Diary of a Mad Fat Girl (5 page)

“
Ace,” Ethan says and shakes his head
back and forth.

“
Uh uh,” I say, looking down at Lilly,
“not buying it.”

I walk to the elevator and punch the button
and stand there for what seems like twelve hours. I look back at
them and see that Ethan has his arm around Lilly and her head is on
his shoulder. I put my finger on the little silver button and punch
it and punch it and punch it till the doors finally open. There is
nary a soul in sight, yet the elevator takes seventy hours to get
to the lobby. And then it’s empty. Go figure.

When I arrive on the ICU floor, I see
Richard Stacks the Fourth standing with his pastor and a bunch of
random Bugtussle assholes. He comes over and makes a move to hug me
and I shove him away like he just climbed out of a manure pile.

“
Don’t make a scene, Graciela,” he
whispers sharply.

“
I’m going to see her, so back up out
of my face, Richard.”

The waiting room gets a little quieter and
people are trying to look like they aren’t looking. My stomach is
churning and I need a Sprite.

“
You look sick, Ace,” he snarls, “you
been drinking?”

I try to push past him, but he grabs my arm
and I turn on him like a pit bull.

“
You get your hands off of me!” I say
a little too loud and people stop pretending not to look. I see
Brother Berkin distracting people with head nods and hand
gestures.

“
I’m going to see Chloe,” I say, not
quite as loud.

“
No, I don’t think you will,
Graciela.” He takes a step closer to me and, in a low voice, says,
“You don’t run over me like you do everybody else in this town, Ace
Jones, I’m a man and you need to learn your place.”

“
I need to learn my place, Richard?” I
practically shout. “Why don’t you tell me what my place is,
Richard? Because I have
so
much respect for
your
opinion.”

He grabs my elbow and tries to force me to
move, but I don’t budge.

“
Let go of my arm!” I yell. “Get your
hands off of me right now!”

Now everyone is staring. Even Brother
Berkin.

“
Don’t make a scene you worthless, fat
ass whore,” he whispers, smiling at everyone who is staring, “and
get the fuck out of here before I do something that you will
regret.”

I look him right in the eye and say, “Do
it.” He doesn’t move.

“
Do something, Richard Stacks. Do it
right here, right now, in front your
audience
.” I wave my arm at the onlookers. “I
dare you, you big pussy.”

He looks at our audience, smiles, and says,
“Sorry folks, she’s just really upset about all this.”

I get up in his face and say, “Do. It. Do
something, Richard.”

He turns to me and whispers, “You can bet
your fat ass I’m going to. Just not here.”

The air is thick with tension as Richard
Stacks steps away from me and flips open his cell phone. Brother
Berkin comes over and pats me on the shoulder.

“
Have you seen her, Brother Berkin?”
I’m antsy and ready to make a move because I’m feeling sicker by
the second and I’m mad as hell on top of that.

“
No, Ace,” he says quietly, “Mr.
Stacks thinks it’s best if we don’t disturb her, so I think we
should honor his wishes.”

“
There’s a lot you don’t know about
him,” I nod toward Richard and cross and uncross and re-cross my
arms. “Did you know she was pregnant?”

Brother Berkin looks at me like I’m speaking
ancient Hebrew.

“
He beats the hell out of her all the
time, but no one ever says anything about it because he’s
Mister
Richard Robert Stacks
the
Fourth
.” I’m wringing my
hands and still looking at Richard trying to decide if I want to
grab his cell phone and beat his eyes shut or make a run to see
Chloe before security gets here. “He’s always got some lame story
about some ridiculous accident she had and to be perfectly honest,
Brother Berkin, Chloe is not that clumsy of a woman.” I can’t stop
fidgeting. “She does
yoga
for
Christ’s sake.”

“
Graciela,” Brother Berkin begins,
“now is not the time for such talk and-”

“
Yeah, I know,” I pat him on the
shoulder, “never is, is it?”

I take off like a prison escapee and bolt
through the double doors and into the ICU hallway. Nurses are
calling out for me to stop but I keep moving, scanning the name
plates until I find Chloe’s. I duck inside her room, stop short,
and try not to scream.

10

I’ve never seen her so soon after it
happened.

“
Oh my God, Chloe,” I whisper and I
can’t move my feet. I bend over and throw up in the
floor.

I raise my head and look at her swollen,
purple face and start feeling like I might pass out for real. I
struggle to catch my breath, but I can’t so I put my hands on my
knees and throw up again. I raise up, wipe my face on my shirt,
then put my arms around her legs and start to cry.

A herd of Bugtussle’s heaviest nurses bustle
into the room and grab me, then the doctor bursts through the door
with a passel of security guards. I’m hugging Chloe’s legs and
telling her it’s going to be alright, but she doesn’t say anything
because she’s unconscious.

“
Miss Jones, you have to leave. Now,”
Dr. Rain says in his usual condescending tone. “We have a strict
privacy policy and I expect you to honor that!”

“
She was pregnant and he beat her up
and killed her baby.” I can’t stop crying. “All she’s ever wanted
her
whole life
is to have a
baby and you’re going to stand there and
protect
him.”

“
I’m not protecting him, I’m
protecting her,” he says dryly like he couldn’t care
less.

“
Well, it looks like you should’ve
started a little sooner, doesn’t it?”

“
I don’t know where you get your
information from, young lady, but you need to verify your facts
before you start throwing around such serious
accusations.”

Verify my facts?

My mind starts to reel. How did Lilly know
Chloe was in the hospital? Obviously Chloe didn’t call her and
Richard Stacks damn sure didn’t. And where did Lilly get the idea
that Chloe was pregnant? She just told me in the lobby that she
didn’t know about it until tonight.

I push past the bumfuzzled security guards
and bolt down the hallway to the waiting room where Richard Stacks
is soothing the crowd in his best used car salesman tone. Brother
Berkin is sitting apart from the crowd over by the windows and I
make a dash to where he is.

“
Go look at her, Brother Berkin.
That’s all I ask. Just go look at her face.”

“
Graciela, I won’t go against Mr.
Stacks’ wishes.”

“
He beat her so bad she lost a child,”
I whisper in a fanatic, hushed voice, “that is
murder
. You are a
preacher
!”

He looks up nervously and I turn to see
Richard Stacks coming our way, taking long strides with both fists
clenched. It dawns on me that no woman has ever stood up to the
great coward Richard Stacks. Not his beautiful, delicate wife and
certainly not his bridge troll of a mother.

“
The police are waiting on you
downstairs, Miss Jones, scurry along now.”

“
The police need to be waiting on you,
dick face, because I’m not the criminal here. You are.” I turn to
the pastor, “Sorry for the language, Brother Berkin.”

Richard Stacks takes a deep breath and I can
tell that he is teetering between upholding his fine Bugtussle
image and choking me to death. He goes with his image.

“
Miss Jones, would you please leave
now?” His face is blood red.

“
I’m still waiting on you to do
something,” I lift my chin and say, “be a man, do something I’ll
regret.”

“
Oh, you can bet I will,” he whispers
through clenched teeth.

“
Bet you will what, Mr. Stacks, if you
don’t mind my asking?” Brother Berkin asks, giving Richard a
curious look.

“
I do mind you asking,” Richard Stacks
the Fourth tells his spiritual leader, “now have a seat somewhere
else please, Brother Berkin.”

“
Well, listen to Mr. Holy Roller
talking to his preacher like a yard dog,” I say loud enough for
everyone in the waiting room to hear and since I have a captive
audience, I decide to take full advantage. “Hey everybody,” I yell
to the increasingly nervous crowd, “would you like to know what
really happened to Chloe?” I look at Richard and he looks like he’s
about to blow a gasket. “Richard Stacks the Fourth beats his wife!
And this ain’t the first time, people, so keep that in mind while
you’re standing around praying here for him, okay?” The security
guards are coming my way, but I keep talking. “She was pregnant and
he beat her up so bad she had a miscarriage. He killed their baby.
And now this scumbag has called the police on me? On
me
? What do y’all think about
that?”

Gasps and covered mouths all around.

“
Shut your fucking mouth, you stupid
whore!” He comes at me with his right fist in the air and I jump on
his ass like a bitch dog that’s lost a pup. He tries to get his
hands around my throat but I’m beating him so hard in the face that
all he can do is flail around and cuss.

The security guards grab me and pull me back
and Richard Stacks opens his mouth to say something and I spit in
his face and scream, “I am going to kill you! I am going to fucking
kill you if it’s the last fucking thing I do on earth.”

Brother Berkin steps forward and holds out
his arms, “Please, please in the name of God, please stop!”

I jerk and wiggle away from the security
guards and grab Brother Berkin by the hand.

“
Just go look at her!” I whisper and
take off running toward the stairs. I get to the lobby and see two
police cars parked outside and Lilly and Ethan talking to Sheriff
J.J. Jackson, who is looking down at the pavement and shaking his
head. I stop running, try to catch my breath, and walk slowly
through the sliding doors.

Sheriff Jackson looks at me, makes an awful
face and says, “Ace, what in the hell are you doing? Look at
you.”

I turn to check my reflection in the glass
doors that just slid shut behind me and I am truly shocked by what
I see. My hair is frizzy and wild and wet with sweat. My face is
beet red and my cheeks are streaked with mascara. My Pineapple
Willy’s tee shirt has vomit all over it and somewhere along the way
I lost a flip flop. I turn to look at my friends and they are
staring at me like I’m a wild animal. With rabies.

“
You know you gotta come with me now,
right?” Sheriff Jackson says in a quiet voice.

I nod my head and another cop, new to the
area and apparently anxious for action, comes up and tries to cuff
me, but Sheriff Jackson orders him back to his patrol car. The
Sheriff opens the back door of his squad car and motions for me to
get inside.

In a calm voice I say, “If you want to
arrest someone, go arrest that fucking murderer, Richard
Stacks.”

“
Ace, aren’t you being just a little
dramatic?” the Sheriff asks with obvious skepticism. James Jacob
Jackson graduated three years ahead of me at Bugtussle High School.
We were both on the basketball team, so between that and him being
the Sheriff, he’s been exposed to more than a few of my crazy
antics.

“
Would somebody
please
just go look at her? Go look at her sweet
little face that’s all bruised and swollen up. That’s all I ask.
She’s fucking unconscious and her jaw is wired shut and she just
lost a baby. A
baby
. And
y’all are standing here and looking at me like
I’m
the criminal?”

The hospital doors slide open again and
Richard Stacks comes running toward us screaming obscenities and I
notice with great satisfaction that his nose is bleeding and his
left eye is slightly swollen. I start to go after him but Sheriff
Jackson grabs me and wrestles me into the back of his patrol
car.

Richard keeps yelling and cussing and just
before the Sheriff slams the door I hear Ethan say, “Hey buddy, why
don’t you shut your mouth before I bust your other eye?”

Deputy Dumbass jumps out of his car and runs
up to the fray with his hand on his pistol and all of a sudden the
big bad Richard Stacks isn’t saying a word. Sheriff Jackson walks
over to him and says something I can’t hear and Richard gets in the
Sheriff’s face and they have what looks like a heated exchange.
Then, in the blink of an eye, the Sheriff spins him around, slaps
cuffs on him, and barks something at his deputy, who runs to his
patrol car and opens the back door.

I say a silent prayer that we’ll be in same
cell. My Mamaw Essie used to warn me about praying for things that
weren’t what she called “issues of the Lord” but I think she would
let this one slide.

As luck would have it, however, neither of
us go any further than the holding area. Ethan is waiting for me
and Richard’s swamp-thing mama is waiting for him and before that
lard bucket leaves, she makes all kinds of threats that everyone
within ten miles hears because she’s running around yelling like
the idiot that she is. According to her, nobody in the Bugtussle
County Jail would have a job when she finished the phone calls she
was about to go home and make.