Helmet Head by Mike Baron Page A

want to know about me and Bill?”
    The wind picked up. Thunder rumbled. The lights flickered.
    Macy buried her head in her hands and sobbed. Before he knew it Fagan found himself on the other side of the bar with his arm around her shoulder. She stood and let him embrace her.
    “Bad, huh?”
    ***

CHAPTER 13
Tape
    Macy grew up in Kinney, Iowa, second child of Herbert and Rosalyn Edwards. Kinney lay seventy-five miles south and west of the Quad Cities. Herb was a Farmer’s Insurance agent. Rosalyn was a stay-at-home mom. Rosalyn was unhappy. She could never quite put her finger on it. She saw a therapist and a yoga instructor.
    She had an affair with the yoga instructor. She broke it off when she became pregnant for the third time, when Macy was five.
    Shane was five years Macy’s senior, the Firstborn, the golden child. He was a remarkably handsome little boy who liked to twist kitten’s tails until they squealed. When the folks weren’t looking he would wipe his boogers in Macy’s scrambled eggs or pour Tabasco into her tomato juice. He shoved other children at the playground. Macy always knew there was something wrong with him.
    He turned Marcy’s childhood into a grueling ordeal. But things were going to get worse. Much worse.
    She was eleven when Shane held her down and penetrated her with a vibrator he’d stolen from a house party which he’d crashed.
    She was so overcome with shame that it never occurred to her to approach her parents, the police or a counselor. She had sex with those boys to see if she could, to see if it was different. Not much. It wasn’t until years later, and Wild Bill, that she achieved an orgasm with a man.
    All left unsaid.
    She went Goth in high school as a form of camouflage. Fagan blanched when she described her Goth Barbie dolls with their Mohawks, piercings, homemade tats, wounds and vampire fangs, but Macy didn’t notice. She built a Shane doll from a Ken and systematically amputated his limbs.
    She graduated somehow and went onto Carlton School of Nursing in Wexfordshire.
    “In my junior year at Carlton I worked summers at Don’s Malts, Shakes, Burgers and Dogs on Lake Nebagamon near Wexfordshire. This guy I knew took me to the drive-in to see The Wild One . Man, it knocked me out,” she told Fagan. “Then one day the Road Dogs roared up. Most of my regulars took off like wildlife fleeing a forest fire.
    “Wild Bill just looked so beautiful to me. So young and charismatic. I was so naive. He had me on the back of his Harley within three days. My parents nearly died.
    “I suppose I was looking for a father figure. My real dad and I didn’t get along.”
    Her mother still prayed for her return and called her every Sunday but lately the calls had become listless as if both parties understood she was gone for good. Hooking up with Bill did little to further her career. She thought she was in love. Bill told her he ran a successful motorcycle shop and owned his own home which turned out to be a shotgun shack in Carbondale.
    He made his money dealing drugs. Within six months Macy had a cocaine habit and was reduced to staying in the shotgun shack stepping on the product until Bill realized how far gone she was and took that away. Locked her in a room and made her quit cold turkey.
    “He fed me cold turkey sandwiches. He thought it was funny.”
    Once she cleaned up Bill sent her out to find a real job. Against overwhelming odds she got hired as a receptionist for an ad firm in Moline and was doing great until Bill showed up one day, drunk, stoned, buzzed with a bee up his ass about how she loaded the dishwasher wrong and started wanging her around the reception room.
    Cops were called, Bill was arrested, charges were dropped, Macy lost her job. She declined to press charges. At least she no longer had to explain the odd bruises or dark glasses. There followed a series of unsatisfying jobs which she lost through hard luck or Bill. His record was remarkably clean for such a