Do Something (A Short Story)



  DO SOMETHING

  BY MICHAEL WRIGHT

  Copyright 2011 Michael Wright

  I CAN’T believe I’m about to do this.

  My hands are shaking. Sweat is on my face, even though it’s freezing outside. My windows are open. The car is off. It’s been off for a while now. The keys swing back and forth—whenever they stop I bump them to make them swing again. Like a pendulum, counting the seconds that I stay put, doing nothing.

  The sweat rolls down my face, the cold air makes it a stinging stream, slowly sliding, like a cube of ice slipping away. My arms are shaking. I want to start shivering but I can’t, I am too angry. Clouds billow from my mouth, it’s really cold, but I’m burning up. I feel it inside, a fire blazing, my eyes burn with it, my hands shake with it, and inside my chest is an inferno of rage. I’ve got to do something.

  Then do something.

  I open the door to my old Pontiac, my first car, I’d gotten it only two years ago, right before my driver’s test, and shut it quietly. I look down at my other hand where the weapon sits. A Taurus .38 revolver catches a gleam of the dim streetlight. It’s loaded. I have it in case things get messy. I hope they don’t but they can.The small trailer to my left is dimly lit; I can see the yellow glow of an old lamp on a shade. A man walks by the lamp, and I see him reaching for his belt in the silhouette, and my blood boils more. The grip on the revolver tightens.

  It has to end. I have to do something.

  The cool trail that drifts from my mouth is illuminated by the streetlight. I pull my coat collar tighter, and hold the revolver down by my leg so it’s less visible. It doesn’t need to be seen until it’s necessary.

  I walk up the small walk—a worn path in the grass, dirt coupled with dead sprigs of grass that were once there before the fall weather killed it. Dead leaves, scattered corpses, were sprinkled over the path. My blood was pumping harder.

  The trees behind me sway in the wind, as if they were trying to run from what was coming, trying to hide from me.

  I don’t have to do this. But I need to. I can’t live with myself anymore, not if I don’t do anything. I have to do something.

  Nobody else has done anything. My grip tightens, my pulse quickens. I’m going to do it, I can’t believe it but I’m going to do it. Have I lost my mind?

  The silhouette moves again, and I see him moving around the room, tossing his belt away from him. He bends down, throws a sock—two socks—in another direction. He’s talking to someone. He’s rubbing something.

  My heart feels like it’s struggling to pump blood, like it was slowing down. The fire burns hotter.

  I can’t believe I’m doing this but I have to.

  I walk up the porch steps, carefully, I don’t want to make too much noise—I don’t want him to hear yet. The last thing I want him to do is hear me now; it won’t work if he were to discover me there before its time.

  I walk up to the door, the dirty, cheap door. The diamond-shaped window on the door was covered over with a cheap shade, yellow light shone from within. My hands are shaking again. I reach out and knock on the door.

  Silence from inside.

  I wait. My palms are sweaty.

  I heard the doorknob jiggle, the lock was being undone—and the knob slowly begins to turn, the grinding metal-sand sound of an old doorknob.

  My breath is disappearing.

  I can’t believe I’m about to do this.

  But I have to do something.

  The door opens, a heavily whiskered face stares at me with cold eyes. He is not wearing a shirt, and the cold seems to surprise him. “What do you want?” His voice sounded like he was on a carton a day habit.

  “I’m here to see Juliet.” I say.

  “She’s not available.”

  I believe him, but not for simple reasons. “You sure?” I press.

  “Riley?” Her voice came from inside.

  The man jerks his head in her direction and glares at her. “You know him?”

  “He goes to my school.” She explains.

  I hear her stand and come toward the door, she leans toward the opening, her extremely thin and over worn T-shirt, with an overstretched neck hung loosely from her small frame. “Hi, Riley.” There was the briefest of smiles. She glanced down at her shorts and her bare legs, which were exposed to the cold. “Sorry, I’m not dressed.” She said self-consciously, and then looked to the man beside her, “It’s really not a good time.”

  She looks me in the eye. Juliet was easily one of the prettiest girls at the school, but was never dressed all that well, and always had a bruise somewhere. It was noticeable to everyone, but nobody did anything. Her face was filled with all the beauty of youth, but her eyes were aged and tired. I looked at her eyes, and I could see that now was really a better time than any for me to show up. It was time to finally end it.

  “Hear? It’s not a good time.” The man says and tries to shut the door.

  I stop it with my hand. “I think it is.”

  The man pushes a little. I push back.

  “How long is this going to go on, Mr. White? How much longer did you think it would be before someone noticed?”

  He snorted, “Noticed what?”

  “That you’re touching your daughter. Hurting her.” I say, my voice nearly cracks, but I manage to hold it together. The furnace of rage is about to spill over; I could feel the tremor starting in my hands.

  “I what?” He was not surprised, just trying to cover.

  “How long has this been going on? Since she was a little kid, maybe? Maybe it just started with a little rough-play, and then it came out when you were angry. Maybe it was when she started to develop, was that it?”

  The man said nothing--he only glared.

  “Riley, I think you should go.” I look at Juliet for a moment, and she didn’t seem to know what to say, she knew that I was making him angry, and that he would only hurt her worse if I did that, but I didn’t plan on leaving her to him ever again.

  “How long did you think this was going to go on? How long have you been hurting your daughter, Mr. White?” I raise the gun. “Because, so help me, I hope they pay back every second of what you’ve done a thousand times over in Hell.”

  I push in the door and step past the doorway. The man steps back a few paces, he’s up against a bookshelf filled with magazines of various sorts, mostly adult magazines.

  Sick.

  I look at him, his eyes wild, and his body tense, his breathing picked up.

  I cannot help but take a little pleasure and see him as an animal backed into a corner. How does it feel, Mr. White?

  “Look, put the gun down.”

  “Why?” I ask, “Does it bother you?” Then lift it towards him. It’s loaded. It could go off, but I really don’t care. I really don’t. I like watching him cower.

  I lower the gun after a moment. “I’m going to call the police. I’m going to turn you in, Mr. White.”

  I turn to Juliet, “You can be free.”

  She is looking at me; she’s looking at him, the man that has caused her years of pain. Her hands are shaking, I notice a new bruise on her arm, it look was the shape of a hand, the finger marks were wrapped around her arm. Another thick, green-yellow bruise was on her thigh, clearly visible. It looked painful. I saw a red spot on her face that must have been from a hard slap. Recent.

  “I want to be free.” She said.

  I looked down at Mr. White, who was pointing at her. “You’re mine. Did you forget that, you stupid mutt? Did you forget that your mother ran off? Did you forget all of that? She left me with you! Who took care of you for that long? Who made sure you had food on the table? Was it too much
to ask for something extra every now and then?”

  “Shut up!” I raise the gun again and drop it by my side.

  “You’re mine! You’re mine!” He leaned forward, his shirtless torso was heaving with rage and looked at me. “You really don’t matter to me. She’s mine, she’ll never be yours.” He lunged for her.

  Stupid move.

  I watched for only a moment before I moved in response, he reached her and began to topple her over, sending her crashing to the floor, her legs flew out on either side of his head and his face landed on her stomach. I lunged for his back and landed hard, knocking the breath out of him, then pulled him away. The gun was out of my hand, on the floor beside me.

  He tried to get around me; I looped my arm around his neck, and pulled tightly. He choked against my grip and I pulled back hard, swinging him around me and then moved my hand around the other side of his face and pushed it down onto the ground. He hit hard, and I slammed him again, then pulled back my elbow and slammed it into his back, and shifted my weight onto his back, knocking him to the floor. I quickly got my footing back and stood. I lunged for the gun and managed to get it back in my hand and felt the smooth wooden handle meet my grasp. I saw Mr. White trying to get up again and gave him a swift kick to the ribs; he collapsed again.

  How does it feel?

  I lifted the gun and kept it pointed. It was a double action, and all I had to do was pull hard, once. “Stay down, if you want to live.” I said.

  He stared up at me, the side of his face I had slammed into the ground was bloody, and his eyes burned with an anger I had yet to see from anyone else, but I imagine my eyes looked about the same. The fire in my bones was still flaming high.

  I turned to Juliet, who was sitting on her bottom, watching us, her brown hair tossed all around her head from the tussle. Her face was frozen looking at the scene in front of her. I reached over with my arm extended. She regarded my hand stoically for a moment and then reached to take it, and I helped her up slowly.

  I glanced back at the man who had taken a reclining position on the floor in the corner. Mr. White had nothing to say. His nose dripped with blood.

  I turned back to Juliet; she was looking at me with searching eyes. I lowered the gun, but Mr. White knew that I would shoot if I had to. I didn’t think he was going to try anything else.

  Juliet stepped towards me again, and then came close and wrapped her arms around my neck in an embrace. Her grip was tight, as if she were afraid I wasn’t real. “Thank you.” She said. “Thank you, Riley.”

  I put my free arm around her and rested my palm on the middle of her back, and gave it a soft pat.

  She asked me, “Why did you do this?”

  I looked down at her face, framed by brown hair. “You were in trouble, everyone knew. I had to do something.”

  “That’s…” She couldn’t finish the sentence.

  “I had to do something.” I repeated. “You’re worth it. I had to do something.”

  We, two high school kids, stood together over a man that had made her life miserable for so many years, with his reign of pain at an end, and I knew that what I had done was right. She was free.

  And that was worth it all.

  “Therefore to him that knoweth to do good, and doeth it not, to him it is sin.” – James 4:17 (King James Version of the Bible)

  About the Author