Shannon stopped and paused. But even Sandra could tell it wasn’t because she was fixing to run. She was just trying to find a way of telling the story.
“Juh-… Judge Walter Franklin. He huh-… helped me muh-… make up my mind.”
“Was he a friend? How did you meet him?”
“When I wuh-… went to court. For ill-… illegal underground fuh-… fighting.”
Sandra’s eyes shot open. “You’re . . . kidding, right? You’re NOT kidding?!?”
“Nuh-… nope,” Shannon said, her eyes a million miles away. “After I muh-… moved out here from the east cuh-… coast, I had an academic scholarship, buh-… but muh-… my loans didn’t cuh-… cover much past huh-… housing. I couldn’t get a juh-… job due to my cuh-… complete lack of social skuh-… skills. I’d stuh-… started taking martial arts at my luh-… local activity center wuh-… when I was six, so I wuh-… went to a training facility tuh-… to see if I could teach, buh-… but I wasn’t from an accredited skuh-… school or anything. I puh-… probably could have found some-… something if I’d tried a luh-… little longer but I was duh-… desperate. Some guy-… guy who had suh-… seen me at the gym tuh-… told me about a way of making some kwih-… quick cash if I nuh-… knew how to use my fists. I shuh-… showed up where and wuh-… when he said, and huh-… had my first fight.”
Sandra could scarcely believe what she was hearing. Shannon seemed so reserved! But Sandra knew better. An insecure mind behind a powerful body could lead to some very bad things.
Shannon went on to describe how she had become a staple in the underground-fighting scene. You beat your opponent until they couldn’t fight, either by missing a standing ten-count or you made them quit. Quitting was bad, because it made it harder to get fights in the future. Nobody liked quitters, especially the crowd. She had made a hundred bucks her first night. That was food for her. She had sworn she would only do it until she got back on her feet. But then something really bad happened. “It got fun,” Shannon said. She had liked the cheers of the crowd. She had liked being respected, or at least feeling respected, for something she could actually do. She didn’t have to talk. She didn’t have to socialize. She just had to hit the girl in front of her. Girl-fights were really popular, and the prettier the girls the better. Weapons weren’t allowed, but they inevitably snuck their way into the fights anyway. That’s when things got ugly.
Then, the fights got raided. Shannon had been doing them for almost six months, and had been living comfortably during that time. Thoughts of quitting were still in her head, but they were of quitting school rather than quitting fighting. She hadn’t lost a fight, though she’d been in some hum-dingers. But all the fighters and organizers and most of the patrons got arrested. Shannon had spent a couple days in jail. Then she had been brought before Judge Franklin. He had asked her if she understood the charges, and she had been so scared that it had taken her a full minute to complete a sentence. He had found out she was only seventeen and asked why my parents or legal guardians weren’t present. Shannon had told him about how she had been adopted and her current legal situation. He had looked concerned and had put her case on the back-burner until he could get her records faxed out form North Carolina. After he had read them, he called her back to his chambers. He said that he had been reading about her and all that had happened to her back at the orphanage and her failed adoption, and he thought he understood her.
Sandra found herself wondering about the “failed adoption.” What else had happened to this woman?
“Anyway,” Shannon continued, her stutter noticeably diminishing. “He said that he didn’t thuh-… think that putting me in jail would duh-… do any good. I didn’t understand until later how irregular the whole puh-… procedure was and how many strings he had to puh-… pull to help me out. He basically put me on puh-… probation until I graduated from college. And he guh-… gave me a job. Night janitor at the courthouse.” Shannon actually laughed at that. “Told me I had to go to anger muh-… management classes to tuh-… try and get over the bloodlust. Thuh-… that’s why I talk to the police psychiatrist whenever I guh-… get into a fight. Not that I’m on probation anymore, but just because I’m afraid I’ll stuh-… start to like it again.”
Sandra took Shannon’s hand. She thought she should be afraid but wasn’t. “So that’s why you became a cop? Did Judge Franklin push you towards that?”
“No,” said Shannon. She liked the feeling of Sandra’s hand in her own. “Buh-… but he did represent the law. But there had been thuh-… three major events in my life where I nuh-… needed help up to that point, and each time I was huh-… helped by cops or judges. It makes me mad to hear puh-… people whine about cops because they got a speeding ticket or got aruh-… arrested for doing something stupid, and they say ‘Why aren’t you people out duh-… doing something useful like cuh-… catching murders.’ They are out there duh-… doing just that. I’d be duh-… dead, in prison or worse right now if it weren’t for cops. I still talk to juh-… Judge Franklin. He invited me to his house for Christmas a cuh-… couple of times. He retired a couple years ago.”
Sandra kissed Shannon on the hand. “So, anything else from your past I should know about? Besides being orphaned, arrested and shot?”
“You stuh-… still wanna know the rest?”
“I was kidding. There’s actually more?”
Shannon blushed. “Yep.”
Sandra stopped, turned the woman’s head and stared into her eyes. “Why don’t you tell me when we get back to my place?”
————— ——————–
Back at Sandra’s house . . .
————— ——————–
When Sandra opened the door, finally free of yellow police-tape, she stopped dead in her tracks. She flipped on the light and stared at where a man had lost his life on the white linoleum. The stains were gone. The chalk outline was gone. But she could see that man and his blood as clear as day. It wasn’t until Shannon walked right through that spot that the illusion vanished and Sandra was able to step inside her own house. She had chosen once to lead a less exorbitant life than her contemporaries. She didn’t need butlers or personal shoppers or anything like that. She began to wish that she had. The idea of coming home alone to this place suddenly filled her with dread.
“All thuh-… this stuff going to the bedroom?” Shannon asked? Sandra nodded and led the way up the stairs to her huge master bedroom. There was an enormous round bed in the center of the room and a myriad of dressers containing all sorts of clothes, a large walk-in closet . . . “This place is huge!”
Sandra smiled. Her bedroom was bigger than Shannon’s apartment. “Shannon, you earn decent money don’t you?”
“I guh-… guess so.”
“Why do you live like that? I mean, you could own a car, live in a nicer place, buy a bigger tank for Mr. Ages . . . so why don’t you?”
“I’ve never huh-… had much stuff in my life. Even when I could afuh-… afford it, I didn’t think I needed it. Though Mr. Ages cuh-… could use some more space to stuh-… stretch his legs.” They shared a laugh at that. “Are you going to buh-… be alright here?” Shannon asked glancing towards the floor.
“I think so,” she almost whispered. “What happened was so . . . evil! I’ve never had anything like this . . . how do you move on?”
Shannon sat on the bed. “You can hide from it,” she said. Her face seemed distant, but not without sadness and fear. But her stutter was completely gone. “Try and pretend it’s not there. Or you can just turn off the lights so you don’t have to see it. Shower in the dark. Make love in the dark. Live in the dark.” She looked at Sandra. “But your scar is in your mind. No one has to see it, and you might be able to just forget it. The flesh remembers,” she said, grabbing the bottom of her sweatshirt and pulling it off her shivering body. “And you can’t leave your flesh behind.”
Sandra stopped and stared. Shannon’s upper body was actually magnificent. Small but pert breasts were the only body-fat that she could see. Everything else was lightly muscled and toned to perfection. Her shoulders, her arms and her washboard stomach. But then she saw the lines.
Shannon’s back was crisscrossed with thin lines where the flesh was even paler than the skin. There was a couple of place where the lines were pink, but they were unmistakable in their origin. Shannon’s back was covered in old scars.
“Where . . . how . . .?” Sandra started. Trying to put her dismay into words was almost futile. “Did you get these from fighting?”
“Which ones?”
Sandra turned Shannon and sat on the bed behind her. She saw a circular divot in the upper chest and touched it.
“That was the exit wound fruh-… from when I got shot.”
Sandra stared at, leaned in and kissed it. “There,” she joked. “All better.”
Shannon smiled. She wished it were that easy. She felt a finger being traced along the scar on the other shoulder blade. “That one was from getting smashed through a car window in one fight. That was a tough one.” She felt Sandra’s lips kiss that one as well.
Sandra noticed a bunch of long strips running the length of Shannon’s back. She touched one of them and Shannon noticeably cringed. “Where did these come from?”
Shannon sighed. “Remember how I tuh-… told you about an adoption that didn’t work out?”
“Yes,” responded Sandra.