(This is a long one, fair warning.)
I have to agree with Matt Groening. In Love is Hell, he joked that it is ill-advised to write anything about relationships immediately after ending one. For this reason, I haven’t touched my laptop in over a month, other than of course to find porn or check my email. The normal advice flows my direction, and I’m frequently encouraged to jump back on the horse, with regard to my writing and my social life.
However, right now, all women are evil (no offense), therefore it seems wiser to allow oneself a little time to reflect before pursuing another relationship simply for the sake of not wanting to not be in a relationship. It’s not so bad being single. Besides, I’ve hurt a lot of friends and family this year, and I’m trying to repair some of the bridges that caught fire. Most of the smoke has cleared now and I’m ready to start sharing how the deal went down.
Even if I provided an abbreviated, “Cliff Notes Version” of this tale, it might still be perceived by some readers as an opportunity for me just to vent or retaliate. That’s not my intention. I’m only interested in telling my side of the story.
Perhaps a fast-forward version would be better:
St. Patrick’s Day, the Cherry Street block party. She liked the smell of my pipe tobacco, I liked her breasts and her smile. We talked, we danced, and she vanished.
I found her on FaceBook, she liked sushi, I liked sushi, we dated, we fucked, and before you know it, we’re boyfriend-girlfriend.
I was also having sex now and then with a good friend of mine and I began to taper that relationship in fairness to both of them.
My girlfriend found out, I lied, she became resentful. Things went downhill.
I took her to Philly to meet my family, it didn't go well.
(If you want to know someone, travel with them; it’s very enlightening.)
The snowball picked up speed.
We returned to Tulsa and she camped out at my place for the next month and a half. An ex called me out of the blue to legitimately ask a question about paint (I used to be a house-painter).
This incident resulted in another huge fight (she concluded I was cheating again). We made each other crazy. I kicked her out, she claims she left; whatever.
The snowball reached a velocity and size of uncommon proportion.
I went back to my writers group on a whim one night, and we got into a fight on the phone. She showed up, we continued fighting and they almost called the cops before I moved the conversation outside.
I said, “Fuck this. Give me my key.”
She said, “Please don’t; let’s talk.”
A gigantic snowball filled with sharp, heavy ice-chunks crashed into the parking lot of Borders Books and Music.
I broke up with her. She claims she broke up with me; fine, whatever.
We went back to my place, she collected the remainder of her stuff, she gave me a key to my apartment and yelled at me some more then left. I locked up my apartment and went to work.
Later that night, when the cops were at my place looking at the damage, they both agreed that this was the work of someone who was very, very angry with me. Nothing of commercial value was taken, just very personal stuff. There were no signs of forcible entry; this was a serious act of vandalism by someone who had a key.
“Tough shit for you, buddy. Shouldn’a given her a key. Better change your locks.”
Thanks, officers.
For the next three weeks, my apartment smelled like a combination of a bait shop and a Buddhist temple because I had incense lit almost 24/7 and continuously found more places where this mysterious vandal stashed urine, feces, sardines and anchovy paste. To this day, she still claims complete innocence.
So now I’m single. A friend of mine donated a bed, since my old one was covered in piss and shit and sardines and beer and I had to throw it out. I have slowly come to the decision that I will not fucking murder my ex-girlfriend, although this desire swayed heavily for quite some time; it was an impulse. I had a very good plan too, but I’m sure that’s what every poor son-of-a-bitch in prison would tell you as well.
Normally, the process is, you break up with someone, you cry and yell (whichever comes naturally), you go out and drink with your friends, cry and yell some more, you get really drunk and tell your friends how much you love them, and the bartenders, and some people that you just met who gave you some cigarettes and would really like for you to go back to your table. The next morning, you wake up, maybe next to a new friend or by yourself in the front lawn, call in sick to work, and then swear you’ll never drink and smoke that much again; the point is, you move on.
Still, life keeps throwing her back at me. First, I found the garnet necklace that she lost at my apartment months ago. I’ve always wondered if my apartment might be haunted, because sometimes things will seem to vanish and then they inexplicably show up on the mantle after I’ve torn the place apart looking for the item. Well, my other-worldly roommate hasn’t lost their sense of humor because two weeks or so ago, I spotted her necklace on the mantle while I was folding laundry.
The plan came to me instantly.
In addition to some clothing and a few other personal things that went missing that night, my collection of notebooks that cover about the last ten years of my life were also gone. She adamantly states that she does not have them; that could mean a number of things.
This was an ideal opportunity. I offered to meet her for lunch at a neutral location. I have something that means a lot to her, she has something that means a lot to me, let’s make a deal. Long story short, it didn’t work out, she refused to admit fault or possession of said items. We never met that day and I said the hell with it and wrote her off.
Fast forward again: We met by chance over the weekend and I nearly got shot by the police in the process. I keep trying to do the right thing, but the plan usually doesn’t go according to plan.
The people who were supposed to meet me there didn’t show up, but that wasn’t a big deal. I can make the most of almost any situation. I met some really cool people, went to a whiskey-tasting lecture, and met up with a different friend of mine and we hung out for a while.
And then, I saw her.
And then she saw me.
Fuck.
I excused myself from the group of new friends I was visiting with because I sincerely wanted to keep the drama factor somewhere between low to non-existent. When you are conducting an argument with a woman, it is said that one may have the choice to be right or to be happy. I chose the latter; this seemed the best strategy for me to enjoy the rest of the evening. So, I said, sure, yes, I admit, I lied, I wasn’t a good boyfriend. Are we done? She proceeded to further give me a piece of her mind, though fortunately without yelling. That is until we looked around and realized that her child was missing.
I suppose I could have taken the opportunity to advise her she’d better get the hell out of here and go round up her kid, but my conscience kicked me in the heiney. We went separate directions and checked the vendor tents in the immediate area. No luck. No sight of her anywhere.
Panic is the enemy, and that’s never more true in these situations.
It made sense for her to stay here while I made a wide sweep to look for her daughter. If you’re lucky, your insight will serve you well when you become stressed. That is if you stay calm. The big music tent seemed like the best place to start because there were many families in there, and she may have been playing with another child. Also, if some random parents found her wandering around alone, somebody may have already reported finding this little girl. The food vendors were nearby too, and that’s where I wandered to ages ago at the Tulsa State Fair when I was a kid.
Her little girl was standing over by a chain link fence towards the entrance to River Park West and some dude began to approach her. I could see him asking her a question, but I couldn’t tell if she heard him yet or not. I moved faster.
“Hey! Who the hell are you?” I demanded, stepping between them.
“What? Who the hell are you, man?” He replied.
“I’m the guy that’s looking for this little girl because she wandered off.”
I’m a pretty big dude to begin with and I was armed with a sword, a Sgian Dubh (a small knife tucked into the stocking), and a dagger. It felt good. Just one more reason I love the Scottish Games.
“Now…who, the fuck, are you?” I inquired again.
“I don’t want no trouble, man.”
“Then why the fuck are you talking to a little girl? You oughtta have more sense than that!”
“Hey, I just wanted to ask where the food tents were—”
“Walk away. Do it now.” I looked over my shoulder and her little girl was glued to the spot, wide-eyed.
“Am I in trouble?”
“Probably so, honey. Look, we need to get back to your mom. She doesn’t know where you are and she’s freaked out. We need to go, now.”
As we re-traced my steps back to the starting point, I tried to call her mom but maybe she couldn’t hear her phone. We crossed one of the lawns looking for her, and a gorilla in a yellow t-shirt charged straight toward us.
“Hey! Who the hell are you?” He demanded, stepping in front of us.
“What? Who the hell are you?” I replied.
“I’m the cop that’s gonna take you down if you don’t have a real good reason for walking around with her!”
“Whoah! Whoah! Pump the brakes, man! I went to go find her! Just let me call her mom and tell her where—”
And that’s as far as I got. I’ll admit, I’d been drinking most of the day. The adrenaline rush of looking for a lost child had sobered me somewhat, but the sound of four or five pistols and shotguns being drawn by the cops that surrounded us instantly brought me to complete lucidity. Very, very slowly I let my cell phone fall back into the sporran and put my empty hands into the air. The cuffs were out and I was going down. That’s when I had this really sick feeling that when the cops asked my ex if she knew me, she just might take this perfect opportunity to make my life hell.
To her credit, she did not. Maybe she was still in Maternal Red Alert Mode and automatically answered, maybe her conscience kicked her in the heiney and she did the right thing; I suppose we’ll never know. The point is, I didn’t get arrested or shot. She and I visited for a little while longer and the conversation became slightly more civil if not pleasant. After they left and she sent me kind of a flirtatious text, the angel on my right shoulder and the devil on my left grabbed both my ears with their little hands and yelled at me to get the hell out of there, now.
Of course it was my luck to run into them one more time as I left the park, but I didn’t stay long. I did indeed get the hell out of there and made my way downtown to a nightclub to meet some other friends. The rest of the evening was kind of a blur. There were bouncers and swords involved, and more drinking of course, followed by a miraculous return to my apartment, and then more cops and guns and some asshole hospital security guard who I seem to recall cursing. Somehow, I did wake up in my bed the next morning rather than on a cot in a jail cell.
During this period of reflection in my life, I still have this damned necklace of hers that I don’t know what to do with, I’m still trying to mend some friendships, I still have a low drama policy that I’m struggling to uphold, I still don’t have any of the notebooks from the last decade of my life, and I’m really trying to stop smoking.
Nobody wants to hear a grown man whine though. At least I’m still trying to do the right thing even if the plan stubbornly refuses to go according to plan.
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