HE TOOK HER TO THE SPOT WHERE HE HAD PARKED AND SLEPT two nights before. They got out of the truck. Both a little drunk now. Behind the seat of the truck he found a rag. He slid the pistol from the sock and wiped it down. Then he wrapped and tied the pistol with the rag and it sat on the hood of the truck in a small knotted bundle. They milled around looking at the sky and listening to the water slap against the bank. Drinking. And when it was time to get rid of it he asked her to let him do it. Because I can throw it out farther than you. They couldn’t see the splash but they heard it. Deep and certain. And she didn’t know why but it was at that moment of the splash that she wanted to tell him about her life. To talk to him and tell him how one day she had left the girl sitting on a bare twin mattress in a back room in a falling down house somewhere on the outskirts of some nameless town. To get cigarettes or chocolate milk or something and how when she came back a man had wandered in from another room and was going for the girl, her small wrists held together with his one hand and with his other hand unbuckling and unzipping and going after this small, helpless thing. This small thing who had a paralyzed look on her face. Maben wanted to tell him how she dropped the brown bag holding whatever it was she thought she had to fucking have and she climbed onto his back, clawing and scratching at his eyes and trying to stab her fingers into his brain, trying to bring blood, and then how he was able to spin her and slam her against the wall and then she was going for him again and he got her by the throat and slammed her again, the air going out of her and the child screaming huddled in the corner and how he had turned again toward the child while she lay breathless. A groaning sound coming from her but no air.
He went again for the child but the rhythm of her breathing came back as if God had put His mouth to hers and then she stripped off her belt and jumped on his back again, the belt tight around his neck and she held on as he swung her around and pulled at her hair and then he was on his knees and then he was out. A red face and a white liquid running down the corners of his mouth and she grabbed the child and they were down the street going who the hell knows where but they weren’t there anymore and they wouldn’t be there when he woke up or if he did. She didn’t know why this was the memory that came with the splash of the pistol into the lake. She didn’t know why this is what she almost told him about or why she wanted to talk about such things. He turned and said I can tell you one damn thing. They’ll kill me before I go back to prison. Kill me. You understand? And I’ll do the same to keep from going. You understand? She said yes and she understood. The dropdead tone in his voice and she understood the look that she imagined on his face that was hidden with the dark and she wanted to tell him about her life but she let it go and instead she closed her eyes and imagined herself floating down with the pistol. Settling on a soft, muddy bottom. The cool at the bottom of the lake holding her in a way that she had never been held before.