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This writing was accepted for publication in the 84 page perfect-bound issue... Down in the Dirt magazine (v119) (the September / October 2013 Issue) You can also order this 5.5" x 8.5" issue as an ISSN# paperback book:

Order this writing in the book Drowning (a Down in the Dirt collection book)		get the 297 page July - Dec. 2013 Down in the Dirt magazine issue collection 6" x 9" ISBN# paperback book:

Bear Witness

Kelly Haas Shackelford

    At 3:00 am, I reached for the ringing phone on my nightstand. Taking a long breath, I braced myself before placing the phone to my ear. I knew who it would be. She called every night at the same time.
    “Tell me it happened,” my baby sister cried, sobbing through each word. At thirty, her fifth nervous breakdown loomed.
    “Rainey, it happened.” Sitting up in the bed, I did not bother to cut the lights on.
    “Tell me he did it,” she whispered, in the same fragile voice she had used as a five-year-old to beg me each night to make him stop. As if, my being two-years older than her, had given me superpowers. I tried to protect her, but I always failed. Resisting only brought harsher punishment.
    My fingers balled up a fistful of starched sheets and I said. “He did it.” Bile rose up, burning my throat, recalling the scent of his sweat pooling in putrid puddles on me. Pushing the puke down, my skin crawled, thinking of his beard scrubbing across me, leaving wounds no one cared enough to question.
    A long scream burst from the phone. Every night, it was the same primal scream as if its very tenor could shatter his bonds.
    Last week, no longer able to cope, Rainey’s fourth husband left her. Long ago, I gave up on any thoughts of a normal relationship. Listening to her cry, I choked back my own tears. I could not stop it then, nor can I fix it now. All I can do is bear witness to the truth.
    “Tell me, I’m not crazy,” she pleaded.
    “Honey, you’re not crazy.” I assured her. We told our mom, once, and she beat us with the toilet brush, calling us dirty, lying whores.
    “Tell me, he’s dead,” she whispered.
    “He’s dead.” I said, recalling his heart attack, standing over him, refusing to give him the phone. Sweet sixteen and a murderer. But, at last I was Rainey’s superwoman.
    Hearing the click on the other end, I knew she would cry herself to sleep. I placed the phone back on my nightstand and slid back into bed, but sleep would never come. It never did after her call.
    Sighing, I began to play out in my head the case I would present in court the next day. My biggest one as a prosecutor, and I had to nail it.
    A week later, sitting alone at the prosecutor’s table, my stomach churned. The verdict was in. For years, the accused doctor, Timothy Laner, raped his daughter. When Rebecca turned eighteen, she told the ugly secret, and I believed her.
    “All rise,” the bailiff shouted, signaling the judge was walking in.
    Pushing myself up from the hard seat, I looked over to the Rebecca staring at the floor, huddled beside the victim’s advocate. No one in her family believed her. They were all sitting on the other side of the room, hoping for her rapist’s release.
    “Please be seated,” the judge announced, sitting down and looking over to the jury. “Have you reached a verdict?”
    Tuning out the judge, I sat and mulled over the case. Listening to the formalities would torture me even more. As a special prosecutor for sex crimes, I had witnessed worse scumbags than the doctor walk free. It was easier to believe the kids were lying than believe that monsters lived among us.
    I glanced over to jury as the bailiff handed the verdict to the judge. “Does everyone agree on the verdict?” the judge asked. All the jurors nodded their heads. “Then, Madam Chairwoman, please read the verdict for the court.”
    An older woman stood up, looking over to the accused, she announced. ”Not guilty on all counts”.
    Erupting in cheers, the family hugged each other as the rapist slapped his grinning attorney on the back.
    “Tell them he did it,” Rebecca shouted, pleading with me as I turned around. ?On the way home, I stopped by the liquor store, purchasing my punishment. A giant bottle of Absolute 100-proof vodka, and hoped it would eat away the memory of Rebecca screaming she was not crazy as the paramedics strapped her to a gurney and hauled her off to the psych ward.
    Pouring glass after glass, I lost count, until peace swallowed me.
    The next morning, the sun slapped at my face as I lay sprawled out on the living room floor. I snatched up my phone. “No, no, no,” I shouted, sick to my stomach. I had failed her again. Twenty-three missed calls from Rainey.
    Hitting redial, my fingers trembled. No one answered. I grabbed the small vase off my coffee table, slinging out its artificial contents and purged myself.
    After wiping away spittle, I keyed in my voicemail code and listened to the messages. Each one begged me to pick up and affirm her truth.
    Frantically, I sped across town to her house. I pounded on the door with both fists, but no one answered. Raising up my leg, I kicked the door in, and raced to her bedroom, stopping at the doorway. Collapsing onto the white carpet, I wailed. Rainey’s fixed eyes stared up at the ceiling. Her lips had turned blue and the sheets stained red. The razor blade lay beside her, mocking me. It had been her savior when I had failed.
    On the walls, she had scribbled in her blood, I am not crazy.
    Gathering her up in my arms, I moaned for hours, rocking and rocking. Around three o’ clock in the morning, I gently placed her back down.
    Picking up the razor, I flipped its blade over and over through my fingers. Slowly, I plunged its tip into my left palm and sliced, opening a gash. With my right index finger, I wrote on the wall, he did it.
    Grabbing a pillowcase, I ripped it in strips, taking a piece and tying it around my bleeding hand. I still had work to do before my peace could come.
    Sitting at her computer, I logged into my account, pulling up my own lawyer’s email. I explained to her to have Rainey’s body cremated and the ashes spread over the ocean, and to pay for it with the money I had stashed in my safe at home. I typed in the combination. I no longer had any need for money.
    Closing the laptop, I knew I only had two more tasks. I went back into her bedroom, and picked out the yellow sundress Rainey was to be cremated in, and then I kissed her goodbye on her forehead.
    Sliding back into the car, my fingers snatched up my discarded purse and I looked inside, checking my 9 mm. I stroked my stained, bloody index finger across the black steel. Its power promised me the release of my last task.
    An hour later, I pulled up to the familiar house and jumped out of my car. Legs shaking, I rushed up the gravel drive with gun in hand. Banging on the door, I did not care who I woke up. I wanted the world to see. I wanted the world to bear witness.
    Timothy Laner jerked the door open, but before he could utter a lie, I aimed my 9mm at his forehead, and pulled the trigger.
    My body crumbled down on his front porch steps, and I tossed the gun away from me as I waited.
    When the first officer arrived, I begged him, “Tell me he did it.”
    Having known the case, he replied, “he was a shit bag”
    As they cuffed my hands behind my back, I said, “tell me I’m not crazy.”
    The officer sadly smiled, shaking his head. “You’re not the crazy one.”
    As they closed the bars to my cell, I shouted, “tell me he’s dead.”

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