Bill Pronzini - A Wasteland of Strangers

I hardly knew her and I didn’t know her husband at all, but even I had heard she was a battered wife. I hoped she’d shot him in self-defense and that she could prove it. Otherwise, she’d keep right on being a victim. That was one of the things that infuriated me about domestic violence, the no-win position the abused usually found herself in. I’d seen so much of it on the rancherias and at Indian Health in Santa Rosa. Spousal and child abuse, often alcohol-triggered, was among the worst of the many problems Native Americans had to struggle with on a daily basis. I’d never counseled violence as a way of ending violence; it was a poor choice of solution to any problem. Yet sometimes, in certain situations, people were pushed and prodded into corners where violence became the only possible alternative. I had learned that hard lesson myself the past couple of days. The Ruger automatic in my purse was bitter proof that I’d learned it well.

The drizzle had thickened by the time I turned into my driveway. It took four tries before the garage-door opener decided to cooperate; there was something wrong with the remote that a fresh battery hadn’t fixed. The lightbulb on the inside frame had burned out again, too. I would have to make an appointment with the dealer south of town and then arrange to be here when a repairman came out. Maybe I could do it at the same time the glazier came to replace the broken bathroom window. One or two more time-consumers to overload my already groaning weekday schedule.

I sighed and shut off the lights, leaving the garage door up for the moment. I’d close it with the push button next to the side door. When I latched the car door and the dome light winked off, I was in heavy darkness except for the misty gray square behind me. I made my way along the side of the car, feeling for the wall and the doorknob.

I smelled him before I heard him, a rank, sweetish odor like a sweating animal that had been sprinkled with something like Old Spice cologne. Foot scrape, grunting exhalation, and then his hands were on me. He dragged my body back tight against his, pinning my arms before I could get the gun out of my purse. Rough cloth chafed at my cheek and jaw: ski mask. His breath was hot and beer-sour; spittle sprayed my neck when he spoke.

“About time you decided to come home, bitch.”

Same raspy voice as on the phone. For the first time I felt fear, a quick rush that drove away surprise and fired rage. I squirmed, couldn’t get loose, and tried to kick back at him; but he had his legs spread and his body braced against the wall. He rasped something else that was lost in the rising pound of blood and adrenaline. I gave up trying to kick him and stomped down hard with the heel of my shoe, three times before I connected with an instep. He yelled and for an instant his grip loosened, just long enough for me to wrench free and twist sideways. I yanked my purse open, fumbled inside for the automatic—

One thick arm looped around my waist, jerked me back against the thrust of his hip; his other hand flailed, struck the purse, and tore it from my grasp. I heard it bang into the side of the car. Then his forearm was up and under my chin, snapping my head back, bruising my throat. The sudden pressure choked off breath. I ripped at the arm but couldn’t break the hold. The darkness seemed to churn and bulge.

“Bitch!”

The pressure increased. And the darkness flowed behind my eyes, congealing—

“Bitch!”

— and I was caught in it and swept away...

I couldn’t sleep.

I lay there in the dark, listening to the rain patter on the roof and whisper at the windows. The house was quiet otherwise. Too quiet. It was after twelve and Daddy still wasn’t home and that meant he wouldn’t be until morning. Playing poker at the Brush Creek casino like he did one or two weekend nights a month. Every time, he’d get into a tournament and be out all night — come home around eight or nine, bleary-eyed and grumpy unless he’d won for a change, and fall into bed and sleep most of the day. I didn’t mind it when I was hanging with Anthony and Selena and Petey and the others, because then I could stay out all night myself. (That one Saturday I let Anthony stay over, sleep right here in my bed... we’d done the nasty three, no four times, bam bam bam bam, and he ran out of condoms after the second or third time. That must be the night he got me pregnant.) Tonight, though, I wished Daddy’d stayed home. Tonight I didn’t like being alone.

Anthony... he was one of the reasons I couldn’t sleep. Calling up, saying he had to see me. I hung up on him. Then, right after Daddy left, like Anthony’d been outside waiting and watching for him to go, there he was knocking on the door. As if I’d let him in. He only wanted to talk, he said. About our problem, he said. Problem! Like it was some dinky little hassle you could make go away by rapping about it. Like when we could just kiss and make up and everything’d be the way it was before. He stayed on the porch for about ten minutes, pleading and sweet-talking — “Trish, baby, you know how I feel about you, you got to know I love you” — before he finally gave up and went away.

I felt low after he was gone and I still feel low. Why’d he have to start in again with the love crap? He didn’t love me, all he’d wanted was to fuck me. Why’d he have to come around and make things worse by pretending he really cared?

Then there was Ms. Sixkiller. She knew it was me broke into her house and used her boat, all right. Her coming over and talking to Daddy proved she did. When he told me about it I said it wasn’t anything important and he didn’t need to call her, I would; but I didn’t. I’d have to talk to her pretty soon, though. I didn’t think she’d call the cops until she talked to me first, and if I waited until tomorrow afternoon to see her, Lori would already have taken John away someplace safe. Then it wouldn’t matter if the cops came and started ragging on me. I wouldn’t tell them anything. They couldn’t prove I’d been guilty of aiding and abetting a fugitive, could they?

The rain stopped and then started again. (Wow, that rain. If it’d been coming down like that this morning, the wind howling the way it was now, I’d never have been able to take Ms. Sixkiller’s boat across to Nucooee Point and back. No way.) The house creaked, made groaning sounds like John’s when I found him. I tried lying on my back, my stomach, one side and the other. I tried counting backward from one hundred. I tried a couple of other tricks. Nothing worked. I kept right on tossing and turning, wide awake.

I thought about John over there alone in the old lodge.

I thought about Lori with her banged-up face (that guy she was married to must be a real asshole) and how good she’d been to John and how I didn’t really mind sharing him with her. I’d never tell on her no matter what.

I thought about Daddy and what he’d say when I told him I was pregnant.

I thought about the Bitch and how she’d probably laugh her dyed blond head off when she found out.

I thought about the baby growing down there inside me.

And it was funny because then, thinking about the kid, I started to feel sleepy and not quite so alone. Well, I wasn’t alone, right? A baby was somebody else, even a half-formed baby. It was a life. First time I’d looked at it that way, and it was like a whole new perspective, not just on the kid but on me, too, as if maybe my life wasn’t such total crap after all. John had said if you hurt, you cared, and he was right. I hurt every time I thought about the baby, so that must mean I cared about it. I mean, I’m not gung ho on being a mother and I’m not one of those antiabortion types; I believe a woman has a right to choose what she does with her own body. But now there was this thing growing in my body, a part of me , and the choice was mine, not somebody else’s.