From a Buick 8(84)

'Man, you can't ? '

'Get in, Brian, or I'll put you up against the car and cuff you. Hard, so it hurts.'

'Like to see you try it.'

'Would you?' George asked, his voice almost too low to hear even in that dozy afternoon quiet.

Brian Lippy saw two things. The first was that George could do it. The second was that George sort of wanted to do it. And Sandra McCracken would see it happen. Not a good thing, letting your bitch see you get cuffed. Bad enough she saw you getting busted.

'You'll be hearing from my lawyer,' said Brian Lippy, and got into the back of the cruiser.

George slammed the door and looked at me. 'We're gonna hear from his lawyer.'

'Don't you hate that,' I said.

The woman poked my arm with something. I turned and saw it was the corner of her driver's license laminate. 'Here,' she said. She was looking at me. It was only a moment before she turned away and began rummaging in her bag again, this time coming out with a couple of tissues, but it was long enough for me to decide she really was straight. Dead inside, but straight.

'Trooper Jacubois, the vehicle operator states his registration is in his truck,' George said.

'Yeah, I have it.'

George and I met at the pickup's ridiculous jacked rear bumper ? I DO WHATEVER THE LITTLE VOICES TELL ME TO, I EAT AMISH ? and I handed him the registration.

'Will she?' he asked in a low voice.

'No,' I said.

'Sure?'

'Pretty.'

'Try,' George said, and went back to the cruiser. My old schoolmate started yelling at him the second George leaned through the driver's-side window to snag the mike. George ignored him and stretched the cord to its full length, so he could stand in the sun. 'Base, this is 6, copy-back?'

I returned to the open door of the pickup. The woman had snubbed her cigarette out in the overflowing ashtray and lit a fresh one. Up and down went the fresh cigarette. Out from between the mostly closed wings of her hair came the plumes of used smoke.

'Ms McCracken, we're going to take Mr Lippy to our barracks ? Troop D, on the hill? Like you to follow us.'

She shook her head and began to work with the Kleenex. Bending her head to it rather than raising the tissue to her face, closing the curtains of her hair even farther. The hand with the cigarette in it now resting on the leg of her jeans, the smoke rising straight up.

'Like you to follow us, Ms McCracken.' Speaking just as softly as I could. Trying to make  it caring and knowing and just between us. That's how the shrinks and family therapists say to handle it, but what do they know? I kind of hate those SOBs, that's the ugly truth. They come out of the middle class smelling of hairspray and deodorant and they talk to us about spousal abuse and low self-esteem, but they don't have a clue about places like Lassburg County, which played out once when the coal finished up and then again when big steel went away to Japan and China. Does a woman like Sandra McCracken even hear soft and caring and nonthreatening? Once upon a time, maybe. I didn't think anymore. If, on the other hand, I'd grabbed all that hair out of her face so she had to look at me and then shouted 'YOU'RE COMING! YOU'RE COMING AND YOU'RE GOING TO MAKE AN ASSAULT CHARGE AGAINST HIM! YOU'RE COMING, YOU DUMB BEATEN BITCH! YOU ALLOWING CUNT! YOU ARE! YOU FUCKING WELL ARE!', that might have made a difference. That might have worked. You have to speak their language. The shrinks and the therapists, they don't want to hear that. They don't want to believe there is a language that's not their language.

She shook her head again. Not looking at me. Smoking and not looking at me.

'Like you to come on up and swear out an assault complaint on Mr Lippy there. You pretty much have to, you know. I mean, we saw him hitting you, my partner and I were right behind you, and we got a real good look.'

'I don't have to,' she said, 'and you can't make me.' She was still using that clumpy greasy old mop of brownette to hide her face, but she spoke with a certain quiet authority, all the same. She knew we couldn't force her to press charges because she'd been down this road before.

'So how long do you want to take it?' I asked her.

Nothing. The head down. The face hidden. The way she'd lowered her head and hidden her face at twelve when her teacher asked her a hard question in class or when the other girls made fun of her because she was getting tits before they did and that made her a chunky-f*ck. That's what girls like her grow that hair for, to hide behind. But knowing didn't give me anymore patience with her. Less, if anything. Because, see, you have to take care of yourself in this world. Especially if you ain't purty.

'Sandra.'

A little movement of her shoulders when I switched over to her first name. No more than that. And boy, they make me mad. It's how easy they give up. They're like birds on the ground.

'Sandra, look at me.'

She didn't want to, but she would. She was used to doing what men said. Doing what men said had pretty much become her life's work. '

'Turn your head and look at me.'

She turned her head but kept her eyes down. Most of the blood was still on her face. It wasn't a bad face. She probably was a little bit purty when someone wasn't tuning up on her. Nor did she look as stupid as you'd think she must be. As stupid as she wanted to be.