'Pretty.'
'Try,' George said, and went back to the cruiser. My old schoolmate started yelling at him the second George leaned through the driver's-side window to snag the mike. George ignored him and stretched the cord to its full length, so he could stand in the sun. 'Base, this is 6, copy-back?'
I returned to the open door of the pickup. The woman had snubbed her cigarette out in the overflowing ashtray and lit a fresh one. Up and down went the fresh cigarette. Out from between the mostly closed wings of her hair came the plumes of used smoke.
'Ms McCracken, we're going to take Mr Lippy to our barracks - Troop D, on the hill? Like you to follow us.'
She shook her head and began to work with the Kleenex. Bending her head to it rather than raising the tissue to her face, closing the curtains of her hair even farther. The hand with the cigarette in it now resting on the leg of her jeans, the smoke rising straight up.
'Like you to follow us, Ms McCracken.' Speaking just as softly as I could. Trying to make it caring and knowing and just between us. That's how the shrinks and family therapists say to handle it, but what do they know? I kind of hate those SOBs, that's the ugly truth. They come out of the middle class smelling of hairspray and deodorant and they talk to us about spousal abuse and low self-esteem, but they don't have a clue about places like Lassburg County, which played out once when the coal finished up and then again when big steel went away to Japan and China. Does a
'woman like Sandra McCracken even hear soft and caring and nonthreatening? Once upon a time, maybe. I didn't think anymore. If, on the other hand, I'd grabbed all that hair out of her face so she had to look at me and then shouted 'YOU'RE COMING! YOU'RE COMING AND YOU'RE GOING TO MAKE AN
ASSAULT CHARGE AGAINST HIM! YOU'RE COMING, YOU DUMB BEATEN BITCH! YOU ALLOWING CUNT! YOU ARE! YOU
FUCKING WELL ARE!', that might have made a difference. That might have worked. You have to speak their language. The shrinks and the therapists, they don't want to hear that. They don't want to believe there is a language that's not their language.
She shook her head again. Not looking at me. Smoking and not looking at me.
'Like you to come on up and swear out an assault complaint on Mr Lippy there. You pretty much have to, you know. I mean, we saw him hitting you, my partner and I were right behind you, and we got a real good look.'
'I don't have to,' she said, 'and you can't make me.' She was still using that clumpy greasy old mop of brownette to hide her face, but she spoke with a certain quiet authority, all the same.
She knew we couldn't force her to press charges because she'd been down this road before.
'So how long do you want to take it?' I asked her.
Nothing. The head down. The face hidden. The way she'd lowered her head and hidden her face at twelve when her teacher asked her a hard question in class or when the other girls made fun of her because she was getting tits before they did and that made her a chunky-fuck. That's what girls like her grow that hair for, to hide behind. But knowing didn't give me anymore patience with her.
Less, if anything. Because, see, you have to take care of yourself in this world. Especially if you ain't purty.
'Sandra.'
A little movement of her shoulders when I switched over to her first name. No more than that.
And boy, they make me mad. It's how easy they give up. They're like birds on the ground.
'Sandra, look at me.'
She didn't want to, but she would. She was used to doing what men said. Doing what men said had pretty much become her life's work. '
'Turn your head and look at me.'
She turned her head but kept her eyes down. Most of the blood was still on her face. It wasn't a bad face. She probably was a little bit purty when someone wasn't tuning up on her. Nor did she look as stupid as you'd think she must be. As stupid as she wanted to be.
'I'd like to go home,' she said in a faint child's voice. 'I had a nosebleed and I need to clean up.'
'Yeah, I know you do. Why? You run into a door? I bet that was it, wasn't it?'
'That's right. A door.' There wasn't even defiance in her face. No trace of her boyfriend's I EAT AMISH 'tude. She was just waiting for it to be over. This roadside chatter wasn't real life.
Getting hit, that was real life. Hawking back the snot and the blood and the tears all together and swallowing it like cough syrup. 'I was comin down the hall to use the bat'roorn, and Bri, I dittun know he was in there and he come out all at once, fast, and the door - '
'How long, Sandra?'
'How long what?'
'How long you going to go on eating his shit?'
Her eyes widened a little. That was all.
'Until he knocks all your teeth out?'
'I'd like to go home.'
'If I check at Statler Memorial, how many times am I going to find your name? Cause you run into a lot of doors, don't you?'
'Why don't you leave me alone? I ain't bothering you.'
'Until he fractures your skull? Until he kills your ass?'
