Gimme Fiction: "But You're Down In Marietta" (Pt. I)

[Click here for Pt. II]

Her husband had gone downstate for a tractor-pull or a rifle exhibition or some such hyper-masculine bullshit. He was due to swagger back on Monday. Until then, she and an assortment of decrepit hound dogs were holding down the fort. The entire pack was understandably perturbed by their surprise visitor. The dogs' interests were fairly benign... they were very old and very stupid. The strange creature sobbing beneath the bug zapper at 3:00 AM could be a predator. It could also have a pocketful of rawhide treats. They gave the scene a casual olfactory investigation, shoving their cold wet noses into Jimmy's crotch as he cringed against the vinyl siding. Their alpha female, however, was rabid.

"Oh... no, oh, hell no. What in the fucking fuck are you doing here?" she demanded. One hand held her robe closed. The other clutched a six-cell Maglite. Jimmy found himself stifling laughter even as tears coursed down his face. She had all the accouterments of intimidation... the curses, the canines, the cylinder of cold-forged steel. None of them did a damned bit of good. With her helmet of curlers and smears of undereye anti-aging unguent, she resembled nothing so much as a stringer for the Hazelhurst Beauty Academy's football team.

"I was in the neighborhood. Thought I'd say hi," said Jimmy. This was a somewhat generous interpretation of the truth.

He'd been in the neighborhood for approximately half an hour, twenty minutes of which had been spent in the Skeeter-King 3000's irritably crackling company. An attempt to scale the garden hose reel and peek in the window had ended badly. It was the latest in a string of bad decisions. They'd begun the previous evening with a six-pack and a phone call, and their accumulated idiocy now struck him... pummeled him, really, physically and emotionally, from all sides. The twisted pile of gray plastic. The horde of inquisitive canines. The infuriated, flashlight-wielding demi-goddess. The wrist - throbbing, most likely broken – cradled in a flannel shirt-tail.

The smile slid across his face slowly, catastrophically. He couldn't stop it. Didn't want to stop it. There was a certain delicious fatalism, a certain grim release. Like sliding into a bubble bath teeming with piranhas. So this is hell, he mused. Kind of figured I'd wind up here. Never thought there'd be so many dirt bikes parked out back, but there you go...

"What are you smiling at, you horrendous little bastard?"

"Honestly?"

"Honestly, I should be phoning the goddamned cops, but by all means, elucidate…"

"You."

"Me?"

"Any of these other bitches heard a strange noise in the middle of the night, they'd come barreling out in a Falcons sweatshirt with a .357. And here you are in that little slinky thing, with your flashlight and your, your... SAT words…"

He paused, stared at her wide eyes and trembling chin. The thought struck him seconds before the Maglite did.

"I still love you, Dee…"

And with that there was a crash, a flash, the voice of god (surprisingly feminine, predictably harsh) and a wide expanse of red. Roses, vast unruly snarls of them, blooming on a polyester nightie. Darkness...

... then light. Buzzing, flickering, profoundly painful. Little shards of pale blue glass worming their way into his eyes. The fucking bug zapper.

"I'm still outside?" he squeaked. Shame crept in, scolding him from behind the veil of shimmering azure agony. Do you have to be so pathetic? So whiny? So liable to be knocked unconscious by your former spouse? Christ, man, get with the program!

"Did you think this was a movie? That I was going to drag you inside? Maybe apply a cool compress?" said Dee. The dogs circled his head, jostling, nudging and delivering the occasional tentative lick. It took Jimmy a few moments to realize that the insistent, furry presence thumping his temple wasn't a snout but a slipper.

"... and you're kicking me? In the head?" he said. He curled up, a sloppy comma scrawled in the dust. The broken wrist precluded crawling. The head injury precluded cleverness. He was actually sort of hoping for dematerialization.

"Get! The! Fuck! Up!" Each word was punctuated via slipper-jab. She was frantic. "The only reason you're alive! Is because I ain't gonna kill you on Derek's front lawn! Good god, Jimmy! We don't need those kinda complications! We're just barely married! Haven't even gotten around to returning that second goddamned KitchenAid to Bed Bath & Beyond!"

"His name's Derek, huh?" said Jimmy.

Dee screeched. Several of the dogs began to whine. Jimmy began to cry. Resumed crying, really; the past twelve hours had been the most saline-saturated of his life. When he spoke, it was in the slightly-strangled tone of one who has just disgorged every last ounce of pride and propriety through their tear ducts.

"Please! Please stop kickin' me, Dee, just for a minute... please... I think I busted my wrist falling off your hose-thingie... I got the makings of a skull fracture, but, you know, no hard feelings... just drove for eight hours straight... think my fan belt's fixing to shit the bed... I'm, I'm fucking spouting off at the mouth to you... you, of all people... former Mrs. Jimmy Pearson... present Mrs. Derek Whatever-the-Fuck... aw, Christ..."

"D'ya want a glass of water?"

"Wha... huh? Really?"

"Really." Her voice was eerily flat. He'd heard her order take-out with more gusto.

"Really-really?"

"Really. Get up, Jimmy. Fuck, I might even have Gatorade." She sighed, rubbed one eye, wiped an errant smudge of pearlescent pink goo on her robe. "C'mon. Inside."

He scrambled to his feet - clumsily, dirt clinging to his hair and waves of pain sloshing behind his eyes. He wiped his nose on his sleeve and gestured for her to lead the way.