Free Broken by Mary Ann Gouze Page B

laughed. “What is it with Anna Mae anyway? How come she can be so nice and then she’s a royal bitch? It’s like she’s two different people.”
    Stanley slid down to the floor to sit across from JD. “You noticed?”
    “Yeah. I noticed. What’s with her anyway? Something wrong with her head?”
    Stanley didn’t want to tell anyone what went on under the Lipinski roof. He was ashamed of it. To the best of his knowledge, no one outside the family knew about Anna Mae’s mood changes. Moreover, he wanted to keep it that way.
    “Come on,” JD urged. “You hiding something?”
    “No!” Stanley answered too quickly.
    “Just between buddies,” JD coaxed.
    “Nah. Not that much buddies.”
    JD reached into his shirt pocket. Palm up, he displayed a black capsule—speed—worth at least ten bucks. He stretched out his hand offering the pill to Stanley.
    Stanley thought for a moment, took the pill, put it in his pocket and slid closer to JD. “You don’t tell anyone! Never!”
    “Who am I gonna tell? In a week, I’ll be in boot camp. They’ll probably send me to Vietnam.”
    “Okay,” said Stanley. “Here it is. And don’t laugh. You’re right. Anna Mae is two people.”
    JD leaned back against the wall and blew smoke toward the ceiling. “This is gonna be good.”
    “The reason she is like she is, the best I can figure, is because my father hit her so hard and so much that he knocked her into two pieces.”
    “No shit!”
    “When I was a little kid I used to sneak around and watch.”
    “No shit! Watch what?”
    “Things.”
    “What things?”
    “Just things.”
    “Come on, man.” JD swung to hit Stanley but missed.
    Stanley rubbed his forehead, thinking. “When she was little...”
    “Your sister.”
    “My cousin.”
    “Okay, smart ass—your cousin. What happened to your cousin?”
    “If you’ll shut up, I’ll tell you.”
    JD covered his mouth with his hand.
    “When she was real little, my dad would beat her until she couldn’t cry no more.”
    The hand dropped. “No shit!”
    “And down the cellar we got a dirt floor. It’s filthy down there. Nobody goes down there. Sarah don’t want us goin’ down there.”
    “Why?”
    “Why what?”
    “Why ain’t you allowed down the cellar?”
    “Because it’s filthy, you idiot.”
    “What about Anna Mae?”
    “That’s what I’m trying’ ta tell ya.” Then Stanley clamed up; just sat there with his hair hanging in his face.
    “Tell me!”
    “My dad hates Anna Mae because he got stuck raising her.”
    “No shit.”
    “A long time ago, I think I was seven or eight, I hid in the kitchen behind the cellar door. I could see through the crack. My dad was pullin’ Anna Mae down the cellar. He had his hand over her mouth so she couldn’t scream.”
    “Where was Sarah?”
    “She wasn’t home. But if she was, she wouldn’t do nothing’. She couldn’t do nothing.’ She’s afraid of my dad.”
    JD leaned forward. “Did Walter beat her?”
    “Sarah?”
    “No. That day you were lookin’ through the crack. Did he beat Anna Mae?”
    Stanley felt lightheaded. The room began to float around him. His whirling thoughts traveled backward, submerging him in horrible memories. He wished he had not accepted that Quaalude, that he had not agreed to tell. But most of all, he didn’t want to remember. But it was too late. He was there. He could see it. And it was very, very bad.
    “He pulled her down the cellar steps. She was so little. I saw him drag her across the dirt floor by her leg. The other leg got scraped. It was bleeding. There was soot smeared into the cuts. He got a wheelbarrow out of the coal bin and put it upside down on top of her.”
    JD jumped when Stanley yelled. “You little bitch!” It wasn’t his own voice. It was Walter’s.
    “Please, Uncle Walter!” Now it was Anna Mae “I’ll be good. Please! Let me out!”
    “You stay there,” Walter growled. “You stay there until I tell you to come out. And if you come