Let he who has a free hand ... be the first to point out all the shit that is wrong with the world and bitch slap those fuckers into submission.
I'm pretty sure that's how it goes.
I'm pretty sure that's how it goes.
Babylon by Mark Slade
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John was supposed to be
writing his sermon, but with sex on his mind it was too hard to concentrate.
The TV was too loud as usual, a girl squealing, nonsense chattering, voices
blaring. I was in the kitchen washing the dishes. John was in the living room
watching one of his movies when the doorbell rang. He hit pause on the remote,
listened.
I poked my head in the living
room to listen, as well. The doorbell rang again, a constant church rattling,
one right after the other. The person at the door didn’t even have the common
decency to let the call resonate before pushing the button again.
“Are you going to get it?”
John asked, the remote still in his hand, glass of bourbon in the other.
“Well, dear,” I told him, “since
you are in the living room and I am in the kitchen, I think I’ll let you get
it. How’s the sermon coming along?”
John rose from his seat,
which still retained that new-chair squeak whenever anyone stirred, six months after
Sadie and Billy gifted it to him for Christmas. How those two scraped up enough
money to buy it, I’ll never know, both of them still in college.
John placed his glass on the
coffee table but not on coaster, as usual. After twenty-two years of marriage,
training that man was near impossible.
“Yes, dear, I shall get the
door,” John said. “I’m not doing anything but writing the Lord’s word for a
weekly get together.”
“Rubbish,” I told him.
“You’re sitting in front of the TV getting sloshed. Now answer the door John
Carson.”
I hung around the kitchen
threshold, wiping down a bowl over and over, curious to see who was at the door
at seven p.m. on a Saturday. Most people in town were in their own homes
watching TV or tending to their families or finishing a game of golf.
The bell chimed again.
“I’m coming, I’m coming,” he
bellowed, shuffling toward the door. He opened it quickly.
Nora Simmons stood in the
doorway, wearing her skirt too short, her cleavage too revealing. Nora was one
of those sorts who always clung to another women’s man a little too long, the
kind who would sit in the front row, crossing and re-crossing her legs, talking
a bit too close to them, letting her hand linger on a gentleman’s knee or
shoulder.
John shuffled his feet, and
began stuttering, swallowing after every sentence. “Oh, hello, Nora. Kay? Look
who it is,” John called out to me. “It’s Nora, darling.”
“I can see who it is,” I said
wiping down that bowl even harder, faster.
“Gracious,” Nora said, her
smile as plastic as her personality, as phony as her dyed red hair. “Can I come
in or am I interrupting a romantic interlude between you two?” She stepped
inside, not waiting for an answer, her jutting breasts brushing past John. He
coughed, sniffed, made a false gesture to show her the way.
“What brings you here, Nora?”
John fiddled with his glasses, then returned to his chair, sheepishly trying to
avid looking as Nora’s skirt rode up slightly when she sat on the couch across
from him.
“I need to speak to you and
Kay. It’s really important.” She made a dramatic pause afterwards, pouted.
“Kay?” she called out to me. “Can I speak to you in here? This concerns you as
well….”
Reluctantly, I joined them in
the living room, and sat beside her, feigning a smile. I even touched her knee,
thoughtfully. “What’s on your mind, dear?”
“It’s a delicate matter.” Nora
flashed a strained smile. “You realize that Tom and I are getting a divorce. He
has good lawyers, and . . . I have George.” George was her brother.
George was a simpleton and a
terrible lawyer even when he’s sober.
“Something happened four months
ago, Kay. I’m not proud of it.” Nora turned to John, gave him a cool look,
reached into her handbag and produced a DVD with no label. “I’m sure….” She
looked back at me, bit her lower lip. “You’ll hate me for this. I know you
will, Kay. John and I, while it was fun, Tom had this crazy idea of filming
us.”
John looked ahead, eyes
transfixed on nothing in particular. He looked a little white, sickly. Nora
continued. “I myself was not going to do anything but watch it once in a
while. It’s us in living color, Kay. John . . . and I. The truth is . . . if I
don’t get twenty-five thousand dollars, I might feel compelled to tell the congregation.
Maybe the news people, too? I just need enough money to get to Tampa Bay, start
over…. I’ve met someone.”
The room fell completely
silent, the air thick with tension. I stood suddenly. I didn’t say a word. I
went to the closet, opened the door. I touched my handbag, the red Carmichael,
the one John had gotten me on our wedding anniversary.
Nora’s face brightened up. “Oh,
thank you, Kay!” Her voice went up in pitch, into the decimal range only dogs
could here. She turned to John. “Don’t feel bad, John, dear, think of it as
giving to someone much poorer than you.”
The baseball bat came down
hard on the base of Nora’s skull. It felt weightless in my hands. The old
Louisville slugger belonged to Billy when he played in high school. I kept the bat tucked in the closet behind my handbags for just such occasions. I swung
again, this time the sound more wetness than crack. I swung once more, and the blood
splattered the couch like an abstract painting. Nora had slouched over to the
left, the back of her head flattened.
“Well?” I said.
“I need to finish my sermon.”
I stared until my gaze burned
a hole through the back of his head.
“I mean, I’ll finish the
sermon later tonight,” he said automatically.
“Damn right.” I dried my hands. “Now drag that whore around back with the others.”
