BRENDA

BRENDA


This story is old. It’s been read before, told before, lived before. There is really no beginning to the aches of a man’s heart after a woman. Besides, gangsters live and true love never dies. I’ll begin with her name.


Brenda came to me this one night it was particularly dark. It had been raining and thundering hard all day. I wasn’t surprised to find some of the street lights out when I opened the door. By now the rain had settled to a steady drizzle. Brenda was dry. somehow unaffected by the weather. She had on all black. An old gangster trait she picked up from my younger hungrier days. She wore black suede high heel boots, tight black jeans, and a diamond cut mink jacket over an all black hooded sweater. I’d never seen her wear the hood up over her head so tight before. But I attributed it to the cold and rain. Yet, she still was dry?


I’ve stopped asking Brenda the usual questions when she drops in over the years. It just doesn’t matter much anymore. Where she’s been? Who she was with? How’d she get here? It doesn’t matter so much as just having her here, Even if only for a few days to a month. I usually now just grab some old chicken or pizza for her hunger. Turn the heat up, and roll a blunt so she can relax. I’m even careful to pretend not to see the pistol she hides under the couch.


In the beginning when I came home from prison we tried to make our lives as one. I loved her. I guess I still do. I just thought we could settle down and make some money together. We did alright before and I wanted to pick up from there. But as time would have it she wanted her freedom and I’d gotten old and too accustomed to being confined. So one day she up and left. She stayed gone for three months. Three months, with no calls, messages, letters or sh*t. I’d make my money. I did a little hustling, a little working, a little of “this” and a lot more of “that”, anything to stay busy. If I’m busy enough I can keep myself from thinking about her to much or for to long.


I was out cutting the grass one day and here she came walking up the street. Out the clear blue sky my Baby came home. I almost felt ashamed at how relieved I was to see her. So she’d stay for a while and one day she’d be gone again. This has been our life together for the past five years. I would hear stories from this person or that about her doing “this” or “that”. She always had good news for me when she did finally come “home.” Some dream accomplished. Always still some bigger dream to scheme.


I’d bought a few houses on the other side of town and I’d thought about moving on several occasions. But, just as if she knew my intentions she’d show up in some new car with a brand new scheme. Brenda was never broke, just hungry. I really don’t know what she was hungry for and I doubt if she knew, but when the feeling hit her hard enough she’d have to go. Mama said some spirits were never meant to be tamed. Some spirits got to be free.


Its been over a year now since the last time she left. I had heard from some of her girlfriends that she moved to Atlanta and come up on some money somehow. I always feel a little pride when I hear stories like that. I can only imagine how Brenda got the money. So here she is a year later without so much as a phone call to my company voicemail, a rainy night in dry clothes and no ride.


After she ate and drank a little Remy we smoked some weed. She began to tell me how she met some guys in Atlanta who made the fatal mistake of showing her their stash of about four kilos of heroin and ninety thousand in cash. She said after that she went to Florida to blow some money. Rumors started to spread about the guy’s brothers looking for her. So from there she went to Texas. I asked her why Texas and she just hunched her shoulders. I doubt if she even knew anybody there. As she told her story I began to see the familiar look of sleep in her eyes. I often wondered how she slept when she was “out there”. She’d always just roll her eyes as if to say, “…stop worrying so much.” I was getting tired too.


We eventually talked our way up to the bedroom. I sat in an easy chair in the corner finishing off the last of the weed. Brenda lay across the bed playing with the stereo remote. She finally settled on an old Tuac c.d. I had in the changer. She told me a story how she bet some girl in Jersey at a party that her new 500SL was faster than the girls Mustang. Then she told me about meeting some singing stars in Minnesota. I said, “Minnesota?” and she just went on with her stories until she fell asleep.


I don’t know what I felt sitting there watching her. I knew I was angry she wouldn’t call, wouldn’t let me keep her, or just know where she was, or who, or even why. I felt hurt for all the same reasons. And stranger still, I loved her for all the same. I did feel some relief that she trusted me as her sanctuary, as “home”, safe, especially on a dark night like this. I could never let someone else in here like this. I could never stop loving her this way. I sat and thought and stared for a half hour more. Finally I shut the stereo off and sat down beside her. I tried to remove her boots, but she mumbled something and rolled her feet away from me. I allowed my form to settle close enough to hers as not to wake her. I needed to touch Brenda, feel her close to me. I lay my arm across her in a half embrace. She seemed to settle into me. I could barely smell her hair through her hood as she started to snore. I’m still not sure when she started snoring so loud like that. She was snoring bad, like maybe she was sick or something. I’m sure you could have heard her outside. I tried to wake her but she wouldn’t budge. I had never heard anybody snore like that. Eventually I fell asleep.

When I awoke the clock said 8 a.m. Brenda had stopped snoring sometime through the night. I called her name but she still slept. She probably hadn’t slept all year. I went into the kitchen to make some calls and fix something to eat. I put some biscuits in the oven and fried some eggs and sausage in a pan. When I went in to check on Brenda she was still laid out on her back sleeping. I let her rest and put her food in the oven. I washed the dishes, did some cleaning and made more calls. Finally I went in to check on her around 10:30. She still lay in the same position on her back. Fear rushed me to her side looking for a pulse. Frantically I dialed 911.


Several police and an ambulance crew filled the room. Worried as hell I paced the hall. Not really thinking, just worried and hoping she’s okay. More police showed up with plainclothes detectives. They were whispering in a spare room with the first cops that came and I had the sinking feeling that this was something way bigger. The two detectives came out and walked me to the bedroom where my Baby lay on her back. They kept asking me all these questions;

“How’d she get here?”

“Who brought her?”

“What time?”

All these questions and answers I didn’t know. I never asked. I tried to tell them that I never ask anymore. The tall detective walked to her sleeping body and said,

“This woman was killed in Oklahoma last week in a shootout.”

With this he pulled her sweater up to expose three dried, bloody holes across her chest and one on the right side of her stomach. I had no answers for them or even myself. I still don’t know how or what to feel. All I have left is a vain hope that no matter what she saved her last breath for me.

COPYRIGHT Larry C Allen 2008