Pam Ward - A Clean Comfortable Room

"That's right, start bawlin', you big baby! Ha, ha! What's that you say boy? Huh?" Edmond laughed in his face. "Look at you. Got the body of a man and the mouth of a two-year-old. Stammering and carryin' on. Can't say one sentence to save your natural life." Leon 's lips started quivering. He was starting to drool on one side.

Sally looked at Leon. She had figured him for the quiet type. She didn't know he was simple.

Leon ran up and rammed Edmond with his head. Edmond snatched the lamp from the table and bashed Leon 's skull with it. He fell to the floor and didn't move. Edmond looked crazier than ever. He came over to Sally and slammed her back against the bed. She squirmed with all her might and they both rolled to the shag carpet. The TV was right there in her face. The news flashed a story about a man found with his throat slashed in Los Angeles. An unidentified woman was shot with him.

"… killed in his own home. Police are looking for…"

Suddenly Edmond 's foot caught the TV cord and he ripped the set right from the stand. It crashed down and went black.

Edmond was laughing crazily and licking Sally's face. It was then she turned her head and she saw it, her black purse right next to her forehead. He wasn't holding her hands, so Sally stretched out her right arm and rummaged through the contents. She finally felt the cool steel. She took the gun out and blasted him in the face. She fired four times, until he slumped over.

Suddenly it was dead quiet. Sally held her breath. She could hear her heart beating. Her whole chest heaved up and down. Suddenly there was another sound, a scratching from behind the TV. She looked down and saw the gray possum dart underneath the bed. Sally grabbed her clothes and got out. She took Leon 's Marlboros and both men's wallets. Combined, they had seventy-eight bucks. She snatched the large key ring and went to the front office, opened the cash register, and found another hundred and a half. She took all the candy bars and bags of chips. She got back in her car and roared off. Sally clicked the radio on.

"Manhunt for possible female murderer. Sally Jones has been missing for two days now. Her husband was found murdered in their Compton home."

Sally punched the lighter in and headed up toward the interstate. Damn, she thought. In two days, I killed three people already. There has got to be a better place to live.

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Pam Wardis a Los Angeles native and graphic designer. She likes to write about all the stuff your mother told you "hush" when you asked her: violence, sex, and road trips on the jacked-up streets of LA. She worked the hash food line in high school, did temp work for two sex maniacs in North Hollywood, and ran amok in corporate America until she was asked very nicely to leave. Her work has been published in Men We Cherish, Catch the Fire, and Calyx, A Journal of Literature for Women. She has received a California Arts Council Writing Fellowship and a New Letters Award for Poetry. Her self-published chapbook is entitled Jacked Up.

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"A Clean Comfortable Room," by Pam Ward, © 2000 by Pam Ward, first appeared in Gynomite, edited by Liz Belile (New Mouth from the Dirty South LLC, 2000). Reprinted by permission of the author.