All Gone (8 page)

These groups never seemed that clever to me to plan it so smooth.

Listen, we're no psychologists and know little about the subject, but in what these groups do and their customers, they are. They haven't studied it but just know.

So I'll forget my call and even thinking about it.

You'll see for yourself. Jackie's wife will claim the body in a few days and there'll be a funeral and we'll attend.

We were his such good friends and nobody will mind?

No one. Neither his wife, who'll be compensated for the lesson. And the people who did him in will even expect it of us and some of them will be there too. They play it decent, very orderly and good manners, something Jackie didn't do or have. That was his problem. Not much brains too. Hand in hand with his gambling, that can kill you. Being a smart ass besides, you're dead.

I'll remember that.

It can save your life.

Lookit, a life worth saving might as well be my own. I'll remember that. You know, I don't think I like this business anymore. Money's good and not too many hours and so far steady, but too much excitement for me and you never know who to trust. Your friend's your friend one day, next day you're fingered by him on maybe even a lie and with his or her thumb pressed down on your throat goodbye.

There's a lot depending on it for everyone, that's why. You just got to do what's expected of you till you get the right to give orders and advice. That takes time and you got to want it. No matter what, never think you're absolutely safe. Like with any job, any business. Draw up your own parallels.

But even when you're right up there, company president and the rest of it, do something wrong and you can get it in the head.

Not if you do nothing wrong. Everything's protected. Or let's say, all your moves are almost already made. Sure, accidents happen, flukes out of nowhere. New people move in, alliances fall apart and develop, but then you got to know who to be for. All in all though, you got to just stay in line.

But what you're saying makes it seem even more impossible. This one, that one, time comes along how do I know I'll be dumb enough to pick the wrong one. You saw with that phone call. Suppose I'd dialed it and some power person found out and they didn't like it and for all I know it could've been my third to fourth very wrong move in a short time and they might decide I also definitely belong away. You could've told them of all those times I don't know about and now know in fact.

Me? Your best friend?

No trust. I can feel it. I really think I want out, but total.

Too early. You got too much put in and they with you the same for you to go so immediately. You have to withdraw and keep on stepping not so much in as you're withdrawing till everything you do's being done by someone else or among a crew and you're so unnoticed you're out. Something like that. But takes time.

Then I'm leaving the area.

Forget it. They see a small hole, means someone's missing. You're not around, means it's you. They find out and you'll have to explain. Once out they'll be afraid you know too much, or in again, that you'll want out too much again no matter what your denials and future promises to them. So they might start watching you and soon think maybe they're spending too much energy watching you and they might take other ways. You should've thought of all this before you came in.

How could I have known?

Come on. You heard of it, read about it, grown up with it, since a kid seen it in the movies and still do. Well it's not so far from all those combined where you should've known what it was like beforehand.

Poor Jackie.

Stupid Jackie you mean.

Poor. Because he's dead. Little I knew; I liked him. Oh, let's go to bed.

I want to read some more.

You feeling like a little physical activity tonight?

Not tonight, love, not tonight.

The article about Jackie?

It's not that.

Then good reading.

And you, sweet dreams.

 

My wife beats me up. Occasionally. I'm a relatively small man so she can beat me up without being afraid I'm going to beat her up back. Oh, I hit her back. Hard as I can sometimes. I got to protect myself. I'm a peaceful man and peace-loving, all that, but sometimes she gets so mad, and often over what seems the smallest thing, that she's got to take it out on something, and after she takes it out on something—a glass against the floor, tearing a piece of cloth apart—she takes it out on me. That's when I got to defend myself. I try all ways. First verbally. That sometimes works, but not usually. Then when she starts challenging me more, I walk away but she usually follows me wherever I go. When she starts swinging I try holding up my arms and deflecting her blows, but can't deflect all of them and even the ones I do deflect hurt my hands and arms.

That's when I got to stop being so peaceful and start defending myself. I hit back. I try for the blow that will incapacitate her without harming her, like in the arm where it'll hurt so much she can't swing it, but that one rarely works as my aim is never that good. When she really gets violent and uncontrollable I have to hit back hard and even aim for her belly or head. But she's much bigger than me and the harder I hit back the harder she hits me and because she hits harder than me and I'm smaller and can never get as ferocious as her, her hitting hurts me much more than mine does her.

I've gone to court about her beating me up. First time they wouldn't even hear me. Second time I made sure to come with X-rays and my doctor's report and the judge said “You're pressing assault charges against your wife? Where is the woman?” My wife stood up.

“Do you beat this man as he says?” Several people in the courtroom laughed and he banged his gavel for them to shut up. “No,” she said. “That's a filthy lie,” I said.

“Steady there, sir,” the judge said, “or I'll get you for contempt.”

“All I'm saying, Your Honor, is that she overpowers me and at times has nearly knocked me out. I never start the fights. I do everything I can to avoid and then stop them. This wound here—the one above my eye? She gave me that one two days ago.”

“What about the one over my eye?” my wife shouted. “That was in self-defense.”

“Hell it was. You started it. You hit me. You tried to kill me so I swung back.”

“If you don't like the treatment you get from your husband,” the judge said, “why don't you move out?”

“Because I love him and all the other times he treats me very well.”

“And if you don't like the treatment you say you get from her, why don't you move out?”

“I have,” I said. “But for one reason or another I always go back. Probably this time I can't, or as long as she's still there or at least till something can be done about her. Because why should I move out for good and give away everything we own to her? And I like my apartment. It's cheap and cozy and where I live. If anyone's to move out, it should be her. She's the one beating me up, not the reverse.”

“What are you asking of this court?”

“This is the Family Court, right? So if it wants us to stay a family then I want you to issue what I heard's called an order of protection prohibiting her from hitting me. That way I can move back with her. But if I come in here again from a beating then I want another order of protection issued forcing her to leave our apartment and never to try and see me again. If she still does after that and strikes me, then I want the court to next time get me victim's compensation for her or stick her in jail, since maybe those are the only things that will stop her from attacking me if the orders of protection don't.”

“I'm sorry but your petition's denied. For one reason, you've no witness to the alleged beating and it seems that she could have just as easily pressed assault charges or asked for an order of protection against you. Secondly, this court doesn't like to interfere in domestic disputes except of the most serious kind and then mostly when it's the child or wife who gets battered by a parent or spouse. Even if your assault charge is true, I wouldn't think you'd come to this court to resolve the problem but would deal with it as a man in the privacy of your home, or just move out if you're unable to remedy things.”

I tried to explain. “She's bigger than me,” etcetera. “I'll end up getting killed by her if I hit her any harder than I already do to protect myself,” but the judge started to laugh a little along with most of the courtroom.

I always take a hotel room after a bad beating and have always moved back. She sends me flowers and love letters and poems. I've heard of men batterers doing some of those things to get their wives back and there have been TV programs on it also—fictional and documentary and in the news—so maybe that's where she got the idea of those love gifts and romantic apologetic phone calls, though I'm almost sure she was sincere about them each of those last times.

But after a few weeks of this she always convinces me she'll never hit me again and, if anything, just a little love tap but nothing much harder than that. And when I go back, out of loneliness also, we usually have a normal life together for a few months. Kindness and sympathy and affection and even deep feelings and passion for one another, before something would happen. She'd ask me, as she did the last time, if I saw the thing she was searching for in the apartment, and if I said something just a little bit contentious like “Why should I?” or “You're always losing things around the house,” as I might be very tired or just not feeling too good that day myself, she'd come right back with something like “Listen, I don't want to get into an argument about it. All I asked was if you saw it and if you didn't, don't give me any of that cynical crap back.”

“I'm sorry.”

“You're always sorry. Just don't do it again.”

“I'm not always sorry and it's possible I might do it again. I'm just sorry this time for having said it and maybe making you even angrier. Because I can see you're in a foul mood.”

“I'll really be in a foul mood if you keep that cynical chattering up.”

“I'm not cynically chattering. Maybe the first thing I said was snappy, which I apologize for, but I'm now speaking reasonably to you. Anyway, when you're in a bad mood like this almost nothing will get you out of it, so mind if we drop the subject?”

“Yes I mind—a lot. I want to get this thing out into the open once and for all.”

“Get what? You're just baiting me, can't you see? I haven't got enough scars on my face to let you know why I don't want to start up with you again?”

“You have to bring that up? My hitting you when you always started those fights, that's what argument you're going to use?”

“Forget it, this is ridiculous,” and I go into the bedroom. She follows me.

“You're not going to stop I see,” I say.

“No I'm not. I want to know why you had to bring up the fights when that wasn't what I had in mind.”

“I know it's not in your mind. But it's what always happens when you get excited like this. You get into some wild emotional or mental state or both that winds up with you physically lashing out at me uncontrollably.”

“Oh and you're in such perfect control. You're so perfectly normal. So damn sensitive and controlled.”

“Those used to be qualities you liked in me. Just a few weeks ago you said it too.”

“I was lying.”

“Then don't say it next time.”

“Don't tell me what to say or not say. But saying anything to you is a mistake. You're my life's curse, you know that? I never should've hooked up with you.”

“Then unhook me, okay? I won't protest. But what I'll never be able to understand is why you get into moods like this that are almost over nothing and then insist on harping on the same theme or any theme just to get me to verbally fight with you when it's obvious I don't want to. Now stop, will you?”

“I'll verbally you. I'll stop you. I'll smack your damn ugly head off with my fist, that's how I'll verbally stop you.”

“Now none of that. I don't want to go to court again. The judge'll believe me next time.”

“He'll call you a faggot next time. A prissy little whimpery faggot and then laugh even harder in your face, that's what he'll do.”

“The hell with reasoning with you then,” and I get down on my knees to pull a valise out from under the bed. “What're you doing?”

“Getting away, that you can bet. I'm not hanging around here waiting for you to drive a wedge into my head.”

“Why, you too much the whimpery coward to stand up and talk back to me like a man?”

“Yes.”

“You are, I was right, you faggot, so why didn't you say what your hang ups were when you first met me and saved me the trouble of hooking up with you?”

“The truth is that talking to you doesn't work when you get like this and that's the last time I'm going to tell you that, the last.”

“You saying something's wrong with my personality?”

“What are you, kidding me? Yes, goddamnit, I am.”

“You bastard, you coward, you make me so mad I could bash your face in, I really could, you bastard, coward, faggot,” and she swings at me and I duck and jump to my feet to protect myself but she connects with the next. Right to the mouth. I fly across the bed and a couple of my teeth I think fly someplace else. She weighs maybe fifty pounds more than me and has three inches on me too. She drags me off the bed by my feet and I land on my rear and she kicks me in the ribs. That really hurts and I'm spitting blood besides but I get up and she swings and I block her blow and hit her in the chest and that's all I had to do because now she's all over me with punches, screaming, swinging wildly, connecting every third or fourth time and before I know it she lands one to my jaw that knocks me to the floor. I feel sick. She's on top of me punching my face and hitting every time. All good shots. Nothing wild now. I can't protect myself. My whole face feels paralyzed and I want to throw up. I begin retching. She gets off me and says “That ought to teach you, you whimpering so-forth, you baby,” and leaves the room and I hear the front door slam.