Tell me if you like it better or worse than the original.
How does it feel…I wonder…to lose control of yourself in a way that you can not come back from? Do you know? I wonder if he lost himself and the only way to find it was to rage until he shattered all that mattered to him.
He committed emotional suicide you know. He can never come back from this. He was my brother, my friend and I loved him as such, even though he’s not blood, I loved him, and I can’t imagine what he’s going through.
You know when me and Wendell we’re friends we did some of the craziest shit you could ever think of. (Laughs bitterly) we used to shoplift from the corner store just so that Mr. Harold behind the counter would cuss and chase us down the street. I knew even then he had problems but I never thought he’d be capable of this. This baffles me. I GREW up with him. I thought I knew him, but how could…(cries)
Oh, Pierce, you couldn’t know Wendell. I didn’t even know Wendell and I married him. He was a confused, angry and bitter person even in childhood. I can’t believe he could do this to me either but really what choice did he have?
We all thought we knew him Mr. District attorney. We never thought he’d beat her to death. I mean all we saw in the last 7 years were a couple bruises, the worst was a black eye and a bruise on her hip never this. He was coming around. We had been waiting SHE had been waiting for him to change, that’s the whole reason she stayed, because she new that he had it in him to be a good man, a worthy man. She believed in him that much. He was going to a therapist learning how to talk through is anger, and insecurities. He was looking for a way out of the pain and the rage. I guess he never found it.
What? No he never hurt, or abused the children. He loved them; never would he have done anything to them. He was a good father to them. I should hate him for this. We should all hate him for this, but how do you hate someone you’ve loved so long? How does it feel I wonder to hurt so bad that the only way to feel anything besides hurt is to hurt the person closest to you?
Ask Wendell how it feels and he’ll tell you. Janine you saw what you wanted to see and still you don’t see clearly. The bruises you saw were just the surface of what happened to me in my home and in my marriage. What you saw was exactly what Wendell and I wanted you to see. Yes Wendell was a good father and no he would never hurt the children but how many times did I call to cancel on something you’d planned with a lame excuse and how many times did you overlook the obvious and take the excuse. You were blind Janine and you always were.
How did it feel? When? When I kicked her? When I hit her? When I killed her? (Shrugs) Does it matter? She’s gone, and it’s all her fucking fault, the bitch. Why couldn’t she just accept that I’ve changed? She had to belittle me and accuse me and be wary. WHY? She never could trust me.
No, Mr. District Attorney I didn’t want to kill her. I just wanted her to hurt as much as I hurt. As much as she hurt me, why couldn’t she see that I just wanted to love her and I wanted her to love me? I was TRYING to be better to be something other than I always had been with her. I wanted to change for myself and for her. I didn’t want my kids to grow up the way I did seeing their dad be abusive. I was TRYING to be better. To do better, but did she accept that? NO! She wanted me to take SHIT from her. ME take shit? NO I give shit I don’t take it. Our friends told me to TAKE IT, because she’d taken it from me for so long, what are they crazy? You want to know how it started. Okay I’ll tell you.
She was getting ready to go to work and all I did was ask her a simple question, okay. I asked “Hey call me on your break okay?” and she had to be a bitch about it and be SMART about it and say “Why so you can check up on me and make sure I’m not sleeping with anybody?” Really?! REALLY?! The bitch! Like she had a right to question me? I was the one who had to question HER.
You know I almost walked away, I really did but then she said, “I’m not calling you Wendell. So forget it.” The last thing I remember before I hit her was that she looked like she was going to say something else but WHAT did she have to say that would make it better? All I wanted was a simple phone call after her shift at the factory. That’s it. Is it too much to ask of her husband for his wife to call him during her break?
Bitch.
Yes Wendell it is too much to ask when it’s you who’s doing the asking. Yes I was being SMART and yes I was being snide to you because you deserved it. God I was so ANGRY with you because the only reason you wanted me to call you was so that you could have control just like always. I was sick of it for once and no I couldn’t trust you. Look at me I’m dead, because of you! I will never be able to see my children grow and be there for them. It’s a consolation to me that you won’t be there either, bastard.
I wanted to leave you so many times but stayed because I loved you, not because you loved me but because I loved you and was willing to take all your abuse just to be with you! ASSHOLE! You killed me! You fucking KILLED me…
That sorry son of a bitch, I was his friend. I loved him and I was trying to counsel him on his marriage to my sister. He was my brother I loved him like a brother, and he killed her and in killing her he killed himself. How am I supposed to explain to their kids that they have to move because daddy killed mommy, huh? They’re 5 and 3 how are they supposed to understand this? I don’t understand this.
He promised he was getting help for his anger and his rage. I guess it didn’t help did it? He was my best friend and I trusted him with my sister’s life and he took it from her after 7years of marriage and 2 kids.
Did he explain why? Did he tell you why he beat her to death Mr. District attorney? I want to know why. I want to be able to explain this to my mother. I want her to know why she doesn’t have a daughter any longer. No? He didn’t give a reason? But there has to be a reason, there has to be. The man shattered a toilet there has to be a reason for that much anger.
But no it’s just like Wendell to not say anything when it really matters. You know my wife’s friend was over the last time we saw Wendell and Lauren. She’s a writer and brought over a monologue and poem that she had written for my wife to read and get her opinion on and during it she thought it was odd that Wendell got up in the middle of the poem and left the room and didn’t come back till the reading of both was over.
I told her that she was seeing too much and it was probably nothing. I wonder now how he felt to hear his own thoughts. What do I mean? Well my wife’s friend wrote a monologue about an abused woman talking to a police officer and telling why she wouldn’t leave her husband. The poem was about an abusive relationship from a husband’s point of view and telling how obsessed he was with her and why she needed to die.
It was very dark and powerful, now I see it as foreshadowing as to what was to come but how were we to know?
Yes I remember that poem and that monologue and thought that it was so true for my life except I wasn’t as cowed as the woman in the monologue or poem, though I used to be. In the year that he’d been changing so was I. I had become stronger and self sufficient and knew that if he became abusive again I could leave and support my children no problem. Wendell to me wasn’t a necessity anymore but a want. I wanted him because I loved him. I wanted him to be the man he was trying to be, but I knew he couldn’t and I knew it would all go wrong…if only I knew how wrong. You couldn’t have known though brother. Even with Vivienne’s observations I didn’t think it weird that Wendell got up and left during the reading of her work. I guess I should have when he came back and didn’t comment on her writing nor did he want her to reread it either.
No, there was no way you could have known, because even then I didn’t, and I knew him better than anyone.
How were we to know that he’d do this to his family? How were we to prevent something like this? How do you ask that? There was no way to know this would happen.
My friend? What friend? My writer friend? What does Vivienne have to do with this? Oh my husband told you about her monologue and poem? Why? Yes I remember Wendell getting up and walking away during the middle. I didn’t think anything of it why? She thought it was strange? She didn’t tell me. She told Pierce? Why? How in the HELL do you think that someone who didn’t even know Wendell well would be able to know when he’s acting odd and we, who have known him his whole life didn’t realize that he was headed for a breakdown.
How could she of all people have seen this when we didn’t? Oh God…how did we not see?
Don’t blame them, please, they loved us both how can you fault them for that? They still love us both but they’re also grieving for us both as well, because not only did they lose a sister but a brother and friend as well. Please Mr. District Attorney don’t fault them for not rescuing me.
How could she not see that I loved her and wanted to change for her and our family? I was so angry with her. I wanted her down and broken like she’d made me.
What have I done?! Laura I’m sorry! Laura! Please! I’m sorry…you shouldn’t have…you shouldn’t have…What was I to do, huh? Oh God… how do I take it back?
My kids how will my kids understand that I did love her more than anything but it was to much…too much. I couldn’t breath. I couldn’t breath, she suffocated me just by being, she took my breath, my love, my whole being. She had to give some back Mr. District Attorney do you understand? She. Had. To. Give. Some. Back. I couldn’t breath.
Please, please, let me see my kids let me talk to them and tell them that I did love her I do love her. She was everything to me. Oh God what have I done…
LAURA………………Please baby…………please…I’m so sorry. (Sobs)
I know your sorry Wendell but that doesn’t change what you’ve done. It never will.
I’m sorry Laura. I’m sorry I didn’t see this sooner. He was my friend, and I loved him, I’m so sorry I failed you. You will always be my baby sister and I your big brother, Laura, I didn’t protect you, and for that I’ll always be sorry.
Oh big brother you couldn’t have saved me from Wendell anymore than I wanted to be saved from him. You didn’t fail I did because I didn’t get out in time. I let our love blow me up into a million pieces and didn’t see it until it was too late.
Oh, God Laura, I’m so sorry. I’m so so sorry. Please Laura forgive us where ever you are forgive us for being so blind.
Forgive you? Of course I forgive you, though there is nothing to forgive. I loved Wendell and never would I have thought that he would kill me. He loved me. So much Wendell loved me I knew that I just didn’t… couldn’t trust anything he said. I knew he’d never hurt the children and he was always a good father and for that alone I loved him.
The last thing I remember him saying before I lost consciousness was “I tried this for you!” I remember he screamed it over and over and over as he bashed my head into the side of the toilet and kicked me in the chest.
My last thought was how was of the children. Poor Pierce and Janine they loved Wendell so much. This will eat at them for years, though I don’t blame them as this was no ones fault but my own and Wendell’s.
I turned a blind eye to a lot of things where my relationship with Wendell was concerned. When he said he was going to become a better man for me and the children but most of all for himself I laughed, I shouldn’t have. There were a lot of things I shouldn’t have done and now I can never go back.
Mr. District Attorney I see you look down on my broken and bruised body in the morgue and I see the pity and anger in your eyes, but I loved him and I know he loved me. What are we to do when love takes over us and instead of setting us free holds us captive?
Pierce was right Wendell committed suicide he will never be whole again and our children are now without a father and a mother. No, Mr. District Attorney don’t be angry be sad for the waste of life and the loss of love, be sad because my brother and his wife will have to take the place of me and my husband with our children. Be sad Mr. District Attorney because anger is what brought me here. Anger beat me down in that bathroom and shattered my scull. Anger is what keeps me here seething in bitterness, please… Mr. District Attorney don’t be angry… be sad.
