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Tonight, Glenda can’t sleep.
She can’t help but to picture Sandra, mostly dead, holed up in Arthur’s room.
Cautious not to wake Raheem, Glenda slips out of bed, steps into her slippers, and strolls a few blocks from her home to a twenty-four hour convenience store where she bums a menthol cigarette off a heavy-set woman who has just bought a fresh pack. She pictures herself with a cigarette between her lips, inhaling, being confident and whole. Although she hasn’t smoked for fifteen years, the situation calls for a god damned cigarette.
She ventures inside to get matches. The cashier, a heavily tattooed, twenty-something year old boy, says the store doesn’t carry matches. Things have changed since her last smoke. The cashier lets her use one of the lighters on sale. She lights the cigarette and drops the lighter on the counter.
“Thank you,” she says, and races outside to exhale.
She coughs, chuckles at herself through teary eyes, all by herself near a trashcan brimmed with used napkins, hot dog cradles, drink lids, ash, and other litter from store products. After taking a larger drag, she exhales again through her nose, lets the toxicity of the moment engulf her.
She walks the few blocks back to her house, puffing on the cigarette. She stops in front of Arthur’s house and stomps out the cigarette. Arthur’s vehicle isn’t in the driveway, meaning he’s not home from work yet.
His living room blinds are open. Thinking nothing of it, she stares through his window. The fact that Sandra is inside, dying, makes her complicit. Her feet can’t move under the weight of her guilt.
Someone moves inside the house.
Sandra?
She approaches the front door. It’s been pulled ajar, probably to get some air into a house that has been closed all day.
Glenda quietly steps inside. “Sandra?”
Somebody’s footsteps tap on the kitchen floor. Bare feet, it seems. Glenda follows the sound of the footsteps. As she arrives in the kitchen, the footsteps elude her, plod through the opposite end of the kitchen, and down the hallway. The bedroom door creaks open, softly shuts. Glenda follows the sound of the steps to the room, turns the knob, then presses the bedroom door open. She steps into the room, switches on the light. Sandra is barefoot, sitting on the bed in an all cream robe.
“Glenda,” Sandra says, exhaling in relief.
Sandra’s skin looks smooth, and, albeit tangled, her dark brown hair is full and beautiful.
“I thought you’d be him.” Sandra’s voice is feeble.
“You...okay? I thought he...did something to you.”
Sandra clenches her hands into fists. “Don’t know if I am.”
“Can I get you anything? Is the light too bright for you? You had them off.”
Sandra rises to her feet. “You have to drive me away from here.”
“Hold on. Where are you trying to go?”
Sandra aggressively rubs her arms. “I can feel him all over me.”
“Shit,” Glenda says, thinking she should have already called the authorities to report Arthur. “I’ve seen the blood. We can put his ass away.”
Sandra purses her lips. “We can’t do that.”
“Why in the world not? Honey, he’s saying he’s healing you. It’s—it’s insane. Turning him in makes more sense than running.”
Sandra brings both of her hands to her face, begins to weep into them. “Oh...my... He,” Sandra says through tears. “He swallows you. Whole.”
“We should get you out of here.”
What Sandra said reaffirmed she needs doctors and nurses, and medicine. “Grab some things and let’s go. Can you do that?”
Sandra gasps, her face solid, expressionless.
“You grab your things. I’m going to go get my car keys. I’ll meet you out front.” Glenda pictures pulling into a hospital, sitting in a lobby, gripping her friend’s hand. Maybe Sandra will go away for a while. It’ll mean Arthur will be out of her life. It’ll mean she’ll somehow get better.
Glenda leaves the bedroom and heads for the living room. Entering the living room Arthur stops her. He takes a few steps to the side, and shows he is more than happy to let her leave.
“Did she let you in?” he says.
“It was open.”
He dips his eyes.
Glenda says, “She’s confused. I-I-I don’t think she wants to see you.”
Arthur straightens himself, politely waves his hand towards the living room and out of his home. “Get out of my house.”
“There’s nothing wrong with leaving her alone.”
“’Scuse the shit out of me.” He starts towards Sandra’s room.
“Wait, wait, wait.” Glenda grabs his arm.
He rips his arm away from her. “Thank you, Glenda. I’ll call if I need you.”
Not willing to escalate the situation, she keeps her mouth shut and hurries to her house.
***
At home, Glenda stomps into her room.
Raheem flicks the end table lamp light on. “Where’d you go?”
“For a walk. Ended up next door. Listen—”
“—That’s cigarette smoke.”
“Sandra’s awake.”
He purses his lips. “She is?”
“She’s different.”
“Come here, baby.” He pats the sheets next to him. “Come here.”
She does as he suggests.
“Does she look alright?” he says. “She’s good?”
“She’s saying weird stuff I can’t wrap my head around.”
“She looks, okay? I remember her dome, and the—”
“—All healed, somehow. All freaked out. Arthur didn’t seem right either. We can’t leave her there with him.”
He rubs her back, massages her shoulders.
She pulls herself away from him, bounces off the bed. “You’re not understanding. She’s not safe.”
“It’s fine.”
“No, it’s not and you know it.”
Raheem hurries out of bed, steps around the far side of it, and juts his finger at her. “Now, listen. The only person who should be around her is him, straight up.”
She sidesteps him, starts for the door. “Pussy.”
“On the other side, Arthur does something to you. He did something to me. I’m not a pussy; I’m confident in what he can do for her.”
“What’s this other side talk?”
Raheem closes his eyes. “I’m going to come straight out with it. He ate me.”
Hearing him seemingly affirm what Sandra had said sends a jolt into her. “What are you talking about?”
Raheem sets his hand over his heart, as if about to recite the flag salute. “We should all want to be swallowed by him.”
A woman’s scream from next door.
In a hurry, Raheem leads the way through their living room, then outside, and finally to the front door of Arthur’s house where they pause for a breath before stepping into a smothering silence.
“Where are they?” he whispers.
“Arthur’s room.”
Another scream, and then the bumps of a domestic dispute.
Raheem rushes towards Arthur’s bedroom with Glenda on his heels. He turns the knob, pushes the door open.
“Get her arms,” Arthur shouts to Raheem.
Raheem struggles to keep hold on Sandra’s wrists.
Arthur yells, “Get her feet. Get her feet. Grab something.”
Raheem pounces on her, straddles her legs, presses on her shoulders as Arthur grips a wrist above her head. With her free hand, Sandra repetitively smacks Raheem in his side.
Glenda speaks to Sandra in a soft tone: “Honey, it’s best to not fight right now. You need to calm down, honey.”
“Get him away from me!” Sandra struggles. “Get him away!”
Raheem levels his gaze on Arthur. “Go. Get out, man. Get out.”
Arthur releases her, jumps to his feet, and inches towards the door.
Sandra grinds her teeth. “Get him away from me!”
Glenda shoves Arthur towards the door.
Arthur nearly loses his balance.
Once Arthur is outside the room, Glenda slams the door behind him. She turns and sees Raheem backing away from Sandra.
Sandra spits, and pants, her chest heaves, as she stands.
“I’d bet you’d be doing us a favor if you followed Arthur,” Glenda says to Raheem.
“I’m supposed to leave you with her?”
“A big favor. Why don’t you go hang out with your boyfriend who swallows?”
“I’m not the issue,” he says. “I didn’t do shit.”
Glenda cranes her neck at him. “That is the problem. You chose to not do anything. If anything happens, I’ll whoop her ass. Get gone.”
While focusing on Sandra, Raheem flees the room, closes the door behind him.
***
Glenda meets Arthur and Raheem in the living room. They eye her as if she’s withholding a verdict.
“I think she’s fine,” Glenda says.
Arthur points towards the bedroom. “I can go in?”
“Why can’t you wait?” she says.
Raheem’s nostrils flare. “Do you guys smell that?”
The same stench that killed Raheem crept into Arthur’s house, again. The three of them cover their mouths, their noses. They head from door to door, from window to window, trying to keep foul air out of the house.
Arthur bursts into his room to close the window in there that he knows is open. The stench dries the back of his throat.
He says to Sandra, “You have to close the window.”
She makes her way to the window. “I can feel you all over me.”
“You’re alive.”
She closes the window. “I don’t think you know what you did.”
Glenda and Raheem enter, holding paper towels over their mouths and noses. Unsure of what conversation to have, Arthur exits, to think of a way to reconnect with his wife the right way.
Raheem closes the door behind Arthur.
Sandra says from the back of her throat, “He doesn’t understand that—”
“—You need to be swallowed,” Raheem says the remainder of her thought. “The pain he gave saved me. You can feel the pain healing you. Tell me you didn’t feel it.”
“I killed myself to escape his abuse,” Sandra says. “Now he can keep abusing me.”
Glenda gasps. “You’re saying you did kill yourself?”
“I was dead,” Sandra says. “You don’t believe it, I can tell, but he does. If you ask your husband, he’d say that while being swallowed, you can feel yourself coming back here. Right, Raheem? Arthur swallows you.”
“All of it is part of the pain from the moment,” Raheem says, “which, I’m learning, is the only real thing in this world. There’s no perspective to pain. Pain just is. It’s true. Pain is all we have. That’s why he can bring you back by using it. He doesn’t bring you back through your contentment, or your happiness. It’s your pain that has the energy to make you whole again.”
Sandra shakes her head. “Pain is what put me there.”
“You reached the truth. Couldn’t handle it. That’s what got you there. Pain is the truth. How else do you explain what happened? The truth is you learn everything through pain. We find the center of ourselves through overcoming some form of pain. In this case, Arthur’s.”
“That wasn’t my experience.” Sandra stares at Raheem. “No, no, no that’s not right.”
“I think,” Raheem says, puffing his chest out, “that’s why we have to die to move on. We have to die to be cleansed by pain, on our way to a better place. We get a sense of it here to prepare us. We need to stop closing our eyes to all that wonderful pain.”
“Raheem,” Glenda says, “that’s absolutely stupid. Stop talking. You want to hurt our kids to make them better? You think people are better off, what, abused? Um, shot and stabbed. You think they’re better off as addicts? What the hell, ‘Heem?”
Sandra frowns. “Where I went, I was repeatedly murdered. Stabbed to death. Again, and again. That’s what you find so appealing?”
Sitting cross-legged on the floor Raheem says, “No. Oh, no. He swallowed me, from that darkness. The pain seemed necessary, somehow.”
The bedroom door creeks open.
Arthur stands in the doorway, arms hanging at his sides. “I can tell you about dying. I’ve watched people die—get hit by cars, have heart attacks. I’ve helped them. Never hurt anybody.”
“You stabbed me, in a dark, pitiful place, after I shot myself.” Sandra stares at him, a challenging gaze.
“I’m sorry, “Arthur says. “I don’t know what happened to you. It wasn’t me who did it.” He moves his arm up and down his body like a wand. “Believe me, it wasn’t me.”
“It’s you. There’s no way it’s not.”
“Baby, I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You’re inside of me, again, Arthur. You’re on me, seeping into me. Get out of me, get off me!”
Arthur leaves the room, shaking his head.
“Are you okay?” Glenda says to Sandra.
“I think we should go,” Raheem adds. “We’re not helping.”
“At this point, you might as well,” Sandra says. “It’s probably too late.”
Glenda starts in Sandra’s direction. Thinks better of it. “We’re right next door.”
Glenda and Raheem leave Sandra alone. They find their way back to their house. They both check upstairs to make sure the kids aren’t awake this early in the morning.
After deciding the kids are safe, Raheem finds his way into his and Glenda’s room. While she paces around the living room, he lies in bed, alone and in the dark.
The smell sits around him, sticks to the hair in his nostrils. It won’t kill him twice, will it?
In the living room, the back of Glenda’s throat begins to close, probably due to the smell, she figures. She starts to choke. She briskly steps into the kitchen, turns on the faucet, and dips her head under it. After a few gulps she wipes her mouth with a paper towel, then uses that same paper towel to cover her mouth and nose.
Still thinking about the events next door, she joins her husband in bed.
“I love you,” she says, getting comfortable under the sheets.
“I don’t have a life without you.”
“He saved her from suicide.”
“Postponed it.”
“She’s not going to make it.” Glenda freezes, thinking of the implications of her own statement. She repeats her own unbelievable words to herself. He saved her from suicide.
Raheem says, “The only way she doesn’t kill herself is if she finds the pain of him bringing her back to life worse than the pain of her staying alive.”
“She’d be better off killing him.” Glenda senses a type of gravity, after she says it.
“You mean that shit?”
“No matter the situation, it sounds like abuse to me. If he’s done something that makes her want to kill herself, it’s abuse. If she doesn’t feel safe, and is trapped, it’s abuse. If he doesn’t know about her mental state, it doesn’t make it better. I wouldn’t harm him, but I wouldn’t stop her.”
“You’d do nothing.”
“You won’t even acknowledge he did anything to her, will you?”
Raheem rolls his eyes.
“That’s what I thought,” she says. “You and your pain.”