Note: This essay contains graphic sexual language. 

It begins with a virgin. It always does. Deflowering is a source of strength. Taking a virgin is proof of incontestable power. In the greater world, that is, the world that men like him inhabit. It is not a source of power over her — that he has power over her goes without saying, she is defenseless. While he is a god. Even if she argues, even if she struggles, he is more powerful than her, her mother’s daughter, Persephone. Larger. Armed. With back-up force. Hades, god of the underworld 

He needs her because she’s innocent. She’s pure. He needs her because without her he cannot fight the war. Without her sacrifice, though she is his daughter, Iphigenia, the ships won’t sail. Though he is her father, he will let her die. He’s a fighter, above all. He needs her, Cassandra, because she sees things. Because she is a prophetess. He wants her. If she fights back, if she outruns him, he, Apollo, will condemn her. He is the most beautiful of all, the  god of light. He lets her stay inside his temple. She can be his servant. He lets her keep that power that is hers. She can see into the future. But, he makes sure that no one will believe her. He didn’t believe her when she screamed, “no”. “Don’t fight the war,” she tells her father. He ignores her. He thinks she is crazy, delusional. He goes to war despite her, to show her. Ten years later, his city falls.

He has to shut her up. “Fucking bitch,” he screams before he shoots, or as he shoots, or just after he sees his first bullet enter her brain. “Fucking bitch,” his partner screams as he watches the first, the second, the third bullet enter her head. He does not wrest the gun from his partner’s hand. There are three ICE agents, right there, not one nor the other attempts to stop the shooter. 

“They killed my wife,” the other woman screams. There are two of them. Women together, that is. That makes it worse. She is left to bleed out in her car, rammed against another. They will not let the medics approach with an ambulance. They will not let a physician on the side of the road approach. “I’m a doctor,” he yells. He begs to be allowed to see if she still has a pulse. She’s been shot three times in the head in front of neighbors. She has no pulse. Why should they let the fucking doctor approach the fucking bitch. She got what she deserves. They always do. Every fucking bitch since recorded time. The medics have to walk three blocks, dragging a stretcher through the snow; they finally arrive, 15 minutes after the fucking bitch is shot. 

This is not, strictly speaking, a sexual assault. Nevertheless, it reeks of sex, “fucking bitch” he screams. He is not fucking the bitch, but she deserves to be fucked and since there are two of them, two women plus a dog together, they or she deserve to be fucked. Perhaps, he meant the dog, “fucking bitch,” but the dog is silent, does not bark in the back seat of the car. The other woman has not had time to get back in. She would have, but the driver has been shot. She lurches forward, her foot on the accelerator. The car speeds forward. She is trying to get away even after death. Dead, she cannot help but crash into another car. Rear-end it. Like he would have done to her, “fucking bitch,” if he had her alone in an alley somewhere, drive his cock straight up her ass. Instead, he has a gun, an extension of himself. He does not hesitate to  shoot first. Before she does what he says. He said it twice. Maybe he would have fucked her then. But there are people watching him. 

He is an Iraq war veteran. How many fucking bitches has he killed before? No one bothered to write them down; his kill count. No one bothered to video his kill(s). He wore no body cam, over there. Here he has to wear one. It’s the law. He’s back home in a civilized country. He can’t just shoot without a camera on. But there is no law against screaming “fucking bitch” and firing his gun. He was dragged by a car several months ago. He suffered 20 stitches more or less. He has it in for her. Though she was not driving that car. A man was driving that car. But here is a fucking bitch refusing to do as he says. Get out of the car. Exit the car, fucking bitch. Do what I tell you to do. If you do what I tell you to do, you will be all right. If you don’t shout. If she had done as he told her to do, she would be still alive. Perhaps. If she had gotten out of her car, hands up, he might not have shot, or not. The other woman made him angry. She called him “big boy,” she called him “big boy” like he was not a man. He will show her who the boss is. She made him angry. Always, she makes him angry before he shoots. He does not shoot if he is not angry. He only shoots because he is pissed. 

Did he say that to the Iraqi woman who did not speak his language? Exit the house, you fucking bitch, when he came at night knocking on her door. He did not knock. He broke down the door. There were foreign terrorists inside their house, inside their country. Terrorists. He didn’t have to knock. He burst into the house. He shot first. Before they got out of bed in their nightclothes. Fucking bitch. He said or thought. Fucking bitch as she bled out in front of her husband, in front of her kids. In front of her wife. In front of her dog in the back seat. 

This is how the war comes home. The guy is terrified. He is frightened but he has a gun. He has been shot at. He has shot and been shot at. Or maybe he never was shot at at all. Maybe he always shoots first and that is why he is here today on this suburban street, yelling fucking bitch. And shooting first. 

“I am not mad at you,” Renee Good said. Like Christ. She dies with forgiveness on her lips. A sacrifice. A sacrifice so the war can start. This is how the war comes home. They need to be put in their place. They have to know it doesn’t matter what they say. It matters what he does. She called him “big boy.” The one behind the car. One of them deserves to die. One of them deserves to have her head blown off. “Big boy,” the other woman said, “go get some lunch”. Fucking bitch. “I’m not mad at you.” She will never say that again. He showed her. He showed her who the big boy is.

Karen Malpede is a playwright and, most recently, the author of the acclaimed new memoir, Last Radiance: Radical Lives, Bright Deaths, Vine Leaves Press.

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