Shades of Black: Crime and Mystery Stories by African-American Authors by Eleanor Taylor Bland

Author:Eleanor Taylor Bland
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 2010-03-01T05:00:00+00:00

BETTER DEAD THAN WED

Gar Anthony Haywood

“You see that?”

“I saw it.”

“That has to make what? Three times in the last half-hour?”

“It makes four. But who’s counting?”

“I am. He’s gonna kill that woman at this rate!”

“No, he isn’t. He isn’t hurting her, he’s just bullyin’ her. But even if he wasn’t—”

“Joe—”

“Close your eyes, Dottie. Try to get some sleep. That’s a private matter, and you know it.”

It was sound advice, I knew, but I couldn’t take it. Tired as I was at 3:30 in the morning, the longhaired, Stetson-wearing cowboy in the blue Dodge pickup two car-lengths ahead of us had my blood boiling too vigorously for sleep. My husband, Big Joe, and I had been lagging behind him for a little over forty minutes, his truck and ours apparently locked on identical cruise control settings as we pushed north on Interstate 15 toward Salt Lake City, and four times now the big man had taken his right hand off the Dodge’s wheel to reach over and slap at the face of the woman sitting in the cab beside him. The first time it happened, I thought I’d imagined it, but then the hand went out a second time, and I heard Joe mumble a curse under his breath, and I knew he’d seen it, too.

“We have to do something, Joe,” I said, fighting to keep my eyes open. I was only an hour relieved from a six-hour shift of driving, and my tired old bones were begging for sleep.

“Woman, be serious.”

“I am being serious. Look at how he’s treating that poor girl!”

“I don’t have to look. I’ve been watching it, same as you. But you don’t see that shotgun in ’back of that boy’s window? What do you think would happen if I pulled alongside ’im, tried to object to the way he treats his woman?”

It was a fair question to ask, and one I had no answer for. Obviously, were Joe to attempt such a thing, I’d likely be a widow—if not a corpse—before the next sunrise.

“If I thought she were in serious danger, I’d take the chance,” Joe said, growling. “But she’s not. That doesn’t make what he’s doin’ to her right, but . . .”

“It isn’t worth getting shot over. No. You’re right, baby, it’s not.” I sighed. “I guess we’d better just stay out of it.”

And with that, I closed my eyes. More to keep from witnessing any more mayhem in the Dodge than to try and drift off to sleep.

About fifteen minutes later, I emerged from a restless doze to find our truck and Lucille, the Airstream trailerhome we keep hitched behind it, parked in the lot of a dimly lit public rest stop.

“You need to go?” Joe asked, his hand already opening his door. Obviously, he did.

I gave the question a little thought and nodded, then pulled myself upright and got out of the truck to join him. One thing life on the road teaches you quickly is, more so than “when you gotta go you gotta go,” given the opportunity, you had better go before you need to go.

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