Chapter 5- Wrath
October 21 1990
2370 N Holton street
5:35 P.M. Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Kiesha Broderick walked into the living room.
Not to loud, he does not like that.
Kiesha Broderick crept into the living room. The walk took forever because she had to be conscious of everything.
Watch out for the vase don't bump the vase.
Her husband was sitting on the couch, seeming to be deeply immersed in a movie. Kiesha sat down next to her husband, a false smile etched into her face.
She wants something, Damien thought, but didn't look at her.
"Hey baby," she said cooingly, and wrapped her arms around her fiancé. He shrugged her off, with a grunt, and waving a hand in an off warding gesture.
"I'm watching TV," he replied.
Kiesha waited. A little toddler ran across a football field with a football in his hands, very happily. A large adult male in football pads, zipped across the field to cross him. He tackled the little boy, and he flew. The little boy, who seemed unaffected, got up and continued playing.
"Damien, I've been doin some thinking lately." She said, she was grasping a hand lightly on his thigh while she said this, and gazing deeply into his eyes. She only did this when wanting complete consideration under Damien's part. She paused and looked for her husbands approval in continuing in conversation. He didn't say anything. She took that as approval and went on.
"Ever since I was a little gurl, my gramma always wanted to see me go to a college. She didn't go to college of course, my mom didn't go, and her brothers didn't go. That's why she wanted me to. But, anyways since she has a small savings account in Wauwatosa—" The lady in the movie had fell asleep at the wheel of her car, and had a head on collision with a Jeep. No airbag. Her head hit the steering wheels with a WHUMP, and she woke up screaming, got out of the car running around the streets waving her hands around hysterically. Traffic honked and swerved to avoid hitting her. She exited the scene still whooping and hollering. Kiesha and Damien shared a laugh. She turned back to Damien.
"Anyways, I thought it would be wonderful if this year I went to college-somewhere where the tuition is low cost-preferably in my gramma's account range--I think Matc or UW Milwaukee would be straight. What do you think, boo?" A faint smile presented itself on her face, as she waited. More time passed, but she remained patient. Damien continued to watch TV. Kiesha though, didn't say anything, smile waning. Damien took a sip of his Coke.
"Hone"
The Coke slammed the cocktail table and sloshed out onto the table.
"You're not going to college," Damien said suddenly. His eyes were still on the TV. Kiesha jumped, smile completely gone, her eyes wide. "You see what you made me do..." he said looking down.
"Get a rag and clean this shit up," She did this and then sat down again. Silence went on for a moment or two. On the TV, a toddler weaved his way around the football players on a field that were mostly twice his size. "But baby if you just-"
"You heard what I said--and you don't want me to repeat myself," he replied. Damien was now looking at Kiesha, who pulled her gaze down. She couldn't--absolutely couldn't-just go with it. She had to go to college. She was too intelligent to not go to college. Nobody in Kiesha's family had gone to college, nobody could until now. This was something worth fighting for.
"Honey, why-" A quick and graceful fist closed the gap between Kiesha and Damien, striking her on the lower lip. Blood formed. Kiesha wiped her lip, eyes cut in slits as sharp as blades towards the floor. Tears flowed ruefully down her cheeks.
"Kiesha-- girl you not going. Not so you can just leave me here alone at home to take care of myself, and work for a house that's not clean in that matter, while you go to school...learnin'." He said, "learnin" with such a sickening distaste that it was no wonder why he dropped out his sophomore high school year. A bitter taste. Blood poured into her mouth, and a shuddering sigh escaped from her lips. Memories flooded into her like water in a basement with a poorly built foundation, or like the blood that was pouring into her mouth. She was young, but they were plenty. Days where she had spent the whole day writing. Writing whatever came to her mind. "The world needs more young black writers," her mother had once told her, and that was what she wanted, and so she was a writer. One day when Damien came home from a hard days work at the Boston market, Kiesha--who had been so into her writing--had forgotten all about dinner. This was of course a free ticket to a fury of fist attacks and a bruise beneath each of her eyes. The bruises were of course gone, but the memory of it would stain forever. Black women are strong, but still she hadn't written anymore after that.
Steady anger was up heaving from deep within her soul.
Rage was filling that void in her, where her emotions were supposed to be. She thought this area had been emptied except for a bottomless burden of sorrow, and despair. Why did she have to deal with this bastard every single day of her life? Feeling inferior and insignificant and feeble-minded was not even noticeable anymore. What's to stop her from bludgeoning him unconscious with that bottle of sparkling wine on the cocktail table? Words were forming in her mind--words of anger--but she didn't know how to say them, or if she should say them.
"Kiesha, you see what he did?" Damien laughed pointing at the screen, remote in his other hand, as if nothing happened. A man claimed to be the father of a child the man—whom he was threatening—had in his guardianship. He had threatened the current guardian an "ass-wuppin of a life-time." The other man just looked at him as if he was crazy, and smacked him on the head with the lid of a garbage can. He was now lying unconscious on their front lawn twitching wildly. Her face showed not the slightest interest. He turned to her then turned back to the TV. He turned back to her again, "Baby you not watchin'," He gently grabbed her face and turned it towards the TV. She turned it back towards the ground. Almost bedazzled by his complete lack of remorse, she just looked at him, with a look of disorder on her face. He put the remote down on the table and turned to her.
"Baby, I know you ain't tearin up just because you can't go to no damn college, I thought you was stronger--,"
Naw, nigga I'm mad cause you hit me,
Kiesha stood up of the couch, eyes watering. Damien stood up with her.
"It don't matter how strong I am, you still ain't supposed to hit no woman," Kiesha blurted out. Tears flowed freely. The look of confusion was gone from her face, but had jumped to Damiens face. A long pause.
"Why you have to go hittin-" Damien struck her again, harder this time. Kiesha staggered back a couple steps. Almost tripping over the cocktail table, her knee hit the corner of it and blood trickled down her to heels. However, she remained on her feet. Kiesha felt that remaining on her feet gave her a sense of dignity; it gave her the little respect that was gained by Damien. Most importantly, it gave her a sense of control. Blood was spurting down her lip, and onto her shirt. This sparked an explosion of rage. She could feel rage flowing through her veins like a visitor exploring her circulatory system, and it was thicker than blood. It was thicker then oil. It was the type of rage that she could not simply describe, or even comprehend. But it was embodied in her eyes. Kiesha jerked her head up towards Damien, and he must have seen it in her eyes, because he took a step back. The barren hearth that Damien had tried so hard, and almost successfully, to stifle was now a bustling open-hearth flame that—now looking into to the eyes of his fiancé—he was burning in. She wiped her lip with the sleeve of her shirt. The chemistry between them had changed—changed quite suddenly. Her eyes flashed a bright red, only for a partial second. At the same moment the TV flickered, though the satellite was in perfect condition. Hesitating, he took a step forward, a little uneasy from her eyes. The TV flickered again, all the images on it stretched across invisible waves of stormy waters. A second later the stand by picture with all the colors on it appeared. It uttered a high monotonous tone.
"BITCH, DON'T YOU EVER INTER--,"
Damien was stopped mid-sentence again. Kiesha's hands—just as graceful—reached for the sparkling wine bottle on the cocktail table in and swung it at Damien. Damien only had time to see his distorted face twinkle in the glass of the bottle, before it struck him above the right eye with enough force to knock him off his feet, as it imploded with a loud crunch. Kiesha closed her eyes and cringed away from the flying glass. A second or two later after looking totally discombobulated, he hit the floor. Kiesha turned around and faced his semi-conscious body, breathing heavily, her heart thudding in her throat. Damiens lower jaw had been impaled with a very large glass dagger. Shards of glass lay embedded at peculiar angles in his cheekbones, mostly on his forehead, and below his eyes. His face had looked as if carved by an artist with a wretched vision, Picasso preferably. Glass littered the floor. The blood poured in heaps down his face, from every newly created orifice in his face. The nose was covered with blood, and his face completely dark red. He suddenly spat a wad of dark blood that looked like soy sauce out on the white carpet next to him.
She stood stricken with the bottle end in her hand. She looked at it.
"YOU DIRTY BITCH. YOU BALD-HEAD LITTLE HO, I'M GONE RIP YO FUCKIN HAIR OUT," he screamed at the top of his lungs. He jerked to a sitting position, and wiped the glass littering his face. Kiesha screamed and jerked out of shock, and tried to back up, but Damien lashed out and grabbed her calves. She screamed again, and dropped the bottle end.
It was that maniacal grin, one that roared louder than Kiesha ever could. It seemed to embodied some otherworldly—under worldly in that matter—grin, demonic and slightly mesmerizing. "Where you think you goin honey?" he said menacingly. She shrieked louder as the grin on his face widened. He sounded calm. Kiesha struggled harder, punching and kicking at Damien. She had never seen him this angry--but she herself had never been that angry either. Damien accepted Kiesha"s heels-to-the-face with raw determination, and nonetheless his grip tightened. Kiesha cried out in pain.
Oh god he"s gonna kill me, Kiesha thought
Damien struggled to his feet while Kiesha struggled desperately out of his grasp. He was on both of his knee's when she started to lose all hope. Then he propped himself up, still holding on, and all was lost.
"Damien plea-" He struck her several times with one hand while clutching her shoulder with the other. Kiesha never stopped striking him either, she clawed at his face, and just when she lifted her knee to smash through his balls a muscled arm wrapped over her mouth and nose stopping her mid-breath, though it was more of a gasp. After the struggle Kiesha relaxed.
Kiesha jerked awake, and looked around, and she was suddenly aware of every detail. She was tied tightly to her own kitchen chair. It was dark, except for the faint TV light that illuminated the living room, and the dining room. She could see her shadow dancing up and down on the wall along with the rhythm of the TV illumination. She judged by the kitchen objects familiar shadows cast on the floor that it was around 9-10 o'clock. She was faced away from the living room sofa, so she didn't know what horrors that it had lying--or perhaps siting on it. Kiesha moved her arms, but they wouldn't budge. They wouldn't budge because Damien had tightened them so tightly that her skin around the rope creases was a pale white. Kiesha tried again. Her struggle was futile. The rope tightened around her forearm and her bruises, making her cry out in pain. It could only be heard by her though. Two giant slabs of duct tape were firmly wrapped around her mouth. Her arms ached horrible, and by the pain, she guessed she had been tied up for a while. She cried out again in anguish, but it was only muffled. She would make sure he paid full hell for what he was doing to her if she escaped.
If I escape...
She would in fact kill him--if she escaped--self defense or not. That's what he deserves, and that is what he shall receive. She let out a muffled cry of anger this time.
Behind her.
"Baby I love the way you make them sounds," Damien purred. Kiesha jerked her head in the direction, and muffles of surprise and pain escaped her mouth. He was probably on the couch, a wide, lustful grin on his face, and he almost certainly would look like his eyes were even smiling.
"I love when you get all mad like that… an angry look on yo face that is just so sexy to me,"
More muffles, a groan of unease.
"When you stood up to me though," the tv which was exhibiting some behaviors of flashing and buzzing noise settled back to the "stand by" screen and restrained itself with surprising rigidity.
"That was really fucked up, you gonna have to accept the consequences for that, if we gone really work this out."
This dude must be fuckin bonkers to think—
But first." His voice getting a little louder as he stood up of the couch and placed his feet on the floor. It only took 10 seconds--12 footsteps-- to get from the couch in the living room to the dining room, and those seconds seemed like the longest period of Kiesha's life.
"You know what I'm gonna do to you girl," Left foot down. A soft padded thud vibrated through the carpet. Kiesha heard it as clear as she would hear a bowling ball dropped.
12.
"That face you made when you said I shouldn't hit any woman," He moaned in ecstasy, his grin widening. Kiesha groaned in detestation.
11.
"I wanted to take you in the room right then and there and ooh," he rocked back with the ooh. Kiesha saw his shadow grow.
10.
The floor creaked under pressure.
"But I knew that, by the look on your face you wouldn't go wit it," He laughed heartily. The shadow's arm reached up and scratched the top of it's bald head. Kiesha struggled in restraints.
9
"It's not like I'd give a fuck, though, cause after a while you'd go wit it"
8
"So then I thought that I'll have do what I have to do--give you the discipline you so greatly needed," Kiesha felt the rope slacken across her chest
7
"But I'm getting sick of your shit, baby, so sick that I wanted you to be awake to see this shit that I was gonna fucking do to you when I do it," his voice grew louder. The floor creaked loud. The last syllables of his sentence were highly stressed. The sound of a man on the verge of insanity. His trembling left hand held up a steak knife, which Kiesha made out in the shadows. When she saw this she was desperately shaking in her chair but the rope was only budging in minuscule movements. Kiesha was pulling with all her might and the impressions of the rope were deepening in her arms.
6
"If I can't have you then can't nobody have you…
5
4
3
2
1
The devils footsteps.
Kiesha struggled with all her might just seconds before he reached her, she had enough time to give her body one last immense jerk--that was enough. The ropes slack loosened greatly and let her partly free as she jerked away from the chair, then it tightened again.
CRACK!
Damien lunged. Kiesha pulled again.
SNAP!
The wooden kitchen chair snapped where the little wooden connector rods were connected to the top part of the chair. Kiesha's upper body lunged and her neck went in between her legs, tilting the chair forward. The broken top part of the chair flung over her head, rope still attached. It exposed the now dangerous shards of wood, which stuck up from the back of the chair, Damien was in mid-lunge. He didn't have time to take this into account. As he reached over Kiesha's hunched back for her neck--the grip on the knife tightening--he was impaled by a wooden pitchfork. Kiesha slipped forward more on the chair and the wood dug deeper in his body. He gagged loudly but slowly in Kiesha's ear.
The ropes unraveled itself from around her. After a moment of untying herself, she was free. Exhaustion rose in Kiesha's breast in waves, she was panting heavily, her breath a hitching gasp. She stood up, and without hesitation bolted across the room, her half-askew slippers click-clacketying across the kitchen linoleum. She reached the door of the kitchen--even in the dark she found it-- but she didn't look back. She felt the blood trickling down her back. She didn't dare look back, not now not ever. If she had stolen a glance backwards, what she would have seen would have stopped her dead cold in her tracks. She would have seen her fiancée leaning on a chair that was balanced on its front two legs. She would have seen him impaled by five wooden stakes. Every one of the five stakes impaled with perfect precision. Blood (and remains of other things) caked the end of the stakes that petruded out the opposite side of his body. What most importantly she would have seen was that the head of Damien had lifted up for a brief second and took on a last glance at his fiancee, with a look of hellish rage in his face. However she didn't look-- she just stole on out the kitchen door and down the front hallway steps without a glance.
The TV flickered on stand-by with the ringing of that tone increasing violently.
It finally shut off, leaving Damien alone in the darkness.
It was 10:30.