There were the three of us together, like virtually every other day since we were 16 and I nearly drowned in Arlene’s lake. It wasn’t really her lake, but it was just behind her grandmother’s property where, at the time of this story, we were freeloading for spring break, and she - Arlene - had learned how to swim in it when she was three and all the teenagers and college kids in town came to it whenever it got warm enough to be naked outside and Arlene has always been undisputed royalty in these parts because her family has always been here, so we’ve always called it her lake. Anyway, the three of us were standing at the big open bay window, looking out at the night, playing our parts. There was Arlene, who was perpetually cool. And Louellen, who was bat shit. And there was me, Penny the Pitiful, shaking like a little flame, so sure we were all about to go to God.
Louellen was red hot, pacing and prowling the kitchen like a lioness. “Ain’t he got any business besides starin’ us down. You call Eddy? He know this guy?” And Arlene shrugged. She hadn’t called Eddy. She didn’t want to. They were on a break. She didn’t want any saving from him and he probably had his tongue down some freshman’s throat and wouldn’t answer anyway. It was late. We had been working our way through a bottle of wine when we spotted Him, back lit by the moon, standing unmoving, eyes seeming to reach into the house from His spot on the river’s bank.
“Let’s just ignore him.” Arlene tossed the words over her shoulder as she walked back to the counter where the half empty bottle of wine sat dripping, bleeding. With her finger, she swiped the wine off the counter and lapped it up. She’d been drinking since before we came inside. I figured she must be nursing a broken heart, but didn’t dare say that to her. I didn’t like Eddy. I was glad when he messed things up, but I didn’t expect Arlene to be so hurt. That hurt me for her, I think. So I didn’t say anything when she faced her own bottle of red while we laid on the lake’s edge before the sun went down. From the window, and with her back to me, I watched her top off her glass. On her exposed back, there were tan lines in a crisscross pattern, a temporary tattoo courtesy of her strappy bikini top.
Louellen was itching for confrontation. She was that kind of tipsy. “We could ignore him, sure. Or I could go out there and tell him bout himself.” “Just let him beat his dick and be done with it. He’s gotta get bored some time. It’s not like we’re in here lesing out.” Arlene laughed, her voice wet and sparkling. My cheeks were hot. I hated that they weren’t more concerned. “Speak for yourself. Am I right, Penny?” I turned my head to see Louellen grabbing my chin and licking the side of my face, all in front of the bay window for Him to see. “You dyke. Get off.” I failed a forced laugh. Louellen’s eyes softened a little, “Oh Penn, you’re scared?” “I don’t know, maybe a little. It’s been like ten minutes. He hasn’t moved. I think we should call the police or something.” Louellen squeezed my cheeks. “What baby Penny wants, baby Penny gets. Arlene, where’s your phone.”
“Where’s yours?” “Dead.”
Arlene threw her head to the side, pointing at her phone’s current resting place in the dining room. Louellen took big crooked steps towards the dining room table to grab it. And I took some deep breaths, glad to have something being done. I looked out the window again at Him. He wasn’t touching Himself. He wasn’t doing anything. A shiver went through me and I ran to the dining table like a child running to bed after shutting the lights. I sat in one of the chairs, feet up in the seat with me, fiddling with a placemat, listening to Louellen talk to the operator. She had a way of sounding thirty instead of twenty-two when the situation called for it. Arlene brought the bottle and our glasses to the table and I tried to get back to girlie time.
“Penny, don’t worry. Shit like this happens all the time. He’s probably some weirdo townie lurking on spring breakers.” Arlene finished off her glass and poured herself the last of the bottle, and I started chugging my share to catch up. “I guarantee you. He’s probably never felt the touch of a woman. Lives with his mama. That sorta deal.”
Louellen hung the phone up and all her tipsy came back in full effect. “Okay, they should be sending someone. They said to stay away from the window in the meantime.”
I didn’t love the idea of not keeping an eye on Him, and at the same time, I didn’t want Him to be able to keep His eyes on us. I suggested we block the window. Arlene got some old comforters and we stood on the dining room chairs, nailing them to the wall so that they’d hang over the window. He didn’t move a muscle. Even still, we drew all the curtains and blinds in the house. After that, we sat at the dining table, drinking and waiting.
When the police arrived, we all went to the door, but only Louellen spoke to them. And we peeled back a corner of the comforter to watch as they went around back to talk to Him. He spoke, and seemed normal with them. That pissed me off. When the cops came back inside, they said there was nothing they could do. The lake was public property. He wasn’t doing anything wrong. They asked us what we were doing there all alone. Louellen told them that wasn’t relevant. Then they advised us to just ignore him and he’d go away on his own.
Louellen grumbled a sarcastic “Thanks a lot.” and they were gone. So it was just the three of us again, alone with Him. We crowded around one corner of the window, watching him watch us. We sat like that for a while, breathing in sync and unblinking. Arlene broke first.
“Fuck this.”
Before we could stop her, she was out the door. Louellen went after her, but when she reached for the knob, pulled her hand back and she cried out in pain. “What the fuck!”
“What?!”
“It’s hot! The door knob is hot as shit!”
Louellen ran to the sink to run cool water over her scorched hand, and I snapped my head back and forth, watching Arlene talk to Him, watching Louellen. I could see the blisters from across the room. And I felt bile rising in my throat. All the blood in my body rippled.
“What’s happening? What’s she doing?” Louellen struggled to speak through tight wincing teeth. “Nothing, she’s just talking to him.” “Is he doing anything? Is he talking back?” “I think he is. I think--wait, she’s coming back!”
I ran to the door and touched the knob myself. Only my finger tips made contact before I had to pull them away. “What?” I whispered almost to myself. The door opened and Louellen screamed to Arlene on the other side. “Be careful! Somethings wrong with the doorknob!”
But Arlene didn’t wince in pain. She didn’t even seem to hear Louellen. Her face was contorted in some strange expression that made my heart beat twice as fast. She looked like a shell shocked soldier. “Arlene, what’s wrong? What did he say to you? Why is he here?” Arlene didn’t answer me. She just closed the door behind her.
“Arlene, watch your hand!” I screeched, snatching her hand to examine it. But it looked fine. I touched the doorknob myself. It was back to normal. “What the hell…”
“Arlene, talk to us. What did he say? And why the fuck was the doorknob a thousand degrees? Some kind of electrical issue? Has that happened before?” Louellen had a dish towel wrapped around her hand.
Arlene walked slowly back to the dining table and sat down before speaking in the quietest voice I’d ever heard her use.
“He said he’s not leaving until we each go out and take our beating.”
Louellen and I stood in silence, staring at the side of her head.
“Bitch….what?”
“Each of us. Alone. He said he wouldn’t kill us. He’d turn us loose. But we all have to take it. And then he’d leave.”
At that point, Arlene turned to look at us, and her eyes were filled with terrible tears, and her lip was quivering, and I almost fainted.
We drilled her with meaningless questions she could only half answer. Who is He? What is He? What the actual fuck? We paced in frantic silence for hours. The whole time He never moved a muscle. I checked. Over and over. And every time He was there, eyes fixed on the window like He could see through the covering. Like it didn’t matter what we did, how long we waited, who we called. Like He was a fate as inescapable as death.
By the fourth hour of feckless denial, something began to happen to Arlene. It started with these whimpers, like a dog. Then a sort of groaning, a violent and needy sound. And she put her body on the floor, writhing in a fluid motion. We watched her. It was all so strange, and we had been scared for so long. We lost language. She crawled to the door, desperate. And we dove to stop her, but something held fast our feet! It was as if we were leased by both ankles to a back wall. We wailed, grasped at the floor. In chorus, “Arlene, No!” But she turned the knob, and out she went to Him. On all fours.
As soon as the door swung closed, we were released and thrown forward by all our effort to stop her. We struggled to our feet and up to the door. We stared, scared, at the doorknob. I touched it with my fingers. Hot again. We ran to the window and tore the comforter down, sending nails flying across the kitchen floor. The sight beyond the glass made breath catch in our throats. Arlene stood before Him, limp arms at her side. He raised a hand slowly to hold her face. The moon on the water. White light outlining their darkly vivid figures. It pulled on my heart. Her body looked beautiful next to His. Then He struck her hard. I knew I was screaming. I knew Louellen was screaming. But I couldn’t hear anything except the cicadas singing outside.
When He struck Arlene, it knocked her off her feet. He grabbed a handful of her hair and brought her to standing just to strike her down again. He kicked her, and she rolled up like a sliced worm. He stepped on her hands. Put his foot on her neck. I could see her crying. Finally, he straddled her, and landed blows on her face, chest, and collar bones. Again and again and again until her body was fightless and then more blows still. She seemed covered in oil. I knew it was blood. Her hair stuck to her ruined face and in her ruined mouth. He stood up, looking down at her as something He’d made. Then He extended a hand to her, and she took it. Rose sprightly, and stood there with Him for a beat. They looked like dance partners. She bowed her head gently, as a goodbye? A thank you? Then turned on the balls of her feet and walked back towards the house.
When she walked in, her chin was up. Her chest was out. Her back was straight. The warm light of the kitchen shone soft on her bloody body. She was all crimson now. Veiled brutally, with rare bits of skin peeking through, like the pristine lines clearing a way for her tears, running without interruption from her lower lash line to the space between her breasts. We dared not approach her. And I felt a shame about that. But the terror was just too great. I breathed her name, “Arlene.” Louellen took a timid step forward. Arlene turned squarely towards us, opened her swollen eyes wider than she ought to have been able to, and spoke in a serene voice.
“Don’t fear now. Take your beating.”
Then with a jagged intake of breath, she collapsed.
Daylight wasn’t long to come. We had carried Arlene up the stairs, stripped and bathed her in cool water. She didn’t protest anything we did to mend and clean her wounds. She seemed taken by a peace I couldn’t understand. Louellen was inconsolable. She cried in a steady stream nonstop. I moved without thinking or feeling much of anything. At this point it was about 6 in the morning. Arlene was asleep in her bed. I laid next to her, periodically checking her breathing. Louellen paced the room with a new energy. Less like a lioness and more like a small caged animal. Or a beta fish. She knocked against the walls. The room was too small. “I need to get some air.” and she bolted down the stairs.
I knew she was going to Him. I knew the call must’ve reached her. I knew we were both prolonging what could not be circumvented, and still I leapt to stop her. “Louellen, Please! Don’t leave me alone in here!” She was out the door before I had even reached the bottom of the stairs. I went to the window to see them, pressing my nose against the glass. My rapid breathing put their figures in a fog. They began differently. Louellen did not stand before him as a woman before a lover. She stood opposite him, put her dominant foot behind her, and raised her fists. He mirrored her. And a thought not my own sprang from my frozen mind -- I suppose pain will greet you how you greet it.
Louellen threw the first punch, and He rushed forward into it, eating it, and then planting his own fist into the center of her chest. She staggered backwards, and then threw herself onto him, bringing her fists down onto his back, as a child unhappy with the coming of bedtime but carried away still. He threw her onto the river’s bank, where the earth was slickest. She squirmed backwards from Him, and He pinned her with a foot in her stomach. Then with his full weight on that foot, he bent down to choke her. What seemed to be little effort on his part was enough pressure to make Louellen’s eyes protrude from their place in her skull. Her tongue hung swollen from her mouth. Her face turned purple. She clawed at his hands, leaving bloody streaks in the wake of her nails. She had wounded Him! Even so, she was dying.
He took his foot out of her stomach, which was now decidedly concave. Then He took her head into His hands, raised her face to His, spoke some words into her bloody mouth, and headbutted her. Just as Arlene had, Louellen laid lifeless for a moment, only to be offered His hand, which she took. She rose to her feet. Shoulders square, chin down and forward, her hands loose but savvy, resting at the front of her body, which she held wide and solid like a brick.
Louellen didn’t look at me when she walked in. She just started walking towards the stairs. I had to put my body in front of hers to make her stop. There was a hard purple knot rising in the space between her brows. Her neck was black. I asked her, “What did He say to you?” And she poured her blood shot eyes into mine. When she opened her mouth, His voice fell out.
“You are not a baby, Penny. And no one is coming to save you.”
She walked through me and up the stairs. I stood there unmoving with tears stinging my eyes. I stared at the door to Him. I tried to conjure the image of myself turning the knob and walking outside. Even that, the conjured mental image, was impossible for me to take. So I crumbled to the floor into so many pieces and waited for bravery I did not possess. I wished He would compel me. Force me. I wished he would whisper something from within me and make it impossible for me to deny Him. I wished he would make it easy. Make me unafraid. Had he not done that for Arlene and Louellen? Had he not planted within them a hunger to see it through? To get it over with? Was I mistaken? Did they just have resolve I was too pitiful to perceive, let alone hold as my own?
When I stood, it was in a state of being miles away from my body. And when I turned the knob, it might as well have been my imagination. And when I stepped outside, I was sure it was a dream. But when I stood before Him, and he towered over me in all His terrible bigness, I ran into the water. I ran until the water rose as high as my chest before my next steps were not met with a bottom of any kind. I sank into the dark water and began to drown. Just as I had when I was 16. The day I met Arlene and Louellen. It was night then, too. I’d left home on my bike. I was in my pajamas, and I was out of my mind. I woke up to Arlene giving me mouth to mouth. I threw up lake water and all the pills I’d taken. Louellen decided I should just party with them instead of all by myself since I “clearly didn’t know my limits”. And there was a tense melancholic gratefulness between the three of us that I never corrected her.
That night Arlene took me into her house. She gave me some of her clothes. She ran her thumb over the back of my hand whenever she held it. And it bewildered me, but she held it often. She’d said many times that she felt like I was her baby. That since she’d saved me, I was reborn. She was my mother and Louellen was my father. I never spoke about the tension I felt with that running joke. I just held quiet in my mind how badly I wanted Arlene to press her lips to mine again.
A hand gripped the top of my head and pulled me upwards. And the black water was expelled from my lungs, as if I were being wrung dry. Squeezed like overripe fruit by some formless force. I hung there, suspended by His single hand, the unsupported weight of me stretching my spine to near fracture, dripping snot into water. The water he stood on the surface of. Without a ripple. It was glass beneath His feet. With blurry eyes, I could see Him. And He looked down into my face. My pitiful face. He said, “Don’t you tire of running?”
I began to cry. Big honest tears. “Yes, I do. I do tire of running. I’d very much like to find it in me to stop.”