One summer night Gina and her husband, while their kids were sleeping, drove to the Taylor Airport. It was a single landing strip in a pasture next to a gray steel building and a few scattered hangars for the ranchers' planes. Hank cut the lights and parked behind one of the hangars, and Gina looked back to see if there were any car lights on the county road, anyone who could have seen them go in. All she saw were the blank outlines of the mountains against the night sky.
The landing strip was butter smooth, out of place compared to the dirt roads they took to get there. They lay down in the exact middle of the strip, head to head. Gina's feet pointed towards the west, Hank's to the east. Their shoulders were each other's pillows. The stars were brutally bright, almost blinding. On her back, her cheek nuzzling Hank's, the only thing in Gina's field of vision was the sky and the blinking tower light that functioned to signal planes. She had the sudden urge to take all of her clothes off.
It felt as if the earth were pulling her down and the stars were pulling her up. Floating. She touched the asphalt with her palms to anchor herself. Hank began murmuring about the days before the kids were born and reached back to cup her face in his hand.
They left the landing strip to have sex in the grass next to the car. Gina got earth and grass in her fingernails.
Gina was reminded of the time she posted an ad to Craig's list that her dog and her children were for sale and that all reasonable offers would be considered. She had stopped to post it in the middle of cleaning the downstairs bathroom, while they still lived in the city.
They saw headlights and heard a car passing in the distance. Hank helped her put her shirt back on and she leaned into his hug as they pressed themselves against the building and giggled. The car passed and they returned to their position on the landing strip, feeling the pull of the stars until they were ready to return home.
Showing posts with label Gina Frye. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gina Frye. Show all posts
Thursday, November 28, 2013
Thursday, October 17, 2013
A Beginning for Gina Frye
Gina Frye showed up to her second day of work with a black eye and an angry red scratch on her face.
Taylor was one of those mountain towns you could walk from one end to the other in twenty minutes. Gina left work late to walk Second Street, to feel the mountains all around and hear the few cars on Main mixed with the sound of geese landing on the river. The sun had just set and it smelled cold, like the first wet snow of the season was thinking about showing up. No skiing within a hundred miles, so the tourists here rested in cheap motels between destinations.
The quiet heightened Gina's senses and put her on edge. Last week she'd left her job in Denver and moved her husband and two kids to Taylor to become the City Manager. Downtown Denver was a comfort, and you walked noise-wrapped most hours of the day, a cop on every corner. Taylor blanketed her in a silence enhanced by small sounds. The crunch of her boots on crushed gravel, the sounds of the bar on Second on a Tuesday night. She heard a car door slam and glanced back in the dusk, watched a woman carrying groceries disappear into a tiny home.
Gina smelled beer and turned, and saw a man lurch out the back door of the Second Street bar into the alley directly in her path. He wasn't tall, but he was solid and suddenly the bar noises seemed to drown out every other noise. She glanced to the back door of the bar, shut tight against the cold. Gina took her hands out of her pockets and stepped to the right, meaning to walk around him, and she saw his eyes snap to her face, saw the sneer.
He unbuckled his belt and slid it off through his belt loops. "Hey, come here," he said, and it was like one of those movies playing in her head where she knew he was thinking it would be over quick if she didn't struggle.
She felt sorry for him.
He held the belt in his right hand and reached for her with his left, but she moved towards him, into the smell, and yanked the belt from him. She held the leather with both hands and struck him in the face with buckle.
He stumbled and went low knocking her to the ground. She brought her knees and elbows in. He punched her face, twice, two quick blows that cut out all noise. Everything went dark except for his sneer and she noticed he was wearing a short-sleeve t-shirt with no coat. She pushed out with her knees and hit the drunk in his sternum. He fell back and she extended her leg, kicking his face, hard. She broke his nose and blood exploded.
She jumped up and wrapped the belt around his neck, sliding the leather through the buckle tight. She backed up to a dumpster, dragging him by the belt, by his throat. Blood seeped into his shirt, his pants, and he stumbled up once but she had him off-balance and he fell backwards. She hung the belt leather by a buckle hole onto a bolt on the dumpster lid, and he hung there a little, choking. After he blacked out she found an old furniture mover's blanket in the weeds next to the dumpster, sticky with mud. The blanket covered him up to his neck. She took the belt off the screw and let him slump to the ground, then she loosened the buckle around his neck.
Adrenaline was coursing through her, loud in her ears. She turned and scratched her face on the screw, ripping a gash near her bruised eye. She walked into the bar and used her cell to call the sheriff, then she called her husband.
The drunk was identified, a man from Kansas on a motorcycle trip to California, fresh from losing his job and a domestic violence conviction. She felt relief at that, as if it wasn't Taylor itself attacking her but some distant, freak event that wasn't likely to happen again.
In the coming years Taylor's brutality would manifest in more subtle ways.
Taylor was one of those mountain towns you could walk from one end to the other in twenty minutes. Gina left work late to walk Second Street, to feel the mountains all around and hear the few cars on Main mixed with the sound of geese landing on the river. The sun had just set and it smelled cold, like the first wet snow of the season was thinking about showing up. No skiing within a hundred miles, so the tourists here rested in cheap motels between destinations.
The quiet heightened Gina's senses and put her on edge. Last week she'd left her job in Denver and moved her husband and two kids to Taylor to become the City Manager. Downtown Denver was a comfort, and you walked noise-wrapped most hours of the day, a cop on every corner. Taylor blanketed her in a silence enhanced by small sounds. The crunch of her boots on crushed gravel, the sounds of the bar on Second on a Tuesday night. She heard a car door slam and glanced back in the dusk, watched a woman carrying groceries disappear into a tiny home.
Gina smelled beer and turned, and saw a man lurch out the back door of the Second Street bar into the alley directly in her path. He wasn't tall, but he was solid and suddenly the bar noises seemed to drown out every other noise. She glanced to the back door of the bar, shut tight against the cold. Gina took her hands out of her pockets and stepped to the right, meaning to walk around him, and she saw his eyes snap to her face, saw the sneer.
He unbuckled his belt and slid it off through his belt loops. "Hey, come here," he said, and it was like one of those movies playing in her head where she knew he was thinking it would be over quick if she didn't struggle.
She felt sorry for him.
He held the belt in his right hand and reached for her with his left, but she moved towards him, into the smell, and yanked the belt from him. She held the leather with both hands and struck him in the face with buckle.
He stumbled and went low knocking her to the ground. She brought her knees and elbows in. He punched her face, twice, two quick blows that cut out all noise. Everything went dark except for his sneer and she noticed he was wearing a short-sleeve t-shirt with no coat. She pushed out with her knees and hit the drunk in his sternum. He fell back and she extended her leg, kicking his face, hard. She broke his nose and blood exploded.
She jumped up and wrapped the belt around his neck, sliding the leather through the buckle tight. She backed up to a dumpster, dragging him by the belt, by his throat. Blood seeped into his shirt, his pants, and he stumbled up once but she had him off-balance and he fell backwards. She hung the belt leather by a buckle hole onto a bolt on the dumpster lid, and he hung there a little, choking. After he blacked out she found an old furniture mover's blanket in the weeds next to the dumpster, sticky with mud. The blanket covered him up to his neck. She took the belt off the screw and let him slump to the ground, then she loosened the buckle around his neck.
Adrenaline was coursing through her, loud in her ears. She turned and scratched her face on the screw, ripping a gash near her bruised eye. She walked into the bar and used her cell to call the sheriff, then she called her husband.
The drunk was identified, a man from Kansas on a motorcycle trip to California, fresh from losing his job and a domestic violence conviction. She felt relief at that, as if it wasn't Taylor itself attacking her but some distant, freak event that wasn't likely to happen again.
In the coming years Taylor's brutality would manifest in more subtle ways.
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