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“Ma, she swung that knife like she was a home run king! It was like… like… flop and crunchy when his head came off. It went… like thump and crunch all at the same time. Nasty.”
I told her how I had seen Jessie Mae sharpening the blade on the grindstone earlier that day, shortly before she took her husband’s head off.
I knew there was something desperate in the night, when I saw the brightness of the sparks that shot off the blade of the machete. Once again, I felt utterly alone. The flashes of light drew me like a magnet, so I crept over and watched the woman through the slats of the wooden fence. Her face was set in a mad glare as she worked the grindstone, turned the wheel, and aimed for the razor’s edge, moving the blade back and forth, watching intently as a sharp point began to materialize. An old lady. New in town. She was Donnell Shunt’s grandma. Her husband had recently moved with her to our small town of Hudson from somewhere down South—Louisiana, I think.
I had seen her husband sitting on the front porch a few times. He was a rail-thin old man, rather fragile-looking, now that I think back on it, and he liked to sit outside and watch the people of the small town go strolling by. He would sit there with a grin on his face, smiling and waving at folks—at strangers that he didn’t even know. He seemed like a nice enough guy.
I wondered why his wife was in the backyard sharpening a knife. She was a little sturdier than her husband. Her arms had little coils of muscle that were formed with strength developed from years of labor in kitchens, laundry rooms, and other roles of servitude. Yeah, she looked quite comfortable, familiar with the feel and handle of a sharp blade. I noticed the way she held it like a hammer. No, not a hammer; more like Mjolnir, the God of Thunder’s hammer… with a two-handed grip. It meant something to her.
She paused and straightened up, wiping her brow with the back of her hand as she looked cautiously around the yard. I crouched down behind the slat of the fence as best I could when she looked in my direction. Their house stood on the corner of Front Street and Upwards Alley, a full, two-family home with a small-sized yard that stretched out behind it. I stood on the Upwards Alley side, a spot that was at the dead bottom end of the hill which stretched up, high toward the sky. Upwards was our getaway alley. We used to roll car tires down the curve of that hillside and watch them as they banged real hard into the doors of passing cars. The angry driver would emerge from his damaged car and spot us at the top of the hill before we would take off running. They would never catch us. It was too steep to sprint Upwards!
“Jessie Mae! Get in here, Woman!”
The old woman froze in place.
“Jessie Mae! Don’t make me come out there, Bitch! ’Cause if I do, I’ll have to run yo’ slut ass in that river down there! Get in here!”
The old woman turned, flung the back door open, and hurried inside. I could see them through the opened door as she ran over to her husband.
“What you want, Baby?” she stated in desperation when she stopped in front of him. He responded with a savage, straight right hand, a man-punch, to her face. She collapsed to the floor like a sack of meat. I heard her cry of pain from where I stood and then I watched him kick her in the ribs.
“What you doin’ back there? Huh?”
She coughed in pain before she groaned her reply, “Nuthin’.”
“How the fuck you gonna be outside doin’ nuthin’! Stupid bitch.”
He knelt down in front of her and crawled between her legs. He wedged his crotch in between her thighs and began a hard, dominant grind. I saw her body buck from the contact as he invaded her, and I could hear his animal grunts as he bucked up into her. His hips dipped and thrust into her with solid contact that pushed her legs further and further apart. She lay beneath him, unmoving until he pushed himself to his knees and slowly leaned back before barking out a command to her.
“Take it out!”
The old lady, tentatively, reached up and unbuckled his pants. She pulled his swollen dick free.
“Kiss it!” he barked. “Hurry up! Kiss it! Kiss it good!”
I saw the old lady’s head moving around in circular motions.
“That’s it, Baby.” His voice was gruff. “Give me head. Let me feel some suction.” His hands reached up and snaked around the back of her head. He pulled her head forcefully toward his pelvis, his hardness stabbing the back of her throat, gagging her. “Kiss it and then suck it! Head! Head!” His body bucked a few times and he gripped her head and pulled it one last time and held it there while he groaned with release.
“Damn!” he growled. “Yo’ lips be pullin’ on me like you gonna take the head right off my Willie Bobo. Yeah. You gonna take Willie Bobo’s head off, Baby? Huh? Kiss it one more time. Now, put it back.”
She deftly tucked his shrunken member in his pants and buckled him up.
“Now. Next time? See what you get!” He lashed out again and punched her in the chest. She collapsed to the side. “Next time, you better take Willie Bobo’s head off, dark bitch!”
He kicked her once again, turned, and walked back out the front door. He sat back in his chair on the front porch, laughing… her prone, beaten body a forgotten afterthought. I could see her through the back door and waited in silence for a moment. She didn’t lie there much longer than that. Then she was pulling herself to her feet. Jessie Mae rose silently, dealing with the pain and pushing it down into nowhere land, a place of yesterday, the ache fading, soon to be a distant thing. But Jessie Mae’s face wore a scowl, an angry determination mixed with an animosity that seemed to touch her soul and harden the dark light that shone from her eyes. She limped back out to the porch and brought herself up tall, gathering her strength and looking to the sky. As I watched her face, I wished that I was old enough to read emotions. Old enough to see the emotional pain… the psychological scars, the rape and torture of the old woman’s spirit and heart. I wished. But all I saw was the hard line of her tight lips, the fire in her eyes, and the hatred that radiated from her in darkness… and tears not shed. Everybody has those, though. Tears that don’t show.
Her face was swollen, bruised, and busted as her lips trembled and began to swell. A dark, red splat of blood leaked from the corner of her mouth. It seemed to pulse to the time of a heartbeat. And then I saw sparkles in her eyes. A mad flame that spoke of bad things… her eyes burned. She bent over and firmly grasped the handle of the machete. Slowly, she turned and looked directly at me.
And I ran.
“He was sitting on the porch and she came out and she chopped his head off.” I finished the story. I left off the part about running, though.
My mother glared at me before she spoke. “That man’s head did not come off! You got to learn to stop imaginin’ shit all the time. That’s what you get!”
She still didn’t believe me. She would, eventually, when the news got around, so I didn’t even tell her all she had to do was look out of the window and she could see that the fire trucks were still there.
“For real, Ma. I ain’t lyin’!”
