The phone rang, and rang, and rang, and I debated whether or not to pick it up. I picked it up, fumbled, flipped it open, and pushed talk.
The female voice on the other end was so frantic and incoherent I couldn't make it out. The display showed Teri's number, and I finally heard Teri's voice. She was screaming, and mingled was an angry male voice, and sounds of violence, bangs and slaps. The phone went dead.
I hadn't made out a word of it, but Teri obviously was in trouble. I pulled on jeans and a pair of sneakers and felt around on top of the refrigerator for my little .22 revolver. Not much stopping power, but enough to cause some hurt at close range. Besides, it was the only gun I had.
My urgency grew, and suddenly I was wide-awake and sober as I bolted out the door and up the lane toward Teri's trailer. Even from this distance, I could make out sounds of a loud struggle -- a man hollering, a woman's broken cries, glass breaking. I went up the step to Teri's door and yanked it open
Ronnie had a tight grip on Teri's neck, and Teri kicked and kneed at Ronnie, scratching and clawing at his face. I lunged at Ronnie and hit him as hard as I could on the back of his head. He let loose his grip on Teri's neck and turned his fury on me, cracking me with his fist so hard I saw stars.
Ronnie went for a carving knife on the kitchen counter. I saw the knife out of the corner of my eye and kicked him flat-footed on the ass to put him off balance. He stumbled sideways and came up with a small, heavy pan that he threw at my head, striking me a glancing blow and drawing blood
I found a crow bar and laid into Ronnie. His eyes widened at the first blow, and the second knocked his head to one side, and then I really went after him, swinging with the flat end and beating him down with the crow end. He grunted and fell, and I kept whacking until Teri grabbed my arm and screamed, "Bobby, no. Bobby, you're going to KILL him."
I let the adrenaline rush subside and dropped the bar to the floor. Ronnie was bloody and out cold, or worse. Teri knelt to take a closer look at him, determined he was breathing, and that was that.
Not that either one of us gave a shit about Ronnie. Ronnie and Teri had been fucking each other for a year, then got married, and they'd been married now for almost a year. Teri was 18 and was lucky not to have gotten pregnant by this asshole. I'd never asked, of course, but I guessed she'd been smart enough to take her pills on schedule.
Ronnie worked about half the time -- mostly he sat around and watched TV and drank beer. He also regularly beat the shit out of her, so this wasn't the first time I'd had to rescue her, allthough this definitely was the worst. On nights she couldn't take it, she'd come down and stay on my couch, or go over to one of her girlfriend's.
As for me, I just didn't like the son of a bitch, never did.
Thing is, like a lot of couples like this, they'd fight and holler and slap each other around, then like as not take each other back. I always figured a guy like that had to have something extra in his pants for any woman to want anything to do with him. I just never could see through it
Teri wasn't blameless either. She was always out fucking around, and that naturally pissed Ronnie off. She waited tables at the Waffle House, and it seemed sometimes like a big tip, or even a big smile, had a persuasive effect on her. Ronnie would find out and beat her up and throw her out, and she'd beg to come back, and he'd take her back and they'd get all cuddly and fuck.
Teri was my kid sister. I say "kid", she was two years younger than me. I'd noticed as she grew through her teens that she'd become a pretty little thing -- not much over five-foot-two, certainly not more than 110 pounds, dark hair, pretty eyes, small tits, cute ass -- but even as she got to be a woman, I'd never really looked at her, you know, THAT way.
A lot of guys did, though, and that bothered me a little; I mean, this was my sister. It bothered me a little more when, on the nights she'd come and stay on my couch, she'd peel down and pull on one of my shirts, then cover up with a blanket, and I'd get that all-over feeling looking at her stretch and undress.
I was getting mostly enough anyway. Karen was my on-again, off-again girlfriend, and that was about all either of us needed. If I was horny, I'd call Karen. If Karen was horny, she'd call me. We never took ourselves too seriously, and neither of us got so friendly that we'd get jealous of the other. It was about perfect, really.
If Karen was over and Teri needed a place to run to, I'd shoo Teri off, and she'd go stay with her bud Tammy and Tammy's weird roomate -- I never could remember that girl's name. Or there was that other girl from the Waffle House, Susan. Sometimes Teri would go hang with her for a day or so.
Teri and I both lived at Country View Village, a fair-size trailer park off the 49 near Madison. The places weren't new, but they weren't bad. They were mostly clean, and the plumbing and everything worked most of the time. There was a wide dirt lane down the middle with a row of trailers down either side, and with room to park a car or two beside each unit.
I got a place at Country View because it was close to the job site I worked at at the time. It was only $400 a month with all utilities. When Teri needed a place a year ago, I told her they probably had a vacancy, and she rented the unit about three up the lane, on the opposite side from mine.
I kept intending to move, but I couldn't beat the price, and even when Universal started a new job, 25 miles away, I stayed where I was, figuring I'd try to save for a down payment on a house.
Anyway, the first business was to figure what to do about Ronnie.
"He's got to go to the hospital," Teri said. "He's hurt pretty bad I think. You beat the shit out of him, Bobby."
I sort of agreed, although I started to wonder whether I'd more finished off what the bottle of bourbon had started. "Did he drink all that?" I asked Teri. "Yeah, mostly," she said, pointing also to an empty on the floor. "I had a couple. We kinda been drinkin' all day"
Me, hell, I'd been drinking beer most of the evening, but it was Saturday. I'd gotten about half-drunk on toward midnight and was dozing off when the phone rang.
I checked Ronnie out. Aside from the blood and some cuts on his forehead and mid-skull, he seemed more po'd drunk than beat unconscious. "He's all right," I told Teri. Let's get him up on the couch."
"No Bobby," she said. "I don't want that motherfucker around, tell you the truth. When he wakes up and figures out what happened to him, he's REALLY gonna be pissed. I'd rather have him in the hospital, or in jail."