Plagued: Beneath the Still Waters

The problem was that he wasn’t above the law. He was just living in a town where the law was not enforced, where Justice had not seen the light of day since arriving by mistake, getting off at the wrong station, and had been raped and killed at night and then made into sausages to be sold before sunrise at the local farmers’ market.

“Good morning, coglioni!” Dolores yelled. She used the Italian word for testicles—an insult—with a long stage pause between the word morning and the word coglioni. “Is this the way you show the best example of what wonderful law-abiding citizens you all are?”

The brass knuckles were not made of brass, despite their name, but of solid titanium and each ring had a diamond set in upside down. The pointy part up. Each knock would leave four deep cuts. She calmly took a breath in and conscientiously started hitting him.

Dolores knew that her mind was wandering for some yet to be known reason that would become apparent at some point. Or perhaps never. She was not bothered to find a neatly allocated space in which to place everything that happened in her life. For her life was a flowing of things.

When she reopened her eyes, she stared at them and smiled. It was a warm, affectionate, and motherly smile. Dolores and Lucretia couldn’t stop themselves from smiling back. “Revenge” said their mother, “is best served with a glass of chilled pink champagne, frozen strawberries, and marzipan fruits.”

“Now let’s celebrate,” their mother said. “There are so many things to celebrate. The fact that your aunt Lisa was not beaten to a pulp by him. The fact that your cousins were safe. We should celebrate the fact that God acts in mysterious ways. We should also celebrate the fact that ‘God does not pay on a Saturday.’”