According to Bartow County Police, a sanitation worker called 911 after finding a woman’s dismembered body in a compactor container at the landfill.

He picks me up in the night and we head South.  Me and Tony in Tony’s rundown, used-to-be-red, rusty old pickup.  Bare shoulders making love to plastic leather.  Buttcheeks sinking into foam.  We put down the windows, turn the radio up, we bouncing.  We flying.  Watching all the headlights heading the wrong direction.

At 2:00am we stop for gas.  We catch a bite to eat and sit on the curb dragging on filterless tips.  Bugs dancing above our heads.  Cockroaches scuttling under our feet.

He looks at me and he says, “Pretty soon we’ll be outa here.”

I smile.

I says, “Baby, how bout I drive for a while. You been drivin all night.”

“No, Baby,” he says, “I’ll drive.”

Tony real sweet like that.  He know how to treat a girl.

I says, “I like that.”  I lean my body into his.  He’s warm and strong.  Thick biceps.  Heavy pecs.  When we touch, his tattooed skin folds into mine.

Real smooth.  Just like that.  Real smooth.

He brushes back my hair kisses my forehead.  We twist our cigarettes into the pavement and get back in his truck.

“Close your eyes,” Angel Baby, he says.  “Get some sleep.”  He smiles real kind.

“Mmmm,” I says, not tryna be pretty.

I cuddle up against the seatbelt and close my eyes.

 

“911, what’s the location of your emergency?”

“Oh Lord.  God, I don’t know!  Please help me!  My Angel.  My baby girl.  Someone’s took my baby girl!”

 

I can’t sleep.  Keep thinking about things.  Funny things.  Shitty things.  Things you’re not supposed to think about when you almost out.  When I shut my eyes all I can see is Mama.  Her stubborn face, staring me down.  Hands on her hips and that scowl sayin,

“Girl, what I say?  What I say?  No girl a mine’s goin out lookin like a city tramp.”

“Oh, you in for it now.”

“Girl, get back here and let me teach you about respect.”

“You better wish yo Mama was someone else.”

“You aint goin out and fallin in love and gettin yo’self killed.  Not while I is yo Mama and Jesus is yo Lord. Now get on back upstairs.  (Little slut!)”

I see her holdin that goose of her’s, dangling by the neck.  Hell.  Hit the fucker coming home from Walmart.  Smack dead right there in the middle of the road.  Man, she proud of it, too.  Took it out back, dripping blood through the house.  Fuck.  I swear I could smell the tar of the road.

She don’t bother putting on rubber gloves or nothing.  She just right sinks her fingers into the flesh, ripping and tearing, pulling off the down and stripping off the feathers.  What she can’t yank out she shave off with a razor.  Then she chop off the head and wings, spilling blood onto the grass.  Bones crunching.  Mama ripping and tearing.

When she finish, she hang the carcass on the close line and comes back in the house, smiling and smelling like blood and shit and death.

She go back out with scissors and a box of plastic bags.  She pull the bird down and lays it out on a rusty lawn chair.  Then she call to me,

“Angel, hun, come out here and help yo Mama with this duck.”

I go out and can smell the goose before I get to the door.  Mama’s standing there covered in it all.  I wrinkle my nose and wanna puke.

Mama, she take one look at me and scowl.

“Get over here, child.  Stand right there.  Hold this.”

I take a bag.

“Open it wider.”

Mama clips off parts of the goose and slides it into the bag.  I’m holding that shit as far away from my face as possible.

The neck.

The body.

The legs.

The guts.

The heart.

She’s sliding the feet into a bag and I’m holding my breath from the smell.  The feet hit the bottom of the bag and a drop of something wet and slimy splashes up on my hand.  I drop the bag and scream.

“Girl, whatchu doing!?  Ruinin my good meat!”

Mama pull my hair and hollers some more.  I run inside and shut myself in my room.

A little while later, I heard Mama dropping the bags of goose into the freezer.

That night’s when I called up Tony to tell him I’s ready to run away.

 

“It’s been two weeks and my baby girl’s still missing.”

“Ma’am, believe me, we’re doing everything we can.  Just try to stay calm.”

 

“Baby, whatsa matter?” says Tony, looking over seeing the orange light shining off the tear streams down my cheeks.

“Nothing,” I says.

“Angel, you can tell me.”

“I’m fine.”

He don’t need to know nothing.  I’m drawing my hair through my fingers and turning toward the window.  4:00am.  Tryna get comfortable.

I slide my finger under my shirt and trace my tattoos with a finger.

Roses and lips and leaves and arrows and feathers.  Matthew 13:50.  A wolf head, two staring eyes, skulls.  Swirls and symbols that meant something once.  Meant something to someone else.  Stars and smoke and wings and dragons.  Sometimes I feel like I could get lost in his tattoos.  Wandering along the lines of ink exploring the history of this man.  My man.

Wondering if he’ll get a tattoo for me.

 

I’ve been doing this for thirty five years and I’ve never seen anything like it.

 

The sun’s rising above the horizon, breaking through the leaves.  Tony mindlessly watches the road.  We cruising fine.  Heading south to Georgia.

Tony has a place in Atlanta, right in the city.  Where the lights stay on all night and nobody care how late you stay up.  You free in the city, Tony told me.  No one’s sad in the city.

I smile as I watch him.  His strong, steady chin.  His glazed eyes fixed on the distant horizon.  He’s wearing a white tank top that squeezes close to his body.  Framing his figure.  His curly, unkempt hair.  The white scar above his left eyebrow.  My man.

After I move in we’ll get married.  Someday we’ll have children, and I’ll be better than Mama.  I’ll be my own woman and teach my kids to be their own selves.  We’ll be happy in the city.

Finally I drift to sleep.

 

The woman was between the ages of 18 and 25 who had brown or red hair, about 5 feet 2 to 5 feet 6 inches tall, about 150 pounds and had several distinctive tattoos.  If you have seen anything or can ID the victim, please call the local authorities.  Locals have been referring to the girl as ‘Angel’ until her full identity is released.

 

Christopher Labaza