by Jon Bassoff
That damn twitch.
Jennie felt it just below her skin, a phantom needle inside her face.
She tried to ignore it while the fat cop explained everything to her, but still the twitch was there. She stood outside her mom’s prefab. Mid-afternoon and the sun was hard and hot on Jennie’s shoulders. Yellow crime scene tape wrapped the house. The neighbors were out for a look—the jarhead lounged in a lawn chair and the family across the way gathered like a posse. Mom, dad, and three spit-mouthed toddlers watched the cops move in and out of the house. Two detectives—in ill-fitting Sears suits—pulled onto the scene and marched inside with legal pads. An ambulance and the volunteer fire department and a state trooper showed before them, a real big show for all the neighbors.
The fat cop—not a trooper, but a local cop with the county sheriff—waved his hand in front of Jennie’s face. “Hey there,” he said. “You’re still with me, right, Jennie?”
Jennie nodded and crossed her arms over her chest. “Yeah.”
“We won’t know cause of death for forty-eight hours,” he said. “When we know, homicide will give you a call.”
“Cause of death? Someone fucking beat her to death.”
“That’s what it looks like, but we need specifics, Jennie, that’s all. If you want, I can help you call somebody to pick you up.”
“My car is right there,” Jennie motioned toward her little Honda. “I can drive myself.”
Fat Cop nodded and walked back into the house.
Jennie kept seeing the black-blue bruises on her mom’s face and naked body. Dark splotches marked her mom’s pale, translucent skin.
Naked. My mom died naked.
Jennie used the jarhead’s cell phone to call around town, but nobody had seen her mom for a few days. So, Jennie broke a window over the kitchen sink. She saw the blood as she tried to shimmy in through the window. The blood was black and sticky and thick. Jennie thought of blood as red, but her mom’s blood was deep and dark like motor oil. Naked. Her mom died naked. Climbing through the window, Jennie saw the long, thin scar across her mom’s stomach. It was the scar Jennie left when she was a baby—she’d marked this woman for life, her mother.
Jennie used the jarhead’s phone again. She called the cops. And now, here she was, standing outside her mom’s prefab while detectives dusted for prints and looked for evidence.
Fuck me. Fuck me. Fuck me.
Jennie walked to her car. She collapsed inside and locked the doors. There was her face, it stared at itself in the rearview mirror. It was an older face than Jennie felt, wrinkled from smoking cigarettes and far too pale. “Mom,” Jennie said, “I’m pregnant.” There was that twitch again. It burned the corner of Jennie’s eye.
Her gaze shifted to the house, to the crime scene investigators marching in and out her mom’s front door, to the neighbors lounging in lawn chairs and smoking their cigarettes. And then, without Jennie noticing, two salty tears rolled down her right cheek and dripped from her trembling chin.
Ronnie parked his Plymouth behind Jennie’s Honda. Past her car, he could see the lights on inside their single-wide mobile home—well, not theirs exactly, but they lived in it. They rented it from Marl who, one way or the other, had a few properties he rented out across The Mesa. The mobile home was newer, not bad for what they paid, but Ronnie was fed up with paying rent. Seemed to him that he and Jennie could find a way to buy their own land. They could get a prefab home or maybe build their own place over a couple years.
For now, though, this was it. A single-wide with one bedroom and one bath, a little patio out front covered by a Walmart tarpaulin.
Ronnie wasn’t sure what was up with Jennie the past few weeks. She’d spent less time drawing and more time watching cooking and reality shows. Shit, one night she stayed up past midnight playing Nintendo. Nothing wrong with that, but Ronnie could tell she was drifting. She was somewhere else, not there with him at all. Ronnie knew things bore down on relationships. He knew that not having enough money stressed them both until they were at each other’s throats. With Ronnie’s first check each month they paid Marl his rent money. Then, they paid utility and cable bills—two weeks late—with the second check. That second check left them with $150 to get through three weeks of food and gas and whatever else they needed. They did it. It was possible, but it wasn’t pleasant. And for Ronnie, each month seemed to add more and more pressure until their relationship wouldn’t hold together. Sometimes Jennie could make some cash babysitting or from a tattoo she put on somebody, but it was never enough to save anything—that was just money to catch them up on bills.
He was kidding himself. No, lying to himself. How would he ever buy land? He was lucky to have a bank account. He was lucky to have a car that started when it was cold. He was lucky to have Jennie, a girl who would laugh with him at stupid jokes and watch cartoons when he wanted.
Ronnie locked the Plymouth. It was dark out, but he could make out the Joshua tree silhouettes in the distance. The trees pointed at the sky like jagged fingers on the horizon and for a moment Ronnie could feel that firm and certain pull deep inside his chest—this was home, his place.
He unlocked the door and found Jennie sitting on the sofa. She had a beer in one hand and she was, Ronnie could tell, crying. He let the door slam behind him and sat down next to her. “Rough day?”
“You could say that,” Jennie handed him the beer. “Went over to my mom’s house today.”
“How’s she doing?” Ronnie took a long swig from the bottle and finished it.
Jennie laughed.
She let it out first like a secret sound, but it built and built until she was crying again. Ronnie watched her without moving. Times like these, he didn’t know how to react. Jennie wiped the tears away and stared at the ceiling, that leaky ceiling with its brown-black circles where the rainwater pooled and seeped.
“She’s not doing too good,” Jennie said. “She’s dead.”
Ronnie felt a twist form inside his belly, a tear that started and stretched up into his heart and stretched down into his groin. He felt like cheap plastic ripped into nothing by a child’s hands. Heroin—that was Ronnie’s first thought. Maybe one load too many for Cheryl? It was cruel and he felt guilty at the thought, but it was a logical conclusion. “Sweetie, I’m sorry.” He moved closer to her and picked up her hands. They were limp and cold and pale. “Why didn’t you call me?”
Jennie’s eyes pivoted to Ronnie’s. The green inside them, somehow, seemed less olive-bright. Behind those eyes, something had given way and Ronnie could sense this burden hanging there in the darkness of Jennie’s mind. “Someone killed her, Ronnie. Someone beat my mom to death.”
The moment came down on Ronnie like a shadow, a heavy-hot blanket that settled and suffocated him until breathing was work. The moment smothered him. They sat in silence. Then, Jennie cleared her throat. Ronnie watched as she inhaled and stretched her neck. There was something else.
“I’ve been waiting to tell you something, Ronnie.”
“Okay.” He squeezed her hands.
“Ronnie.” Deep breath. “I’m…”
She looked down at her belly. He followed her eyes.
Click here to learn more about Accidental Outlaws by Matt Phillips.
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