Twisted Endings 2: 5 Acts of Vengeance (2 page)

Marcus felt sick looking at her. She seemed so innocent. “Thanks.” He sat at the dining room table and started eating the barbecue chicken, mashed potatoes, and rolls smothered in trans fat. Everything tasted like the energy drink now. It tasted like shit.

Sasha sat next to him. “Is everything okay?”

“Yep.” Hell no it wasn’t okay!

She reached over and put a hand over his. “I made us an appointment for next week.”

“For what?”

“What we’ve been talking about,” she said. “Marriage counseling.”

Marcus set his fork on the plate. He couldn’t breathe. “I’m gonna go to bed,” he said. “You can throw the food out.” He stood up and headed for the bedroom.

Sasha didn’t say anything. He didn’t expect her to.

He waited in bed for an hour before she came into the bedroom. He kept his eyes closed. He felt the bed vibrate when she lay next to him.

“I love you,” he heard her whisper. She sounded sad, lonely.

Five minutes later Marcus felt the bed vibrate again. The bedroom door opened and closed.

He opened his eyes and sat up. He didn’t want to believe it. Maybe she was getting a glass of water. A Hot Pocket. It could be any number of things.

Marcus heard the front door squeak open.

“Hello, beautiful lady,” said a voice from outside.

Marcus heard Sasha do her girly chuckle. Then the door squeaked closed.

He had a plan. His plan was crap. He couldn’t leave Sasha behind. She was the most amazing woman he knew. She was his soul mate.

This wasn’t Sasha’s fault. It was Juan’s fault! The pretty boy always preyed on innocent women. Juan is the one who needed to pay!

Marcus stood up and paced around the room. He hands trembled and his heart raced. He could barely breathe. This couldn't be happening. He had committed his life to this woman. She couldn't throw it all away. Not for that pretty boy!

He stopped and stared at the drywall around the closet. “Hello Juan, I’d like you to meet my fist,” he said to the wall. It wasn’t as pretty as Juan, but it would do. Marcus cocked his fist and put it through the wall.

Time for a new plan.

He opened the bedroom closet and pulled the Mantle and Dimaggio signed baseball bat off of the top shelf. He removed it from its display case for the first time. He stared at it. This was the last piece of his dad he had left.

“Forgive me,” he said. Jim wanted the bat without any scratches or dings. Marcus needed the $5000. It didn’t look like either one of them was going to get what they wanted.

He threw on a pair of khakis and marched to the front door. Before he knew it, he was banging on Juan’s door. It was midnight.

“Mr. Marcus, is something wrong?” pretty boy Juan said when he opened the door. His hair was disheveled. Lipstick was smeared on the side of his mouth.

Marcus had never played baseball. But he swung for Juan’s gut and hit a line drive.

Juan crumpled over and fell back.

Marcus stepped into the pretty boy’s apartment and closed the door behind him. “Where is she?”

Juan was bent over. He looked like he couldn’t breathe.

Marcus put a hand under Juan’s chin and held it up. “I’m only going to ask you once. Where’s my wife?”

Juan’s face scrunched in confusion. “What?”

“Wrong answer!”

Marcus swung for Juan’s left knee cap.

Juan fell to the floor, screaming, holding his knee.

Marcus stood over him now. “I can do this all night.”

“She’s not here,” Juan cried. “I would never touch your wife.”

Marcus sighed. He was never going to get the truth out of Juan. Sure, he could look around the apartment himself. But this was more fun.

Marcus noticed movement from the corner of his eye. He looked down the hall, and saw light pouring from the bottom of the bathroom door. Two small shadows danced around the light. Someone was pacing in the bathroom.

Marcus looked down at Juan and laughed. “I never liked you. You moved in across from me, and you flaunt beautiful women all the time. And I asked myself, why do women want a guy like you? And I know the answer.” Marcus swung the bat back and forth, then pointed it straight to the floor. “It’s because you have a pretty face.”

Marcus lined the bat up with Juan’s face, like a professional golfer.

Juan whimpered. “Please don’t, Mr. Marcus.”

Marcus swung as hard as he could.

Juan twitched a few times. Then he didn’t move anymore.

Marcus spit on him and stomped to the bathroom. “Sasha, get out here now!”

There was no response. The shadows disappeared.

She couldn’t hide from him anymore.

Marcus kicked the door down.

She screamed for her life.

He stepped inside the bathroom.

She was huddled in a corner, crying.

Marcus froze. He dropped the bat. This wasn’t Sasha. It was the librarian Mrs. Farber.

“Please don’t hurt me,” she said. “I’ll do anything you want.”

“Get up.”

She cried as she stood up.

“Go home to your husband,” he said. “Don’t ever come back here.”

She stared at him and wiped the tears from her face. She wouldn’t move.

“I’m not going to hurt you.” Marcus took a step back and put his hands up.

She moved slowly at first, then raced all the way to the front door and out of it.

Then Marcus saw it. The door across the complex hall closed. His door. His apartment. Someone had just gone inside. “Sasha.”

Marcus bent down and picked the bat back up. He studied it. It didn’t have any dents or dings. But it did have blood on it. Maybe it would wash out. He took a deep breath and marched into the hallway to check on pretty boy. The way Juan twitched, he might be dead.

Pretty boy started to stir. He cried and moaned like a little bitch. His left cheekbone was smashed in and his nose was gnarled. He’d have to have a new nickname.

Marcus kept marching straight to his apartment.

“Marcus,” Sasha said when he stepped back inside, “where have you been?”

“You don’t get to ask questions,” he said. “Where have YOU been?”

“I couldn’t sleep,” she said. “I went for a walk.” Her eyes shifted from side to side.

Marcus took a step toward her. “Stop lying to me!”

“You’re scaring me,” she said. “Why are you walking around with a bat in your hand?”

“Stop!” Marcus yelled. “No more questions. Be honest for once in your life!”

“I’m sorry,” she cried. “I didn’t mean to do it.”

Marcus shook his head. “Say it. What did you do?”

“Things have just been so hard. You’re working so many hours. I never see you anymore. We’re about to lose the apartment and the car. I had to do it.”

“What?!”

She lowered her head. “I got a job at a diner a few weeks ago. It’s just five or six hours overnight. It’s only four blocks from here, so I don’t need a car. I just wanted to help. Please forgive me.”

Marcus couldn’t move. His entire body was numb. “Why are you home?”

“The most amazing thing happened tonight,” Sasha said. “A regular came into the diner and left this…” She reached into her purse and pulled out a piece of paper. It was a check. “We’ll get to keep the apartment and your car.”

“The bedbugs,” Marcus said.

“What?”

“You’re still lying about something. The bedbugs would bite you. You have to sleep sometime.” He stared at her. “You don’t have any bites.”

“I can’t sleep in the bed without you. You’re my heart and soul. It may sound stupid, but I’ve been sleeping on the couch.”

Marcus bent down and sat on the floor.

“Marcus, is that… Is that blood on the bat?” Sasha put a hand over her mouth. “What have you done?”

He glanced at the prized bat. It was worthless now. “I messed up, Sasha. I was wrong.” What had he done? Maybe a pretty face wasn’t so bad after all. He looked up at her and nodded slowly. “You were right all along. We should get some counseling.”

Mama’s Cherry Pie

MY NAME is Bessie Mae Peterson, and I love my Mama and Papa. They’re the finest folks on this side of the Mississippi. If anyone says differently, I reckon I’ll have to kick their ass.

Mama’s sweet as cherry pie. Not the kind you get from the grocery store. She’s the kind you make from scratch with Morello cherries, so you can peel ‘em, slice ‘em and pit ‘em.  That way you know the cherry juice is gonna drip from your fingers like warm maple syrup. Papa’s an honest man who will do anything for you. But if you cross him, he’ll beat your ass until it’s red as hellfire. Yes sir, they’re the best parents in the world.

It’s a shame I have to kill them tonight.

Now it’s about time to get out of this pickup truck. It’s cherry red, just like Mama’s pie. Papa got this for my sweet 16 a few months ago.

Deep breath. Slow, even pace to the front door. Here we go.

“Bessie Mae,” Papa says, meeting me on the front porch, “what are you doing here?” He’s handsome in his overalls.

I love him, but I hate that he’s not happy to see me. It doesn’t matter. I can’t tell him why I’m here. So I say to him the same thing I always do when he needs to mind his own business. “I’m having my period, Papa.”

He puts his hands up, and steps aside to let me in. He says, “Bessie Mae, did you bring the money?”

“Papa, you know today’s only Tuesday. I get paid on Friday.”

“That’s true, little darling,” he says, “but you’re already a month behind. I know you love that truck. I don’t want to take it away from you.”

He won’t take it away. He’s always said I won’t catch him dead in anything red. I decide to play his little game.

“Don’t take my truck away, Papa. It’s all I have left.”

He puts a hand on his forehead and sighs. “This isn’t easy for any of us. You don’t have to pay us. You know what you have to do.”

I know exactly what he WANTS me to do. But that’s not gonna happen.

“Is Mama home?” I ask him.

“She’s in the kitchen, Bessie Mae. You know she doesn’t want to see you.”

I turn away from him and march to the kitchen. Maybe Mama will be happy to see me. Of course she will! I’m her little girl. There she is, slicing cherries with her Nakiri knife, just like I knew she would be. Mama always makes cherry pies on Tuesday nights.

She stops and stares at me. “Bessie Mae,” she says, “you’re not supposed to be here.” Now she turns and looks at Papa. “Jonathan, why did you let her in?”

Papa shrugs. He looks confused. “It’s been a few months,” he says. “Maybe we should all sit down and talk about this.”

Mama is slicing the cherries harder now. That knife looks just like the ones they use in the Japanese steakhouse commercials on TV. I still remember the day she got it at the flea market for two dollars. Mama was so proud of herself. She uses that knife for everything. She even let Papa use it to butcher a hog once.

The cherry juice is squirting on her apron now. “There’s nothing to talk about,” Mama says. “Bessie Mae is a whore and she’s going to hell.”

I hang my head. Mama never used to treat me this way.

“Jennie, you hush,” Papa says with wide eyes. “We’re all gonna go into the living room and figure this out. Okay?”

I look up at Mama. She won’t look back at me, like I’m invisible. She’s staring at Papa and shaking her head.

“Please, Mama,” I say.

“Damn it,” she says, and tosses her knife into the cereal bowl full of cherries. She grabs the bowl and marches right past me.

“This is nice, isn’t it?” Papa says when we’re all in the living room. He and Mama are on the couch by the window. He tries to put an arm around her, but she brushes it away. I’m sitting here in the loveseat across from them. The leather purse Mama got me the same day she got her prized knife is by my feet.

Now nobody is talking. Papa is looking at me and smiling. Mama is staring into space. I can’t help but look at the man nailed to the wall above them. It’s a large figurine of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

“I love you, Mama and Papa,” I say to them.

“We love you, too, little darling,” Papa says. He nudges Mama. “We just need to figure this out. Have you talked to Pastor Mike?”

“Yes sir, I talked to him.”

“What did he say?” Mama asks, leaning forward.

“He said I was confused."

“Okay then, we're getting somewhere," Papa says. He nods at Mama. "What else?"

"I told him to go to hell."

Papa puts a hand on his forehead again and sighs.

Mama stares at me. Her teeth are clenched. “Are you still sleeping with that slut?”

“Jennie!” Papa yells. “We don’t talk like that. Now you hush and let me do the talking.” His face is red.

She puts the bowl in her lap and crosses her arms.

“I know you don’t want to hear this,” I say. “Mama, the way you love Papa, is the way I love Missy. She makes me happy.”

Missy’s taught me a lot of new things. She even taught me how to shoot the 9mm Beretta Nano in my purse.

Mama’s scratching her head. “What did we do that screwed you up like this?”

“I’ve always been this way. I was just too scared to tell you.”

“That’s not true,” Papa broke in. “You were always a good girl. A God-fearing girl. Then that heathen Missy came along and corrupted you.” He sat forward. “We can still fix this, little darling. You just need to repent and come back to God.”

“There’s nothing to fix, Papa. I never stopped believing in God.”

Mama is huffing. “The Bible says you’re gonna burn in hell with all the other heathens.”

“The Bible also says ‘let he who has not sinned cast the first stone’. Do you wanna stone me, Mama?”

I look at Papa. “Has Mama ever told you about Mr. Jackson?”

Mama’s head jerks toward me.

“You remember when Mama used to take me to the park every Saturday? She would meet Mr. Jackson there and disappear with him for at least an hour.”

Papa’s face is turning a ghostly white. He turns to Mama. “Jeff? You and Jeff?”

“Don’t listen to her, Jonathan,” Mama says. She’s grabbing his left hand. “That was a long time ago. It meant nothing.”

“We went to that park for five years,” I say.

“Shut up, you little heathen,” Mama says.