“Y-you, y-you k-killed him. Y-you stabbed him in the eye! I watched it. I w-watched you stab him in the eye. Y-you killed him! Effi! YOU KILLED HIM! YOU KILLED HIM!” Kendra spirals out of control and keeps walking backward until she backs into a wall.
Ms. Judy J walks over to her and tries to touch Kendra’s shoulder but Kendra flinches and then shrinks away from her too. “It’s gonna be alright miss.” Ms. Judy J looks at me and says, “What’s her name? I ain’t never got neither of your names.”
“Kendra. She’s Kendra.” I’m not so sure I should be telling her my name. There’s a dead body on the floor. Yes, it was self-defense, but I really don’t want to be on anyone’s radar.
Ms. Judy J nods and then turns back to Kendra. “Kendra, honey, she done what she had to do. She’s still your friend. She was protecting us. We both was, hon. They was some bad men. Now he ain’t gonna be hurtin’ nobody ever again.”
Kendra looks at Ms. Judy J and then back to me. And then she looks to Ms. Judy J and back to me again. She does this multiple times, never uttering a single word. I fear this might have broken her. I don’t know if she’s going to be able to come back from this.
Ms. Judy J looks at me and I can see the worry in her eyes. “Y’all need to wash up. Ya can head on to the back behind the counter. There’s a washroom back in there.” She motions behind her toward the front counter before gingerly sitting down on a chair. I watch as she winces, and I know in my heart that kind of vulnerable pain.
I just nod and head back to the sink. Maybe if I don’t have blood on me then Kendra will be able to see me as less than a killer. Maybe she can see me as her friend again. Maybe.
Once I pass by the counter, the deep fryers, and the grill, I see a small wooden door in the corner. It reads “Employees Only” on the door. I walk into a small room with a desk that has a computer on it and see off to the side another wooden door with a sink and toilet inside. I walk into the room and flick on the light with my elbow. The light illuminates all the blood all over my hands, forearms, and a couple of splatters on my face. I look like a character in a slasher movie. No wonder why Kendra was having such a hard time being near me.
I turn on the faucet and pump some vanilla almond soap into my hands. As I make pink bloody bubbles on my skin, I can’t help but worry. How are we going to get out of this? Do I call Viv? I may have to get her clean-up crew out here. But how am I going to keep Ms. Judy J quiet?
How am I going to explain to Viv that her prized editor might have had a mental breakdown?
After washing up a couple of times, just to be sure I get it all off, I clean up the bathroom counter and check the floor. Of course, there’s pink bloody foam on the floor too. I grab a tissue and wipe that up as well, and then flush it down the toilet. When I come out of the bathroom, I can hear Ms. Judy J talking to Kendra.
“But what are you going to do with the body? You have to call the cops. They’ll take care of this and put the other one in prison.” The concern comes through in Kendra’s tone as she sits near Ms. Judy J and peppers her with questions.
“Hon, this ain’t like the big city. The po-lice ‘round here ain’t like the ones y’all got. These here are good ol’ boys. These boys all run together. Why y’all think them nasty boys never got took to jail?” Ms. Judy J is holding a wet towel and is wiping her forehead with it. I can see a drip of blood that has dried on her calf and my stomach aches knowing that she’s probably going to need a doctor.
I grab a chair near Ms. Judy J and sit down. Kendra’s eyes look alarmed at first but then she relaxes a little. I don’t know what magic Ms. Judy J did, but she did something good.
Kendra glances down at her hands in her lap, twists a napkin that she’s been holding onto, and then looks back up at me. “Thank you,” she says quietly.
I look at Ms. Judy J and she closes her eyes and nods. “Uh, you’re welcome?”
Kendra draws in a deep breath and then says in a robotic tone, “I know you only did what you had to do. It’s okay. I wouldn’t be able to do it, but you did.”
Ms. Judy J nods again. “Y’all need to get on outta here.”
“What? And let you take the blame for all of this?” The sound of panic comes back in Kendra’s voice.
“Yes ma’am. I have enough evidence on me that them po-lice won’t question me. All I gotsa do is show them my cootchie and them there bloody fingers on Hank and that’ll be it. This here is self-defense. Ain’t no way ‘round it. Don’t need to make it complicated with y’all here too. Y’all got enough to deal with in your heads now. I’ll clean this on up.”
At first, I want to protest, to tell her that she doesn’t need to do this alone, and that I can handle the clean-up, but then I realize, this is a gift. I don’t have to call anyone. I don’t have to tell Viv about this, well, unless Kendra never fully comes back. She may need a vacation in a little padded room somewhere.
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I grab my bag, phone, and Kendra’s purse and phone. I reach out to touch Kendra, but she pulls away. We may never be friends like we were before all of this. “Ms. Judy J is right. We should go.”
Kendra crosses her arms and says, “She is not right. Women should stick together. Isn’t that what you said earlier?”
Ms. Judy J nods and then leans over and places an arm around Kendra’s shoulder. “Hon, you’re right. And by you two headin’ out and lettin’ me clean this up, we are stickin’ together. Y’all got a job to get to and bein’ holed up here in this little town while them po-lice question all of us, that ain’t gonna help nobody. Let it be simple. It’s alright. I dealt with these good ol’ boys for years. I ain’t got this grey hair by sittin’ ‘round bein’ pretty. It’s time for our paths to split. I thank ya for y’alls help and I hope that I done helped y’all too.” Ms. Judy J squeezes Kendra’s shoulders, lets go, and then nudges her toward the door.
Kendra doesn’t say anything, just turns and rushes into a hug with Ms. Judy J. “Thank you. I-I don’t know what else to say.”
Ms. Judy J hugs her back and then pushes Kendra back by her shoulders. “You’re gonna be just fine. Your friend, why, she’s a bad ass and I’d be honored to stand next to her any day of the week. Y’all stick together now, ya hear? She’s a good one.” Ms. Judy J points at me and then winks.
Kendra sighs and I know she’s fighting with herself internally. I think I would be too. How would I feel if I had to go climb into a car with someone who just killed a man? Fortunately, she doesn’t know about Mike. Otherwise, I’m sure that she wouldn’t want to be on this trip with me regardless of the situation.
Kendra nods her head at Ms. Judy J and turns toward the door. I walk on ahead of her and unlock the deadbolt, open the door, and let the fresh air inside. The air from outside smells so much better than the body odor, gasoline, and blood combo that we have in the restaurant. I unlock the car doors and hear the latch of the restaurant doors close behind us. I do feel bad, leaving Ms. Judy J all alone to take care of this mess, but at the same time, I need to keep me off the radar and we do need to get back on track with this trip. Our little snafu cost us a bit of time. It’s nearly 7pm and as much as I hate it, we may have to get a hotel tonight. With a little over five hours left of our trip, that’s going to put us there after 11pm. I look over at Kendra when I put on my seatbelt and she’s staring mindlessly out the front windshield.
“So, uh, do you want to push through? It’ll be after 11pm when we get there. And, uh, I’m not so sure you’d be up for driving.” I don’t want to just come right out and say that she’s messed in the head, and I don’t trust her driving, but let’s be real. That’s the situation we’re in right now.
I wait for a few minutes and when she doesn’t say anything, I get the GPS working again and pull out of the parking spot. As we’re headed down the road, I hear sirens off in the distance and know exactly where they’re going. I quickly get on the highway and hope that we can leave that little town in the rearview mirror.
We drive for about an hour in silence, other than the random radio stations that we can pick up as we go through. Kendra sits motionless next to me, and I’m afraid to say anything. If I let her process this the way she needs to, maybe she’ll understand that I did what I had to do. I know it must’ve looked horrific, what with shoving a steak knife through a man’s eyeball socket, but hey, it could’ve been worse. I could’ve pulled it out, eyeball, knife, and all.
I probably shouldn’t bring that up to her, though. She might not take it as lightly as I intend it to be. And there’s no way that I’m telling anyone about the new voice in my head. Hell no. I’d be thrown into a special room with a jacket made just for me to hug myself. Nope. I’ll be taking that to the grave no matter what.
“Hey,” Kendra utters, breaking the silence. “Can we stop and pee? I gotta go. And I think I need something to eat. I don’t feel so good.” She places her hand on her stomach and I can hear it grumble loudly.
“Yeah, sure. I’ll get off right up here. The next exit has a Wendy’s. Is that okay?” I glance at her, trying to see if there’s any other expression on her face other than the look of being kidnapped by a killer even though that’s the farthest thing from the truth.
“Mm-hmm,” Kendra nods her head and then turns to stare out the passenger window.
I wish there was something I could do to make things better, but I know there isn’t. I pull off onto the exit and take a right. There isn’t much traffic here, thankfully, and other than a couple of cars in the Wendy’s parking lot that probably belong to employees, the parking lot is almost empty here too.
My little red car pulls into a parking spot right up by the brick building. The nice thing is this Wendy’s looks just like the Wendy’s back home in Kalamazoo, Michigan. When I put the car in park and turn off the engine, I just sit quietly, waiting, hoping for Kendra to say something else. But she doesn’t. She just opens the car door and gets out without a word. I quickly follow her into the building. I don’t know what she’s going to say to anyone. She might rat me out to the first person she sees and then my little trip is going to be done.
She starts walking toward the skinny man with dreadlocks behind the front counter before taking a sharp right and begins heading toward the bathroom. I follow her from about ten feet behind. I really don’t want to startle her, but I also want to keep her in my sights.
When I follow her into the bathroom, she’s staring at herself in the mirror. “Am I killer too?”
I choke on the saliva in my mouth. “What? Who said you were a killer?”
“Because I was there. I didn’t stop it. I didn’t stop anything. I didn’t stop him at the gas station, I just made it worse. I’m the reason for this whole thing! I’m the reason why Hank is dead!” Her breath comes in short quick bursts, and I know that we’re headed down the hyperventilation road again.
“Okay, okay, calm down. You didn’t do anything. You are not responsible for any of it.” I reach out to touch her shoulder but decide not to and pull it back. “Seriously. None of us are responsible.”
“How can you say that?!? I saw what happened! I saw what you did! How can you think that you, of all people, aren’t responsible?!? You, you,” and then she leans in to whisper, “you killed him.”
“Yep, I know. It was either that or we were all going to die. Kendra, are you sure you can keep going on this trip?”
Kendra goes silent again. Her eyes look like they’ve drifted to a far-off land. One that doesn’t have killing or creepy, rapey men. Just when I’m about to ask her again, she slowly starts to collapse. I catch her under her armpits and lower her to the floor, leaning her against the wall.