Jonathan Nasaw - When She Was Bad

“I don’t know yet,” said Max. “But I’m going to find out.” His left hand shot out, grabbed the bunched hood of her zippered sweatshirt, rammed her head against the steering wheel, yanked her upright, jammed the pistol against the side of her head again. “Now, what are you trying to pull?”

It was all so like a dream-a sense of gliding movement, of a perpetual nightscape, of darkness around the edges, and of helplessness. Heartbreaking helplessness when his (no, Max’s, he reminds himself) hand slams Lily’s head against the steering wheel. But Lyssy knows better. It’s not a dream, it’s co-consciousness. He’s seeing through Max’s eyes. And hearing now-distantly but clearly, although there’s a hint of disconnect between what he sees and what he hears. It’s not as severe as a streaming video: more like watching singers trying to lip-synch on TV.

“Put the fucking gun down,” Lily is saying….

Dazed and angry, with a trickle of blood descending from her hairline, Lily said, “Put the fucking gun down, Max, before I take it away and shove it up your ass-assuming there’s room for it with your head up there.”

Max twisted the bunched hood, choking her with her own sweatshirt. “Don’t try to out-badass me, girl.”

“I wouldn’t…think of it.”

“Think anything you like-just do exactly what I tell you to do.” It felt so good, so right, to have a live body wriggling in his grasp again. A warm, intensely familiar feeling washed over Max. It was the closeness, a sense of connection, a feeling almost of oneness, of love turned inside out, that the sadist develops for the masochist, the torturer for the subject, the psychopath for his victim, which supersedes all other considerations. Suddenly he had to have her.

“Get out-no, this way.” He climbed backward out of the mule, good leg first, hauling her with him by the hood of her sweatshirt. Still holding the gun to her head, he shuffled to his left, dragging his right leg, and Lily, all the way around to the back of the mule. He ordered her to unsnap the plastic webbing that served as a tailgate. When she’d done so, he pressed himself tightly against her from behind, gently pushing the hair back from her ear with the barrel of his gun.

“Drop your drawers and bend over,” he whispered. He wasn’t hard yet-like many psychopaths, Max had trouble achieving erection. Still, there were always alternatives to an erect penis: he was holding one of them in his right hand, it had a nice long barrel, and when it came, it came with a bang.

Circling around the wagon, or whatever it was, dragging/shoving Lily by her sweatshirt, Lyssy watching from a Max’s-eye view, thinking stop, thinking don’t, thinking let her go, goddamn you, let her go.

Then he hears Max say, “Drop your drawers and bend over.”

No, thinks Lyssy, you can’t, I won’t let you. But he’s powerless…or is he? If he could hear Max talking to him when he was conscious and Max was in co-con, then maybe there’s a way to make Max hear him. He fills his mind the way you fill your lungs, then: no, stop, let her go! Screaming the thought, thinking the scream. Stop, let her go, leave her alone….

It had seemed so simple at the time, Lily remembered: lead Max away from Uncle Pen and Dr. Irene, give him the slip, then outrun him-he’s a cripple, after all.

But somehow the right moment had never presented itself. Or if it had, she had missed it-one minute she was driving the mule, the next he had her by the hood of her sweatshirt and was holding a gun to her head-slip this, smart girl-and now here she was, bent over the back of Fano’s mule and apparently out of options.

Except of course for the old reliable: give in. They’re big, you’re little, they have all the power, you have none. And if you cry or struggle, they’ll only hurt you worse.

Only this time it wasn’t working. She’d been tasting what it was like not to feel helpless all the time, not to feel an emptiness at your very core, not to define yourself by what had been done to you, or lose yourself in the delicious, unabashed self-pity of childhood-in short, what it was like to be Lilith-long enough to realize that that avenue of retreat had been closed to her forever. She could no longer lose herself in the old familiar sadness-nor did she really want to.

So up your ass with a piece of glass, Max, she thought to herself as he shoved her head down toward the oily-smelling boards. And twice as far with a Hershey bar. If you want to actually do anything to me, sooner or later you’re gonna have to let go my hood or put down the gun. And then you’ll find out what it means to fuck with me and Lilith.

Me and Lilith-she kind of liked the way that sounded. Like she wasn’t alone, like she had an ally.

Then suddenly she sensed Max growing distracted. He muttered something under his breath…she felt the absence of the constant pressure of the gun muzzle against her temple…but he still had that death grip on her hoodie.

Next time, she promised herself-once again he had shoved the muzzle against the side of her head-next time she’d be ready. Slowly, she began unzipping the sweatshirt, her mind running faster and clearer than ever, thinking up and dealing with contingency after contingency: if he says anything, tell him you thought he told you to get undressed. Be ready to go when he moves the gun again. Whatever you do, don’t let him get your pants down. If he does, get them all the way down, step out of them. He won’t stop you. Because he can’t fuck you if-

But the moment had arrived: Max was talking to himself again, and the gun was no longer pressed against her temple. No more hesitating: Lily threw herself violently to her left, her arms stretched straight out behind her like a high-diver, wriggled free, and ran for her life, leaving Max holding her empty sweatshirt by the hood.

For some reason-or maybe for no reason: he didn’t seem to be thinking all that clearly-sitting up had become of immense importance to Pender. It felt as though lying there in the dirt was the same as giving up-and he already knew that giving up was the same as dying.

So he dragged himself over to the side of the road and pulled himself to a seated position with his legs outstretched and his back against the cliff wall, feeling like a beached whale. What with all the pain, he couldn’t even get the ol’ jukebox working right, though there were so many songs about hearts breaking it would take days to get through them all. Instead he found himself listening to that old Beatles song, the one about turning off your mind, relaxing, and floating downstream.

Tempting-oh so very tempting. Except for this friggin’ tyrannosaur crushing his chest between its jaws.

It wasn’t until she was over the rise of the humpbacked meadow that Lily stopped feeling the tingling in her spine, dead center between her shoulder blades, and was finally able to banish the image of Fano throwing his arms into the air and pitching forward, dead.

She even allowed herself a triumphant, Rocky Balboa double fist pump. We did it, she thought, trotting steadily downhill, sneakers pounding the dirt as she followed the beige ribbon of the mule path in the pale moonlight. Nobody got shot, nobody got raped, and surely Uncle Pen and Dr. Irene would have contacted the authorities by now-soon the cops will be here with their dogs and helicopters, and sweep up Max like yesterday’s garbage.

And as for Lyssy, it only took a little clear, Lilith-like thinking to understand that if he couldn’t maintain control over Max, their sketchy plans to escape to the villa in Mexico were only so many pipe dreams. Like what’s-her-name says in Casablanca, we’ll always have fucking Paris. Or in their case, La Guarida.