Charleigh Wallace
____________________________
Anna Blair’s
Visitors
Based on a true story.
Copyright © 2011
All rights reserved.
…continued
Thirteen
The children weren’t sure if this year they’d be going to the Christmas parade down Gore Boulevard. Every Christmas after moving to Lawton, they had begun and followed their own traditions, and this was one of them.
Their mom would save just enough change so they could go see the parade, and all get a ride in the horse-drawn carriage, taking them up and down Gore Boulevard, where in the center island were decorated, lighted miniature houses, manger scenes, and all the trees with their beautiful, twinkling lights. There was even a snow queen, dressed in a long, royal blue velvet coat and white fuzzy collar. She stood every year in the center of the gazebo, waving like a beauty queen.
Last year they had gone, but the price of the horse carriage ride had increased. Anna had held on tight to the money crumpled in her hand, knowing she didn’t have enough that year. She had cried all the way home.
The children didn’t expect to be going, even though the inheritance from their grandmother was more than they’d need in twenty years. This year, with their grandma gone, with their mom worse, the children knew their memories of downtown would have to suffice.
Anna looked at the plastic cat clock on the kitchen wall. It was almost time for the mail. She raced to her room, got dressed, and brushed her hair. Then she skipped out to the kitchen and opened the freezer door. She picked up the two-pound box of See’s candy, ruffled through the molasses chips and bridge mix, and picked out thirteen rum nougats, of which she devoured. Then grabbing a bag of sugar, Anna raced out the front door to the mail, and raced back in. She put the sugar bag back in the cabinet, and the mail on the pine table. Sweat was pouring off her smooth skin. She ran cold water from the kitchen sink and like a shower, sprayed herself with it, using her hands. She got herself wet, the floor, the refrigerator, the window, the cabinets, the living room couch.
Suddenly someone banged on the front door. Anna was startled, her breathing rapid.
She stared frantically at the kitchen clock.
“It’s 12:14 pm already? Another time warp. Shit!”
Today’s visitor: her second; an unwanted one. Cezar. The rapist. The father. The husband. The abuser. The christian.
Another loud pounding knock shook the wooden front door.
Her breath became short and quick. She walked slowly to the door, and held her back against it, unable to open it. Whimpering, eyes tightly shut, she wished Grandma Blair was there instead, but it didn’t matter how much she didn’t want to open the door, Anna knew she had to.
There were four things in her life that were now standard: the mail came at 11:37, the visitors at 12:14, she always had to let them in, and always had to offer peppermint tea and Lorna Dunes. It was just the way it was, like the laws of the universe: E=mc².
Anna slowly turned around, unlocked the three dead bolts, and opened the door, her knuckles white as she gripped the doorknob. Cezar pushed past her, grabbing her breast, complaining about peppermint tea, Lorna Dunes, and the damn fucking kitchen chair she offered. Anna tried to fix her hair, but he pulled it hard, calling her a bitch. “No,” Anna pleaded as she backed up against the living room wall, “please go away!”
But he didn’t go away, and he didn’t stop when she screamed. He tore at her blouse, cut her bra off with a switchblade, slapped her face twice, pulled down her pants and underwear and ordered her onto the couch. He didn’t stop when it hurt, when she bled, cried, or begged to check on the baby.
Anna screamed, “Rhona! She’s only two months old! She’s crying!”
“Shut the fuck up, bitch!” His breath caught in her hair, the smell of liquor filled her nostrils, his scratchy beard making jagged scratch lines on her face.
Anna continued to scream. “She could be stuck in the crib bars! She could be smothered in her baby blankets! She could die!”
But Cezar ignored her, even grinned at her, and just kept pumping until he emptied into her, and on her. Anna sobbed, trying to cover up her breasts with her hands. Cezar laughed at her.
Anna remembered the ice pick under the couch cushion, for just such an occasion. Moving her one hand off her breast, she slowly moved her hand down the side of the couch, and touched its sharp point lightly with her fingers.
But Cezar grabbed her hands, tied them with his belt, and raped her again until the children came up the walkway from school, their blessedly soft voices sending him away.
She slowly got off the couch, and gathered her clothes. Gingerly holding her crotch, she made her way back to her room. She replaced the torn blouse with a fresh one, and put on a clean pair of underwear with a panti-liner to catch the blood, and a clean pair of dark blue sweatpants. She washed her bruised face in the bathroom sink, holding herself up by leaning against it. She added blush to hide the scratch marks, then laid down on the bed, hoping the children would not need her, would not notice her, would just let her sleep.
She heard them come in the front door, and held her breath.
“Mom?” Gregor called. He went down the hall and saw her door closed. Anna sobbed into her pillow, wanting them so badly but knowing that if they saw her like this, they would be even more worried.
Gregor returned down the hall. “She’s asleep I think.”
“Shit! I wanted to tell her about Bryce,” Fia complained.
“Tell me,” Aileana said eagerly.
Fia was happy to have anyone listen, so she told her younger sister everything. About him trying to hold her hand in class, trying to kiss her during the film, and sitting so close she could feel heat come off of him.
“Uh, Fia?” Rhona asked, with a raised eyebrow.
“What!” She demanded.
“Maybe you shouldn’t tell Aileana your sex stories just yet.”
“Whatever.”
“What do you guys want for dinner tonight?” Rhona asked.
“Pizza!” Gregor’s answer was always pizza. Sometimes with pepperoni, sometimes plain cheese. It didn’t matter.
Since no one else objected, Rhona shrugged and called Pizza Hut and ordered more than they needed. She just didn’t know how to order for a family of this size. They weren’t her kids. How the fuck am I supposed to know all this shit? Why am I raising my sisters and brother?
“Gregor, get the damn pizza when it gets here,” she ordered as she stomped up the staircase, pronouncing each step to let her mother know she was angry. She stepped into the shower after stripping violently, and let the warm water take her somewhere else.
Anna awakened suddenly in the dark, the house now quiet.
Dear Diary
It’s 11:00 pm. Today Cezar raped me again. I’m not really sure if he was here or not, but I’m bleeding.
Dear Diary 2
11:07 pm. If he wasn’t here, why is my face all bruised?
Dear Diary C
11:08 pm. I forgot to let the kids decorate for Christmas! And I promised them. God damn it!
Dear Diary 4
11:09 pm. I felt like writing an “instantaneous poem.” It’s a poem I write very quickly and all at once. It’s my idea and my name for it, Dr. A, so don’t try and steal it. So anyway, here it is:
Crawling through the tunneled space
There is no light nor gentle face
Only whispers echoing
“Where’s your daddy gone?”
Un-wiped tears collide with Earth
Babies never given birth
Melodies unloved, unsung
While the vulture sings His song
Emptiness to harmony
A vast prerequisite
To those who dare to bridge its gap
Can find life desolate
But onward go the songs unsung
In hopes of one day to embrace
A lightened heart, there never cease
To kiss the gentle face.
Fourteen
Anna woke up the next morning sore with only a few spots of blood on her pad. She lay in bed for a few minutes, trying to grasp what may or may not have happened yesterday. She felt down below and it was sore, and her breasts ached. Then she went still and remembered the dream.
Dear Diary 9
Last night I woke up and saw a woman, a figure standing at my dresser, her fragile hand gently hovering over the top, barely touching it. She seemed intent, looking at something there.
I blinked, thinking I was dreaming. But the figure was still there, a vague, slight form, dressed in flowing gowns of off-white and gray, the fabric blowing softly in a windless room. I closed my eyes, and fell back asleep.
I woke up just now and remembered, and thought I should write it down in this stupid ass journal you asked me to write in.
I got up and thought I’d see why she was at my desk. I saw my mother’s little post office bank next to the CPU. That little bank was one of many treasures that my mother had tucked away in storage. Her past lover, Sandy, never wanted any of Mom’s things displayed, just out of spite and jealousy. But now these possessions are out, and Mom has come to see them. I know that now. She has come to see me, too. Sandy: Fucking bitch!
Anna walked around her vacant house and felt so utterly alone, she went upstairs to sit in each child’s bedroom. On Aileana’s floor was a bunched up piece of binder paper. Anna picked it up, sat on the twin bed with a dark blue comforter and several flower-shaped pillows, unwrapped the paper carefully, and read:
I used to be the kind of person
Who always thought about the FUTURE
I used to be the kind of person
Who always thought about going to COLLEGE
I used to be the kind of person
Who always thought about a CAREER
But one day, my actions were far from thought.
I always thought that I would be the kind of person to say “NO.”
I didn’t think it would be as easy as it was for me to take a drag off
“The wrong side of the tracks.”
That one thing put an end to my future, my college, and my dream career
And now all I can think of is
I used to Be
Anna’s tears fell, smearing the ink. She lay down on Aileana’s bed.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”
The phone rang at 8:46 am. Anna woke up startled, ran downstairs, and picked up the receiver.
“What!”
“Yes, Mrs. Blair?” A cheery female voice bludgeoned Anna’s eardrums.
“What!”
“Well, I am calling regarding the exciting magazine, Vogue. Have you heard of it?”
“I’m bleeding.”
“Uh huh. Have you heard of the incredible savings right now, at the May Company, up to 50% off most fashion and make up? Well, those coupons are in Vogue Magazine!”
“I’m bleeding.”
“Well, I’m sure you can benefit from a new look, right? I mean, every woman needs to be pampered, right?”
Anna hung up the phone.
Dear Diary
I have a theory. Telemarketers are not people. They are droids from a far off galaxy, programmed to speak relentlessly, and fast like a time warp, ignoring any “no’s” or “not interested’s.” When the receiver is picked up on your end, it is their cue like Pavlov’s dogs, to continue their onslaught of sales techniques to wear you down…talk, talk, talk…customers will break if I just keep talking…talk, talk, talk…don’t listen, don’t listen, don’t listen.
I sometimes wish I were T. Furrows in the film, High Strung, making up crazy answers to telemarketing questions. For instance, when they ask who I am, I could say, “God, Ruler of the Universe.” If they ask my occupation, I could say, “I like to cut people up, but I don’t have a license.” But I never think about it in enough time. Oh well.
P.S. How do I help my children? How do I help them not be sad anymore?
Ps.Ps. or is it PPSS or PSPS in all caps? Anyway, I have another “instantaneous poem” ™. You do see the “tm” after my term, right, Dr. A? I haven’t trademarked it yet, but I will! Just an fyi. Just a warning.
So here goes:
Under this murky, frosty green-colored awning
Hanging strong with age over the damaged, wooden,
Creaky front porch steps
I can see from here your convoluted,
Distant, pot-holed path
And with the rain falling
I’m not even damp
But you’re Italian, black-laced hair
And button-down blue jeans
Drip with wrath
Pools of pain linger defiantly
In your gray, overcast, ocean eyes
As I easily glance through mine
Resolvedly green, measured yet clear
What is it you now feverishly crave
From my young and tired life
When once you cherished me
Like dry, dying grass covets the
First Fall rain, with brittle hands
Holding on to flesh not yet betrayed
When it comes down to simple,
Timeless, antique-yellowed memories
I long ago stopped caring
Whatever timid gifts your opaque, mountain god
Laid in your calloused, belt-wielding hands
Is what we won’t be sharing
So brighten my midnight,
And stumbling-on-jagged-rock days
Without lingering long
Only then can my downtrodden lips sing my off-key,
Un-timed
Un-rhymed
Last sweet sorrow song.
Anna returned to the kitchen, and took her empty teacup to the sink. She wondered why the visitors always came at the same time of day. Well, at least these first two had. Sometimes it felt like early morning, other times late in the evening; sometimes they stayed for what seemed like a minute, other times hours or days. But the clock always said 12:14 pm.
Anna rarely knew who would be on the other side of the door. She just knew they would come, and she would serve them their favorite peppermint tea and Lorna Dunes. Anna didn’t think they’d ever come on Saturdays or Sundays, when the children were home, keeping her mind connected.
Anna placed two clean tea cups and saucers on the white Formica kitchen table. The doorbell rang.
“Coming.”
She ran, sliding down the hall on soft aloe-infused red and white striped socks, slamming in to the wall near her bedroom door. She brushed her hair, put on black stretch pants, and a big navy T-shirt that said, “I love Mom,” a last year’s Christmas gift from Rhona.
She ran/slid back down the hall to the living room, tip-toed to the door and listened. She opened the door a crack. He stood there, the man with kind eyes. She opened the door wider.
“Please, come in.”
“Thank you, Anna. It is good to see you.”
He wore a fancy gray suit complete with tails, top hat, and a solid maple cane with its carved raven wings. He stood tall in the doorway. He had dark eyes, but Anna couldn’t remember now whether they were brown, black, or deep blue.
His hair was as black as the bottom of the sea, his face as pale as the Seychelles sand, his smile calming. Anna thought that if he whispered close to her ear, she might be able to smell the ocean on his breath. She, of course, thanked him for coming, and brought him to his favorite chair in the kitchen. She poured his favorite cup of tea and offered a plate of his favorite cookies. He accepted it all from her, not letting his gaze leave her eyes.
Anna noticed a very distinct ring on his right pinkie finger, white and yellow gold blending into each other, with stones of diamonds, rubies, and emeralds.
“May I try it on?” Anna asked politely.
The stranger shook his head ‘no.’
She replied with some animosity, “Well, all right…I guess.”
Anna quickly recovered when he smiled. She discussed with him all the stresses and worries resting heavy on her heart. She wanted to know why her mom had to die. He listened intently, catching her tears as they fell without ever moving his hand.
She cried about Cezar and the rape while the young man sipped his tea, her voice raising and lowering as she became angry or sad. She looked at her mother’s watch and remembered her. She asked if he had seen her, and when her mom might come to visit. He never answered; he only smiled a gentle smile.
He vanished as the children came up the walkway, their voices excitedly discussing where the Christmas tree would be placed this year, and who’d get the tall Santa statue in their room. Anna dried her tears and cleared away the unfinished cookie and tea.
She whispered to the now empty room, “I’ll miss you.”
Anna went to her room and got out her journal.
Dear Diary
That man today was so nice. Except for the ring incident. And he did magic, catching tears with no hands, and keeping them in a tiny crystal bottle on the table.
Anna chewed on her pencil, breaking off the eraser, and spitting it across the room.
Dear Diary
I saw that dwarf, Ed, again today while getting the mail. I can only surmise that his anger comes from his own unhappy marriage to that loud German woman, and his unbridled passion for my loins.
Here’s another instantaneous poem for your reading pleasure:
Pigeon
Glaring at me on my windowsill
What do you want, you stupid bird?
He looked at me
Then the street
Then me
Then the street
Then it scared Lottie Betty Juan
She ran, the pigeon flew,
And I ate my sandwich.
Oh yeah. One more thing. I had a dream last night I was in a movie with Robert Patrick. He had a long crew cut and scruff. Yum. He was a fireman and wore a hands-free phone thingy on his left ear. He was married with two young children. I was staying with them.
At first he was abrasive but later he was overtly attracted to me and me to him. His wife told me I was the head on his shoulders, whatever the hell that meant. I think what she was implying was that I was all he thought about. So she asked me to leave and I did so abruptly, which confused him. He asked me for a kiss right in front of his wife. I refused.
Later, after we were done filming, I found him in a pool near the edge. I bent down, grabbed his face, and slammed him with a heated kiss.
Somehow later I found myself back in their house. His wife had guests over, christians with bibles, and they were looking at me with disdain. I tried to explain that in the movie I did not kiss him, but refrained from disclosing the passion I felt for him and the kiss that melted me.
FYI Dr. A, I did feel bad that Robert was married.
Fifteen
Anna kept herself busy the next morning by baking chocolate chip cookies with no chocolate chips in them.
Dear Diary
I don’t feel it’s fair to always put chocolate chips in the damn chocolate chip cookies, so I have substituted with raisins.
She spent the rest of the morning rescuing burnt cookies, and scraping the old gum off the kitchen floor with a silver fork that had belonged to Grandma Blair. Knives weren’t allowed in the house anymore, a preventative for suicide attempts, she guessed. The children had learned to eat steak quite well with forks and teeth.
Gregor bought extra gum just so he always had some to chew up in moist wads and throw down. Anna knew he must love her, even though she couldn’t keep a dad for him, or give him a brother. She knew he loved her because he kept throwing all that chewed up gum on the kitchen floor for her to scrape up.
Dear Diary
I don’t know why knives aren’t allowed in my home. If I have the money to purchase such an item, I should be able to do so. Isn’t that some kind of discrimination or something?
The doorbell rang.
Anna felt upset because she had forgotten to put out the tea set.
“Again? Christ! It can’t be 12:14 already!” Anna looked up at the black cat kitchen wall clock, with the swinging tale. It was 10:35.
Anna wiped tears that had fallen, blurring her mascara. She didn’t know why she was crying, or when it had started.
She put the teapot on to boil. The doorbell rang again.
“Just a god damn minute!”
Anna ran to the bedroom and took two full minutes brushing her lengthening hair twenty eight times, and another three to put the hair clip in that looked like a big red bug, a Christmas gift from Gregor when he was five. It said so on the tiny white label affixed to its bottom.
She had the water whistling in her grandmother’s old chrome teapot when more knocks knocked and more bells rang.
“Coming! Shit!”
Anna went to the door, apprehensive that maybe Cezar had come to visit again.
She listened quietly at the door, then slowly opened it.
It was the UPS man.
“Hello!” Anna agitatedly pulled on the sleeve of his brown work shirt, trying to usher the young man in, insisting he sit down in his favorite chair, drink his favorite peppermint tea, and eat his favorite cookies, but he refused quite nicely, and stood firm in the doorway.
“I just have a package for a Miss Anna Blair, ma’am.”
Anna peered up at him, noticing his nice smile, dark brown eyes, and well-developed thick lips that hid a row of white, straight teeth. The dark brown trimmed mustache caressed his upper lip perfectly. His chest pushed his brown work shirt out, filling it completely. His waist was trim, his legs muscular.
He cleared his throat. He noticed the big red bug hair clip, the tears, the smudged mascara, and the middle-aged woman with deep green eyes, large yet balanced shape, and fair face with soft features. He also noticed her checking out his body, and it made him smile.
She took the small package from his warm, lean hands.
“That’s me.”
“Great. Can you just sign…”
Anna shut the door and walked back to her room, gently touching her tingling lips.
Dear Diary
I kissed the UPS man today. I leaned up on tiptoes and kissed his lips, and thanked him for the package. And closed the door. I set the package down on the pine table. That will wait until my children come home so they can tell me what I ordered from a catalog that I forgot about. He has a scratchy mustache, with soft, sweet lips. Not sure why I did that. Oh well.
Jake, the UPS man, sat in his brown truck for several minutes outside the house of one Anna Blair. He didn’t quite know what to think. She was definitely pretty, but there was obviously something wrong with her. He felt he should go up to the door again and see if she was all right, but didn’t want to risk being kissed again. Hell, she might just rip his clothes off and have sex with him or something. His eyebrows raised, and he punched his right leg for even thinking about it.
“Shit.” He shook his head, pushed his thick, brown hair away from his brown eyes, and drove off, giving the accelerator an extra punch.
Unfortunately, the UPS man was not the only man Anna would kiss in the days and weeks to come. There was the Hoover man, the Mormon, the Jehovah’s Witness, and the running-for-mayor guy.
Dear Diary
Shattered hearts
Stumbling around
Bashing and clanging
Yet making no sound
Doing to others
What was done to them
Without ever feeling
A touch that could mend
Hacked through and through
With knife-driven pain
Unable, unwilling to
Feel anything
Shattered hearts
Unable to see
That pain lies in each one
That love holds the key
Wishing and hoping
For dreams to come true
Hanging on to anything
Just to hang on to
Joy at a distance
Forcing a smile
Crawling through
Just one more trial
Laughter is empty
When it comes around
When tears are forced back
Never hitting the ground
We grin and bear it
We fight on and on
Cause people keep saying
We must remain strong
Shattered hearts fall weak in the knees
Waiting for weeping
Till everyone leaves
Alone, we sit
In a dark emptiness
Praying so quietly,
“Gods, give me rest.”
We take in a breath
And breathe out a sigh
At all the wasted
Years that went by
There could have been laughter
There could have been cheer
But there was instead, sadness
Torment and fear
Shattered hearts
Stumbling around
Can’t someone catch them
Before they fall to the ground?
Can’t someone listen
Won’t someone hold
A dear shattered heart
While it is bleeding and cold
But instead comes the noise
And the wedge just grows deeper
Where are the strong arms
And safety to keep her?
Where is the one
Who will wipe away tears
She walks away slowly
Shattered hearts…shattered years
…to be continued.
Charleigh Wallace 