3 A Brewski for the Old Man by Phyllis Smallman

then I left the safety of the pick-up, the ping, ping, ping of the open door calling me back.
    I pressed the bell and had another good look around. Down the street a guy was pushing a lawn mower around a square of already perfect grass. If I yelled for help, would he hear me? Not likely over the racket he was making. The grass smelled nice though, nice and normal. I was growing real fond of normal.
    I waited for Rena to open the door, going from apprehensive to bored and then, when I’d pushed the doorbell three times, I went back to worried. Finally I decided she’d gone somewhere with Ray John. But why? And would she have left Lacey behind? Ray John sure as hell wouldn’t. And Rena wouldn’t close the store for anything. Like me she was swimming too close to the mouth of the shark not to pay attention. Something was wrong here.
    A new possibility occurred to me. How did I know Lacey was still at school? I decided to go back to the truck and call Rena’s cell one more time before I called the police. If Rena and Ray John had taken off with Lacey, I was sending the cops after them and let the shit fly where it may.
    I turned for the truck just as the door cracked. No words were spoken and I couldn’t see who was there in the dark. “Rena?” I asked. The door opened a little more.
    I started to make a joke then I saw her face. “I was worried about you,” I told Rena through the four-inch opening.
    I took in her condition. She looked like she’d crawled out of a concrete mixer. Her whirlwind hair had been combed by a blender, matted in places and sticking out from her head in others. An angry bruise was forming on her left cheek; a trickle of blood crept from her cracked lip. One eye was already closed and blood stained her satin top.
    Through stiff lips she lisped, “Don’t worry about us, stop thinking about us, get out of our lives.” She started to close the door but I stuck my foot in the wedge.
    I put my face closer to the crack. “Why aren’t you at the store? What happened?”
    “None of your business.”
    “I want to help.”
    “Go away.” She was pushing hard on the door now, squeezing my foot. “I don’t need your help.”
    “All right, all right but open the door a little. I have to get my foot out.”
    As she opened the door a crack I pushed hard, sending her flying backwards into the hall. She recovered fast and flew at me, pushing and shoving me and slapping at me. “Get out, get out. I don’t want you here.”
    My hands went up to fend off her blows while I was screaming back at her, “Ray John beat the crap out of you, I didn’t. Why are you taking it out on me?”
    Slowly her rage ran away and she went perfectly still. Tears ran down her face.
    “Are you satisfied?” she sobbed. She put her fingers up to her face. “You did this.”
    “No I didn’t. I didn’t hit you. Ray John did and he’s been doing a lot worse to Lacey.”
    She swung at me, first with her right and then with her left hand, more to shut me up, to stop me from blurting out the horrible truth she didn’t want to know than to really injure me, but it hurt anyway, battered my arms I’d put up to protect my head.
    “Get out,” she screamed. “I don’t want to hear any more of your filth.” She was a whirlwind of blows and then she pushed me and I stumbled backwards out through the open door, slamming into the black wrought-iron railing. The door banged shut before I regained my balance.
    I was left with a dilemma. Should I call the police and report Ray John for spousal abuse? Would that make the situation better or worse? And there was another question digging its way out of my brain. School would be out in twenty minutes — who, besides me, would be there waiting for Lacey when she came through the door?
    I headed for the high school. I wasn’t equipped for this shit and I didn’t want to be responsible. But who else was there? Styles was the one who’d signed on for this when he’d picked up his