Two In The Head Poem by Donal Mahoney

Two In The Head



Zenobia Jackson told Officer Murphy
that her husband, Rufus,73 years old,
was 'a wonderful man when he was awake'
but he had been jerking 'something terrible'
during his sleep and kept waking her up.

He'd swing his arms, she said,
like all those martial arts men on television.
But when the bouts were over, he'd kiss her
on the forehead and go to bed.
'He was just a doll, ' she said,
'when he was awake.'

In the last month, however,
Rufus had fallen out of bed three times
'fighting' in his dreams.
In the morning he'd explain
he had been dreaming
that he was in a fight at work.
Sometimes he dreamt
he was shooting at burglars
breaking into their house
in the old neighborhood.
That's why they had to move

and that's why he bought a gun,
a little pistol he kept under his pillow.
He even taught her how to shoot one night
when no one else was on the tennis courts
in Sherman Park. She was pretty good, he said,
because most women can't aim.

But last night, she said, Rufus was dreaming again
and he swung his arms like he was chopping
sugar cane in Louisiana before they moved North.
He caught her with an elbow to the eye
and another to the nose just as she was ducking.

Long ago, she'd stopped trying to wake him
because of the pistol under his pillow.
He had reached for it once after she had shaken him.
She screamed and that woke him up
and he wasn't too happy about it.
He said he couldn't sleep the rest of the night.
And he wasn't lying because she was awake all night, too,
listening to him grumble and curse.

A week ago she had taken Rufus to a sleep clinic
where he had stayed overnight and the doctor said
he was suffering from sleep apnea. But she had never heard
of sleep apnea causing someone to thrash and kick like Rufus.
She sang with a lady in the choir at church
whose husband had sleep apnea
but all he ever did 'was snore too loud, '
no thrashing about.

'So that's how it happened, '
Zenobia told Officer Murphy
who was very busy taking notes.
Rufus had reached under the pillow
for the pistol and she had to stop him.
No one else was around to help her.
'Two in the head, ' she said,
'and he be dead.'

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