Dogs, Drugs, Men and Madness

When I came to, I was not sure of where I was, and in horrible pain. The trailer floor had lime green 'high-low' carpet that was old stained and faded. I hated the color and having it directly in my face made it even uglier. The house was dark and quiet except for the hum of an antique copper clock that was my grandmother's. It sat in a revered space on the end table beside the couch where I was laying. It was 9:45 pm. All the life had been drained out of me both body and soul. I never wanted to move again. I slowly lifted my head off the floor. I couldn't move my neck without stabbing pain so I turned my torso to glance around the living room and woefully I remembered where I was, and surprised I was still alive. I did not see my husband at first. I was mortified as to what I might find. On the other hand a fleeting sense of hope that my life as I had known it was finally over. It was a Friday, in the fall of 1979, a payday, and as usual he had come home from work more than four and a half hours late. He got off of work at five, but he rarely came home afterwords, sometimes he didn't come home until dawn. I wished he never came home again. He went to a neighborhood bar, The Happy Hour, with his pals from work. When he came home after pending hours drinking beer and doing shots of Wild Turkey I never knew what to expect. Like clockwork, every evening at five while I waited for him to come home I would get a terrible stomach ache. Tonight had been no different. Occasionally, he would be in a good mood. Sometimes he would bring me flowers, or surprise me with a bracelet or necklace that he had saved up for. He could be a very nice and funny person sometimes. When I was pregnant with Roxanne he treated me like a queen. He did all the housework and even gave me manicures and pedicures. More often than not though, he was paranoid and belligerent. He always accused me, drinking or not of cheating on him with practically any man in sight. and planning to run off with them. If all else failed he would bring up an old fight that happened long ago, and pick another fight. His father had died a month ago and Evan had really gone off the deep end. He got drunk every day. His mercurial personality would alternate between crying spells and fury over his abuse of his cruel and barbaric father. To make matters even worse, his psychotic mother had shipped Evan a sizable gun and rifle collection that his father ad amassed over his life. On this night he was very drunk and sullen and said nothing when he came home. We sat in silence for about ten minutes ans then he said to me, "I'm going to kill myself." I was sitting on the couch holding our six month old daughter. She was sleeping and unaware of my panic and growing horror that filled the room. I sat like a statue and could feel my heart pound faster and faster, climbing its way into my throat, I felt it was surely going to burst.He acted different tonight, crazier than usual. I held the baby tight as he started rambling on and on, angrily, almost incoherently. He felt sorry for himself ranting that everyone in his life had hurt him, including me. He was always hungry growing up, there was never much food in the house. He once told me he was so hungry he ate powdered chocolate mix. It gave him an excruciating stomach ache. His drunken mother would sleep all day, then drink and terrorize him and his brothers and sisters at night. Slapping and punching them awake, screaming about the six kids messing up the house and eating food. He was sleeping once and she suddenly stabbed him in the arm with a steak knife, it left an ugly scar. This night was different than the other times he had drunkenly bared his soul to me. Tonight he was holding a loaded shotgun. He slowly walked up to me, about sis inches from my face and in a low eerie voice said, "I'm going to shoot everything in the house, then I'm going to blow my head off and your going to watch me do it." This was not the first time he said he was going to kill himself. He now had the gun collection, and I just knew something as going to happen like this when he got it. Once on his day off he had taken one of the guns and told me he might not be back. I envisioned the blast to his head that would send blood, brains and bone flying, quiet the demons in his tormented and demented mind and free me from the prison he had built around me. I didn't know if he would shoot me, but I was holding the baby,and my motherly instinct told me to get her away from this bedlam. I told him I needed to put the baby to bed. She had somehow blissfully slept through his tirade. Slowly I got off of the couch and went into our bedroom. My mouth was bone dry and I broke out t in a cold sweat. My hands and legs were shaking. I sighed as I put her to bed, and quickly planned on how to get out of the house until he cooled down, or killed himself. He followed me closely and was standing in the hallway holding the shotgun. I closed the door and told him I had to go to the bathroom. He was only a foot away, but I lunged for the door on the other side of the hallway. It was not locked and I tried to run down the wooden steps that led to a side yard that led to the front gate that led to the street that led to the store a couple of blocks away that had a pay phone. I wanted to call my dad to help me. I gave it my best shot but I only made it down a couple of steps. Evan threw the shotgun Aside and with lightning speed he grabbed me by my hair with one hand bunching it up into a fist. His free arm went around my throat, and he dragged me back inside by my head. I went limp, trying to make it more difficult for him to pull me back inside, in one split second I was maimed forever. For my effort I had only succeeded in making him mad. Along muscular forearm tightened on my throat and he pulled my head back towards him by my hair with his free hand. He hissed angrily in my ear, "Where do you think you were going." His panting breath stank of whiskey. He was sweating profusely and the side of my face was wet against his. "Go ahead , run and see what happens!" He was furious, choking me, and I was gasping for air. I tried to say I was sorry and I wouldn't do it again, but I couldn't talk except for a weird croaking. His forearm across my throat, an awful crushing pain, he pressed tighter and tighter and he wouldn't let go. I struggled in vain to get free but I couldn't breathe. I thought of my children and my mother, and everything faded to black. I slowly sat up on the floor, and he was sitting about five feet away, in an armchair that was beside the gun cabinet. He blended into the dark brown overstuffed chair. With with his skin and hair from his Apache descent he was almost invisible. The whites of his eye's glowed, as did his white teeth. A wicked grin was on his face. He looked like the Cheshire cat in Alice in Wonderland. The shotgun leaned upright against his leg. I could have killed you: I knew you would try a stunt like that? You don't have anywhere to run now do you? Go ahead try it again. His tone was that of a parent scolding an errant child. "Leave me alone,." In exasperation I groaned loudly and flopped back down on the floor and started sobbing. "Yo screwed up my neck, what did I ever do to you. He started with the sweet talk. "I'm sorry baby, you know I love you. Don't you?" He got off the chair and crawled over to me.