Free Barking Man by Madison Smartt Bell

I’d been expecting it, you see, and the mood I was in I felt satisfied to see what I expected was going to happen. So I listened a little more carefully than I’d been inclined to do before. It was hit hit hit going along together with a groan and a hiss of the wind being knocked out of her. I had to strain pretty hard to hear that breathing part, and I could hear him grunt, too, when he got in a good one. There was about three minutes of that with some little breaks, and then a longer pause. When she hit that wall it was the hardest she had yet, I think. It brought all my pots down at one time, including that big iron skillet that was the only one I ever used.
    It was the first time they’d ever managed to knock that skillet down, and I was so impressed I went over and stood looking down at it like I needed to make sure it was a real thing. I stared at that skillet so long it went out of focus and started looking more like a big black hole in the floor. That’s when it dawned on me that this was one thing I didn’t really have to keep on being used to.
    It took three or four knocks before he came to the door, but that didn’t worry me at all. I had faith, I knew he was going to come. I meant to stay right there until he did. When he came, he opened the door wide and stood there with his arms folded and his face all stiff with his secrets. It was fairly dark behind him, they had all the curtains drawn. I had that skillet held out in front of me in both my hands, like maybe I had come over to borrow a little hot grease or something. It was so heavy it kept wanting to dip down toward the floor like a water witch’s rod. When I saw he wasn’t expecting anything, I twisted the skillet back over my shoulder like baseball players do their bats, and I hit him bang across the face as hard as I knew how. He went down and out at the same time and fetched up on his back clear in the middle of the room.
    Then I went in after him, with the skillet cocked and ready in case he made to get up. But he didn’t look like there was a whole lot of fight left in him right then. He was awake, at least partly awake, but his nose was just spouting blood and it seemed like I’d knocked out a few of his teeth. I wish I could tell you I was sorry or glad, but I didn’t feel much of anything, really, just that high lonesome whistle in the blood I used to get when I took that Dilaudid. Susan was sitting on the floor against the wall, leaning down on her knees and sniveling. Her eyes were red but she didn’t have any bruises where they showed. He never did hit her on the face, that was the kind he was. There was a big crack coming down the wall behind her and I remember thinking it probably wouldn’t be too much longer before it worked through to my side.
    “I’m going to pack and drive over to Norfolk,” I told her. I hadn’t thought of it till I spoke but just then it came to me as the thing I would do. “You can ride along with me if you want to. With your looks you could make enough money serving drinks to the sailors to buy that Quik-Sak and blow it up.”
    She didn’t say anything, just raised her head up and stared at me kind of bug-eyed. And after a minute I turned around and went out. It didn’t take me any time at all to get ready. All I had was two boxes of kitchen stuff and a suitcase and another box of clothes. The sheets and blankets I just yanked off the bed and stuffed in the trunk in one big wad. I didn’t care a damn about that furniture, I would have lit it on fire for a dare.
    When I was done I stuck my head back into the other apartment. The door was still open like I had left it. What was she doing but kneeling down over that son of a bitch and trying to clean his face off with a washrag. I noticed he was making a funny sound when he breathed, and his nose was still bleeding pretty quick, so I thought maybe I had broke it. Well, I can’t say that worried me much.
    “Come on now if you’re coming, girl,” I