Terry
A stitch of a short Story Unbound, “He Hits Me Because He Loves Me.” Write the story with us.
The moment I heard her pull up I get a warm feeling in the pit of my stomach. I know she has liquor.
Rosie’s a good girl. I love her. It’s not her fault I am the way I am, but she seems to deal with my PTSD pretty well. Truth is, I was fucked up before the war. I had PTSD from life when I enlisted.
Rosie is the one thing in my life I can control. Work is sporadic. Construction demo is a fickle business, coming and going with the economy. Some mornings the phone wakes me up, with a pounding headache, telling me there’s work. Other mornings I just wake up. No work.
Work, money, the police, the courts — these are things I can’t control. But Rosie — I can control her. And it feels good.
What people fail to realize is, I don’t get anything out of beating her. Punching Rosie in the face or slapping her around — these things do nothing for me. In fact, I don’t enjoy breaking her down like this.
But when she’s broken, bleeding on the floor and crying, you know who she looks to for help? ME. She looks to me for comfort. I’m the one she reaches for. I’m the one whose name she cries out. It’s this — this is what I live for.
This is what I learned at Parris Island. Landing in South Carolina, I was a skinny, undisciplined 19-year-old kid who enlisted to avoid a jail sentence. I had never made a bed or fired a rifle or taken a life. I was a kid. Phase One broke me down into nothing, my only salvation being the same drill sergeant who smacked me in the face for using a first-person pronoun. I learned to move in mnemonics and fall in love with the source of my pain.
Just like Rosie.
“What did you bring me?” are the first words out of my mouth.
She sets down a plastic bottle of vodka and a tall-can of what looks to be Coors Light before walking into the bathroom. She usually does this when she’s started drinking already but doesn’t want me to know.
Chasing a large gulp of vodka, I make quick work of the tall-can. From the kitchen I can hear Rosie turn on the shower in the bathroom, meaning I don’t have to share.
Over the next half hour, Rosie leaves my mind completely while I focus on scrubbing death from the backs of my eyelids. One bottle of vodka isn’t going to do the trick.
It’s not enough. It’s never enough.
I see Rosie walk out in a bathrobe with her hair wrapped up in a towel. Looking at her, I realize that at one point, she was probably really attractive.
“We need more,” I tell her, the vodka starting to kick in.
“I didn’t have enough money,” she tells me. “I had to use all of my coins just for that.”
I’m getting annoyed. “Why didn’t you just put something in your purse?”
“That fucking guy watches me like a hawk now,” she says, her voice drifting into a pleading tone. She knows what’s coming. “I’ll go back and try, though…”
“I’ll go,” I tell her, cutting her off. “And when I get back…” My voice drifts off. I like making her anticipate this dance of ours. A brutal, bloody, violent dance.
Her face is a combination of excitement and fear. It’s beautiful. As I walk by I grab a hand full of hair and pull her head back, her robe falling open. She gasps, not knowing if this is sexual or violent, as if the two are separate. The entire length of her neck is exposed as I just hold it there, allowing her to wonder. I eventually let go without saying a word and walk outside to my truck.
Rosie watches me leave in silence.
Now the vodka is really kicking in. I start my F-150 and half of the street lights up. It has only one headlight, the other falling victim to Rosie and my tweaker phase. But fuck it. I need to feel anything but my feelings, and more alcohol will get me there.
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