Two in the Head

by Eric Beetner

  The lower back—scourge of the middle-aged suburbanite everywhere.

  “What the fuck, Barry?” Sam said. “I was gonna ask you what flavor jelly you had.”

  Barry wailed worse than if he’d been shot. His eyes squeezed tight and his face turned red as he strained against the pain. Marjorie sat up straight in her seat, a wifely concern on her face, but she stayed put.

  “His back,” she said. “It goes out from time to time.”

  “Looks like that time is now,” Sam said. “When does he shut up?”

  I bent down to Barry. “You okay?” He moaned back at me, continued his writhing like a bug under a magnifying glass in the hot sun.

  “Leave him alone, he’s fine,” Sam said.

  “He’s obviously not.”

  “He fell down. Big fucking deal. Believe me, I could make things a lot worse for him.” Sam stepped into the kitchen, closer to Barry for him to hear. “And I will if you don’t shut the fuck up.”

  He didn’t shut the fuck up.

  “Leave him alone,” I said. “Let’s wait until Lucas gets here. Maybe we should go to the living room. I can put him on the couch.”

  “Fuck it, no. Get up Barry. Quit your whining.”

  Barry fell quiet for a moment. He moved his body, trying to get his legs under him. The movement only made him start moaning again.

  “He fell hard, maybe he fractured a vertebrae or something. Or broke his coccyx.”

  “He broke his ass? I don’t think so. He’s stalling. Trying to make a distraction.” She leaned down and shouted at him again. “Nice try Barry.”

  “At least let me get him to the couch so he can lay down.”

  “No, he needs to lay down on a flat, hard surface,” Marjorie said. “We usually use the front hall.”

  “Oh you’d like that wouldn’t you?” Sam aimed the gun back at Marjorie. “Divide and conquer, huh? Split up and someone goes for the gun? Is that it?” Sam stuffed her pistol back into her waistband and went to the kitchen.

  She passed right in front of me. The air brushed my hair. I could have reached out a hand and stopped her. I could have twisted her arm and pinned her to the wall in about three seconds flat, disarm her. End this. I could do it with my training, my experience. I could do it. Only, I couldn’t.

  My arms stayed frustratingly at my side.

  “Leave him the fuck alone,” I squeaked out. The synapses firing to move my arm had been redirected, a lone curse word the token gesture from my changing brain chemistry. It didn’t help Barry.

  “Shut up!” She bent down so she almost touched his face with hers. She kicked at his back and he turned up the volume on the moaning. Sam turned, opened a drawer. A clang of metal utensils. She slammed it shut again, opened the one next to it. More rattling of silverware, whisks, slotted spoons. She dug in, pushed aside the unworthy and came out with something in her hand.

  Marjorie gasped. I turned to her, she held a frightened hand frozen over her mouth. I spun back to Sam and saw what she held. A potato peeler. Small, chrome-plated, a dagger on the end and two razors with a gap in the middle for sectioning off thin slices of potato peel. Carrots too. Call it what you want, Barry wanted no part of it. Can’t say I blame him.

  Sam bent down to him brandishing the peeler like a switchblade. “What’s it gonna be Barry? You gonna shut up like I asked you, or do I peel the skin off your nose?” She set the peeler against the bridge of his nose, between his eyes. There was a lot of flesh to be had off that beak.

  Barry clamped his mouth shut, tears forming in his eyes threatening to rust the blade of that peeler. Sam held his shirt front, an ugly tie with duck decoys on it bunched up in her fist.

  “Stop it,” I said.

  “Or what? You’ll say a dirty word again?” She kept her eyes locked on Barry. She pushed against his chest, twisting his spine. He couldn’t contain the cry of pain.

  “Keep it together, Barry,” she said. “Maybe the fingers are better.” She moved the peeler down to his hand. She took his wrist, pulled his hand up toward her, set the peeler against his index finger.

  “They have nothing to do with it,” I said. A little bit of anger came to my throat. My threats may have still been empty, but they sounded a little fuller. Sam dispensed with the witty rejoinder.

  Barry whimpered like a dog having his nose rubbed in a piss stain on the carpet.

  “I’ll ask you one more time Barry. Shut up. You’re giving me a headache.”

  A headache summed up how we lived every minute these past few days. Barry had nothing to do with it.

  “Barry honey, listen to her,” Marjorie pleaded. “Please.”

  “Where’s it hurt, Barry?” Sam turned his body, spinning him on a slick of spilled coffee. He stifled a yelp. I watched her move him deliberately. She had no interest in him being quiet. She was enjoying herself too much.

  “Here?” She lifted her foot and I cried out like a horror movie actress.

  “Nooooo!” Did about as much good too.

  Her shoe came crashing down onto his lower back. Barry screamed, making a better horror movie bimbo than I did.

  “That does it,” she said and flipped him back over.

  I felt like my body almost let me move, let me leap in and pull her off. The attack, the violence of it was too much. Even in defense of someone else, I couldn’t be the instigator of violence. It felt closer than ever, though. I strained like an Olympic weight lifter to make my muscles respond.

  Sam took the peeler, grabbed Barry’s right hand, but she didn’t run the tool down his finger, stripping off flesh. She turned the blade to the dagger end. The shovel-shaped tool used for digging out eyes on a potato. She pushed it up under the fingernail of his ring finger.

  His screams before were only a warm up for this performance.

  I slapped my hands over my ears, shut my eyes only to see her view of his agonized face.

  I heard Marjorie get up. Her thick thighs banged against the breakfast nook table and her sunflower mug fell to the floor. I opened my eyes again to see her moving away toward the stairs. She’d seen her chance and she took it.

  Sam saw her too. She ripped back on the peeler, tearing the blade out from underneath Barry’s nail and splashing blood on the tile to mix with the coffee.

  She ran past me again, and again my body did nothing to respond. My head ached with the effort. I’m sure I know what it feels like to be paralyzed.

  Marjorie made it to the stairs, moving faster than a stay-at-home mother of two should be able to. Barry’s extra twenty pounds had a twin riding on each of her hips. She hit the fourth stair on her way to her bedroom and the promise of her Smith and Wesson before Sam caught her.

  Sam’s hand reached out and grabbed a fistful of hair, pulling back and bringing Marjorie off her feet. Her momentum switched in an instant from forward and up, to backward and down. Marjorie’s body hit the stairs and slid to the floor of the hall.

  Tears clouded my view and Barry’s screams next to me drowned out most of the sound except for the high wheezing of Marjorie fighting to fill her lungs again after the fall. A scream strained to get out, but she couldn’t make a sound until she could breathe.

  Sam dragged her back to the kitchen, caveman-style, and dumped her on the floor next to her husband. The tangle of Marjorie’s hair soaked up the blood from Barry’s finger.

  A PLAN OF ACTION (NOT MINE THOUGH)

  “Going for the gun, weren’t you Marge?”

  Marjorie and her husband both curled on the kitchen floor, a pair of newborns slimed with blood and unable to speak yet.

  Sam turned to me, “Don’t need to be able to look into her brain for that one, huh?”

  I tried my best angry stare. It got a laugh from her.

  “Know what?” she said. “I want you to go get it.”

  “Huh?”

  “The gun. Go upstairs and get it.” She looked me square in the eye as she said it. N
o joke. Dead serious.

  “The gun?” A mixture of stall tactics and genuine amazement she would trust me to get a gun on my own and bring it downstairs.

  Sam turned to the bloodbath in the kitchen. “Where is it, Marge? Still in the nightstand?” When Marjorie didn’t answer she turned back to me. “It’s always in the nightstand.” She folded her arms across her chest, watching me expectantly.

  “You want me to go upstairs and get her gun?” I said.

  “I know you’re not that stupid so quit stalling and go get it.”

  She might as well have said, “Double dare you.” A test. She wanted to see how much I gained beyond an occasional curse word. And she bet it all that I didn’t have much more.

  I doubted I did either. It’s a hell of a long way from an f-bomb to pulling a trigger. And I’d have to pull it. I’d have to shoot to injure her (and me at the same time, we both knew). Threats with a gun wouldn’t work. She’d know exactly what threats were real and what weren’t. Neither one of us knew if I’d be able to pull the trigger until the second I did or did not.

  I turned for the stairs. Sam leaned back against the counter where I’d stood earlier. Her face read smug and in control. I wanted back the crying glimpse of vulnerability I saw last night.

  Barry at least quieted down.

  I took the stairs slow, waiting for the yank of my hair to pull me back down. True to her word, she let me go. As I passed to the second floor, she slipped out of sight. No gun in her hand when I left her. She’d have to be really confident in my inability to do anything so completely against my “good” side as shoot a gun, to not have hers drawn when I returned.

  The gun was in the nightstand.

  The thin walnut box didn’t have a lock on it. With the pearl inlay on top I wondered if maybe she repurposed a jewelry box, but when I opened it the burgundy velvet lining draped over a fitted foam molding cradling the gun in style. That Barry can give a hell of an anniversary gift.

  Sam hadn’t asked for them specifically, but I reached deeper into the drawer for the bullets. I drew out a small box, the plastic seal broken at one end. I opened the cardboard flap and slid out the tray. Rows of shiny brass circles shone in the light of bedside lamp. I cracked the barrel on the gun, filled the empty chambers and then shut the box of ammo and held it in my left hand. The gun went in my right. My shooting hand.

  I turned, half expecting to see Sam waiting for me in the doorway, her gun drawn. Nothing. I went back to the stairs.

  I felt the hot wire burn in my head of her looking in. I didn’t feel it when I loaded the gun so I wasn’t sure if she saw. Could be she reached deeper now, into my decision making. Trying to figure out if I planned on shooting or not.

  I thought about other things. I ran down the lyrics to Jumpin’ Jack Flash. Give me a break, it was the first thing that came to me. I hadn’t made up my mind if I would even try to get my muscles to obey, but I didn’t want her to see the choice before I did.

  Descending the stairs was agonizing because I knew she could see me before I could see her. I flashed into her eyes for a second and saw my legs on the steps, moving slowly.

  I saw Marjorie first. Still on the floor, she looked up at me, a streak of blood on her cheek from Barry’s finger. Her eyes pleaded for help. She knew I’d been the kind one, the one who begged Sam to stop. She knew if she had a chance, I might be it. Her eyes said, “Use the gun. Shoot her. Kill her. Let’s all get out of here.”

  Easy for you to say, Marge.

  I reached the bottom step, bullets in one hand, fully loaded Smith and Wesson in the other. The gun hung down by my hip, unthreatening. Sam wasn’t holding hers. It still cooled in her waistband behind her back. I’d have the advantage if I decided to draw. If I could.

  She held the same arms-crossed self-satisfied pose. Double dog dare you.

  I tested my arm, lifted a little. The gun felt a thousand pounds. But it moved. I stepped slowly forward, deliberately walking the way you do in a hostage situation. No sudden moves, no one gets jumpy. No Barry-like torture moves for me.

  I brought the gun up even with my stomach, the barrel pointed at Sam. She smiled with lips drawn tight. I stood only five paces away from her. I raised the gun to firing position. The barrel drooped in my hand, a taut rope pulling at my arm, wanting to put the gun back down, get rid of the threat. No aggression. No violence. Not allowed.

  Sam shifted in place. “Well?”

  I came that far but I hadn’t told my brain to pull the trigger yet. The big decision: shoot to kill or to wound?

  Daddy always said if you draw on a man, you draw to put him down. And stay down. A gun is serious business. You want to wound someone, bring a knife. You want to kill a man, bring a gun.

  How would he feel if he stood there looking at killing himself?

  Blake would have a plan. Sure, so far Blake’s plans sucked, but still, Lucas might have a plan of his own. Sure, he was totally untrained for this type of situation and he’s never fired a gun before and he fights worse than a teenage girl. But they’d have something, right?

  Sam stared down the barrel of the gun. This seemed like great fun to her.

  “Y’know it’s sad really. To know that you’re a part of me. Well, used to be. And now look at you. Can’t even pull a trigger when you know the person you’re aiming at wants to kill Lucas. Pathetic.”

  I wanted to. I really did. There was no goddamn point anymore. Why should I work so hard to stay alive when killing her/us would be the end to all this? And if I survived I’d be spending a lifetime in prison anyway? Even with all the evidence I could turn over, even with Lucas on my side arguing for leniency, I’m still going to prison for a long damn time. And former DEA agents in prison? Not a pretty sight. Don’t think women’s prison is any better than men’s prison either. Haven’t you ever seen Caged Heat?

  Every ounce of my focus concentrated on the tiny muscles controlling my index finger. One small contraction and the trigger would pull, this would end. Lucas would live, he’d nail Calder and Rizzo and the next scum bag drug lord would move in Monday morning to start the game all over again.

  My head throbbed. With the amount of brain power I laser beamed into one joint in my body I could have moved a semi truck. I could have bent spoons, turned off light switches, moved Ouija boards. The concentrated electricity of a billion synapses firing with one single purpose still couldn’t move one damn finger joint.

  Sam reached out and took the gun from my hand. I let it go. Marjorie put her head back on the floor.

  I braced myself for a crack across the jaw with the butt of the gun or a fist to the gut. Some sort of acknowledgment of her dominance over me.

  Instead she locked eyes with mine and said, “Dad would have liked me a hell of a lot more than you.”

  Damn. The truth hurt worst of all.

  KNOCK, KNOCK. WHO’S THERE?

  “Get everyone up. They’ll be here soon.” Sam moved past me into the living room. I went to Marjorie first, put a hand under her armpit and helped her stand up. The blood already started drying in her hair and she moved a little wobbly from her hard fall. I sent her out to join Sam and pulled open three drawers before I found a dish towel and wrapped Barry’s hand in it. The blood had mostly slowed, but it felt like doing something to wrap it up. Plus, we didn’t have to look at his ruined fingernail and bloody hand anymore.

  He shuffled into the living room a broken man, me as his escort.

  Sam stood. I put Barry on the couch next to Marjorie and she instinctively reached out for his hand. He yelped and pulled his dishtowel back to his lap and she apologized over and over, patting his shoulder like a puppy.

  “You now this won’t work,” I said to Sam.

  “Do you know it won’t work?”

  My answer froze in my throat. I didn’t know for sure. From everything I’d seen, she seemed damn sure to kill Lucas as soon as he showed up. I wondered if she would cry then.


  “We love him, you know.”

  “You love him.”

  “We do. Anything I feel, you feel too.”

  “Bullshit.”

  I pinched flesh on my forearm and twisted. Sam’s arm jerked involuntarily. “See?” I said.

  “Look, I’m glad you have so much love filling your heart. You got it all, you see? I didn’t get shit. Not one drop. There is no love in here.” She tapped on her chest with the butt of her gun, the Smith and Wesson still tucked in her belt. “Same as you try really hard to hate me but there’s no hate inside, I have no love. Fucking waste of time anyway.”

  But she was wrong. I did hate her. It just wouldn’t come out. Yet.

  The feeling had grown since two days ago. I took on shape, recognizable form. I could name it. Hate. Bone marrow deep. For her. For Calder and Rizzo. For the old me. I felt hate all right, like an old friend come to visit.

  A car pulled into the driveway. Sam turned and watched through the blinds. Marjorie and Barry huddled closer together.

  “What the fuck?” Sam said. A knock on the door. “Answer it,” she said to me.

  I opened the door to find Blake standing on the porch, his arm sling over his shoulder. No Lucas. He hesitated, unsure which one of us opened the door. He saw something in me, my eyes maybe, and he relaxed a tiny bit.

  “You okay?”

  I shrugged. “A little too early to tell.”

  “Where the fuck is he?”

  Blake stepped slowly inside, his hands visible and palms out. He saw Marjorie and Barry on the couch, the bloody dish towel on his hand, the stiff coagulated red of her hair.

  “You two okay?”

  “Don’t worry about them,” Sam said, waving over Blake’s attention with the gun. “Where is he?”

  “Not here.”

  “I can see that, asshole.”

  “You want me to call him?”

  Bless you Blake. You did have a plan.