"When we want to read of the deeds that are done for love, whither do we turn? To the murder column."
-GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
____________________________________________________________ ________________________
Tonight, for a change, I'm at Brenda's. It's her night off, and her roommate's out of town.
I stopped at the diner, but really didn't feel like staying. Talked with Cookie for a few minutes, had a soda. Brenda invited me over, and here I am.
She lives in a ranch house, at the end of an ill-paved road, in Robbinsville. She lives in the two-car garage, which works out well as a studio apartment, complete with a stove, a fridge, and a bathroom. The newest addition to this abode would be the big-screen TV, which dwarfs everything else in the apartment. Brenda and I laze on the couch, relaxing, as her stereo softly plays Jackson Browne. Brenda's female German Shepard, Aspen, sleeps on the futon, oblivious to the world.
"You're never, ever really gonna get over this," she says. "You'd be surprised at how this event changed your life. It's very subtle, but the change is happening."
I'm eating a Cobb salad from Saladworks- she stopped there earlier. "It's like, I feel the way I did after 9/11."
"Yep. It's the same thing, really."
"I still can't believe it." Jackson Browne's Hold Out is the perfect album for times like this, somber, reflective times in the middle of the night. "It was all pre-meditated. He decided on this course of action days before. For three or four days, he's there, in that house, already having decided that he's gonna kill her, on Friday morning."
"How long did you know her?"
"Oh, ten years, I guess. She originally worked with my mom at a mortgage company. My mother knew her husband a lot longer. She didn't meet my sister for a whole two years after my mom met her."
"But they became best friends."
"Yes."
Brenda shifts, to make herself more comfortable. She rests her white-stockinged size tens on the coffee table in front of us. "What was her husband like?"
"That's the thing! He was a pleasant, nice guy! He was a lot of fun to be around. They were a great couple. I was surprised, though, that he was fifty-nine when this happened. I didn't know he was twenty-two years older than she was." The CD began the familiar piano chords of Jackson Browne's 'That Girl Could Sing', a very sad, haunting cut that, when I was nineteen, was the final commentary on the tomfoolery that was my first love.
"Oh, a daddy kind of thing."
"Yes. Very much so."
Brenda sighs. "That was my parents. Pop was twenty years older than Mom. All he was really looking for was a baby making machine, which she wasn't very good at, and someone to make dinner and take out the garbage."
"Well, all this guy was looking for was his own sex toy. That was all she was to him. Actually, more like a sex slave. She got sick and tired of it, and this was her reward. Blunt force trauma and a broken neck."
"It's a man's world," Brenda whispers.
"My mother told me tonight that in the frame of mind he was in, he could very easily have killed the kids."
"I believe that."
"He blamed a lot of his problems on my sister, he might've killed her too, if he had the opportunity."
"Really?"
"Yes. All her life, my sister's always getting involved in the lives of her friends. That is, the ones she really cared about. Well, this time, she was kind of dragged into the lion's den by Marcie. Either way, she got involved. Mr. Bi-polar Manic Obsessive Husband blamed my sister for pretty much ruining his life. If she wasn't down in Florida, who knows what might've happened?"
Brenda lifts her arms, and rests her hands behind her head. "How'd the memorial service go?"
"Fine. As well as could be expected, really."
"At least it's past you now." She's flexing her toes back and forth, as her feet rest on the coffee table. "At least he's dead, he can't victimize any more people."
"Right." The longer I thought I might find her, the shorter my vision became... "You know, Bren, she was an angel. A genuine angel. She touched positively every life she ever encountered. I only hope they can say that about me."
Brenda laughs. "Yes, George, they can say that about you."
I notice that my soda glass is empty. I get up, and start heading for the refrigerator. However, temptation gets the better part of me. I pause, reach down, and gently wriggle my middle and index fingers on Brenda's outstretched right foot. Instantly, she jerks her legs back toward her, and giggling, says, "I told you never to tickle me!"
"The devil made me do it."
"The hell he did!"
"You want another one?"
"Yes." I go into the refrigerator, and bring back two diet Stewart's cream sodas. The decor of her apartment's done in a Caribbean motif. Tropical colors. After opening the bottles, I place them down on the coffee table in front of us.
"Didn't you tell me someone's coming out to visit you this weekend?"
"Supposed to. Not sure if she's coming or not."
"She?"
"Yeah. A friend from Ohio. She was supposed to come earlier, but then, Marcie happened."
"Well, if she does, it might take your mind off of things."
I sip the Stewart's cream. "Would that were true."
|
|
| Views: 61
Email This to a Friend 
