by E M Kaplan
“Then, Peter came out of his room, and I gave her my arm…and we went to breakfast. She was still wearing her hat and sunglasses at the table, you have to understand, so it was very hard to tell. Especially because it’s pleasantly underlit in that room. I love atmospheric lighting, don’t you?
“Eventually, of course, she stopped breathing. And Peter noticed. We called the ambulance, but it was much too late to save her.
“My poor, foolish brother. He’ll have to find yet another girl to beat into a bloody pulp.” He thought about it. “He actually thought he would be a good husband to her. ‘I love her,’” he mocked his absent brother. “‘I think I could have been a really good husband to her. I could have turned over a whole new leaf. Given up drinking. Stayed home most every night. Given her what she wanted. Why did she have to die? I think I loved her. Truly, I mean.’ Way to go, Othello. Obviously he was deluded. He was blinded by that pathetic girl that he’d married. That round-eyed blond nothing who’d had less of a soul than the dog we used to have, a ratty little spaniel named Checkers.” Michael contemplated the end of his cigarette and tossed it away.
“My brother beat that girl so many times that she quivered every time he stepped into the room—even when he was sober and repentant. It had been so easy to get her into my bed, offering her protection from my brother and restoring a false sense of comfort. That had been entertaining for a short while. But then, like everything else, it had gotten tedious.
“For kicks, I convinced her to marry Peter. ‘It’ll be for the best,’ I had told her one afternoon when Peter was out. ‘That way, if you get pregnant again, you’ll be able to keep it next time.’ And her eyes had lit up with happiness. She’d practically wept with joy and had been so grateful that I’d had to take her to bed with me immediately. Usually, our encounters had been at night after Peter passed out. Sometimes, I would come across her in the kitchen after Peter had already used her, her face a bloody mess. She was easiest then, and I’d been able to take her in any way I’d wanted.”
Peter was on his way back to them now. Michael glanced at him.
“What are you doing with her?” Peter said. “You said no rape. You made me promise.” He was pouting, an incongruous stance for someone of his size. But then, he was the younger brother, clearly dominated by Michael, like Leann in his own way.
“Yes, yes I did.” Michael seemed to be reconsidering it. Then yanked her to her feet. “No. You’re right. No rape. She’s filthy. Probably has some parasitic disease on her. Stupid Chinese piece of trash. And I don’t want you leaving any evidence on her in case they ever find her rotting corpse.” Saved from one last insult by racism, thought Josie through her cloud of fear. Who would have thought? She hardly felt grateful.
“What are you just resting there for?” Michael gave her a shove. “Recommence digging.” She shuffled back over to the shallow indentation in the ground that she’d begun before and went slowly back to work. Before long, a trickle of sweat slid down her back. The brothers leaned against a rock watching her. Peter slid onto the ground, hands on his knees. Michael broke the seal on a bottle of Maker’s Mark. Between the two of them, they emptied two thirds of it while she slowly worked.
CHAPTER 28
She had no idea how much time had passed. Forty-five minutes. Maybe an hour. The ground was hard here—mostly made up of chunks of petrified clay, that orangey brown stuff with bits of white that she could see in the moonlight. She worked very slowly. Who was ever motivated to work quickly when digging her own grave? Fatigue ruled, now that the adrenaline of fear had abandoned her. The grave was only about five inches deep and maybe five feet long. If she had thought to eat more in preparation for this strange moment and had gotten her weight back up, she probably would have had to dig even more, she thought. Thank goodness for small mercies. It was the little things that counted.
Sweat was running into her eyes and across the duct tape that covered her mouth. Her hands were grimy from the sweat and dust. It was just so unreal. Never in a million years had she thought that this was how her life was going to end. A car crash. Falling down a flight of stairs. Disease of the mind, like her mother—of the heart, like her father. Those were the methods of dying that she’d always considered in the past. Never digging her own grave out in the Arizona desert, escorted by two predators. The empty bottle of whiskey suddenly sailed past her head, so close that it hit the strand of her hair that was falling into her eyes. She didn’t even bother to turn and look at them while they laughed raucously. She continued digging, her body moving as if she were working when in fact she was thinking about her life, Drew, her friends, and mother, so far away.
When Peter staggered over and wrenched the shovel from her hands, she realized that her time was up. Then, she heard a strange sound, kind of a ringing, metallic clink. The shovel must have struck her head. The force sent her sprawling forward into the shallow hole. She fell on her face, unable to get her arms up fast enough. She took the brunt of the fall on her cheek. She struggled weakly to get out of the shallow hole but she couldn’t get her feet under her.
“Hurry up,” Peter was shouting over and over, his voice distorted and cracking. “Hurry up and die already.”
Michael stood over her, too, as she writhed in the dirt. He wavered, listing as if at sea. Or maybe that was her perception. “Do it again,” he told his brother. “She’s still moving. Do it again.” Then, he turned on his heel. “I’ll be waiting for you in the car. And check her pulse afterward to make sure you’ve done it properly.”
Peter swung at her again, catching her in the side. She heard the engine of the car start up. A shovel of dirt landed on her legs, and he stooped over and caught up her wrist between his fingers, loosely pinching her. A bead of sweat fell from his hair and landed on her cheek. He whispered to her hoarsely. “I don’t want to kill you, but I have to.” And then through ghastly drunken tears, “I loved her.”
He stood up. The shovel swung high above his head and arched down, closer and closer. She heard the, metallic sound again. Then, she relaxed.
Part 5:
The First Date
Agony. Pure agony. Face it, first dates are the pits. Do you ever actually taste the food on the first date? I say, why worry about it. Take note, this is the first and last time you will ever see me say that food is secondary to anything.
Josie Tucker, Food for Thought
CHAPTER 29
The first thing she felt was hunger.
An intense, molar-grinding, salivating hunger propelled her into a state that was not quite awake, yet less dead than she had been. She waited for her name to come back. I am Josie. She squinted through the dirt caked her eyes. Why was there a bush growing sideways? She wondered, and with returning clarity realized that she was lying on the ground. She waited a little more so that she could take a mental inventory of her extremities. Fingers moved. Left wrist would have made her scream, if she had been able to. Feet and legs came back into sensation, though they felt weighted down, heavy.
But good enough, she figured, and tried to sit up. Tried, only, because her side hurt badly—enough so that she could take only the shallowest of breaths. Taking the dirty tape off her mouth was a good start. Then, she used her right arm to prop herself up slowly. Like a Craftmatic Adjustable Bed. Slowly, slowly, by degrees.
“Help, I’ve fallen and I can’t get up,” she mumbled. Her voice came out strange, as if she had rocks in her mouth. She actually checked, by swiping out the inside of her cheeks with one dirty finger, but didn’t find any. Maybe she had dirt in her ears.
In a seated position, she watched the mounds of dirt cascade off her body. That was why her feet felt heavy, she realized dispassionately. They had dirt on them. A half-hearted burial, they’d given her, in a shallow grave that she’d dug herself. A few shovelfuls of dirt tossed on her before they’d lost interest in her corpse and driven off. She remembered most of it now. The only parts that were fuzzy were toward the end.
Si
tting up was no good. Her head swam and nausea swept over her, making her mouth water until she gagged up the meager fluids in her stomach. The sharp pain in her side stopped her from heaving more. She panted shallowly after that.
How long had she been here? A few hours? It was night with the moon high in the sky—a moon so bright that it illuminated the pale desert floor. Being sick had split open her lower lip. It was bleeding now and the fresh drops fell over blood and dirt that was already dry. Had she been there an entire day? Her stomach growled emphatically, hunger her driving force.
Standing wasn’t so good either. The exertion made her want to breathe harder, but she couldn’t seem to take in much air. Her sides and chest were killing her, like they still had mounds of dirt on them, but she was standing now, so that couldn’t be possible. Standing upright didn’t last long. She went back to her knees and hoped that her head would stop swimming. She took a few swallows, used the underside of her shirt to try to wipe the dirt away from her eyes, with little success.
Nearby was a mesquite tree—probably sap-covered and scratchy, she figured, based on some early-life escapades trying to climb them. But it was better than nothing, now that she needed something to lean against. She heaved herself up on one knee, and then got the other leg under her. And somehow, made it over to the tree.
Slowly, as she leaned against the tree trying to catch her breath, a deep glow ignited inside her. It sparked her heart to beat a little faster as she realized that it was a tide of anger at herself and at the brothers who had left her for dead. Mostly at herself for having been so vulnerable. She had known they were murderers—torturers—but yet, she’d left herself open. And it infuriated her. She puffed her checks out like a frustrated animal.
“Stupid. Stupid. Stupid,” she said, her voice sounding distant and muffled.
She stood again, her left arm held close to her body, and looked around. A range of foothills cut into the night sky off to one side, but she didn’t know which ones they were. They could have been north of Tucson by the Catalinas. Or even to the far east of the city—on the opposite side of Puerta. The Williamses had covered her head the whole drive out here. She didn’t even have a good idea of how far out in the desert she was.
The effort of thought dizzied her for a minute, and then stoked her anger again. How dare they? Did they think she was some girl like the others that they’d used and thrown away? They’d manipulated Leann Ash for most of her adult life. They’d impregnated her. Beat her. Punished her for being susceptible and weak. And ultimately, they’d killed her. Obviously, to them, Josie was just as insignificant.
Well, she would show them. And their mother. She would live to tell Greta all of this. And as she made this realization, she understood belatedly that she was moving her body away from the foothills. She understood that Tucson was in a valley, surrounded by ranges. And she understood that the North Star was shining brightly and that it was guiding her.
She walked and rested. And walked again. Her stomach set up an intermittent howl to remind her to keep moving. She was almost hungry enough to eat sand, to chew rocks. Her jaws locked in anger when she remembered who had put her in this predicament in the first place. She followed dry wash beds, with their fine silt slowing her down—but they were easy to follow, and when she felt like she couldn’t breathe or go another step, she just followed the wash bed and let her mind go adrift. Stopped resisting her outrage and hunger and despair—she accepted it and just kept going.
Instead of dwelling on it, she told herself a story. No, it was more like, she entered a story. She saw a young man imprisoned in a dark cell and told herself, He must be my father as a P.O.W. in Vietnam. She said hi to him, and he said hi to her, calling her “Pumpkin” as he used to when she was just a little kid. It made her grin, and he grinned back.
“So, this is the hell hole, huh,” she said.
“Yep,” he said.
“How long are you here for?”
“Well, I don’t know right now. But in the end, it turns out to be a little less than two years.”
“Well, hang in there,” she said.
“No worries. It all works out in the end,” he said.
Josie trudged on, her hallucination easing up. Where she walked, the dry wash bed had been carved deep into the ground, maybe two feet. The summer flash floods had probably carried a lot of water through here. She sat on the sharp bank for a while, disappointed that sitting didn’t ease her troubled breathing. Her eyes became blurry and she wanted to lie down. But chances were that she wouldn’t be able to breathe any better that way either. And she might not get back up.
“I’d give a thousand bucks for one deep breath,” she said out loud, and then felt bad when a small creature, maybe a rabbit, suddenly took off in the underbrush. Would it be a rabbit? Did they come out at night? Maybe it was a snake. Snakes didn’t take off like that—but that made her wonder if there were snakes nearby in the first place. Before long—but how long had it really been?… Before long, she hefted herself off the dry embankment and continued trudging along the sandy wash. She kept one bleary eye squinted at the night sky, searching for her star.
After some time, she lost faith in the North Star. She cursed it and wished she had enough strength to fling rocks at it and pelt it until it fell out of the sky. She wanted to cry, but her stubbornness fought back her fear. She felt as though she were in prison. Imprisonment? Where did that sensation come from when there were no limitations, no physical boundaries near her? There was nothing stopping her. It was just her and the wide-open desert. Nothing keeping her back. Other than the vise wrapped around her ribs.
She trudged more, her chest pressing inward. Prison. It’s a construct of your own mind, she told herself. It was boundaries and limitations that you set up for yourself, as protection, she thought.
Surely this long walk would end soon, one way or another. One foot. Another foot. Maybe she’d headed the wrong way and would end up at the Mexican border. She laughed out loud. That made her stumble, almost. And the lurch to keep herself upright cost her a breath that she didn’t have to spare. How many could she have left in her? Maybe someone would come and help her take the Flak jacket off that was pressing her chest so hard. She kept her eyes down and kept moving.
So much for the North Star. Who needs it, she muttered to herself. She was in a damn prison anyway. I want my damn phone call, she tried to say. Surely they would let her have her one phone call. That was the rule when they locked someone up—they always let you have your one call. Then, there was a phone in front of her. Southwestern Bell. Blue and white and steel. She picked up the receiver and dialed.
She dreamed about a jungle. Ah, this must be Vietnam, she told herself. And she agreed with herself. This isn’t what it looked like the last time I was here. You’ve never been here, she reminded herself. Oh, right. And it’s not as hot as I thought it would be. But then, I’ve been in the heat for a long time, so I’m probably used to it by now. People can get used to anything over time. Physical abuse. Mental anguish. Except something was squeezing her lungs—what the hell was that all about? She looked down and feebly checked to see if something was tied around her chest. Just a shirt on. A dirty, dirty shirt. She noticed that her hand was caked with dirt, too. What had she been doing? Oh well. Who cares.
She looked around at the flashing red lights. Is it Christmas already? She thought, I have been here a long time.
And then she was on a clean white bed inside of a truck and she went to sleep.
#
Much, much later. Somewhere not too far off, a television was on softly. It was playing a commercial for life insurance.
She opened her eyes, and Drew was standing across the room looking at something, a medical chart maybe. He had the most angry and hurt look on his face that she hadn’t seen since…well, since his own father had died.
“What’s the matter?” she asked him. Her voice sounded funny.
He gave a small start and whirled around t
o look at her. In a second, he was next to her. He wasn’t wearing his white coat for once. He was in blue jeans and a wrinkled old t-shirt. His hair wasn’t lying down very smoothly. Now, he looked worried. And then he laughed—that was a good sound although it was short.
“You get dragged out in the desert. Beaten the crap out of. Walk twenty miles with three broken ribs, a concussion, a sprained wrist, and a fractured collarbone. And you want to know what’s the matter with me?” he said. He was speaking softly, almost gently.
She blinked a few times. “What was that first part again?”
He leaned in closer with a concerned look. She could smell the familiar mix of fabric softener and spicy aftershave on him. Some of the bristles on his chin were silver, though most were dark. “Exactly how much do you remember about what happened to you?”
She thought about it, and most of the events came back slowly. That horrible sound of the shovel hitting her own skull. She would never forget that as long as she lived. “How come nothing hurts?” she noticed, looking down at her body.
“Good drugs. Tell me what happened,” he said.
So she told him. And when she got toward the part about her walk through the desert, she had to pause. “But how did I get here? I didn’t walk to a hospital. How did you get here?”
“You paged me.”
“I did what?” She tried to sit up. Aha. There was the pain. Ow. She leaned back slowly. Then, she reached her hand up and felt the unfamiliar landscape of her face and head, which was bumpy and misshapen. “My head feels like a gourd.”
“It’ll heal, thank God.” Then he added, “It’s hard enough.”
