This story has graphic content, descriptions of violence and references to sexual assault.
Joe liked to kick in doors, so I slid a chair from the dining room and jammed the delicate top rail of the Queen Anne under the knob. I did the same for the back door and made sure all the windows were latched. I listened to the muted traffic on the street, to my own breathing. I never felt so alone.
The police in Bakersfield hadn't been much help. Joe had a way of blaming his episodes on the war. He never talked about surviving a Japanese wave assault in the jungle until after he beat the hell out of me, and the law got involved. Then, he made sure to discuss his service. A lot of the officers were veterans. A few of them even saw action. They all had a way of excusing him because they could tell Joe's war had been a lot harder than theirs.
Things had to be different in Reno. I had to make sure of that. I called and spoke to dispatch. They told me a couple officers would come take my statement, but it would be about an hour.
I took off my dress and my jewelry, washed the makeup off my face and slid into the clean sheets with just my bra and my slip. I pulled up the scratchy green throw blanket my mother knitted. I tucked it under my chin, the faint scent of mothballs reminded me of home.
I closed my eyes. I could see my mother rocking on her porch. "If you did as your man asked there would be harmony like with Christ and his Church."
I twisted to the other side put the bunched up downy pillow over my head to block out the light. My breath was warm and moist.
"Your hair is going to be a matted mess. What will those fine officers think?" My mother continued to rock in her pea green dress, her black cat-eye glasses and her arms limp on the arm rests.
I tried to speak to her, but I was just a little girl, and it was her voice that came out of my mouth. "Everything I do turns to mush. I can't do anything right."
The air under the pillow was stale and I couldn't stand it anymore. I pulled my head out and the cool fresh air filled my chest, but the light through the drapes chased me back under. I just needed fifteen minutes of relief. I didn't want to die, but I wanted to take a break from being alive.
A car rumbled down the street without its muffler. It stopped at the corner and drove away disappearing into the darkness of my mind. I kicked off the covers and sat up, my shift all bunched. The thin carpet laid down on the old hardwood carried a chill. I turned the knob of Sheila's gold faced single speaker Zenith. I twisted the other knob following the double arrow around the metallic dial.
I settled on Eddy Arnold, "Don't Rob Another Man's Castle". "Someone just stole her from Me..."
I sank down onto the floor. Sheila's wooden bed frame dug into my back. I am just property. That is all I can ever be.
I put my dress back on but didn't bother painting my face, let these police see me as I am not as they want me to be.
I opened my journal and edited one of my stories. I'd sold three under pen names to pulp magazines for a total of $75. Just then, I was working on an adventure story for a second-rate western rag and a yarn about two coeds in love for a ladies journal. I had no idea if they would be accepted. I had a half-finished novel that I didn't dare to share.
I picked up Carson Mcculler's, "The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter." I traced my finger over her profile picture. If I could write like her. I wouldn't mind dying.
I took a milk bottle out of the refrigerator and poured myself half a glass. The creaminess had a faint aftertaste something like a barnyard. I opened the breadbox and sliced a piece, spread warm butter from edge to edge.
The radio played a few more songs before someone finally knocked on the door. I peeked through the window. Two uniformed deputies stood in the snow. I moved the chair and let them in.
They sat on Mrs. Grainger's couch, and I was thankful that she wasn't here to see this.
They gave me a black pen, and a form to fill out on a hard brown clipboard. The uniforms and the crew cuts, it was hard to assign these men any individuality. The taller one had big ears and dark liquid eyes, he didn't seem like a hard man, more like a boy trying to fit into a costume; he didn't realize he looked more like a possum than a Dick Tracy.
The other one was short and pudgy, big fat cheeks and when he looked at me, I felt greasy. He just saw a dish. He didn't really see me at all. He looked around, sizing up the place. He was the one that did all the talking; the other one was just his audience.
"Do you mind if I smoke?"
"No of course not." I slid an ashtray past the Good Housekeeping magazine, so he wouldn't have to reach.
"How long has it been?"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean since you left your man."
"I was granted a divorce about a year ago."
"But you stuck around in Reno. Most girls go back home. What made you stay?"
I worked at putting my age and address on the proper line, there's never enough room and some of my writing spilled out into the margins.
I looked up. "I'm sorry I got distracted. Me and my good friend, we had to borrow a lot of money for the lawyer's and for the room and board. Sheila was seeing this guy from Sparks and he took off with our rent. I had a car accident about six months ago. I still owe money on that car, but the junk man didn't give me what I owed. I don't want to go into all our money problems it's not what this is all about. I just want to know how my ex-husband got paroled without anyone ever telling me. Plus, he was serving time in California. He shouldn't be allowed to leave the state, let alone come and threaten me."
"Well, you just put down what happened on the bottom of the form there. We see this kind of thing a lot, probably more than any other city in the country. After all this is the divorce capital of the world."
"What do you do to these men?"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean these men that come and harass their wives, beat them, follow them around."
"Well, you're not going to want to hear this, but we have to take into account the other side of the story too. We are not a private security company. A man has a right to speak with his wife. If things get heated and he crosses the line then we can do something about that, but these other difficulties are better handled before we get there. It's been a year... What does your new beau say about all this?"
"I don't have one."
"A good-looking girl like you. By golly she can have the pick of the litter."
"I haven't had much luck in that department."
"I hope I'm not being too forward, but when a guy like this sees that you haven't moved on. He kind of thinks that you are still carrying a torch. You need to put him in the past. There's no better way than to find someone to take his place. That's how these things resolve themselves. Your ex will come around a few times and your new beau if he is the right type will put him in his place. It's just the nature of these things."
I gave the officer a smile and did my best to write out the danger I was in onto the four-inch spot reserved at the bottom of the page. Everything inside of me was screaming but I was just a lousy mouse. I couldn't think of the words that would make them listen and take this seriously.
I handed back the form. The officers got into their patrol car, and I watched them drive away. I put the chair against the door, went back into our room. I sat on Sheila's bed and stared at the half-finished painting on her easel, a cowboy on the back of a spinning black bull. The streaking colors, the faces of each patron in the stands. That was something that transcended. Something greater than me, or Sheila, or the house, or the city, or all of America, but maybe not quite greater than the world itself. I knelt down before the painting. The bull eternally spinning, the man reaching towards the heavens with his single hand. I wasn't sure about the man. I didn't understand what made him climb into the arena, but I sure did understand the bull.
