did.
“Mark?” The question was more to herself than to the man. If it was him— if it was HIM— he was barely recognizable. He was extremely bloated. His belly was shaped like a basketball. The buttons on his red shirt strained to contain the weight. His chin was weighed down with a large jowl, and somewhere along the way he picked up a mustache. It sort of looked like Tom Selleck’s mustache from Magnum P.I. But it was unkempt, and now was shaping up to be something along the line of Groucho Marx. And my god, she thought, she could have sworn that Mark had been a giant. At least that’s how she remembered him. It was almost more than her mind could handle to see this dwarfish thing before her. This was a far cry from the fit military man who had so entranced her mother and terrorized her and her brother. All of these thoughts went through her mind in half a second because it soon became clear that...
“Not anymore darlin’,” he cried, “It’s the Duke now. It’s always been the Duke.” The Duke wouldn’t be ignored for long. He was an important man with important things to do. God damn, the Duke thought, the girl is just as ugly and stupid as I remember her.
Then Marion did something unexpected...
...and the Duke staggered back. His nose broken.
“Not fair!” The Duke cried. His voice high and falsetto like a little boy’s. “That’s not fair!”
Marion started to close the door, but the Duke was quicker despite his girth.
She saw the flash of a gun. Then she heard the real Duke come out. The one she remembered.
“You stupid little whore!” He screamed.
He shoved her into the apartment, and slammed the door shut.
The gun stayed level at her chest. But something was burning inside of her. She didn’t fear death. It was the living she had a problem with. This stupid man had taken her life a long time ago. She started forward, and to her surprise the Duke lowered his gun.
“What’s a matter,” the Duke said smiling, “Don’t have a sense of humor?”
Then he shot her in the leg.
The Duke had desperately wanted the girl to plead and cry for her life. Like Ruthie used to do. That would have made him happy. That would have him hard. But, I guess the whore is too stupid to do even that, the Duke thought. Oh well. A new plan started to form in the Duke’s mind. God’s plan had been for the Duke to kill the girl outright. But God’s plan and the Duke’s plan weren’t exactly seeing eye to eye at the moment. He remembered his broken nose. He saw his own blood still gushing down his shirt. Why make it quick for the girl. Why give her an easy death. Why not break her first, like he had Ruthie. Why not make her suffer. Yes sir. That would do the Duke just fine.
The Duke approached the girl. The girl snarled up at him. The stupid whore wasn’t playing the game right. He lowered the gun at her, and that quieted his nerves. With the gun he gestured her to stand.
The girl winced as she stood. She winced more as the Duke gestured to the door. Never once did she cry out. He’d make her scream before the night was out. Yes sir.
Despite the wound in her leg, Marion was sure footed down the stairs. The pain was starting to dull. It had been more the shock than the bullet that had brought her down. The shock had worn off quickly, and she had willed herself not to cry out. The Duke thrived on pain. It gave him life. And Marion aimed to take that life away.
Suddenly, she heard the Duke cry out. She turned, and to her amazement saw him flip up into the air. Marion had avoided the little green army men that had formed a battalion on the steps, but the Duke had not.
The Duke came down hard on the top step, nearly breaking his neck. Marion seeing her chance, fled down the remaining steps.
The door to her landlady’s apartment was wide open. When she saw her landlady dead on the floor, Marion screamed. Then she felt something hard press against the small of back.
A low guttural voice snapped at her: “If you want to still be walking, then you’d best do what I say!”
Marion surrendered. The Duke ordered her to walk toward his truck. He started to get hard. Yes sir. Things were looking up.
Article XIV: She Wore a Yellow Ribbon
“You’ll like Texas, girly,” the Duke said. “It’s real nice there— nice and hot!”
If there was one thing the Duke knew, it was how to treat a woman. First you threaten and bully them. Then you sweet talk them. Then threaten them again. Always keep a girl on her toes. That’s what his daddy had taught him.
“I don’t know how anyone could live here,” the Duke wily observed, “All these mountains, all these trees, all this snow. It’s not natural.”
The Duke was driving down the road and heading toward the ferry terminal. The sooner he was out of this god forsaken place, the better. The girl was quiet. She knew the power he held in his hand, and that had shut her up. But she still had a long way to go before the Duke could even begin to fix her proper. First he had to break her. Then he could put her back together the right way. Like his daddy had done to him.
“Someone needs to drop a couple of atomic bombs and level the whole place.” The Duke said, “Then they can start over from scratch. Make this place look like a city is supposed to.”
The Duke smiled and nodded. He was always thinking up ways to make the world a better place. The girl was either too stupid, or proud, to acknowledge his profound thoughts. For a moment the Duke thought about pulling over and beating her. But no, there was plenty of time for that later when they were safe in Texas. She might be stupid now but the Duke would make her wise in the ways of the world. The girl would come to love him. She would thank him for saving her poor soul. Everyone would see the sacrifices he made and praise his good deeds. To take something that clearly was evil, and shape it into a force of good, that was the true meaning of being a hero. And in the end this once stupid and useless whore would worship him. He would be God to her.
The Duke could see the ferry terminal just up ahead. He was going to get away with it.
“You’ll have a lot to do in Texas,” the Duke said cheerfully. “Plenty of things need to be done around the house. There is one rule in my house; you want to eat you work. I’m not running a welfare shelter.”
The girl frowned.
“I don’t know why you’re frowning girl,” the Duke continued, “I’m saving you, aren’t I? Saving you from yourself. A little hard work ain’t going to kill you.”
The Duke could tell he was hitting a nerve, and that gave him a warm glow.
“Yes sir.” The Duke said proudly. “Yes sir. And when your brother gets out of the pokey he can come down and live with us too.”
The Duke shook his head with fatherly concern. “I don’t know what happened, but both you kids have a lot of growing up to do.”
The Duke pulled into the parking lot of the ferry terminal. They parked, and the Duke stared out the windshield. The Duke had been all smiles and cheer before, but now there was just ugly silence. Her curiosity aroused, Marion cautiously looked out the windshield too. Standing at the entrance of the terminal were two uniformed policeman. But, these weren’t regular policeman, they wore different uniforms. Village police, Marion thought. Were those her cousins Tom and Derrick?
The Duke erupted in rage. Pounding the steering wheel like a drum, he screamed obscenities to the beat of his fists. Then wheezing and out of breath, the Duke started the truck, and roared back onto the highway.
Something was happening, Marion thought. The thought snapped her back into the reality of her situation. She surveyed her surroundings. On the dashboard were a pharmacy worth of pill bottles. Some empty but most half way full. Tiny white pills were everywhere, including on the floor mats under her feet. She heard the clicking of glass bottles as they drove. But, that was all par for the course with the Duke, if she remembered right. The man couldn’t go five minutes without taking a drink, and you could smell the alcohol rotting on his breath. The one thing that seemed oddly out of place was a bag of sunflower seeds. The bag was open, but the top had
been folded over so the seeds would not spill out. Maybe a third of the seeds had been eaten.
What else?
There was a raven perched on a telephone line. It was calling out. They were maybe two miles from town. Not many homes or businesses this far out. Strangely the Duke drove almost at a snail’s pace. Someone this angry and this much in a hurry to get out of Dodge you’d think would drive like a high speed bandit. Maybe he was just sane enough, Marion thought, to worry about being stopped by the police. If she could just wait, wait a little longer, until they got back to town, and if he continued to drive this slow there was a chance...
“Well looks like we are flying the friendly skies girl.”
The Duke tried to sound cheerful, but Marion could hear the seething anger in his voice. The tone was familiar it was one that the Duke would employee when talking to people outside the family— when he would try to appear normal to the outside world.
“Fly the friendly skies,” the Duke mumbled through clutched teeth.
Good, Marion thought they would have to go through town to get to the airport. Suddenly the Duke pulled over.
And, for the first time since the Duke had shown up on her door step, Marion was really afraid.
The Duke sat silently. The Duke’s face was ugly. The Duke snarled like a dog. The Duke’s breath was labored and heavy. The Duke raised the gun.
Slowly, Marion reached for the door