Ryan Jahn - The Dispatcher

Ian nods. ‘All right. Where’s he at?’

‘Out back washing my truck. Tell him to get on the phones and then let’s go.’

Ian nods.

‘What are you wearing?’

‘What?’ She looks over her shoulder and can see Henry’s Ford Ranger speeding toward her, and behind the glass Henry’s large frame hunched over the wheel like a bear over its prey. ‘He’s coming!’ she says.

‘What are you wearing, Mags?’

‘A dress. A blue dress with pink flowers.’

The truck pulls into the parking lot, tires screeching. Smoke wafts from burned rubber and the foul stink of it hangs in the air. The door swings open, engine still running. She can hear Henry’s footsteps behind her. She looks over her shoulder and he is making great steps toward her. He curses under his breath. His hands open and close at his sides as he walks.

Open and close, open and close, open and-

‘Do you know the man’s name?’

‘It’s H-’

But that’s all and that’s it. Henry grabs her around the waist. She screams. Henry puts his hand over her mouth. He pulls her away from the phone. She tries to hold on to it, to maintain her connection to Daddy, oh God, Daddy, please, but her hands are too sweaty and it slips away and swings down on its cord and bangs against a phone book hanging from a metal ring. She tries to scream again but to no end. The hand over her mouth keeps the sound trapped in her throat.

Henry carries her while she kicks and claws at him. She grabs his fingers and tries to pull them away from her. She tries to contort her body so that she can bite him. Nothing works.

‘You little bitch,’ he says, ‘don’t you ever run from me again.’

He throws her into the truck through the open driver’s side door. She lands lengthwise across the beige vinyl bench seat and hits her head on the passenger door. She pulls herself up to a sitting position and looks around in a daze. She is disoriented and for a moment lost. Everything feels unreal to her. Then she sees the open door and knows once more where she is and what she must do. She crawls toward escape.

Then Henry’s large frame fills the opening and he slides into the truck. He pulls the door shut behind him and releases the hand brake. The truck turns toward the street. Maggie looks out the window to the phone. It is still swinging from its cord. Daddy.

She grabs the passenger’s side door handle and pushes open the door, trying to jump out before the truck gains speed, but as the truck turns out onto the street, the momentum forces the door shut again. She has to pull her hand away so that it isn’t slammed between the door and the frame. Then Henry grabs the back of her dress and pulls her away from it. And slaps the side of her head.

‘Stop it, goddamn you! Just fucking stop it!’

Tears of pain and defeat and rage stream down her face.

‘I hate you!’ she says.

‘Shut the fuck up, Sarah.’

‘That’s not my name.’

‘I said shut- up .’ He punctuates the last word with yet another angry slap at her head.

‘No, you shut up.’

And she attacks him. She tries to claw at his stupid face. She punches at his chest and neck. He fights her off with one hand while steering with the other. He tries to grab her by the neck. She sinks her teeth into the web between his thumb and index finger. He hollers in pain and yanks his hand away. She spits out the salty taste of his sweat and blood, wipes her mouth with the back of her hand, and goes at him again. He shoves her away with great force and she flies backwards and hits her head against the window.

The truck swerves as they reach Crouch Avenue, travels another fifty yards, weaving back and forth across the two-lane asphalt, and then crashes through the fence behind which Pastor Warden keeps his dachshunds. The chain-link fence peels open where two sections were held together only by baling wire, curling in either direction like a sardine can lid, and there’s a great scratching sound. Then the brakes lock, Maggie is thrown against the dashboard, and falls down to the floorboard.

The truck slides along the ground another ten or fifteen feet before coming to a stop.

Henry puts the truck into reverse and backs out to the street. There is more metal on metal scraping, a few serious jerks as the truck rolls once more over the shoulder of the road, and then they are on asphalt again.

Maggie pulls herself off the floor and goes for Henry once more.

Henry shoves her away again, and she hits her head on the passenger’s side window for the second time. It hurts and makes her feel dizzy and sick. Her vision goes wonky and she loses her equilibrium. She thinks she might vomit. The skin is split and she feels blood trickling down the back of her head.

She is reaching back to touch the wound when she is hit again. Henry simply fists the side of her head above the ear. Just behind the temple. He likes to hit her where Beatrice won’t see the bruises. There is a strange sensation like sinking into thick liquid, and then there is no sensation at all. Everything goes dark.

Henry puts the truck into gear and gasses it. It gets rolling. He glances in his rearview mirror and sees what must be two dozen dachshunds escaping through the hole his truck punched through the fence. He figures there’s a good chance of it coming back to him. His truck is scratched all to hell. If it does come back to him he’ll just say he got a little too drunk. He’ll smile big and apologize and if it’s Chief Davis who comes knocking he’ll say, ‘You know how it is. Anyway, maybe I’ll be trading this thing in now it’s not prime no more. Maybe you’ll see me down at the dealership. Tell Pastor Warden I’m real sorry. Tell him I’ll pay for the damage. You got any good deals, any new used trucks in?’ That will, in all likelihood, take care of the situation with the fence. If it even becomes a situation. It might not.

What really worries him is witnesses at the Main Street shopping center. What happened there could not be explained away.

Horizon Video is almost surely nothing to worry about. The kids who work there do nothing but sit in the back and smoke weed and watch pornographic films unless they hear the front door’s bell chime, at which point one of them cuts through the curtain of smoke and walks to the counter and stands around while browsers browse. The barber shop is closed Sundays and Mondays, so there was no one there. That leaves the old cobbler who has a shop next to Horizon Video, the dry-cleaning place, and Bill’s Liquor. Bill’s Liquor is also, unless a customer was in, nothing to worry about. It’s possible-just-that no one saw him.

But he can’t worry about it. Either someone saw him or no one did. He’ll find out which soon enough. Fretting over it won’t change a goddamn thing.

Acid bubbles up at the back of his throat and he reaches into his shirt pocket and pulls out a roll of antacids. He picks lint off the top of the roll, peels back the foil, and thumbs two tablets into his mouth. They are chalky and flavorless. He chews them slowly.

Then glances over to Sarah. She’s unconscious, head leaning against the glass of the window, a thin smear of blood just above her, a few drops of it splashed onto the beige armrest. As he looks at her another drop of blood splashes onto the vinyl.

‘You little bitch,’ he says. ‘Don’t even think I’m finished with you.’

He tongues chalky antacid from a molar and downshifts to second. He hits his turn-signal lever-click-click, click-click-and turns right into his gravel driveway.

The tires kick small stones out into the street.

He carries Sarah into the house. Beatrice is standing over a bowl of raw hamburger, grating carrots into it. When he walks into the kitchen she looks at him, and then at Sarah draped limp in his arms. A worried grunt escapes her throat.