Debbie

Crime Fiction by J. Marquez Jr

Debbie,

My name is…shoot, my name don’t matter a darn thing.

This morning when I looked out my window and saw you on the steps by your apartment, weeping as usual, guilt and sorrow took hold of my heart and wrung it. I felt compelled to write you this letter. I doubt I’ll ever gather the courage to send, least hand it to you. But since it don’t take much guts to write, I’ll sit here, overlooking the pool that separates our apartments like an abyss, and bleed it out.

I know that the odds of your name being Debbie are one to a million. Maybe even a fraction, since there is more than a million names in the world. The point is, I don’t know your name. I’d kill a hundred men to know it. But I will never have the cojones to ask you for it. Shoot, I can’t even look at you directly. Not even that day in September. I don’t remember the actual day. I think it was a Tuesday, in the afternoon, by the apartment cluster mailboxes. You had your mail. I shuffled past you. You looked up and smiled at me. I know it. I felt it. Your smile was warm and sweet as hot chocolate on a winter evening. Only this wasn’t winter but some day in September. I nearly melted. Instead, I looked away. Then I looked down at my mismatched feet. I said to myself, hey, one leg is longer than the other, and hobbled away.

Anyways, never mind that, gotta stick to the point.

After a year of admiring your angelic features through my window, as if admiring the view of sea sparkle at night from a beach house, you mighta thought that by now I woulda learned your name. I haven’t. I listened closely to Frank, hoping to hear him call you by name, but all he ever called you was Bitch. Instead, I learned his name. Frank. I know it because I heard you call him many times. Sometimes I heard you say things like, “Frank, no, please!” Other times I heard, “Frank, please stop, that hurts!” But mostly I heard you bawl, “Fraaaank!” Frank, instead responded with “Bitch” this. “Bitch” that. And “Bitch,” smack! I’ll never forget the first time I saw this. Shoot, how my blood boiled. I was sitting behind my desk, looking out my window, as usual, and I saw him grab a handful of those beautiful golden curls that grapple each other for a spot on your porcelain doll-face and slap you once. Then twice. I flinched once. I flinched twice. He drug you out, pushed you away and locked you outside your apartment. I looked at my disproportionate hands and realized they’d turned into balls. Even my little hand. You, then, sat down on the steps, buried your face in your arms and sobbed. Although you hid your tears well, your shaking shoulders gave you away. Across the pool that splits us, I wept along with you from behind my window. 

Ever since, I’ve hated Frank.

Now a year later, I’ve wondered why I did nothing and, shoot, I cannot come out with no conclusion. Well, not one that makes any sense, that is. If I keep wondering, though, it’ll come. I know it will. My mother always told me that the accident left me slow not stupid. She was right because after many years, I finally learned to read and write. Now, I can sit and write this letter I will never send you to tell you that I don’t know why I let Frank abuse you the way he did. Maybe it was because I have lived a lifetime in fear of the Franks of the world. They can be so mean and cruel. Especially to a freak like me—one leg shorter than the other, a little hand and disparate face features. I’m abnormally tall with abnormally large feet. Maybe. I don’t know. The answer will eventually come like the answer came after months of pondering why I began to call you Debbie.

Month after month, I said to myself, is it Susie? Is it Iris or Joana? But then I said to myself, nah, those names don’t make no sense. One day, as I thought of your name, the swinging D that hangs on one screw on your front door suggested, Debbie. And I said to myself, wait a minute, Debbie makes a hella more sense because Debbie is a beautiful name. Debbie reminds me of the pictures of the colorful Alaskan night skies I’ve seen on the internet. It is the rhythm a musician hears before writing a musical masterpiece. Debbie is a poet’s inspiration. It inspires even insignificant slow Joe-schmoes like me to write poems like the one I wrote.

Do you want to read it? Yeah? Well…okay. Here it is:

Day and night I think of you. In my mind you seem to grow.

Every time I think about you, your name I want to know.

But it seems so difficult to ever know your name

Because of all the circumstances, my goal is hard to gain.

If I get the opportunity, shoot, I’ll never let it go.

Even if I have to kill a hundred men, your name I’ve gotta know. 

It took me weeks to write it on a brown paper napkin. Once I wrote it, I’ve spent many nights wondering if you would like it. But you liking it, would require you reading it and you reading it would mean me sending it to you and the odds of me sending it to you are like the odds of your name being Debbie: a million to one…or a fraction of one.

But never mind that too…the point is this morning when I saw you crying on the steps by your apartment in your usual spot, the unforgiving hands of guilt twisted my heart and deformed it to look like my face. Although you sat in your usual position on your usual spot, what caused you to weep wasn’t the usual cause. I knew that this time, I was the cause of your grief. I realized I am no better than Frank. I watched you suffer for an entire year from across a twenty-foot pool that was more like an endless ocean and didn’t do a darn thing to help. Instead, last night I stole the fire from the gods and brought it down to you. Now your chaotic world is, not only upside down, but in flames as well…

Debbie, if you are reading this letter, it’s because I finally gathered enough guts to send it to you. I doubt it. Shoot, I can’t even look you directly in the eyes or even ask you your name. Truth be told, I’m like Frank, a coward. And like the coward I am, I hide behind my window, writing you this…this…this what? Love letter? Supplication? Apology? Confession? Clearing-of-the-conscience? I don’t know. But like everything else, it’ll come to me eventually. I’m slow not stupid. Remember? So just bear with me as I struggle to form the right words that turn into sentences that will, in turn, become the message I am trying to convey to you…

Debbie, late last night I…last night…was a distortion of that special day in September. Like September’s events, last night’s events took place by the same wall of mailboxes. Frank had just got home and still wore his work uniform with the Frank-patch on the left of his shirt. He stopped to get the mail and stood in the same spot you stood when you smiled at me. He didn’t smile though. Instead, he smirked. He nodded and whispered, “Fucking freak.” He chuckled and returned his attention to the letters he was holding. I began to limp away. A life of humiliations and ridicule can teach even a slow freak how to let things go. But then I remembered things. Things like how he slapped you. Like how he drug you by your hair and tossed you like an unwanted rag doll. I remembered how I saw this from across the ocean between us. Day after day. Night after night. For one full year. And then I remembered other things like it was his fault why I don’t know your name. Because when he called you, he called you by Bitch. And how I let it happen. Day after day. Night after night. For week after week. And month after month. For one fucking year in front of my ugly face. And then I remembered that I’m ugly. I’m repulsive. I’m disgusting. And my hands, they’d become clubs. They’d become rocks. They’d become wrecking balls. Even my little hand. And that’s when a red lens covered my sight. I took a step close to him from behind. I could see our shadows painted over the mailboxes. Mines towered over his. Frank was too busy looking over the mail when I got him by the back of his neck and pulled him with ease. If he struggled, I don’t know. I felt no resistance. My hand and the back of his neck became one. I shoved him away from me and toward the mailboxes. “Bang!” screamed the metal cluster box. I heard the cracking of bone as his forehead kissed the edge. I pulled and I shoved him again. Once. Twice. Then I lost count. It is ironic that an abusive husband can be so brave and tough to the pleadings of a submissive wife yet be so submissive and cowardly against the abuse of another man’s wrath. “Bang, bang, bang!” went the mailbox’s futile cries for help. But no one came out. Nobody answered. These current affairs only concerned me, Frank and the cluster box. I felt droplets splash across my face. Yet, I didn’t stop. I couldn’t stop. Bang, bang, bang, went the beat to the song Frank and I danced to, till my arm grew tired. When I finally stopped, my face was covered with sweat and blood. I held Frank for a second while I panted. I didn’t know what to do with this lifeless mannequin, so I drug it a few dozen feet and tossed it into the ocean between our apartments. 

Early this morning, the sun hadn’t fully come up yet, sitting in my usual spot by my window, I saw Ms. Kingman, the Rosewood Apartments manager, scream and fall back when she noticed Frank floating around in the pool. I said to myself, Frank will never slap you again. He will never again drag you around your apartment by your golden curls and toss you outside. Frank will never call you Bitch again. I smiled. And I said to myself, I’m tired.

Hours after all the commotion, I sat in my usual spot and looked out my window. You were sitting in your usual spot and weeping like always. And I said to myself, wait a minute…just wait a flipping minute here…and, for the life of me, I could not finish this thought. Instead, my mind was a battle between two opposing windstorms in the middle of an ocean like the one that separates our apartments. Like the ocean that separates your world from mines. And I had a momentary lapse of reason. I said to myself, Frank, you son of a bitch, you sure fucked up this time. Didn’t you?

And that’s when I felt like I had to write you this letter, knowing darn well that I will never send you, to tell you how sorry I am. I’m sorry for hiding behind my apartment door. For not swimming across the ocean between us. And Debbie, I’m sorry for Frank. For stealing him away, even though Frank was no good for you. I’m sorry for calling you Debbie, if your name is Joana. Or Susan. Or Jasmine. But at least, I’m not calling you Bitch. And Debbie, I’m sorry for writing this letter and not having the guts to send it to you. I’m sorry for being so foul and repulsive. Ugly and slow but not stupid. And, Debbie, on top of all that, I’m sorry for loving you so very much. Yes I do. And that there’s the reason why I write you this letter that you’ll never read.

Shoot, for this and that, I wish to be bound to a rock and opened up for the eagles to feast upon me, a punishment fit for a fire thief.

Sincerely…Pro—shoot, that there don’t matter a darn thing.

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Bio: J. Marquez Jr. was born and raised in the jungles of Los Angeles. He is a true enthusiast of rock music and 80’s-era graffiti art. His poems and short stories have thorns, which The Literary Hatchet and The Yard: Crime Blog handle with extreme caution on occasion. To learn more about him—it is unclear why anybody would want to—one can read the biographical and illustrated stories tattooed up and down his arms and across his chest. Or simply read more of his riff raff here on The Yard: Crime Blog.

Read more Criminal Fiction on The Yard: Crime Blog

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