Anne

by M. William Phelps

  Look, I’ve done my share of partying—but it was alcohol. I don’t judge anyone. But Jimmy was doing a lot more than “partying.”

  Anne walked over to Jimmy as he stood near the barbeque. “Hey, how are you?”

  Jimmy seemed “real happy-pappy.” But definitely out of it, feeling no pain.

  He smiled.

  “Everything okay, Jimmy?” Anne asked.

  “I’m feeling great, Anne. Just fucking fabulous.”

  Anne knew in that first moment she did not want to be around Jimmy. She needed to leave. Go back home. Forget about this guy. He was not the same person she had known long ago. Rekindling the relationship had been a mistake. Something in Jimmy had broken between the time she knew him and now. Yet, with Jimmy, Anne also knew, you couldn’t come out and say, “Look, you’re blasted off your rocker and I’m out of here.” That would not go over well. So she had to ease her way into explaining she was not going to be staying very long.

  As Anne stood watching Jimmy drink beers and grill, she kept thinking: I need to go home. I shouldn’t be here. This is all wrong.

  Jimmy took a call on a wireless phone tucked in his back pocket. Anne stood and listened.

  Thirty minutes went by.

  “Jimmy, listen, I am really not feeling well and I need to go home,” Anne finally said.

  Jimmy had his back to Anne as he tended the grill and talked, telling the person on the phone: “Hey, man, I gotta get going right now. I’ll catch you later.” Then he placed the phone down.

  “My blood sugar is just not working with me today, Jimmy,” Anne said. Jimmy knew Anne was diabetic. “I feel weak. I should leave right now. I’m so sorry. I’ll call you later. Maybe I can come by tomorrow.”

  Jimmy turned.

  “And I could see his eyes narrowing, if that makes any sense,” Anne remembered.

  * * *

  Jimmy had a rugged, blue-collar, country look about him. Thick black mustache, receding hairline, long black hair around his ears, which brushed his shoulders. A wide, pushed-in nose, like a boxer’s. He was unshaven.

  Staring at Anne, Jimmy glared. He was angry, Anne could tell. Seething about something.

  After a moment Jimmy said: “So you’re going to leave me too, Anne—is that it?”

  “To this day, I still don’t know what he meant by that,” Anne recalled.

  She did not respond.

  Whatever Jimmy was referring to, this statement lit a fire inside him. He hauled off and, with a backhand, cuffed Anne across her cheek. Her body flew into the carport wall next to where they stood. Jimmy was a strong, solidly built man. Anne was all of five feet six inches, just over one hundred pounds.

  “I didn’t know how bad it was, but I knew how bad it hurt,” Anne said. “I saw photos later . . . and my face was black.”

  A large welt puffed on the side of Anne’s face as she picked herself up off the ground after being hurled by the blow into the wall.

  The carport and back porch area where Jimmy Williams hit Anne across the face and fired a gun next to her head. (Photo courtest of Anne Bridges Johnson)

  However shakily, Anne managed to stand.

  Jimmy had a pistol in the crook of his back. He pulled it out. Pointed it at Anne’s head. Then fired several rounds to the right of her ear, the sound of the blasts ringing in her eardrum. Anne could smell gunpowder and see the smoke from the barrel.

  It was beyond comprehension to Anne that Jimmy had fired at her. The fact that he missed at such close range, however, spoke to how, if Jimmy had wanted Anne dead, he could have easily killed her in that moment.

  “You’re going inside!” Jimmy screamed, grabbing Anne by the arm, pulling her in through the back door, his pistol pointed on Anne the entire time.

  Anne was not going to argue with Jimmy. He was a madman—someone else entirely.

  “You sit your ass on that fucking couch right there and you do not move, understand me?” Jimmy said.

  Anne sat, the right side of her face and right ear throbbing. Her eardrum numb, ringing.

  “Yes, Jimmy. I understand.”

  Jimmy said nothing more. Instead, he walked toward the stairs leading up into the attic.

  Suddenly an epiphany hit me as I watched him walk up those stairs while looking back at me to make sure I wasn’t going anywhere. Everything that other woman had claimed about Jimmy drugging her and holding her hostage, I knew in this moment, it was likely all true.

  As Jimmy stepped off that last stair, and she could hear him up in the attic rummaging around, looking for God knows what, Anne was certain it was her turn.

  Anne thought: I am in big trouble. I am in so much trouble. I have to get out of here. I have to do something.

  Anne convinced herself it was time to make a move. She could not just sit and wait to see what Jimmy had planned. So she jumped up off the couch and ran out the screen door, the spring pulling back and slapping the door behind her, making a loud smack.

  By now it was completely dark outside. A clear night, yes, with moonlight casting a subtle glow about the countryside, and yet pitch-black and desolate. Anne could hear chirping crickets and their melodic trills, but she paid no attention to it. What she heard and saw confirmed no neighbors were anywhere in sight. Anne Bridges was alone, running now from the carport in back to the front of Jimmy’s house, wondering where she could hide from a man planning on not letting her go.

  Anne made it to the front yard and looked left and right for a porch or car light. Anything telling her a neighbor or passerby was around. She needed help. Her pocketbook was on the back porch, where her car keys were. She had not grabbed it. She needed to keep moving. Fast as she could. Find someone. Anyone. Get as far away from Jimmy Williams as she could.

  To her left, Anne saw a house in the distance up on a hill, but it did not have any lights on.

  “I should have run that way, anyway,” she recalled.

  But honestly, in a situation like the one I found myself in that night, you just don’t know what you’re going to do until you’re faced with making those decisions in that moment. I was later judged. Some said I changed my story.

  People should not put abused women in a category and judge. Say that abused women are low-income. Uneducated. That they cannot make good choices. That they do drugs. They drink themselves to sleep every night. That’s terribly unfair and judgmental.

  I don’t do any of that. I have a bachelor’s degree in education. And that makes me so mad that so many people today place abuse victims into those categories. Victims of violent crime are victims. Period.

  About halfway between the front porch and the road, Anne heard Jimmy’s screen door creak open and then slap shut.

  “Anne!” Jimmy yelled. He was outside now. On the porch. Looking for her.

  The porch where Jimmy Williams stood and fired at Anne. (Photo courtesy of Anne Bridges Johnson)

  Anne staggered across this lawn and into the road, where she fell, dizzy and fading, her back bloody from shotgun wounds. (Photos courtesy of Anne Bridges Johnson)

  She stopped. Turned.

  Oh, my . . .

  Jimmy had a shotgun in his hand, the barrel pointed directly at her.

  Run. Run for your life . . . as fast as you can, Anne thought.

  She turned and took off.

  “Annie . . . stop!”

  With her back to Jimmy, Anne ran in the opposite direction as hard and fast as she could.

  Then she heard a blast that sounded like a cannon going off.

  Light flashed behind her.

  The loud crack of Jimmy’s shotgun echoed throughout the forest around his house.

  Living in Alabama all her life, Anne was familiar with that sound.

  Before she even felt the spray and burn of metal BB projectiles punch her in the back, shoulders, and lower body, Anne Bridges was on the ground, knees tucked into her chest, screaming out in pain.

  Anne had just been hit directly across the largest portion of her body
by a blast from a twelve-gauge shotgun.

  CHAPTER 11

  Leaving her sister’s house after three days, Anne was finally in her own home. It had been nearly a month. She felt as if each day brought with it a glimmer of hope and, at the least, the opportunity to get back her strength and will. Anne was on the mend. It would take time, of course, but she was going to overcome her physical injuries, heal, and begin to rebuild her life.

  “My sister came by those first few days I was at home to make sure I got showered and could move around okay,” Anne remembered.

  You get home, you begin to heal little by little. I had to get my strength up and knew that to do that I needed to move around. I had no other choice: My son needed me healthy and to be there for him.

  Anne’s son and mother provided vital support and encouragement during her long and difficult recovery. (Photos courtesy of Tom Johnson)

  Anne’s mother, then heading into her eighties, stayed with her. Anne’s son, who was more than happy to have his mother back home, helped, too. Everyone pitched in.

  “My son was incredible. He was so worried about me.”

  Anne started to go out at night after becoming more mobile and was able to walk on her own again. She might pop over to her post office box to pick up her mail or run other errands, all under the cloak of darkness. Though the town she lived in had only two thousand residents then, in those early days of being home, it just felt better to Anne not to be seen. She didn’t think too much about it. When the sun went down, Anne hopped into her car and went out.

  “You okay, Mom?” her boy asked one night as she was leaving. “You all right going out at night by yourself?”

  “I’m fine.”

  As the weeks passed, Anne wound up swapping bedrooms with her son. She could not sleep in her old room, for some reason. The walls began to close in on her. She felt out of place. She could never figure out why, exactly, other than it being a bedroom she did not want to be in. Something was happening. She felt anxious all the time. A bit of paranoia crept up on her from time to time. Sounds of people walking inside the house, the creaking of stairs or a door opening, cars driving by the house, were magnified and made more intense by a sudden realization that she was hearing all of it with a profound sense of detail. More often than not, Anne recognized where people were inside the house.

  When I came home, after those first few weeks, I needed night-lights. I needed to keep my bedroom door open. I had to have the bathroom door down the hallway open, a light on in there. When my son came in at night, he needed to come into my room and let me know he was home.

  Anne even wanted her mother to sleep with her at night.

  “It was like reverting back to being a child. I hated the nighttime. The first time I actually went out in public at night with my sister and brother-in-law, I was shaky and nervous.”

  Weeks went by and Anne developed sleep paralysis. A terrifying condition, when you are just waking up or even falling asleep, you are aware of your surroundings and what is happening, but you are unable to move. What’s even more alarming is that while this is happening, you might hear, see, and even feel things that just are not there.

  “I still have nightmares to this day,” Anne added. “I am on medication to help me sleep. I am terrified of guns. Fireworks send me under covers, with a pillow over my head. I have my bodily scars I see every day, along with my emotional scars.”

  * * *

  Anne would soon learn that during those early days of being home from the hospital she was experiencing the beginning of severe PTSD, a mental-health issue (as of this writing) growing by almost 3 million new cases per year in the United States.

  A normal reaction to a life-threatening event, such as a natural disaster, terrorist attack, car accident, rape, sexual assault, military combat, violent incident, robbery, or any number of additional traumatic episodes, would be to have trouble sleeping, a feeling of always being on edge and anxiousness. You might have a hard time managing daily activities, such as working, going to school, spending time with loved ones. For many, the symptoms gradually subside after a few weeks or months, and life starts to feel pretty much as normal as it did before the incident. But for others, especially those who have suffered injuries during the incident, that is not the case. When the symptoms carry on, and your life is entirely disrupted, and you cannot seem to overcome the distractions brought on by the incident, you might be suffering post-traumatic stress disorder. Many PTSD sufferers experience bad dreams, terrifying thoughts, anxious flashbacks of the event, reliving it in their minds, while enduring a racing heart, sweating, and other symptoms of chronic anxiety. The event, or events, can feel as real as it did when it took place, even months or years afterward.

  What’s important to note is that experiencing PTSD is not a sign of weakness. None of it is under your control. None of it is your fault.

  “I started to not want to go out at night and even be inside a car,” Anne recalled.

  It had been months after the incident for Anne and her symptoms were not diminishing at all. In fact, they were escalating. She’d go a few days without noticing many intense symptoms and think she had it under control. Yet she actually had no idea how bad her PTSD had become.

  “To this day,” Anne added, “all this time later, there are nights when I still have nightmares about him.”

  In the dream Jimmy is always coming after her and she is running away from him.

  I always considered myself a very strong, independent woman, iron-willed, and able to take care of myself. I don’t like to admit defeat or show weakness. I don’t put up with rude people. I step away from people if they are going to cause me any trouble.

  But this . . . this was something else entirely. I was a different person. I was suffering. I was tarnished by it all. I had escaped death and survived, but I was not myself any longer.

  I thought I could handle it. I thought this was something I could handle with enough time between me and what had happened. I had no idea what was going on. But sooner or later, I began to see, I had to face reality.

  And here is the honest truth of the matter: I never thought something like this would happen to me. A cliché, I guess you could say about that. Like teenagers, for example, who are fearless and think they are indispensable. I was the same way. Yet there I was, still being victimized by him—long after the actual incident had occurred.

  Anne had faced the violent side of the real world. Another intense feeling she began to experience was that she had allowed this to happen. Anne was a person who had always believed she could read people, would never allow herself to be put in a position where something bad could take place.

  Blame and shame: two additional symptoms of being victimized.

  It was going to be a hard fight for Anne Bridges.

  CHAPTER 12

  Her back burned like someone had poured gasoline on it and struck a match.

  Can you imagine the fear that ran through my body? While at that same time I felt what was like fire burning all over my back.

  The worst was yet to come, however, as far as any physical pain Jimmy would put her through. Anne Bridges just didn’t know it.

  Within seconds Anne realized Jimmy had fired his weapon, and dozens of steel BBs had launched out of a twelve-gauge shotgun shell toward her. Many of these had struck Anne all over her back.

  She was lucky to be breathing.

  Anne had hit the ground and curled the back of her legs underneath her bottom and screamed as loud as she could. By now, she was just across the street from Jimmy’s house on the other side of the road.

  Paralyzed by shock and fear, as she winced and twisted in agony, Anne could hear Jimmy running.

  Toward her.

  Footsteps in the brush. Moving quickly.

  No . . . no . . . my God, no.

  * * *

  “Damn you . . . ,” Jimmy said when he reached Anne. He held his weapon on Anne, as if she were some sort of wild creature he’d hunted
and shot.

  Anne could not speak. All she could do was scream. The burning sensation of metal BBs lodged underneath her skin, tearing into her flesh and muscle and organs, was unbearable.

  Jimmy grabbed Anne by the crook of her armpit and dragged her across the road. She could not stand.

  “Get the hell up on your feet,” he said through clenched teeth. “Get up on your feet right now, Anne.”

  “Ow . . . ow,” Anne said.

  She tried to stand, but kept falling down.

  “Get your ass up on your feet.”

  Anne screamed in anguish.

  They made it to the porch. With the shotgun in one hand, Jimmy opened the door with his other, as Anne fell to the ground.

  “Come on,” he said, grabbing her by the arm, his right leg holding the door open. “Get up.”

  Inside the foyer Jimmy dragged Anne into the house and she fell in fatigue onto the carpeted floor.

  The shotgun pain was bad—I don’t even know how to explain how painful it was. But what Jimmy did to me next, I cannot even begin to describe how horrible and how bad the burning was—it will always be the worst thing I have ever felt in my life. Death would have been less painful.

  Jimmy said, “Get up off that floor—right now.”

  Dizzy, weak, and wobbly, Anne stood.

  “Walk,” he said.

  Anne could hardly move. Her back was bleeding, her shirt drenched in blood. She didn’t know it then, obviously, but several steel BBs had penetrated a lung, her liver, and her shoulder. One pressed against the subclavian artery, a major source of blood flow to the arm, hands, and heart. Anne was losing blood fast, growing weaker by the minute.