozen by the fear.
He stumbled over to her bed, stood over her, laughing that ugly laugh of his. “What’s the matter little girl, you ain’t afraid of your Daddy now are you.” He leaned over and started patting her hair, then tried to loosen the blankets around her, without success. “Goddammit,” he said as he slapped her little face peeking out from the blankets, “Take those fucking blankets away. You’re gonna do what I tell you to do.”
She tossed off the blankets as he started to unbuckle his pants. But just as he began to lie down beside her, she bolted. He grabbed at her but was too late. She ran down the stairs to where her Mom and her friends were sitting around drinking cheap wine and smoking cheap dope. She went over to sit by her Mom who was on the seen-better-days couch. Her friends sat around them on the ground, as there wasn’t any other furniture in the place. She leaned into her Mom.
“Goddammit little girl, what you want.”
“Daddy won’t leave me alone. I’m scared.”
“Well he’s your Daddy and can do what the fuck he wants. I tol you, gotta toughen you up. Get your ass off the couch and stand in front of me.” The girl did as she was told.
“Now roll up your sleeve, and let’s show everybody how tough my little girl is. Stick out your arm.” She lit a cigarette.
“Please Mommy no, it hurts so bad.”
“Shut up, you little bitch, or I’ll send you right back upstairs to your Daddy.”
She took the lit cigarette and placed it on her daughter’s arm. “Now keep it there until I say stop.” The crowd laughed and cheered.
The girl, her whole body shaking in pain, shut her eyes as tears welled up, and tried to think of anything that might make her forget the pain. But nothing did. She only let out a low mournful moan, that seemed to make them all laugh.
Then the front door was kicked in, and there stood Teddy, her cousin. He was Indian through and through: long black hair in a ponytail, short but with a thick body that was mostly muscle. The cigarette had rolled off the little girl’s arm on to the floor. Teddy picked it up, grabbed the little girl’s mother by the throat and shoved it in her mouth. He held her mouth shut as she tried to scream in pain. He finally let go, and turned to the audience: “Any of you want to stay alive, get the fuck out of here.” They all scrambled to get away. He turned to the girl’s mother, she was retching over the side of the couch. The girl was crouching down in a corner of the room. “Where is he,” he said.
“Up in her room, probably passed out by now.”
“You stay right where you are, or I will break your neck.”
She nodded OK as Teddy headed up the stairs.
He found the father sprawled over the girl’s bed. He grabbed him by the hair, pulled him off the bed, dragged him to the stairs and threw him down them.
The father lay in a heap at the bottom of the stairs, dazed and confused. “What the fuck…” was all he managed to say before Teddy kicked him out through the space where a door used to be. He landed on his back in the dirt road. He tried to get up but Teddy was over him, kicked him in the mouth, then again, then again. He picked the father up over his head and threw him down hard. Laying on his stomach now. Teddy began kicking him again, anywhere and everywhere. He finally stopped, picked the father up by the front of his shirt and made him stand in front of Teddy. “I will tell you once,” his voice quiet, even, without emotion, “I see you again, I will kill you. Now go.”
The father said nothing. He turned and stumbled down the road, stopped for a second, looked back at Teddy, and then began, as best he could, to run. When he was out of sight, Teddy went back into the house.
The mother was drinking from a gallon jug of wine. He sat down beside her, and said in that same quiet voice. “She’s going with me. You ever go near her again, try to see her, I will kill you. And you know I mean it, don’t you.” The mother just nodded and took another hit of wine.
He looked at the girl crouched in the corner. “Go upstairs and get your blanket.” She did as she was told and came back down stairs. He took the blanket, wrapped her in it, picked her up and they left. He put her in the cab of his truck locked her seat belt, went around to the driver’s side, got in and started the engine.
“You’re gonna live with me now. You ain’t never coming back here. That’s OK with you.”
It really wasn’t a question, but she said, “Yes please,” looking out the windshield at nothing.
The River listened.
1998…
She and Teddy walked into the trailer.
“Your room’s still the same,” said Teddy, “left it alone, knew we’d be back.”
She walked back to the end of the trailer, to the left as she entered, where her bedroom was. She noticed the trailer was still the same, hadn’t changed much. Everything neat as a pin: a living room, more or less, TV on one side with a painting of a wolf over it. Teddy told her it was an Indian artist lives around here painted it, and she’d sit for hours staring at the wolf’s golden eyes staring out from a blue background, thinking what must it be like to be that wild and free. A couch on the other side, where Teddy slept. Then the kitchen. Not much to it, not used much. Maybe a Stouffer’s once in a while, maybe hot dogs, but Teddy usually brought home a pizza. He’d drink beer, let her have one now and then, watch Wheel of Fortune then Jeopardy. He’d get a lot of the Jeopardy answers right, surprised her, but then she started getting a lot of them right too. Then her bedroom. It was small, curved, conforming to the shape of the trailer. But there was room for, in addition to the single bed, a dresser, a small make-up table, and a small stand-alone closet Teddy’d bought for her. The bathroom was at the other end of the trailer.
She noticed, and she never really had before, there was nothing on the walls, no posters of Michael Jackson or whoever she was supposed to care about as a kid or a teenager. But, then again, she’d been out working the bars when other kids were doing homework, playing tapes, smoking weed, whatever it was they did.
She came out of the bedroom. Teddy was sitting on the couch, listening to ‘Shelter From the Storm’ coming from the record player to the left of the TV. She sat down beside him, lit a cigarette, grabbed the beer bottle from his hand, took a swig, and handed it back to him. Dylan brilliantly caterwauled as she asked him, “Teddy, do you love me?”
“I took care of you, didn’t I.”
“Yeah, I guess you did, but that’s not what I’m asking you: Do you love me.”
“Hey, I did for you when nobody else did.”
“You can’t fucking say it, can you. You cannot say you love me. You have never once, never fucking once, said you loved me.”
“Don’t know what that means.”
“Don’t need to define it. It’s just something you feel or you don’t.”
“Don’t know what I feel. Mostly nothin’ most of the time, I guess. Mostly just do, if it needs doin’, I just do it.”
“That’s why you took care of me? It needed doing?”
“Suppose.”
“Did getting me back need doing.”
“Yeah, guess it did. We got plans, gotta get to them.”
“Jesus, Teddy, we don’t have any fucking plans, just your stupid idea we’re gonna get away somewhere, do something.”
“What’s wrong with that?”
“’Cause it’s not a fucking plan. It’s just your idea of something that needs doing.”
“What the fuck are you talking about, little girl?”
“I don’t know. Do you love me?”
“Jesus, we’re back at that. I don’t know what that means. I took care of you didn’t I?”
“That’s not enough. You gotta give me a reason.”
“You needed taking care of.”
“Again, just something that needed doing. Did pimping me out at bars need doing?”
“Yeah, it did. Look, life ain’t easy. What you gotta figure out is how to survive, use what you’re good at to survive. I’m good at being strong, you are good at being pretty. We use what we got. Good, bad, what I ‘feel’ got nothin’ to do with it. We survived, you and me, and we did what needed doin’. Turn the record over, will ya.”
Theresa did. The chords of ‘Tangled Up In Blue’, her favorite song, began. She grabbed Teddy another beer from the fridge, got herself one too, then sat by him, both quiet, just listening:
Split up on a dark sad night, both agreeing it was best. She turned around to look at me. As I was walkin’ away I heard her say, over my shoulder, we’ll meet again someday, on the avenue. Tangled up in blue.
“I don’t want to be with you anymore, Teddy.”
“Why’s that?”
“I don’t know, well, I guess I do. It’s just that I don’t like me, I don’t like me when I’m with you…used to, don’t now. Don’t know if I go with you because you scare me, love you—you can’t even say that—need you, or scared to find out I don’t need you. But I do want to find out. I want you to leave me be. It needs doing.”
“I say ‘I love you’, you be satisfied?”
“No, I won’t be fucking satisfied, because you’ll just say it because you think it needs doing. Just like everything else you do. By the way, you just said it.”
Teddy looked at her, he smiled, sort of. “Guess you’re right.”
“I don’t know if I’m right or wrong, don’t know if I’m better off with you or without you. Don’t know shit. But I never thought about not knowing shit before, now I do wanna think about it.”
“You wanna leave, leave. You do what you want, don’t do what you want, told you before. But if I’m gone, I’m gone. Ain’t coming back for you, you ain’t gonna find me.”
“I know.”
He grabbed her awkwardly, trying to hug her, but knocked the beer out of her hand and it spilled all over the place.
“Fucking mess,” Teddy said.
“Yeah it is,” said Theresa, “Maybe messes aren’t so bad sometimes.”
“Maybe. Tell you one thing. That guy’s an ex-con.”
“Yeah, I know that. But this isn’t what this is about. I be with him, don’t be with him, I’ll decide.”
“He hurts you, I will fuck him up bad.”
“No, Teddy you won’t.” She touched his cheek. “He hurts me, he does, and I’ll figure it out from there. You gotta let me do that. OK?”
I don’t know what they’re doin’ with their lives, but me, I’m still on the road, headin’ for another joint. We always did feel the same. We just saw it from a different point of view. Tangled up in blue.
The next morning Teddy was gone. The River listened.
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