Diamondback
written by: Tori Chambers
I
You’d never know it to look at me now, but I used to be a lawyer. No, seriously. I worked in the Public Defender’s office, about a block from the state capitol. I had a house, a husband, and two kids. I was living the American Dream, yes sir.
But lives don’t always work out the way we plan. Sometimes, unexpected things come along and cock them up. What cocked up mine was Marsha Beasley. Poor, dumb Marsha Beasley.
I’d had two prior meetings with her and each time I swore would be the last. The woman was crazy — literally insane — and I couldn’t see why she was sentenced to the Arizona State Correctional Facility instead of a mental hospital. That, in fact, was the point of her appeal, and we had to discuss it one last time. I came all the way from Tucson, just for her.
Marsha could have been me: a college graduate and career woman on her way up the corporate ladder. At twenty-six, she held a management position in an architectural firm. By twenty-eight, she was serving time for selling controlled substances and killing her pimp, James McGilroy, in a Tucson motel.
I guess drugs will do that, but her case made little sense to me.
She called herself ‘Diamondback,’ so named for the tattoo of two, blue diamonds on the back of her left hand. Even at her trial, she refused to answer to anything else.
The guards kept her handcuffed for our visits, for which I was grateful, because she frightened me. At best, she was surly and rude. At her worst, she threw invective and said the most vile things. Her teeth — or what teeth remained from her crack use — were a dingy gray. Her breath and body stank. She never washed her face, and her dull, brown hair hung in stringy clumps. Her glassy, green eyes were wild, always darting around. She was stick-thin and her hands shook like a junkie on a long ride through Hell.
So imagine my surprise when the CO’s brought her in, that day. Her hair was brushed, her face washed. She stood ramrod straight, no signs of jitters or nervous ticks. She still looked older than her actual age of thirty-two, but her eyes were clear and sharp, her demeanor. Calm.
When the guards left us alone, she smiled at me. “Good morning, Ms. Rogers.”
“Good morning, Diamondback,” I said, reaching into my briefcase.
“Please,” she said politely, “call me Marsha.”
That was a first.
I pulled the relevant forms from her file folder and laid them on the table. “The state turned down your appeal … Marsha. I’m sorry.”
“Ya’ll did your best,” she sighed. “Thank you.”
I said nothing, marveling at how coherent she was.
One of the forms contained her mugshots. She picked it up and ran a finger down her image. “I used to be a pretty girl. My mama said I was beautiful. See?” she noted, handing me the sheet.
It’s funny — I’d seen that form a dozen times — but I’d never really looked at her pictures. Seeing them, I was struck by just how beautiful she once was; hauntingly so. I stared in awe.
“Diam — I mean, Marsha,” I said, slowly, “when were these taken?”
“That’s the night I shot poor Jimmy,” she said. “It’s my only arrest.”
I had assumed they were taken years earlier for a previous offense. Her bedraggled appearance, I reasoned, was the result of hard nights and harder drugs, but the dates on the images confirmed that her downward spiral had occurred while Marsha was in prison; as if she had been burning herself from the inside-out while incarcerated. What the Hell?
She was so calm, that day; so alert and aware. I took her hand — the one with the tattoo of diamonds — and held it firmly. “What happened to you?”
She shook her head, looking down. Tears welled in her eyes. “You wouldn’t believe me,” she finally said. “Sometimes, I don’t believe it, myself … Hey, I got somethin’ for you, Ms. Rogers.”
Awkwardly, she dug into her jumpsuit breast pocket with cuffed hands and pulled out a ring, presenting it to me. “Here. It’s yours, now.”
When I was seventeen, I went through a rebellious stage. My parents forbade me to date this college guy I was interested in, so I dated a biker instead, just to piss them off. His name was Mike. He had the desired effect.
The thing I remembered most about Mike and his bike was a skull-shaped ring he gave me to signify that I was “his woman.” Made of pewter and cheap, red glass for eyes, it couldn’t have cost more than thirty bucks.
This was a skull ring too, but it had some heft to it; probably silver or white gold. Its green eyes, I would guess, were real emeralds and it cost more than three hundred times Mike’s little trinket. I rolled it around in my hands and it felt warm.
“How did you get this past the visitation CO?” I said.
“Never ask where a gift comes from,” she said, smiling strangely, “just ‘Where’s it gonna pop up, next?’”
I handed it back to her. “I suggest that you give it to the guards. Say you found it here in visitation. Otherwise, they’ll put you in the SHU and —”
“Hey, Judy,” she whispered, leaning forward, her eyes agog. “You ever kill someone?”
The words and the use of my first name flustered me. “M-Marsha, I — I don’t think — ”
“Killed ’em dead?” she asked with an evil smile, her eyes wild. “Sent ’em straight to Hell?”
I tried to pull back in shock. “Don’t you dare — ”
“Straight to Hell,” she shrieked, grabbing my left hand. Her fingernails — cut short for prison— were long and sharp, digging into my flesh.
“Straight to Hell, straight to Hell!”
“Help,” I yelled, jerking my arm against her tight grip. “Guards, help.”
Two guards rushed into the room, carrying billy clubs. They beat her off of me as she shrieked and laughed insanely. The two men hammered her body until she let go.
A prison doctor gave me a shot to calm me down, then two guards drove me back to the office, one in my car, the other driving his prison vehicle. I turned Diamonback’s case over to another lawyer.
The public defender’s office was a maze of cubicles, divided into three-desk groups. I shared one with my partner, Kevin, and Mr. Forbes, our boss.
Kevin and I saw little of each other, one or both of us always visiting clients or in court. Forbes, a gruff, middle-aged black man, fought hard to convince us that his tough exterior wasn’t just an act, but we had him pegged.
Kevin’s desk was always a mess; mine was usually clean. When I returned from my prison visit that day, I found a small teddy bear atop the piles of paper of my inbox. It wore a black- and-white, prison-striped shirt with a matching hat and held a sign that read, “Prisoner of Love”.
I picked it up and smiled, suddenly feeling much better. I turned to my coworkers and laughed. “All right, did either of you see Mitch?”
Looking up from his computer, the earnest Kevin said, “I never saw him, Judy. Honest.”
Mr. Forbes never looked up from his newspaper. “It’s not my job to keep track of that no- account bank manager husband of yours, Rogers.”
Mitch and I had been married for seven years and passed that bear back and forth, regularly. Putting it on my desk meant that Mitch was sending me a secret message: ‘I love you. I found someone to watch the kids so we can have a romantic night.’ Now that I had the bear, the next time would be my turn. It was the sexiest thing we had going between us.
Whenever I took the bear back to him, Mitch’s secretary or someone else always caught me dropping it off. No one ever saw him at my office. He was sneaky for a banker.
At three-thirty, Mr. Forbes sighed and said, “I can’t stand you moping around here and staring at that clock, Rogers. Get the hell outta here before I have you arrested for loitering.”
I suppressed a giggle. “Thanks, boss.”
“Make sure you’re on time, tomorrow,” he groused in faux annoyance. “You were useless, today.”
As I grabbed my purse, a metallic ping echoed off my desktop. On the floor, I found the skull ring Diamondback had tried to give me. I thought I’d left it in the prison visitation room… Oh, well. I’d return it to her counselor the next time I went out that way. For now, I didn’t want to deal with it. I had a hot date.
II
I stopped for a bottle of wine on my drive home. When I stepped inside, I saw a trail of rose petals at my feet, leading to the master bathroom. I found Mitch taking a bubble bath with an old wig of mine pinned up on his head.
I stepped into the bathroom, giggling. “Mitch, you goof. What is all this?”
“According to this month’s Cosmo,” he said, scrubbing his back with a long-handled brush, “this is one of fifteen ways to put zing back into our relationship.”
I began to remove my blouse. “And what makes you think our relationship lacks zing?”
“I don’t think it does,” he said, “but who am I to disagree with the nation’s number one magazine for today’s busy, young woman?
“How was your day?”
“Don’t ask,” I said, rolling my eyes. “I’ll tell you, later. Yours?”
“Bor-ring,” he said as he watched me undress, “so I held all the customers hostage and had sex with them, one at a time.”
I grinned, unzipping my skirt. “Oh? How was that?”
“The women were fabulous, but the men were kind of shy.”
I laughed, kicking aside my skirt and panties. “Where are the kids?”
“Your mom has them,” he said as I slid into the large tub. “Wanna help me find the soap?”
I reached down and grabbed him, watching his eyes bulge. “Oops, that’s not it,” I said, innocently.
Mitch chuckled, pulling me to him for a passionate kiss. “To Hell with the soap.”
Maybe it was the day I had. Maybe I was just mega-horny, but we didn’t make love, that night; we fucked. Mitch followed my lead and I even let him tie me up with one of his ties.
Sometimes, you just want sex to be nasty, and that’s exactly how I felt then. It was the hottest night we’d had in a while and I loved it.
The next morning, I awoke with my left hand covered in a red rash and tingling where Diamondback had scratched me. Mitch applied an antibacterial cream and bandaged it. It was Saturday and I promised him I’d see a doctor if it wasn’t better by Monday.
As I dressed for a garden party at Mitch’s parents’ house, my mother arrived with the kids. They ran into the bedroom and hugged me.
“Mommy, Mommy,” they yelled.
“Oh, my babies,” I said, returning their embraces. “Did you have fun with Grandma?”
“Uh-huh,” said six-year-old Brittney, nodding her head. “We went to Fun-Fare Park an’ I rode the tilt-a-whirl, but they wouldn’t let Jeffie ride it ’cause he’s just a kid.”
“Am not,” exclaimed five-year-old Jeffie, standing on his toes. He stuck his tongue out at his sister, then immediately forgot the slight. “Then Grandma took us to ‘Donald’s.”
I gave my mother the evil eye. “McDonald’s, huh?”
She shrugged as I rose. “It was your favorite at that age. It didn’t kill you.”
I touched my children’s arms, grabbing their attention. “Go find Daddy and play with him.”
“Yeah, Daddy,” said Jeffie, and they both took off, leaving Mom and me alone.
I crossed my arms. “McDonald’s? Really?”
“They’re children, Judy, not porcelain dolls,” she sniffed. “You and Sandy didn’t break because you had a burger once in a while.”
“We’re trying to cut down on the crap food,” I muttered.
I rummaged through the closet for a blouse. “Speaking of Sandy, I haven’t heard from her in a week. What’s she up to?”
“She moved in with that boy she’s seeing,” Mom said, glancing through my perfumes.
I rolled my eyes. Mom was so… Mom. “His name’s Devin and he’s a year younger than me. Hardly a boy. When are you going to learn his name?”
“Hopefully, never,” she said, choosing a perfume. She spritzed her wrist, then sniffed it, making a face. “I’m hoping Sandy will tire of him the way you did that biker boy, whats-his-name.”
“Mike,” I said, pulling a low-cut top from the closet. I draped it over my breasts and appraised myself in the mirror.
Mom shook her head disapprovingly. “Oh, Judy. You’re not wearing that to Helen’s party, are you?”
“I have two kids and can still wear clothes I wore in college,” I said, admiring myself. ”Why shouldn’t I wear it?”
“Because your breasts have grown since the kids. You’ll look like ten pounds of potatoes in a five-pound sack,” she said, snatching the top by the hanger and shoving it back into the closet. “You’re almost thirty, for God’s sake.”
I had a sharp retort ready, but Mom held up her hand. “Speaking of Mike the Bike, I came across something of yours this morning.”
She dropped something heavy into my hand, and I looked at it, stunned. It was a skull ring. It grinned evilly at me, its green eyes sparkling. It wasn’t Mike’s old ring, it was the one Diamondback had tried to give me.
The breath caught in my throat. “Mom, take it away,” I said in a quivering voice.
“Ghastly, isn’t it?” she observed. “Your father threatened to kill that boy if he ever — ”
“Please,” I begged, my hand trembling. I thrust the ring back into her palm. “Throw it away. Not here, at your place. Please, Mom.”
She eyed me quizzically, but nodded and dropped it into her purse. “Of course, dear. I shouldn’t wonder if you don’t want Mitch to see it. You were a stubborn, little hellion at that age, much like your sister, now.”
Sandy? A hellion? If Mom only knew.
III
My strange mood persisted through the day, right up to the time of the party. When we arrived at Mitch’s parents’ home, I was dressed in the low-cut top and a pleather miniskirt I hadn’t worn since high school, along with a pair of five-inch heels. I got carried away with the make-up, which caused Mitch to give me a cold stare. He muttered something about me looking like a whore, but I didn’t care. It’s what I felt like wearing.
Mitch’s sister Tina and her husband Greg were there, and the two men went to the study to talk football. All the kids stayed in the living room, watching family movies, guarded by Mitch’s fifteen-year-old niece Megan, who looked beyond bored.
Left alone, I was the belle of the ball. Mitch might not like my outfit, but the other men sure did… They swarmed around me. I got some nasty looks from some of the wives, but that didn’t matter.
I drank heavily, I flirted outrageously, and I danced with every guy there. It was a party and I wanted to have fun.
I danced mostly with Harlan Stevens, a tall, good-looking stock broker. His wife Vicki was a no-show and someone whispered to me that they were breaking up. I guess he got custody of the friends. Harlan always had an eye for the ladies, and we often flirted in a joking way, but it seemed more serious, that night.
After the sun set, Harlan and I wandered the huge garden, where we sat a little too close on a stone bench, watching the moon.
“Sure is a pretty night,” he said, watching me more than the sky.
“Mmm-hmmm,” I sighed, closing my eyes. “A moon, a garden, and a handsome man. It’s a nice way to spend the evening.” I’d had two scotches already — or was it three? — and had a good buzz going.
“Vicki left me, you know,” he said in a low, husky voice.
“Yeah,” I said, stretching. “Seems ta me, I heard somethin’ ’bout that.” I giggled, feeling warm. “Seems you was a naughty boy.”
“I still am,” he said, tracing a finger along the fringe of my top. “You know, Judy, you’re so … endowed… I always wondered if it was natural.”
I giggled, feeling the booze. “Nothin’ but grade-A US prime, natural tit-flesh, baby.”
He cupped my right breast and I moaned when he flicked a finger across my nipple. I gasped, but didn’t object. He leaned in close, his lips hovering an inch above my own …
WHAM.
Harlan fell to the ground, clutching his head. Mitch stood over us, his fists trembling in rage. “Cover yourself,” he snapped, and I realized my right breast was exposed.
I fumbled with my top, the drunkenness gone. “Mitch, honey, I —”
“Get in the car,” he ordered, a crowd forming behind him. “I’ll get the kids … And for God’s sake, cover yourself.”
Red-faced, I stumbled past Sam and Helen, my mother, and our friends, all of whom gawked, but said nothing.
As I ran out of the garden, I heard Mitch’s angry voice. “Stay away from my wife, Stevens.”
IV
We couldn’t say more than a few, hushed words with the kids asleep in the back seat, but once we got Brittney and Jeffie into their beds, we had the worst fight we’d ever had. Mitch accused me of being a slut. I was in the wrong, and I knew it, but I stubbornly refused to acknowledge it.
The next morning, I apologized, blaming it on the booze and begging Mitch to forgive me. He seemed more amenable in the light of day, but it was an uneasy truce.
I arranged for flowers to be delivered to the bank on Monday and cooked his favorite dish for dinner. We had sex that night, which I agreed to mostly to placate him.
By Monday morning, we acted as if things were back to normal, but they weren’t. Our conversations were clipped and formal. Our morning kiss lacked tenderness. When the flowers arrived, he called and told me he was sorry, but that night he went to bed early while I stayed up late, looking at porn on the computer for some ungodly reason I couldn’t fathom.
Tuesday was family movie night and we all settled down to watch a Disney film. The kids sat on the floor while Mitch and I sat on the couch. It seemed artificial to me, but we were at least talking, again.
At one point, I held his hand and muttered, “I’m sorry.”
“Me too,” he whispered, giving my hand a firm squeeze. “Let’s forget it.”
Near the end of the show, the phone rang. Mitch answered it. “Joe’s Pool Hall. Cue ball speaking.”
I playfully poked him in the ribs.
He sighed and handed me the phone. “It’s your sister.”
I reluctantly took it.
“Sandy? What’s up, snotnose?”
Mitch indicated the kids and shook his head.
“Sorry,” I mouthed.
“Sis?” Sandy said on the phone. She sounded as if she’d been crying. “Can you come over?”
“Honey?” I asked, sitting up. “What’s wrong?”
“It’s Devin,” she whispered. “He’s … I can’t say over the phone. I’m living at his place, now. Please hurry.”
The line went dead.
I handed the phone back to Mitch. He sighed. “The drama queen strikes, again.”
“Sorry, baby,” I said, grabbing my purse. “Can you —”
“I know the drill,” he said. “I’ll put the kids to bed. Hurry back.”
When I stopped at the car door to fish out my keys, I found the skull ring inside my purse. My throat went dry. I looked around, then threw it to the curb where it bounced into the drainage pipe. I wondered if that would be the end of it, but I doubted it.
V
I’d only been to Devin’s house once. I drove up and down the dark street three times before I finally saw Sandy’s beat-up old Chevy parked in an open garage. I parked behind it, walked up the path, and pounded on the door.
After a moment, Sandy opened it. She wore a flimsy negligee over her thin frame, her permed hair falling in blonde rings to her shoulders. Her face was red and puffy. She hugged me silently, then led me to the living room, passing her old dresser in the hallway. I guess she really did move in.
The living room, like the rest of the house, was a mess, the furniture old and worn. Devin was stretched out on the ratty couch, wrapped in a blanket. Pale and trembling, he looked like shit.
“Okay,” I said, sliding into a chair full of dirty clothes. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” Devin said, obviously trying to downplay the incident. “Sandy just kinda panicked and —”
She poked him in the side as she sat on the edge of the sofa. “Devin, don’t …”
“No,” I said. “Not Devin. You, Sandy. What happened?”
She lit a cigarette in a trembling hand. “We were in bed when Devin —”
“I had an allergic reaction,” he insisted. “it was nothing.”
I held up my hand to silence him and gave Sandy my ‘don’t bullshit me’ face. “Allergic reaction to what?”
She swallowed hard and looked down. In a guilty voice, she said, “We did a little coke. You know, to enhance —”
“Cocaine?” I snapped. “Jesus Christ, are you insane?”
“Don’t judge me,” she retorted. “Okay? I just had a bad scare and I do not need to be judged right now.”
“You’re something else, you know that?” I barked. “Two junkies living together. Great idea, Sandy. Meet a guy in rehab, then move in with him. What did your parole officer say when you told him that?”
“He … He doesn’t know … yet.”
“Oh, this just gets better and better,” I said. “I don’t know how long that crap stays in your system, but you two had better pray your PO’s don’t ask you to pee in a cup or you’ll both end up back in jail.”
I gave my sister a dark look. “Mom doesn’t know about your arrest and conviction because I helped you cover it up. You were remanded into my custody, remember?
“Sandy, do you want to go back to prison?”
“No,” she said in a timid voice.
“Where’s the cocaine?” I demanded.
“In my undie drawer. In the dresser.” She rose to retrieve it.
“No,” I said, and she froze. “I’ll get it. You two stay here. Do not move.”
I marched to the dresser in the hallway and dug through the top drawer. Wedged in the back corner, I found a small, Ziploc bag full of white powder. I brought it back to the living room and shook it in Sandy’s face. “Is this all of it?”
“Yes,” she said, sullenly.
“It’d better be,” I warned, “because if your parole officer finds out otherwise, I can and will see that the judge gives you the full, five years of your sentence, Sandy. Am I making myself clear?”
“As crystal,” said Devin, giving me a smirk.
I gave him a withering glare and he bowed his head.
”I’ll dispose of the coke,” I said, shoving it into my purse and heading for the door. “I swear to God, two grown people acting like a couple of juvenile delinquents.”
On my way home, I did a strange thing. I did it without thought, really; almost as if I was cruising on autopilot. About three blocks from home, I pulled into the parking lot of a neighborhood church. The lot was dark, quiet, and empty.
I pulled out the bag of cocaine and rolled a dollar bill into a tight straw, then sprinkled coke on the dash and snorted it.
I’d never done weed before, much less coke, and it hit me like a ton of bricks. I was instantly in love and snorted two more lines before I stuffed it all back into my purse and drove on.
When I got home, I woke Mitch from a sound sleep and balled him, twice.
VI
The next day, when Mitch left for work, I called in sick and spent the morning getting high. I was wired. By eleven, I was horny as hell and out of coke, but I knew where to get more.
I drove to Devin and Sandy’s place, then parked a few houses down, on the side of the road. Luckily, her car was gone and Devin had no vehicle; he rode to work with a friend and was probably at work, too. I’d bet they had more coke in the house and I was determined to find it.
Sandy kept a spare key under a potted plant at her old place, and I found one at Devin’s home, too. Once I gained entry, I searched her dresser in the hallway, then went upstairs to check the bedrooms.
I opened the door of the first one to find Devin alone in bed with a huge bag of cocaine.
He looked up at me with a gaze as glassy as my own. “Judy.”
I stared at his nude, muscular body, his six-pack abdomen, and his thick, wavy black hair. He was hard beneath the sheets. Still in his twenties, Devin was a handsome man. Maybe we could work out a deal.
I tore my eyes from his buff frame and locked on the coke. “Where’s Sandy?” I asked.
“She’s at work.” He wrapped a protective arm around the bag. “I paid four hundred for this. You’re not taking it away.”
“When will she be back?” I asked, staring hard at the white powder.
“Six hours or so, I guess.” He studied my face, unsure of what I wanted. I think he recognized the longing there.
My hands clenched and unclenched, over and over. I was unable to take my eyes off the bag. Hypnotized, I began to unbutton my blouse. “Plenty of time. Move over,” I commanded.
“What?”
“Move over,” I snapped, removing the blouse and unhooking my bra.
“My coke —”
“We’ll share it,” I said, pulling down my slacks. “Now move. Over.” I practically raped him.
We were both flying high by the time Sandy got home. She walked in on us and gasped at our nude forms.
I looked up from doing a line and said, “Hiiii, snotnose.”
Devin and I both exploded in a fit of giggles as she ran out of the house, blinded by tears.
I got home at about one AM. Two packed suitcases were beside the front door, and Mitch was sitting in the dark living room. I could tell he was drunk.
“Where were you?” he asked in a low voice, as dark as the house.
I decided to lie my way out of it. “I had lunch with Sheila and we talked longer than I thought. We ran into Sandy at the restaurant. She was acting very strange. Did I tell you that she’s back on the coke? I’m really worried about —”
“The kids were here alone when I got off work,” he said. “They were crying for their mother. Where were you?”
“I told you, Sheila and I —”
“Don’t lie to me, Judy,” he exploded, jumping to his feet. “Sandy went crying to your mother and your mom called me.”
“Okay, so what do you want me to say, Mitch?” I shouted back. “So I had a little fun for a change. So what? You’re always at work and, and, and I’m under so much pressure with my job and the kids and —”
“The kids are with my parents,” he said. “You left them alone. Alone. Do you know how dangerous that is?”
“Them kids can go straight to Hell,” I screamed. “I’m the one who’s been hurt, here.”
The next thing I knew, I was lying on the front lawn beside the two suitcases.
VII
Four days later, I was staying in a cheap motel, nursing a hangover. No breakfast yet, but noon was fast approaching and I couldn’t find my stash. That nice man I met the previous night — William or Bill or Mack; something like that — had given me a hundred-dollar bill and I had to find it if I wanted to get breakfast and a rock to start my day.
My cell phone rang and I answered it, still digging through one of the suitcases. “Hello?”
“Sis?”
I smiled. “Sandy. How ya doin’, girl?”
“Judy, where are you?”
“Oh, around,” I said, vaguely. “I haven’t heard from you since I .. left. Honey, I’m sorry ’bout Devin.”
“We broke up,” she said. “I moved out. I’m staying with Mom.”
“I don’t blame you. He’s a weasel … Stayin’ sober?” I asked, switching to the other suitcase.
“I haven’t done anything since that night.”
I chuckled. “Hallelujah, you are saved, sister-dear. You’re clean and I’m … Well, I’m having
fun.”
“Why won’t you tell me where you are?” she whined.
“Now, why would you wanna know that, darlin’?”
“You need help, Judy. You’re … You’re not well.”
“Oh, I’m just fine,” I insisted. “Don’t worry ’bout —”
I let out an ear-piercing scream as a horrible pain shot through me. I felt as if every joint in my body had inverted and bent backward. Childbirth was nothing compared to this.
I fell to the floor, dropping the phone and screeching like a wounded cat. Every muscle burned and if I’d had a gun, I’d have shot myself to end the pain.
As suddenly as the hurt came, it left. I sat up, stretching. It was finished. At last.
I removed the bandage from my left hand, smiling at my beautiful, beautiful diamond tattoo. In the dresser drawer, I found the skull ring exactly where I thought it would be and slipped it on.
“Hello? Hello?” I heard a far-off voice. “Judy, answer me.”
I picked up the discarded cell phone from the floor and placed it to my ear. “Judy’s not here,” I said. “Don’t bother to call back.”
I grabbed a high-heeled shoe from the floor, held the phone against the wall, and hammered it with the shoe’s chunky until the phone shattered to pieces.
As I bent down to retrieve the pieces, I found the hundred dollar bill in a clear, plastic bag of crack. I smiled. Maybe it was going to be a good day, after all.
Later, I sat in the motel bar beside my lucky date for the night. He was an out-of-town salesman and I couldn’t remember his name, but we was gettin’ along just fine.
It felt great to be alive, I reflected. I was half-past drunk and feelin’ a buzz from the crack and really just enjoying my new-found freedom.
I thought about Marsha and I wondered what she was up to, tonight. Probably screaming about her innocence or drugged to the gills on something to keep her quiet. Thanks for the ride, sister. You were fun while it lasted.
Poor, dumb Marsha Beasley. Marsha, Marsha, Marsha.
I must have said that last part out loud. My date turned to me and chuckled. “Is that your name? Marsha?”
I reached into his lap and gave him a playful squeeze with my skull-ringed hand. “Call me Diamondback.”
The End
- Diamondback - January 5, 2025
- No Secrets Left - June 14, 2023
