Margie O'Dashe

Margie O’Dashe had spent her life bowing down. She’d cowed to her parents, her teachers in school, and when her husband came along she rolled over for him too. For her sons she had jumped through hoops and at the PTA meetings she’d met all the requirements and then some. Every day she’d spent her time doing what she could to not only not make waves, but also to smooth out the ones she’d come across, even those that had nothing to do with her. Telemarketers were politely declined and then patiently listened to until they tired of trying to convince and finally hung up. Hitchhikers were given rides miles out of her way. Stray kittens and dogs were spayed or neutered, given their shots and finally sent to shelters. Yes, Margie was a sweet little unnoticed piece of Americana, carefully crawling her way through life, never really appreciated, never really cared for.

When asked later her neighbors would say that they’d met Mrs. O’Dashe at such-and-such function working the whatever-booth or at the blah-blah society where she volunteered. Maybe one in twenty people would have a specific Margie story of any interest at all, ‘that time she…’ well, even those stories were pretty unremarkable. All in all, everything that could be found out in her little town was bland, boring nice-lady-next-door stuff.

But it didn’t add up, it didn’t make any sort of sense at all. Why would a woman who’d lived her entire life crawling on her belly to appease all she met follow a man home? Why would she have hit the back end of his car, blocking him in his driveway and then marched up to his window? What had possessed her to bang on the glass and then scream out some long winded narrative until the terrified driver had carefully opened his door and pointed a gun at her? And, finally, why had she pulled out the weapon causing the man to shoot her?

Margie O’Dashe had no history of mental illness and apparently not one single remarkable facet in her life. One could almost believe she’d set this up from the beginning, planned and plotted since birth, to make her life so boring, so plain and empty that the final course would make no sense. Her sons had expected to bury their mother soon, but only because she was nearly 80, not because she had gone on a homicidal rampage. The whole thing was out of character.

Margie O’Dashe’s last words had been inadvertently recorded by the man’s own voice mail. He’d tried to call his wife whom he’d thought was inside and had forgotten to cut the call when the old woman began beating on his window. The voice mail had only recorded three minutes of what she’d been screaming, but it was enough to glean the basic subject matter.

‘I had a MOM and DAD once too… a husband who LOVED me … sons who looked UP TO ME… I am IMPORTANT too!!! Do you hear me? I am a HUMAN BEING… I am a MOTHER a DAUGHTER and a WIFE… I have a family and people who need me… I give to CHARITY. I VOLUNTEER… I have jumped through all the right hoops I have done EVERYTHING I was supposed to and I DESERVE TO BE TREATED LIKE A PERSON…’

It went on and on describing her family, the people who loved her, the people who needed her and finally asking him why he was so much more important. What made him special? The driver said it was at that point that he’d started getting out of his car. You can hear his breathing and the thudding of her fists on the glass. The click and a faint squeak as the door opened and then his voice…

‘I have a gun lady, back off……… I don’t know what your problem is but back up okay, I don’t want any trouble…….’

He said he’d assumed she was some crazy racist or something and when she’d dug into her purse and started pulling out the letter opener he’d thought she was going to stab him. He hadn’t been listening to her words, he said he was too scared to do anything but react…

‘Look…’ her voice is calmer now, but still shrill, ‘look, see, I’ll find it here…’

Then you can hear the crack of the gun and a very faint ‘oof’ followed by the sound of Margie O’Dashe’s body hitting the ground, the squish of her soft body and clothing and the snaps and pops of her hip and shoulder, too old to be tossed down so hard. The recording ends with the sound of a front door slamming closed.

Margie O’Dashe bled to death clutching a picture of her sons and their children. She was surrounded by the debris of her oversized purse in the driveway of a small yellow house on a tree lined lane in her home town. The man she’d accosted was new to the neighborhood, fresh from the city and while the neighbors would say he overreacted they wouldn’t openly blame him, knowing where he’d come from. Eventually, he’d find that racism only existed outwardly in a few people in the town and that the majority of the people here hid theirs deeply and denied it very well.

Later he would admit he had maybe been a little rushed to get home that day. He’d also tell you that when the little old woman had pulled over and let him pass he hadn’t thought anything of it, after all she didn’t seem to be in as much of a hurry as him and he’d brushed it off as another example of how people are nicer in small towns. What he wouldn’t tell you is how sometimes at night he’d wake up crying because in his dreams she’d continued her barrage, only this time as she screamed his own family would pop up behind her. In his dream it was his mom, his sister, his wife and his daughter that he shot.

As for Margie O’Dashe, after she was quietly buried at the church she’d attended for over 75 years her sons cleaned out her house and put it up for sale. A few months later a demolition crew tearing out walls and carpets found a small slip of paper that had slipped between a loose base board and a wall in the ‘master bedroom.’ A new member of the ‘team’ picked it up, read it and slipped it into his pocket with a sad but understanding smile.

One day I will stand up and scream ‘I am a person too!! I AM important.’