Bastard Out of Carolina - Dorothy Allison [132]
Keep moving, Mama.
Across the sparse grass and dirt, up to the car. Mama gasped into my ear, holding me against her trembling rib cage. She opened the door, eased me down onto the front seat, lifted my legs. He was still crying her name. I was thinking fast and slow at the same time. How could I do it? No shotgun here, not even a butter knife.
“Anney, please. Talk to me. Love, please. Please, Anney.” She dodged him, ran around to the other side of the car, and got the door open. He was right beside her, sobbing and wringing his hands. He pushed the door almost shut while she struggled to open it again.
“Anney, you know how I love you. I wouldn’t have hurt her, darling, but I went crazy. I just went crazy!”
I pulled myself across the seat, trying to reach her and help, but it was back to being hard to move. The air had become thick as jelly. I had to push through it. I gritted my teeth and inched forward until I was leaning against the steering wheel, watching them struggle with the door.
“Mama.”
She looked toward me, her face empty and strange.
I said it again. “Mama.”
Mama slapped Glen again, with her open hand and then with her cupped fist. The sound of her blows was dull and horrible, but not so horrible as the mewling grunts he made as she struck him. “Let go,” she said. He staggered, sweat streaming into his eyes. His mouth worked uselessly, all his features seemed realigned. “Let go,” she said again. He wailed and dropped to his knees, his hands still clinging to Mama and the door. He bowed his head and whispered, “Kill me, Anney. Go on. I can’t live without you. I won’t. Kill me! Kill me!”
Mama jerked away from him, and the door slammed shut. “Oh, no,” she whimpered. Her face became the mirror of his, her mouth as wide, her neck as rigid.
“Kill me,” he said again, louder. “Kill me.” He butted his head into the metal door, pulled back, and rammed again. He shouted every time his head hit, the thuds punctuating the cries. “Kill me. Kill me.”
Mama was so close I could have touched her, but her head was turned away, turned to Glen. I could not reach her. “Oh, God,” she cried, and I let go of the steering wheel.
“No,” I whispered, but Mama didn’t hear me. “Glen!” she said. “Glen!” She moaned and covered her face with her hands. Her body shook as she sobbed. Mine shook as I watched her.
“Glen, stop,” she said. “Stop.” She grabbed his head, wrapping her fingers over his forehead to block the impact of his blows.
“Stop.”
There was blood on her fingers. She was crying. He was still. I closed my eyes. “No,” I said again.
He spoke once more, drowning me out. His voice was very calm, very soft. “Kill me, Anney. Kill me.”
I tried to reach her with my right hand but the pain made me gasp. “Mama,” I pleaded, but she still wasn’t looking at me.
“Lord God, Lord God, Lord God.” Her cry was low, sibilant, painful. She was holding him, his head pressed to her belly. His bloody hairline was visible past the angle of her hip.
“Mama,” I whispered.
“Help me, God,” she pleaded in a raw, terrible voice. “Help me.”
I could see her fingers on Glen’s shoulder, see the white knuckles holding him tight. My mouth closed over the shout I would not let go. Rage burned in my belly and came up my throat. I’d said I could never hate her, but I hated her now for the way she held him, the way she stood there crying over him. Could she love me and still hold him like that? I let my head fall back. I did not want to see this. I wanted Travis’s shotgun, or my sharp killing hook. I wanted everything to stop, the world to end, anything, but not to lie bleeding while she held him and cried. I looked up into white sky going gray. The first stars would come out as the sky darkened. I wanted to see that, the darkness and the stars. I heard a roar far off, a wave of night and despair waiting for me, and followed it out into the darkness.
21
Aunt Alma has a scrapbook full of newspaper clippings, with a few wedding invitations, funeral announcements, and baby pictures pasted down beside page after page of headlines. “Oh, we’re