Stephen Dixon - All Gone

“I was lying.”

“Then don’t say it next time.”

“Don’t tell me what to say or not say. But saying anything to you is a mistake. You’re my life’s curse, you know that? I never should’ve hooked up with you.”

“Then unhook me, okay? I won’t protest. But what I’ll never be able to understand is why you get into moods like this that are almost over nothing and then insist on harping on the same theme or any theme just to get me to verbally fight with you when it’s obvious I don’t want to. Now stop, will you?”

“I’ll verbally you. I’ll stop you. I’ll smack your damn ugly head off with my fist, that’s how I’ll verbally stop you.”

“Now none of that. I don’t want to go to court again. The judge’ll believe me next time.”

“He’ll call you a faggot next time. A prissy little whimpery faggot and then laugh even harder in your face, that’s what he’ll do.”

“The hell with reasoning with you then,” and I get down on my knees to pull a valise out from under the bed. “What’re you doing?”

“Getting away, that you can bet. I’m not hanging around here waiting for you to drive a wedge into my head.”

“Why, you too much the whimpery coward to stand up and talk back to me like a man?”

“Yes.”

“You are, I was right, you faggot, so why didn’t you say what your hang ups were when you first met me and saved me the trouble of hooking up with you?”

“The truth is that talking to you doesn’t work when you get like this and that’s the last time I’m going to tell you that, the last.”

“You saying something’s wrong with my personality?”

“What are you, kidding me? Yes, goddamnit, I am.”

“You bastard, you coward, you make me so mad I could bash your face in, I really could, you bastard, coward, faggot,” and she swings at me and I duck and jump to my feet to protect myself but she connects with the next. Right to the mouth. I fly across the bed and a couple of my teeth I think fly someplace else. She weighs maybe fifty pounds more than me and has three inches on me too. She drags me off the bed by my feet and I land on my rear and she kicks me in the ribs. That really hurts and I’m spitting blood besides but I get up and she swings and I block her blow and hit her in the chest and that’s all I had to do because now she’s all over me with punches, screaming, swinging wildly, connecting every third or fourth time and before I know it she lands one to my jaw that knocks me to the floor. I feel sick. She’s on top of me punching my face and hitting every time. All good shots. Nothing wild now. I can’t protect myself. My whole face feels paralyzed and I want to throw up. I begin retching. She gets off me and says “That ought to teach you, you whimpering so-forth, you baby,” and leaves the room and I hear the front door slam.

I’m really out of it this time. She never did a better job on me. I have to turn over and spit out a mouthful of blood to stop from gagging. I rest a while and then crawl to the bathroom to see how bad it is and get a towel to stop the bleeding on my face. My face is a mess. Some of the welts have gashes on them, probably from her rings. I stop the bleeding in my mouth by sticking a rolled-up ball of wet toilet paper between my front teeth and upper lip. I wash myself, smear several streaks of iodine across my face and on my ears and when I feel steady enough I call my best friend.

“Herb, could you come over? Melanie really did a number on me this time. I might have to go to the hospital I think.”

“I’ll phone for an ambulance and run right over. Rest till I get there. Door unlocked?”

“I think so. Wow, my mouth hurts. I don’t see her suddenly being so considerate to think of locking the door so burglars can’t come in. If not, landlord’s got the keys. I doubt I can get to the door myself.”

I rest in bed. Herb comes with his wife in minutes. They wash my face and head and Debra says “Anything broken you think?”

“Maybe something in my chest. She kicked me. I think I blanked out but do remember a certain thumping going on down there when I was on the floor, but can’t tell for sure. It now feels numb.”

“We told you not to go back to her.”

“I wasn’t thinking. Believe me, never again.”

“You do, you lose us as friends.”

“I know. Thanks.”

“If only she’d done it once when we were with you,” Herb says, “you’d have had that witch in a sling by now and could have skipped all this.”

“No chance. She’s too careful that way. But maybe I got her this time only because of the extent of the beating and condition of my face.”

Ambulance comes and takes me away. I’m examined. I have two broken ribs and a broken nose and cheekbone and concussion and have lost all my hearing in one ear and several missing teeth. I’m kept in the hospital for weeks. I ask to see the police and learn they also want to see me. She’s pressed charges that I got drunk that night and tried to kill her. I tell them that’s bull and press countercharges against her. My lawyer tells me “The best you can get from this is that if you drop charges against her, she’ll drop hers against you. She’s got too strong a case.” And he reads me what she told the police: “He’s an erratic drunk. Not a regular drinker as our friends will tell you, but once every other month at home he drinks too much and falls all over the place banging his head and face, which is how he cut his ears and such and lost the teeth. I even picked up the teeth this time to show him what he was doing to himself, but threw them out the window when he rushed at me like a mad dog. For when he gets drunk like that he also occasionally goes berserk and throws things and slaps out at anything in his way. Since I live with him, who else you think gets the brunt? And let’s not be silly — you think I’d hit that man first? He might be a little smaller than me but he’s wiry and quick and powerful and once or twice in the past he hit me so good that I wouldn’t ever think of tangling with him except if I couldn’t get out of the house and it was fight him or lose my life. That’s what happened this time. The other times he battered me, though I never told our friends or even the ones who are just his friends and maybe believe him, because I was too ashamed and let’s face it, the man supports me, and never reported him to you because I knew he’d really give me a licking after that. And then every time after that he moves away out of remorse and in a few weeks pleads with me to take him back. I always did as I’m a sucker for such slob talk and do depend on him for a lot of things and I’m not so young and pretty where I can get another guy that quick and also when he isn’t so violently drunk like that he can be very sweet, but from now on I won’t.”

My lawyer says “The court will believe her rather than you which they always do in cases like this when the evidence isn’t entirely in your favor. Besides, even if they’ve doubts you weren’t lying, to most people the man’s supposed to fight back. Please, whatever you do from now on, stay clear of her.”

I drop charges, she drops hers, I’m ordered by the court to send her a certain sum of money every week if I’m going to live apart, and I move into a hotel, start looking for an apartment and, because of the notoriety our situation got, my boss asks me to look for another job. Month later Melanie calls and says “Thanks for this week’s check.”

“You’re welcome.”

“It’s nice speaking to you again.”

“It isn’t for me.”

“I want us to get back together, what do you say?”

“That last time was the last time of all the times and I never want to see or speak to you again,” and hang up.