"I Ain’t Dyin’ Here"

This is a short story I wrote a year or so ago.

Rippled waves of heat danced in silver shimmers across the asphalt surface of the street. Barefoot, Bridget slammed shut her wooden front gate and tiptoed rapidly over the hell-hot river of tar.

Peering through the dark green slats of the front parlor shutters, Sophie watched her progress. Looks like a running chicken, she thought. She waited until Bridget was on the front porch before going to the door, and then swung it open. "Hey," she said, as cheery as she could manage. "Come on in here, girl."

Bridget entered the house, and the latch quickly snapped shut once more.

Sophie walked through the dining room and into the kitchen with Bridget close behind. Turning to the cabinet over the sink, she reached in and pulled out a jelly glass, then placed her finger on top of a second, tipping it towards her, but not yet bringing it down. "Want somethin' to drink?" she asked. "I got lemonade, Coke, orange juice, and iced tea. I just made the lemonade, so it’s real fresh."

"No thanks," replied Bridget. "You go on ahead and get some for yourself, though. I just got done with lunch."

The cabinet door squeaked shut. "Okay," Sophie said. "Lemme know if you change your mind"

She opened the refrigerator and brought out a Tupperware pitcher of lemonade. As Sophie poured herself some, sweat collected on the surface of the glass, and the ice crackled and popped inside. She filled the glass to the rim, and then replaced the pitcher once more. The refrigerator kicked on, whirring and whining in protest of the weather.

"Have a seat," Sophie offered, gesturing toward the chairs at the kitchen table. The two women sat, and Sophie took a long drink before going on. "So, what’s goin’ on, lady?"

"Oh, not much. Just laundry. Ain’t it hot out today? I's 'fraid the clothes would bake on the line. Hard to b'lieve it’s still only May."

"I know it! I’ve been runnin’ the cooler all day. Usually, I don’t like cutting it on this early in the summer, you know, 'cause it ain’t good for folks to go indoors and then out and then back in again. Makes you feel kinda poorly. Today was just more'n I could stand, though.”

“You’re lucky," Bridget said. "We only got that window unit, and I have to keep the bedroom door shut so the air stays in there. Otherwise, he can’t sleep."

Though "he" wasn’t named, Sophie knew just who Bridget meant. A.J. had his way set in his mind about things, and nobody and nothing better disagree.

"Why don’t y’all get another one for the front room? That way you’d have one for company."

Bridget shrugged. "He thinks we can’t afford it. I’ve tried telling him we could get a used one from the Salvation Army, but he won’t have it for other people to think that he doesn’t make enough money. He’d rather go without than have one that wasn’t brand new."

Sophie had her own opinions when it came to A.J., but she knew that voicing them did no good. Bridget wouldn’t argue with him if she could help it. There was no point in doing it. He always got his way.

"So how're you keeping cool?" Sophie asked.

"I put a fan in the kitchen window and another in the dining room. The cross breeze is better'n nothing," Bridget laughed softly. "Long's I don’t allow myself to set too long, I ain’t got time to sweat."

Sophie smiled. Her momma had always said it was rude to let people see your pity for them.

They talked on for twenty or thirty minutes about nothing important--gossip about neighbors and updates on distant family members. The kinds of things people talk about when they don't really want to talk about what really matters. It as though she and Bridget were talking, pretending everything was ordinary and fine, when sitting smack dab between them in the room was the problem of A.J., looming like an enormous blue elephant that they steadfastly refused to acknowledge out loud to one another, but which they both knew was there, sitting in plain view.

Bridget looked at the clock, wiped her palms on her knees, and then got up from her seat. "I got to be gettin' back."

Sophie knew Bridget was worried about A.J. coming home, thinking she'd been slacking off all day. She needed to get all her work done and dinner made before he got there so he wouldn't have anything to yell about. "I understand," she said. "Don't you work too hard now."

"Oh don't you worry about me," Bridget smiled.

Sophie smiled again. "See you later, girl."

"Bye," Bridget said as she shut the front door behind her. The screen door slammed a second later, followed by the gate.

"She's running," thought Sophie, shaking her head. "Running to get back to that place that's sucking the life out of her. I'm so glad I don't have me a man like that."

Rains blew though that night, leaving behind blue skies and air that was unseasonably cool and comfortable. That afternoon, Sophie ventured outside her house and into the backyard, carrying a glass of iced tea. It was porch-sleeping weather, and she was taking full advantage of it. Afternoons like that come about only four to five times a year. "To hell with chores," she thought. "The bathroom can stay dirty one more day, and the laundry can wait until I'm good and ready to do it."

The cicadas thrumming in the pecan trees overhead was hypnotically soothing, lulling Sophie to sleep. She drowsed, hidden by the trees which encircled the patio on which she sat, slumped in her folding metal lawn chair, feet propped up on the seat of another chair she'd pulled to face her.

She didn't hear the car pull up across the street. The raised voices from the argument in the little white house never reached her ears. Sophie was still half-napping when she heard the bang. For a second, the cicadas stopped , then their noise began again, seeming louder than ever in contrast to the sudden silence in the rest of the neighborhood. She sat up and put her feet on the ground. At first, she wasn't sure of what she'd heard. "Maybe it was a car backfiring or someone banging an old screen door. Maybe I just dreamed it." But Sophie knew that wasn't so. She could feel her pulse in her ears, and she froze for a moment, not sure of what to do. "Call the police? Or should I go over there?"

She got up and went through the back door and walked on to the front window. Sophie hated to look, but she felt drawn to do it. She opened the blinds a crack and peered out. "A.J.'s dirt brown Pinto, all right. What's he doing home? What's he want? What's he done to her?"

And there it was. The elephant she'd been denying for so long, forcing her to recognize its presence at last. He beats Bridget. All the time. Sophie'd known it for as long as she'd been living there, but she'd never let herself think about it until then.

"I gotta do something," she thought to herself. "Bridget's hurt. Maybe killed. I gotta do something."

But she couldn't call the police. She just couldn't. People would ask her later why she hadn't, and she couldn't explain. She just couldn't do it.

She closed the blind again. "Gotta get something. Something to protect myself."

But she didn't have a gun and A.J. would like as not take a knife away from her if she tried to use it on him. Desperate, she grabbed a can of bug spray. "I can spray him in the eyes if he comes near me. It'll slow him down, at least."

When she opened the door, the thrumming sound seemed louder than ever, a deafening roar now, drowning out the sound of fear pounding in her head and chest. Sophie felt like she was in a dream, walking down her front steps, out to the street, crossing to the other side, and reaching for the gate. She opened the latch, but did not let it shut behind her. "I've got to be quiet now. Very quiet."

Up close, she could see that the white paint was peeling off the house, like everything that was clean and good was tired of hiding the evil inside. From her side of the street, the decay hadn't been so obvious, but as she reached the stoop, she could smell the rottenness of the wood. "I should have seen it before now. I should have seen this coming."

The front door stood open just a crack. Slowly she crept up, trying not to make a sound. "This is crazy," she thought. "He'll kill me." She hesitated, listening, but no sounds came from inside the house.

Finally, her worry over Bridget's welfare overcame her fear. "She might be dying in there," she thought. "I've got to do something. Help her."

"HEY!" she shouted. "Y'all in there?"

No reply.

"HEY!"

The cicadas continued their humming, but no other sounds could be heard.

"I'm comin' in!" she hollered, trying to make her voice sound steady as she pushed open the door, finger on the trigger of the Raid can.

It was dark in the front room. No lights were on and the blinds were closed. She could see a light coming from the kitchen at the rear of the house. It was like moving through liquid concrete to keep moving forward, but she made herself do it anyway. "Bridget! Are you all right in there?"

No answer. She kept walking, and with each step, the old floorboards creaked. "HEY! Answer me!"

Sophie crept down the hallway. The bedroom doors were closed. She swallowed down the bile in her throat and kept going towards the kitchen light. "Where are you all?" she screamed, stepping through the doorway.

There, in the kitchen, she saw them and she understood the silence. A.J. was dead. Very dead. His brains were all over the side of the refrigerator, and he was lying on the linoleum in a pool of blood. Bridget was standing with her back to the sink, blood splattered all over her clothes and drenching her pink fuzzy slippers. A gun lay at her feet. Bridget's eyes were swollen nearly shut with bruises, and more marks covered her wrists and neck. Broken plates and glass, remnants of a half-cooked lunch, and overturned chairs clearly told the story of the events leading up to this moment. Yet, Sophie had to ask anyway. Softly she said, "Bridget, honey, what happened?"

Bridget didn't move, but silent tears began to flow down her cheeks.

Again, Sophie asked, "Bridget?"

"I ain't dyin' here," she said suddenly, moving at last, gripping the counter behind her and raising herself to stand straighter.

"Honey, we got to get an ambulance. We got to get some help."

Bridget shook her head. "Don't call an ambulance. Call a hearse. That son-of-a-bitch ain't gettin' up."

"Come out of there, honey," Sophie said softly. "Come here to me and I'll get you some help. You need some help. Come on."

But Bridget wouldn't move. She just kept standing there, proud and tall, face wet and shiny, shaking her head and saying "I ain't dyin' here. He couldn't make me."

Sophie called the police from the phone in the bedroom. She wanted to go in and get Bridget out of there, take her outside, but she just couldn't make herself cross that lake of blood that separated the two of them. And Bridget wouldn't move. So she did what she could. She stood in the doorway and talked to her calmly.

"They're coming, honey. Everything's gonna be okay. Don't you worry. It's gonna be okay."

The police found them there fifteen minutes later, still standing in the kitchen refusing to move or to look at the body on the floor. Sophie gave her statement. Bridget just kept saying the same thing, even as they put the handcuffs on her and tucked her into the squad car. "I ain't dyin' here. He couldn't make me."

Everyone knew why Bridget had done it, though no one had ever discussed it before until the police had driven away. And they wondered how Sophie had gotten up the courage to go in that house. They asked her about it over and over--in the grocery store checkout line, at the Chinese buffet, at the church rummage sale--but even years later she never could answer them properly.