I had come home to a dark house to see the blinking red light of the answer machine. Nothing out of the ordinary, perhaps the unusual thing is that I didn't run to check the tape, rather I avoided the drowned out voices of that tape box…I always had. Seeing that nagging blinking from the corner of my eye was too much, I should just shut it off… I remember thinking.

CLICK, static…"it's all over velvett, he's dead…(long pause) it's all over baby. (short pause) CLICK…It wasn't too long ago that I'd heard that bit of news.

My life was given back to me, after nearly four years…my life was my own again.
What life?

I should have never been there so late; I would have normally been home by that time. Probably brushing my teeth or unwinding with a cup of tea. But instead I stayed late and checked the liquor inventory, filled up the speed racks that our newest brain child bartender could never remember to keep stocked. (She was good with the customers so it was hard to get her to do the crappy stuff…she was good and she knew it, but so was i.) "I have to find out who keeps taking the Absolut home, this constantly being short crap has got to stop", I thought.

I can still hear her pleading cries, it haunts me time to time. The only sound that comes close is the sound metal twisting and contorting in a car or train wreck.

He had always been a walking time bomb; I had felt comfort in the fact we had an "understanding" among ourselves. He was dangerous and you couldn't help but to notice that about him, he was always high and always angry. He was quick and had always been up to something for someone somewhere. Games, deals, that's what it had always been about, it sometimes made my head spin I began to resent to having to keep my eyes closed and ears deafened.

How dare he do this, I was outraged and blinded with anger and control. It might as well have been me with what I had become capable of that night.

The bottle didn't even crack.

He had been a boxer at one time, so he mentioned to one of his "boys" that night. "How are we doing tonight?" he asked the golden boy. Just under ten I had answered for him, I knew that my words would irritate him and that was usually why I did it. "Oh yeah" he snickered sarcastically while walking up to me…right up to me, in my space, in my face. " YA DON"T SAY" he said with a smile. I had received an enormous amount of pleasure in being rather tall next to him, not that it should matter but I liked it. "You seem to know a lot LITTLE GIRL" I always hated it when he called me that. But just that night I lost my cool lip, " I see it all, I hear it all and I forget nothing darrrrrlin." "That could get you into trouble (pause) but yeah… you're a SMART LITTLE GIRL", he said just as he reached out to grab my face.

Ever notice the quick reflexes of a beaten child to block out that of which may hurt them?