"Yes, I do," says Debbie in a soft voice. "Cheeseburger, onion rings and a beer."

Ken stops and looks at her.

"I can' t believe you remember."

"Do you?"

"Of course." Ken turns his face back to the sink. "like it happened yesterday." Ken is embarrassed to say those words, but they are true. They don' t speak afterwards. They just interchange glances and small smiles, but the dike of mistrust and forced politeness built during the previous hours now has a big crack in it. True feelings are already seeping through that crack. When the dike breaks, if it ever does, both Ken and Debbie wonder what is going to happen. Will they drown? Will they rise to the surface and be carried away to who knows where? It doesn' t matter, whatever happens it is meant to be.

The clean up is done, lights out and the bar' s door are locked and the waitresses go home with their tired feet and their pockets full of small change. Debbie and Ken linger in the parking lot, next to Debbie' s car. The street light above them casts their shadows on the cold asphalt as they stand in front of each other at arm' s length. Their hearts beat strong and they look at each other with eager eyes. Still, words don' t come easily.

"Debbie," says Ken. "I don' t know what to say. Well, I know what I want to say… I just don' t know how…"

A figure jumps over the hood of Debbie' s car. A ski mask cover its face and it swings a baseball bat. The bat lands on the side of Ken' s head with a thud and Ken drops to the ground as if his legs had become boneless. Debbie screams and jumps back. The assailant starts to move toward her with the bat raised above his head. Debbie knows that Billy' s face is under the mask. She is still screaming when Billy falters in his advance. Ken is holding onto his ankle, a feeble hold, but enough to make Billy look down. Billy starts to wind up for another swing at Ken' s head. Before he can bring the bat down, Debbie uses the unexpected distraction to pull her revolver from her waist.

The first shot hits Billy in the stomach and he flinches. The second shot quickly follows and it is higher, on his sternum, and Billy takes a step back. The third shot is slower to come because this time Debbie takes deliberate aim and cocks the revolver before pulling the trigger. Billy' s head jerks back when the bullet strikes his forehead. Billy falls on his back and the bat bounces on the parking lot with a hollow sound and rolls away from him and his convulsive departure from life.

Hospital Dreams

The coffee from the vending machine is bitter and it tastes like disinfectant. Probably is not the coffee but the smell of the hospital itself, a smell that gets into everything. The detective has left her alone finally after asking the same questions over and over and writing the answers in his pad. Not once had Debbie given a different answer to the same question. She had stuck to her story with consistency and assuredness. She had called 911 and in a few minutes the parking lot had sparkled with bright spot lights and flashing red and blue strobes. During those minutes she had to wait for help to arrive she had kneel next to Ken and had held his hand, squeezing it and praying that his skull was not cracked beyond repair, his brain damaged forever, saying to him “ hang in there” without knowing if he could hear her. She could see that Ken was breathing but could not tell how bad he had been hurt.

Amanda had come running after the shooting and had stood next to Debbie, shaking her head in disbelief.

“ Who is that?” she had asked Debbie while pointing to the masked body.

“ That, ” Debbie had answered in a cold voice, “ was my ex.”

Amanda had witnessed the attack and the shooting from behind the wheel of her car as she was getting ready to pull out of the parking lot and she had given her statement to the cops. Debbie had seen them interrogating her out of her earshot. At least hers and Amanda’ s stories should match and nobody should doubt her own statement. Score one for her, Debbie thinks.

Billy’ s body lay face up, inert and heading for rigor mortis. Apool of black blood grew from the back of his head and his middle and Debbie could smell it but despite her aversion, she didn’ t leave Ken’ s side. The cops had come, had taken the hot revolver still gripped in her hand but had been quite polite. They had asked questions and she had answered them straight because she had nothing to hide. She had wanted them to pull the mask off the stiff so she could confirm it was Billy. They had said to wait until the crime lab showed up. When they finally pulled the mask off, the cops had looked at her and she had said, “ that’ s him alright.” Nobody at the scene had seemed surprised. Debbie recognized among the uniforms the female cop that had told her that Munch was dead.

The paramedics had come and had plugged Ken with tubes and wires and had bandaged his head.

“ How’ s he?” she had asked them.

“ Stable ma’ am.”

“ Can I go to the hospital with him?” Debbie had pleaded to the sergeant next to him and to her surprise the cop had helped her climb into the meat wagon.

“ The investigators will talk to you in the E.R., ” he had said. The doors had shut and the ambulance had taken off with a roar of diesel engine and screaming sirens.

All that now seemed a far away memory, a bad dream in another life. Debbie sips her coffee and waits for Ken to come out of surgery or X-rays or whatever they are doing to him.

“ Are you his wife?” had asked a nurse with a clipboard.

“ No. Just a friend.”

“ Do you know a next of kin we can contact?”

“ No. All I know is that he’ s married and lives in Colorado Springs.”

The nurse had asked to confirm his last name and Debbie had to shrug her shoulders in ignorance. Funny, after all the shit they had gone through together, Debbie ponders, she doesn’ t know his last name, and she is sure he doesn’ t know hers either. She knows him and he knows her yet there are so many things they don’ t know about each other, essential things, basic stuff. They share things that cannot be explained to people with clipboards, things that cannot be measured or gaged but that are as solid and strong as steel to them but that would look like flimsy excuses for a friendship or love to strangers. Love, she thinks, that’ s a funny word.

The numbness of overdue fatigue slows her down; she has been up since five o’ clock in the morning. She wonders what is going to happen when the investigators find out she is a convicted felon and had a gun in a bar. With her record, some assistant D.A. is going to throw the book at her. Well, she thinks, getting nailed for carrying a concealed weapon in a establishment that sells alcohol is far better than ending up in a body bag in a cold morgue, like Billy is right now. The shooting was clean. Debbie assures herself that the law cannot make a case against her; it would be hard to convince a jury that she was not right in fighting a crazy ex that came at her with a baseball bat and a masked faced.

Still, there are butterflies in her stomach. She is a nobody with along record and unable to afford a lawyer; an assistant D.A. may want to charge her with something and then scare her into either taking a sorry deal or face a court room with an overworked, underpaid, inexperienced public defender by her side. Debbie knows that taking the deal would be a better choice, no matter how unfair. The system is not designed to work for people like her.

At least the cops had not even handcuffed her so that was a good sign. The butterflies dance in her stomach but there is also relief in knowing that Billy won’ t be coming back to hurt anybody else. The image of the masked face in her sights as the hammer came down and then watching that head jerk back after the flash and thunder of the shot, keeps on repeating in her head, and she finds pleasure in it. He got what he deserved and she is satisfied with that thought. She didn’ t expressed it to the cops though. She made sure that the cops had heard only the bit about how she had feared for her life and Ken’ s, which was true anyway, but had kept the satisfaction of revenge to herself. It had not been a deliberated lie but just a careful truth.