Jerilyn Kissee smokes her cigarette, waiting for the deputy to wake up, studying the deputy’s slumbering body. She traces his body with her eyes, not only seeing the work he’s put into it to stay in shape but also seeing where time is winning—wrinkles in his face, sun damage to his skin., prominent scars. These are things she hasn’t noticed before. She catches a glimpse of the wound from his story where he said it was. At least that much wasn’t bullshit.
Brogdon looks the same as he had when she walked in her trailer and found him pointing a gun at her—that’s the last time a man will point a gun at her—he looks the same except for the bandages. She’s changed then. What were paper towels and duct tape has now been replaced with sutures, gauze, and medical tape, and maybe a strand or two of duct tape still. Before he passed plum out, he explained that after Wayne and Jeremy dumped him on the side of the road, he robbed a liquor store at gunpoint and forced the guy to patch him up. His shotgun rests at her feet, barrel down, cradled between her legs and well within her reach.
Brogdon stirs as his eyes start to open.
From where she’s sitting, in the darkened corner of the trailer in her recliner turned toward him, wearing a tank top under a gray zipped hooded sweatshirt with black yoga pants, no bra, Jerilyn blows smoke out her mouth and says, “Welcome back to the land of the living” to get his attention and get him looking her way.
Brogdon opens his eyes, jumping fully awake, coming back to the moment where he dropped off. His good hand on his good arm jerks toward where the shotgun had been resting across his lap, but he finds nothing but air. He sees it in its new location between her legs. The folder with the pictures is gone too. So is the weed.
She watches Brogdon process the scene. He’s not dumb, and she knows he wouldn’t be a cop as long as he has if he couldn’t work things out quickly. What do cops call it? An evolving situation? Yes, that’s what this is.
Jerilyn watches as he forces calm throughout his body. He doesn’t need to be told how the situation’s changed. He adapts as well as he can. He made a mistake coming here, putting her in this position. He thought he could intimidate her.
Well, he can’t.
She’ll correct his misunderstanding in a short time.
Jerilyn says, “You aren’t the first man to point a gun at me.” Then she pauses to see if he will argue or say anything back.
Brogdon knows enough to stay quiet.
Jerilyn lights a new cigarette, holding the lighter to the tip, illuminating her face for him to see her, while saying, “Wayne did it this one time.”
She stops as her mind returns to the moment she woke up and found Wayne sitting next to the bed in a chair. Jerilyn fights going there. Not that the memory was more traumatic than any of the others, it’s that it brings up all the other times, too, threatening to overwhelm her emotionally.
Jerilyn says, “We had a fight. He slapped me. I kneed him in the nuts. He put my head in that wall over there.” She points to the spot in the fake dark brown paneling. Brogdon won’t be able to see the hole her head caused because Wayne replaced the paneling during his apology phase. Also, he hung some family portraits to cover up his shoddy handiwork.
“I threatened to stab him,” she continues. “We called a truce. Then I locked myself in our room. After a while, he started drinking, licking his wounds the way he does. It always kinda reminded me of an opossum when he did that, playing dead when I knew he’s just regrouping. He can’t let anything go. I took a bath to calm down and went to bed. Next thing I know, I wake up, it’s dark, and he’s sitting inches from my face in one of the kitchen chairs. I don’t know how he got it in the room and next to the bed without waking me up. Seeing him was surprising, so I wake up more, open my eyes. I see he has this little gun, a seven-shot thing. I think it’s called a Shield or something. He had a thumb safety. Wayne’s just sitting there staring at me. I ask him what’s up, but he doesn’t say anything. I asked him again, and he points the gun at me, thumbs the safety down, and says, ‘I could kill you.’ I was like, what? Unsure if I heard him right. He says, ‘I could kill you … if I wanted to.’ I asked if he wanted to…”
Jerilyn’s voice fades off as her mind tugs at her to return to that moment, leaving the two of them sitting in silence.
After a while, Brogdon grows tired of the silence and asks, “What happened?”
Jerilyn says, “He never answered if he wanted to. I figured he did. Otherwise, why would he be sitting there with a gun pointed at me?”
She thinks about explaining how Wayne had that gun with the safety on in case the girls got a hold of it thinking that maybe the thumb safety would slow things down long enough to prevent something bad from happening if the girls played with it. Maybe one of them, Jerilyn or Wayne, would get to them before anything happened. She thinks about explaining how Wayne hates that gun, calling it a “noisy cricket” like the little piece in Men in Black because he got it in a .40 caliber instead of a nine, and how the damn thing jumps in your hand.
Brogdon clarifies, saying, “No, what happened? I don’t feel like I’ve moved. But everything’s different.”
“You didn’t. I took care of you right there. I just leaned you forward to clean you up.”
“So what happened?” he asks for the third time.
“You passed out.”
“I did?”
Jerilyn wraps her lips around the filter of her third cigarette and inhales deeply. “You did.”
Brogdon assesses the new bandages. His finger picks at the edge of the gauze wrapped around the shoulder wound. Jerilyn’s friend Ralph had a hell of a time stopping the bleeding. Compression and padding were about all he could do for Brogdon with what he brought over to her trailer.
Jerilyn adds, “Your plan’s a bit fucked now, but I thought saving your life was better than letting you die.”
“What did you do?”
“I called a friend of mine and had him come over to patch you up a bit. Ralph’s a good guy, but he’s not a doctor. He was a vet.”
“Was?”
“Meth’s a hell of a drug.”
Brogdon gives her a look that says he doesn’t understand, but Jerilyn doesn’t explain it. “Like he was a medic?”
“No, like with animals, a veterinarian.”
Brogdon stays quiet.
“After calling Ralph, I called the neighbor and asked her to watch the girls all night, which I’ve done before. I told her I worked late and had to be back first thing in the morning. I asked if the girls could hang out over there with her girls until my mother could come pick them up. The neighbor agreed, but I didn’t give her much of a choice. So you don’t have to worry about anyone coming in and interruptin’ us.”
There are spent butts littering the floor around her. The discarded butts on her floor are the least of her worries.
“Whatever happens next, I control. That’s what I want to make clear to you,” she says before adding, “We need to talk.”
Brogdon struggles in the seat but manages to sit up straighter, wincing in pain as he moves the injured shoulder. Once he’s settled again, he tells her, “I’m listening.”
“Are you?” she questions. “Because from where I’m sitting, you haven’t listened to me at all. Not at all. Not from the beginning. Not ever. You haven’t heard me. And you sure as hell don’t care about me.”
Brogdon jerks his head once and looks wounded like she denied his request to go to the dance. “That’s not true.”
“It isn’t? You didn’t put me in this situation? No… I guess I did. I listened to your bullshit plan, and I knew it was bullshit, and I went along with it anyways. Now, why did I do that? No, don’t answer. I know why. I spent the last few hours thinking about it, and now I know. I’m not dumb. Slow maybe, but not dumb.”
“I don’t understand. What are you saying?”
“Before you passed out, I asked you about the skillet, told you you’re full of shit or you exaggerated, which is the same thing either way.”
“Yeah?”
“So, which is it?”
Brogdon motions with his good hand, touching his chest and flicking his wrist toward her. “You’re going to have to help me here. I don’t understand what you’re talking about.”
Jerilyn compresses her lips. “It wasn’t cast iron; it wasn’t a cast-iron skillet. What kind of skillet was it? Let’s start there.”
Brogdon’s eyes narrow as he tries to read her intention, to see the truth to what she’s getting at. His eyes ask what her game is. He shifts in the seat again, which causes him pain. Jerilyn figures he’s trying to test his limitations. See if he can clear the couch and distance between them before she can act. He can’t. She practiced a few times, getting the shotgun up and pointed his way, between now and when Ralph left.
Finally, he admits, “I think it was a frying pan, but I don’t know what kind of skillet it was.”
Jerilyn inhales smoke deeply and then snorts it out through her nose. “See, was that so hard?”
“No,” he says, shaking his head slowly. “I don’t know what kind it was, but the story was true.”
“I’m sure there’s truth in all your stories,” she says. “But then again, you’re a cop, so I figure you don’t lie like normal people. No, you dress up your lies, the ones you actually utter; you dress them up in pretty little words and phrases, using acronyms and jargon, trying to get the listener all confused or so bored out of their mind they stop listening. You count on your peers being dumb. You count on them being under you. I’m not under you, and I’m not dumb. No matter how much you want it, try, desire, I’ll never be under you.”
Brogdon fumbles for a response. “That’s not what I do… that’s not what I… I’m not going to say I don’t find you attractive. I do.”
“You don’t have a chance, never did,” Jerilyn says. “I couldn’t ever be with someone like you. I don’t see you as a strong man. It’s quite the opposite, actually. You’re weak. You think you’re strong. But you aren’t.”
Brogdon does better this time and keeps his mouth shut. He takes a long time to respond. Maybe he’s processing. Or maybe he’s still trying to figure out how to get out of a trap of his own making. He doesn’t strike Jerilyn as the type that trusts others. “I do think you’re attractive.”
“No, you don’t,” she snaps back, surprising him. “You want to fuck me. Thinking I’m good-looking is like thinking a picture of the cow has any bearing on the steak you’re about to eat. You want to fuck me. Just like every other guy I meet. You lust for me. And you know what, Wayne’s right. You’re a racist piece of shit, but also, I remember you now. That night, you couldn’t stop staring at my tits. I remember the look on your face. Sure it was dark. Sure the flashlights were blinding. But I remember now. I didn’t think it was you. But then I had a realization. You looked like a kid then, shocked at what you saw ’cause you liked it. Afterward, you looked at me like a man, not shocked ’cause you liked what you saw, but ravenous for what you wanted.”
“That’s not…” but he doesn’t finish whatever excuse he was about to say.
“Here’s how I figure it,” Jerilyn says. “I got set up.”
“What?”
“You got used,” she says, trying to explain it to him. “We both did. And whatever happens next, we need to think about that first before we go forward.”
Brogdon protests. “I didn’t get used.”
Jerilyn shakes her head. “Yes, you did. We both did. My brother used you. I don’t know how or why. I haven’t figured out his motivation, but he used you. Maybe he’s trying to help me be rid of Wayne, but he’s not man enough to do it. Maybe he thought you and I should get together. Maybe he knew you were doing your little side thing with all these poor defenseless domestic violence victims. Maybe you weren’t, and he put you up to it. I don’t know. I don’t know if I believe you actually do anything you claim.”
“I told you the truth.”
“That you exaggerated or lied about … some truth.”
“That story, it’s true. I thought she was dead.”
“The one with the skillet. Yeah, I got that. You thought she was dead.”
“It’s true,” he claims again.
“Doesn’t matter,” Jerilyn says, leaning forward in the chair. “Doesn’t matter if it was or isn’t. You were used. I was used. Jeremy told you to contact me, to get me on the hook, so I’d finally sell some weed for him.”
“Why would he do that?”
“Because he needs me to get to people that he can’t get to.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
“That’s what I thought, but then I looked at your file, and I thought about why you’re here—Wayne.”
Brogdon’s eyes widen, giving her all the confirmation she needs.
“You wanted Wayne. This whole thing’s been about Wayne. You knew, my brother knew if I’m on the hook for something, Wayne’s on the hook. He’ll do whatever he has to do to protect me, protect the girls. Well, so will I.”
“You think this is about your dirtbag husband?”
“What—you don’t?”
Brogdon indicates he doesn’t.
“You don’t get it. He loves me. Jeremy knows this. Jeremy’s playing cards. I didn’t see it at first, but I see it now. Whatever Jeremy’s doing, he needed Wayne on board. So he gets me on the hook. He uses you to do it. That’s what this is all about.”
“No.”
“Yes, it is. It makes sense if you look at it that way. I’ve had men using me my whole life. I know what it looks like. I didn’t see it until you showed up here. Probably because whatever you needed Wayne for happened, so now, I’m on my own.”
“He’s got the truck. They both do. I need it to get out from under a guy—that’s why I’m here.”
“No, that’s only part of why you are here. What’s this guy got on you?”
“Addiction’s a hell of a thing. And once you’re in with this guy, he never lets you go.”
Jerilyn thinks about that answer and how it’s probably true.
“You came here to use me.”
“No—”
“You came here to use me to get to them. You came because you have been using me, and you want to use me some more for your own thing. I see that. I see it, and I don’t like it. You pointed a gun at me, and that’s not going to ever happen again.”
“I wasn’t going to use it.”
Jerilyn smokes as she talks. The cigarette never leaves her lips as she blows smoke out the side of her mouth. “It was loaded. I checked while Ralph was working on you. He took the weed, and we destroyed the photographs. That was to get Wayne on board, control him better.”
“I don’t care about Wayne.”
“You set me up, so I’d do whatever it is you all want.”
“No,” he says again.
“You searched my house.”
“Yeah, but I told you about that already.”
Jerilyn removes the cigarette from her lips, wedging it between two fingers. “You know what I didn’t find when I went poking around to see what was missing—what should have been in that drawer you mentioned?”
Brogdon knows: the Shield. It was in the drawer. He was bragging before, telling her that he had it. And like always, his eyes give him away, and she spots the slight shift in his body weight. The slide of his good hand off his lap to the seat cushion next to him.
Damn!
Jerilyn didn’t check between the cushions. She knew he took it. She knew it was missing. She figured he stashed it somewhere, so she couldn’t get to it. So she couldn’t use it. She thought he’d keep it on his person, but when Ralph was working on him, she didn’t see it.
“I’ll do whatever I have to protect my kids, and my kids need me,’’ Jerilyn, in a very calm voice, states. “No one’s ever going to point a gun at me again—no one.”
They sit in that moment for a few heartbeats, eyeing each other. It could have been two seconds or two hours, Jerilyn doesn’t know, but if … and when he reaches for the Shield, she’ll be ready for him.
Then Brogdon makes his move.
He shoves his hand down between the cushions. The movement is so sudden it catches Jerilyn off guard. By the time she can bring the shotgun up like she’s practiced, Brogdon’s brought the small black semi-automatic up, extending it out in the space between them, pointing the gun at her, finger tightening on the trigger—squeezing, knuckles turning white from the pressure—but Jerilyn doesn’t hesitate or slow. She brings the shotgun up as Brogdon pulls the trigger and nothing happens. Jerilyn catches the dipping of the barrel and the realization and confusion flashes across his face as he realizes he forgot to thumb the safety. But it’s too late for him, she fires. The blast sends lead from twenty feet or so straight into Brogdon’s torso just as he manages to thumb the safety and let off a round. His round buries itself harmlessly into the floor.
The Shield drops to the couch, still clutched in his hand. Brogdon’s head slumps forward and to the side.
Jerilyn places the cigarette back between her lips, sucking in deep, and watches Brogdon’s life leave his body faster than his blood.