Jabbing the intercom button with a greasy finger, he barked the question at his wife, “You got supper ready?” Fifty feet away from the garage, his voice, tinny, distorted, made his wife jump in the dingy, linoleum-floored kitchen. Her heart pounded even more. She had been waiting for this moment. No turning back. She took another hit from the Jack D bottle and hit send on the intercom.
“Fix it yourself you lazy a-a- asshole.” The lower lip he split when he punched her last night opened up and she tasted blood. Her heart pounded and her voice cracked and quavered when she said the last word. “I’m through waiting on you, scumbag.” Her voice just a little stronger now.
There was silence for a moment before his voice, filled with rage, poured out of the speaker. “When I git up to the house I’m agonna kick your sorry, scrawny ass from the stove to the sink like a football! Yer gonna be one beat up bitch when I’m done with you tonight.” His rage was so great that all he could momentarily hear was the blood pounding in his temples.
Thus, he missed the metallic pulley sound the garage door made when it started down. He had the door open so the evening breeze would cool the two car garage where he kept his car and his workbench. His wife had to park her car outside under the tree . The roof and windshield were always covered with birdshit from the starlings that roosted in the branches. The door closed with a THUD causing him to spin around and stare at it as if it were a piece of scenery dropped into the wrong act of a play.
“Real cute”, he said to himself, “bitch took my garage door remote”, as he moved toward the wall where the open/close button was mounted. That was when he heard the metallic click of the lock being turned on the outside of the door. “What the hell…?” Grabbing the door handle, he jerked upward. Of course it didn’t budge. He went back to the intercom.
“What you playin’ at, bitch? You can’t keep me in here forever. Longer I stay in here the worse for you when I get out.”
The intercom was quiet for a moment. A giggle, accompanied by the clink of a bottle being put down on a counter, was followed by “You ain’t gittin’ out, leastways not the way you think.”
“I’ll back the damn car through the damn door and then I’ll…..”
“Need a key, doncha? Left your keys on your dresser when you went out there.’ Member?”
“Shit”, he thought, this was all new. His meek wife just took it in the past, even that time he broke her arm. Just took it. And now… Picturing her in the kitchen, he spoke to the intercom. “You been watchin’ too much Dr. Phil? What you want, woman?”
“I want you dead.” The words were spoken coldly and flatly. The giggle was gone. “DEAD.”
Tasting the little beads of salty sweat on his upper lip, he opened his mouth to bellow and rage. His jaw worked up and down but nothing came out of his usually foul mouth. He was at a grave disadvantage and he didn’t know how to cope with it.
“You’ll do time, you kill me, you know. They’ll lock you up and throw away the key. May even git a rope and stretch yer scrawny neck.”
The tinny reply scratched out of the intercom. “They ain’t gonna hang me or give me a day in jail if you kill yourself for the reasons you put in that there note you left in the glove compartment of yer precious car.”
“What the hell you talkin’ ’bout? I never wrote no…” The lightbulb in his head clicked on and he lunged for the door handle of the car. His greasy hand fumbled with it just as all the door locks went…click.
The intercom came to life again. “Guess I have yer remote starter too. Guess you know what that means. Guess it’s yer ass in the sling now.”
The starter of his car turned the engine over and the garage began to fill with exhaust.
“Guess it’s time to say good-bye, fucker!”
