A Long Night in Brooklyn

This all started out simple enough. She just didn't know how to keep her mouth shut. In my bar tending days, she took it upon herself to drop in and relay despicable untruths to my husband and his circle of friends. My first meeting with this trollop was just an omen of more unpleasant things to follow. She was the girlfriend of my husband's high school pal, and I hated her. I never hated anyone- but I hated her. This was no one-way street, either. She despised me equally.

When our paths crossed I was mindful to let her know- in unspoken terms that she should watch her step with me. I did not trust her as far as I could spit; and the lady that I am, that wasn't very far. It wasn't so much a rivalry as it was a deep-seated dislike for one another. I warned her that her antics were not advisable if she valued her health. She scoffed…

I was a grenade with the pin pulled.

Close to a year later, on a beautiful spring night, I was through with warnings. Following a concert in Manhattan, my husband suggested going to a party held by some fellow bikers. I protested, mainly due to blisters suffered from the sexiest pair of stilettos I ever purchased but neglected to break in. Needless to say I was in no mood for a Biker Party. I was even overdressed for the occasion in a gorgeous turquoise, black & white number with an asymmetrical hemline. But I relented and we went.

Nothing about how the day began could have prepared me for how it ended. I was bored and ready to go home when I stepped out on the brownstone's deserted roof for a cigarette. Before I could take a long, satisfying drag- I spotted her. She approached me with calculated steps and an evil grin. There was an exchange of words, I can't recall what sparked the argument- but it was laden with expletives. I called her everything but a child of God. And then it happened.

I was tired of talking. I was tired of my aching feet. I was tired of her mouth. There was only one solution. In one swift movement, the high heel was off & planted squarely in her forehead. And then something scary happened. I found that I could not stop. Call it fury, call it madness. Whatever it was, it triggered an unprecedented bloodlust deep within me. A choleric frog leapt in the space my heart, just moments before had occupied. Clutching the shoe, I brought my arm back as far as the ligaments would allow and fired away, over and over. Crimson fluid matted her honey blonde hair. She was screaming, for her life it seemed but I …could…not…stop. I straddled her as I held her head in both hands. Repeatedly, I pulled her forward and came down on the unsympathetic concrete. Oblivious to the sickening thud it made each time. Exhausted, my arms and hands soiled with a foolish girl's blood, I stood to put my shoe back on. Coughing, snorting, and wheezing…All of her defeated noises faded to nothingness as I made my way back downstairs.

The party stood stock-still when they laid eyes on me. Infectious bass and treble lowered to total silence. The crowd watched slack-jawed as I lit a cigarette with blood-stained fingers. Slowly I trudged down to the car, my husband calling my name behind me. I just wanted to go home. He had to know that! Then the sirens came. Blue lights, red lights. Uniformed officers asking in their universal 'Cop Speak' what happened. Apparently I was the 'perp'. I was bloody but not wounded. They didn't care to hear my story any more than I cared to give it. It didn't take long.

As I sat in the backseat of the squad car, hands behind my back I watched my beloved inquire on where they were taking me. Could he follow? Did he need bail money? I began to tremble. Sweet Release. The transistor radio crackled, something about a domestic disturbance across town. 'Violence must be in the air tonight', I surmised. I watched as paramedics lifted her gurney roughly into the ambulance. Not an ounce of regret, not one pang of guilt.

The cuffs were thin strips of plastic, more useful at binding computer wire than restraining an unladylike lady, who minutes before had a raging bile duct. But I felt strangely at peace, even as I quaked with the aftershock of the merciless beating I had unleashed.

I was in for the longest night of my life. And Oh! How I needed a cigarette...