“So it turns out she’s not even really a nurse. She was just some sort of a nurse’s aide or something,” said Donovan, telling me about his first girlfriend, first lover, first fiancee, Gloria. He had met her in the psychiatric ward of the local hospital after admitting himself after over two decades of abuse from his chain-smoking mother. He had been struck often as a small child, minor mischief bringing on harsh punishment, helping to turn him into the somewhat meek, but inwardly
enraged individual who sat before me now, miserably recounting his life to date. It was clear he desired something better out of life, but seemed unable to help himself attain it. His successes were few and never heralded. His mistakes were thrown back in his face, and he was never able to live a one of them down. If there’s such a thing as luck, his was apparently of the worst sort, throwing him into relationships with deranged types who sought to exploit him for their own gain, tossing him aside once they’d gone as far with him as they could
possibly go.
Or, so it would seem from his version of things.
“She wanted to be an RN” He paused thoughtfully. “Or is it a RN? A is
correct right? Not an RN....an registered nurse?”
I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter right now, does it?”
He sagged slightly. I suddenly realized he’d been grateful for the small break from the story he was telling. He’d intentionally veered off track for a moment into something a little less intense.
“We could discuss other things if you’d prefer.”
The young man lifted an index finger and made a slow rotating motion with it. “It all just goes around and around up here anyway. I can think of something else for a while, but it’ll all come back again to me anyway. It haunts me. Endlessly. We had a roommate briefly. Total dickwad alcoholic idiot. He’d hear me bring up something I’d been
through, then go off on me, yelling at me that I had to let go of the past. I was living in the past. I had to move on... And there he was, stupid jerk, served in Desert Storm, wouldn’t let any of us forget he had. He demanded that the world give him something...attention, a break, some slack... And he told me I couldn’t let go of my past...”
“When was this guy your roommate, Donovan?”
“After I told my mom Gloria and I were getting married, she said, ‘I figured you would. Where are you gonna live? You’re sure not staying here.’ Gloria had sort of secretly moved in with me after her grandmother moved to a new house. Now we suddenly had no place to live at all. Mom got all excited and started trying to help make wedding
plans, and I was getting irritated with all her stupid questions and ideas. What were our wedding colors? What kind of cake did we want? When? Where? Who was invited? Who would be my best man? I’d figured Gloria and I would just hit a Justice Of The Peace and get it over with. I couldn’t understand why Mom wanted to try and take over the damn
wedding, then wanted to throw us out of the house. She saw stupid Just Married ballcaps and sneakers at some shop with a black bowtie for the groom and tiny veil for the bride...I could shudder,” he said, baffled. “I could puke. If Gloria wanted to get married, why couldn’t we just fucking go somewhere and get it done and over with? Gloria sort of avoided any direct questions about the ceremony, but she’d bought a
pretty white dress to wear and thought it would be fun to get married at the state Renaissance Festival.”
“That sounds...exciting.”
“I guess. People were asking about carpooling and what they should wear.
I wanted to dress up in a lace-up shirt, breeches, boots, and a cape, but of course I didn’t have any of that, and the people at the RenFest insisted we be in costume. I thought maybe the woman I used to work for now and then who owned a costume shop might be able to cut me a break on a rental of some sort, but I never did get around to asking her. I did ask Nola, Gloria’s friend, if she would plan a wedding shower since Gloria never had one for her first wedding. I promised to assist
financially if I could. No one said anything to me about a bachelor party, but then I thought maybe someone would find a way to surprise me with one.
“We were like a month away from the date when we got into an argument at
the horse farm. She didn’t feel well and didn’t want to help me clean
stables, but I really needed some assistance if we were gonna be done by
nightfall, and she just suddenly told me that she didn’t want to get married at all. She got in her car and drove off. I didn’t know what to think, and then people kept calling the horse farm, asking stupid questions about the damn wedding, and I started getting angry, telling them there was no wedding, and they kept trying to get all these details out of me and I just didn’t have any to give.
“Gloria was the one who actually got paid to work at the farm. The owner
had known her since she was born, and she’d helped out there once in a while growing up, so when they needed a daily person to help care for the horses, they’d called her and she agreed to do it part-time. Because she worked at the hospital, though, she didn’t always have regular hours, so sometimes she’d call me to go care for the animals for her, but she’d still claim the hours and get paid for it. I got mad because I
was busting my ass for nothing, I desperately needed to escape that bitch who used to beat me, and I thought I was gonna be all alone again. I threw down the pitchfork, ignored the barrels of shit that still needed to be hauled to the manure pile, then locked the place up and left. Gloria called me at home a few hours later. I asked her if she still wanted to get married or not. She said no, she never had. She admitted she’d been going to just not show up that day, leave me to look
like a fool in public. I was bothered that she said she’d never wanted to get married after two years of listening to her talk about it, but I was also glad I wouldn’t have to listen to any more wedding shit from anybody. She came to the house and Mom told her I shouldn’t see her anymore, that she wasn’t any good for me. And I got royally pissed and told her she had no idea what she was saying, grabbed some clothes, and
left with Gloria.
“I still loved her. Obviously, there were some problems somewhere that needed to be worked out somehow, but she said she wouldn’t go to any kind of counseling with me. I told her we didn’t have to get married. I didn’t care, but did she still want to be my girlfriend at least? She said yes. I figured maybe all the hype had gotten on her nerves, too. She stopped wearing the Claddaugh wedding band I’d bought for her.
“We spent the night at her grandma’s, and then her aunt, who also lived there and didn’t care for her, told her she had to get out. I assumed that meant I had to go, too, but I found out later I’d been welcome to remain there if I could pay at least a portion of the rent and expenses. Gloria’s mother was living with her boyfriend at the time, and they agreed to let me stay on the couch in his trailer for free. Gloria slept there with me the first night, but then she went to the home of this guy who was in the National Guard with her.”
“She was a weekend warrior?”
“Barely. She only showed up enough not to be listed as AWOL. Did it for the little extra money. She’d been in the army, but had a dishonorable discharge. She was a trouble maker, getting into fights while drunk, racing her motorcycle all over the base. Things just built up until they had enough of a case against her...which is her version of what happened, and I don’t really believe it at all. She was partially deaf, and shouldn’t have made it into the Guard at all, but they made her look like a cook on the paperwork to get her in there. She actually was a
pretty good cook, though.
“That’s where she met up with Andrew. Turns out I’d gone to school with him. He’d never really picked on me, but never tried to befriend me, either. I really didn’t know much about him. Gloria found out he’d just returned to the area and joined the Guard and was lookin’ for a place to live, so she asked if he’d like to split rent somewhere with us three ways. He said sure, so we started looking for a place to live.”
I said, “Is Andrew the guy she moved in with while you were sleeping on the couch in the trailer?”
“No,” he sighed, wincing. “Doug was in the Guard, too, and he made it clear to me that they’ll take absolutely anybody willing to sign the papers. He was schizophrenic. Bad. His mother’d had it, but died, leaving him and his twin brother in their father’s care. The father didn’t like Doug, but let him live in a ratty-ass trailer in a trailer
park he owned. Doug tried to bake a cake in a frying pan in the oven, and nearly lost the trailer when the handle melted and caught fire. He owned a sofa, a bed, and a kitchen table with two chairs. I saw the trailer once myself. No curtains, no posters, no books or tapes or CDs. No TV. Doug pretty much just sat on the sofa and stared at the walls if there was nothing else to do. He tried to make pancakes once by adding water to the actual box of BisQuick and shaking it. If his father couldn’t care for him or find anyone else to do it, the poor guy shoulda been in professional care, I think. His twin brother was like the
smarter, nastier version of him. The evil twin. Doug turned out like his
mom, his brother turned out like their dad. Gloria moved in with Doug briefly, and apparently decided to let Doug think she was his girlfriend, because she’d tell me about how she’d found him in her waterbed taking a nap, wearing her T-shirts, asking her about his
peepee...y’know I’m not talking about a liquid here.”
“Do you suspect Gloria was maybe...”
“Taking advantage of him? Quite possibly,” he admitted. “I didn’t know
how horrible she truly was until the end.”
“Why didn’t you move into the trailer, too? Why weren’t the two of you roommates with Doug?”
He shook his head. “How should I know? I could only make a guess...I don’t really wanna know. I don’t want to know what she was really doing over there with him. I’m pretty damn sure that if Doug’s father had known she’d taken over the spare bedroom, then she woulda had to cough up some rent at least.
“But we started looking for a place for us to live--me, her, and this Andrew guy. The trailer I was staying in was old and when it rained, the roof leaked. When it snowed, the snow would melt and the roof would leak. It would leak on me, on the sofa. Gloria’s mom would get into these terrible screaming arguments with her boyfriend and wake me up constantly. I’d just lay there, pretending to sleep through it, waiting
for him to tell her to grab her stuff and get out, which would probably mean my eviction, too. Sometimes Gloria’s sister’s kids would spend the night and stay up throwing toys and climbing on me and screeching and crying, and I’d have to go sleep in the car if I wanted any rest at all before work the next day. A few times, I’d get out of the shower and find the sofa was taken by the kids or visiting drunks, so I’d sleep sitting up in the car, my hair frozen the next morning. All my stuff was in the car, so there was no room for me to lie down. I was waiting for
Mom to call the cops and say I’d stolen the car anyhow. One day I returned from work and was told a drunk friend of Gloria’s mom’s boyfriend had fallen asleep and peed on the cushions of the couch, so I could sleep on the floor if I wanted to. I slept in the car and started dressing and bathing in the restroom of the horse farm, five miles away. There was no shower there, but there were paper towels and a sink, and a small heater I could turn on while it was so cold outside. Gloria’s grandma found out what I was doing and told me to grab my stuff and get a real shower at her house. So I had about a week of horse farm paper towel baths before I got a real shower, and then right after that Gloria found us a place to live.
“I was sick by then. I’d caught a cold or something from one of her nieces, and couldn’t get rid of the cough. Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease pretty much ensures months of coughing long after a cold’s been caught-”
“Not if you can get antibiotics.”
He said, “If I’d had money, do ya think I’d have been sleeping on that nasty couch in a trailer under a leaky roof for so long? That I woulda slept in my car and washed out of a fly-specked sink at a rat-infested horse farm? I had nothing! I was eating hot dogs, rice, iced tea mix, and occasionally bread. I was living off fifteen fuckin’ dollars worth of groceries a week, trying to set some money aside for this place we were gonna get, paying for gas so I could keep working at my job in the
next town. We put down a deposit on this apartment fifteen miles from where I worked, on the border between two states, but only I lived there the first month, on a couch someone was getting ready to throw away, coughing my lungs up night after night, drinking NyQuil and DayQuil, taking Melatonin at night so even if I coughed myself awake, I’d be so out of it I just wouldn’t give a damn.
“My coughing had subsided considerably after that first month, and then Gloria and Andrew moved in. It was a second-floor apartment, so no waterbeds were allowed, so Gloria and I went to a mattress store so she could buy a California King to put in where the bladder would normally go. Friends of her mother’s donated a kitchen table and three chairs. I had eleven bookshelves I got from Mom’s house...I had to take her to court to get my stuff outta there. She tried to lock me out of the house, tried to make me pay for storage for my stuff after we left, but the judge had me present a list of all of my belongings, read it to her
and asked if all the stuff I’d listed was really mine, and when she said
yes, he had us choose a date to get it all back from her. She still had the shitty furniture, but the bookcases were all mine. About a thousand books, tons of art supplies, some clothes. I never did any artwork the entire time I was with Gloria. I devoted all of my time to her. I’d do the occasional sketch at work or something, but I never painted or sculpted or anything. She didn’t understand my compulsion to create. I was supposed to help keep the apartment clean, earn money, and fuck her whenever she wanted, but there was less and less of that going on all the time.
“Neither she nor Andrew knew what to make of my books. Most of them were
based on paranormal shit, some were sci-fi, techno-thrillers, books about animals, science, a few comic collections. Andrew wanted to know if I had read all of them. I’d read most of them. They wanted to know why anyone would keep a book they’d already read. Why would you ever bother reading it again? I tried to tell them that a lot of them were reference books for my art...esoteric subjects, the arcane, the ancient. So why bother keeping any of the fiction? I asked them why they both had huge tape and CD collections. Why bother listening to the same songs
over and over again? Especially stuff you could hear on the radio for free. They didn’t think it was the same. They treated my books like shit. Sometimes Andrew would pull one down and look at it...woodcuts and drawings of animal-headed men, monsters, demons. He started asking me questions about what he’d read in the books, trying to find out what I knew by heart. He started joking that I was a Satanist. I’m not a
Satanist. Never have been. Grew up Catholic. Still had the rosary my
Grandpa had given me years before. Still prayed to God every once in a
while when things seemed especially bad...
“Since I’d pretty much taken on all of Gloria’s responsibilities at the horse farm, she started using her free time to hang out at the bar her mother worked at about three miles from the apartment.”
“Waitaminute. You were doing her job for her, but she was still getting
paid?”
“Yup. Sweet deal, huh? When we moved into the apartment, she’d started
talking about marriage again, wearing her ring again, so I very stupidly
thought we were as close as ever. I was willing to do anything for her...and I did.”
“Was there anything going on between her and this Andrew guy?”
“I don’t think so. Nothing romantic, anyway. But it turns out he was an
alcoholic, so he’d hang out at the bar with her constantly. He kind of hinted he was keeping an eye out for her. He was full of shit. She came home one day with a hickey on her neck. I don’t think it was from him...just some other guy-”
“Couldn’t you go to the bar, too, and check up on her?”
“I worked days. She worked the graveyard shift. After I got off work,
I’d go to the horse farm and bring the animals in from pasture, feed them, water them, medicate them if necessary, shovel shit out of their stalls. I’d get home, eat something, do any chores I had to, then go to bed. Gloria slept while I was at work during the day, usually ate with me, then would get ready to go hang out at the bar before work. I’d be getting ready for bed while she was heading out the door. I trusted her. The way she’d go on and on about how her ex had cheated on her, I
couldn’t imagine she would ever intentionally put anyone else through
what she’d endured. I’d even asked her to please just let me know if things ever started to seem so bad she’d want to move on...but she preferred to string me along. It was like she was afraid to make a clean jump...she wouldn’t release one trapeze until the next one was in her hand and she already had a good grip on it. Maybe she was afraid of missing out on some sex. I dunno.”
“You said the amount of sex you were experiencing was becoming less and
less.”
“Yeah. At first she would complain that I wasn’t affectionate or flirty with her. I just let her do what she wanted when she wanted and was happy with that, but she craved attention, so I started playing with her ass and kissing her passionately in public. I’d grope her at home while we were just watching TV or something, or stroke her between her legs until she feel asleep at night. After a while, she started telling me she didn’t want me doing it to her so often. She’d push my hand away or sit somewhere else. She’d offer her cheek when I’d go to kiss her. She
wouldn’t say why. She just started acting all distant and stuff. Like a
cat. I couldn’t pet her unless she wanted me to, but I didn’t always know when that was. The sex started slacking off, and at first I was a little relieved because, like I told you, she initially wanted it all the time. Wanted me to rub her while she was driving...she’d been in like seven accidents already when I met her. I refused to play with her when she was driving. We did it at the horse farm on a bench in the tack room and in a stall, in her truck parked in the woods, at a friend’s house on a beanbag chair, the bathroom counter top, the floor of the apartment the first time we went to see it...and then she backed off a little, but then things started going in the opposite direction and I
could dress up in leather underwear, all lubed up and ready to go,
stimulating myself on the bed waiting for her, but she’d totally ignore me or go out or something, first with that stupid Darren, then later with Andrew. I went to the bar a few times with her when I could, but I was uncomfortable there. It was all drunk-ass rednecks who wanted to beat your ass for accidentally brushing against them when you walked by, underaged girls with fake IDs smoking pot in the parking lot and convincing women to leave the last of their drinks in the restrooms so
they could find them and drink was left in their glasses. Nasty old trailer-trash hags in spandex and polyester with three kids asleep in the parking lot in some beat-up old car while momma smoked and drank and tried t’git herself a man. I definitely didn’t belong at this place. It was full of cigarette smoke and sometimes stupid, overly made-up girls with more hairspray than actual hair would bring their babies in with them and let them crawl towards the dance floor or the billiard tables. Dumbass Gloria’s sister brought one of her kids there one night and some drunk hit the cue ball and it went sailing right in front of the baby’s face, down on the floor, and she didn’t even pick the kid up before it got struck with another ball or stepped on. It was paradise for inbred, toothless, alcoholic drug-addicts lookin’ for temporary mates. I always felt...almost dirty being there. Like I should leave immediately and
shower and read a book and floss. Sometimes some of the girls would hit
on me. I refused to dance with them or buy them drinks. I would have refused if I hadn’t been dating anyone. I wouldn’t have ever gone to such a place if it hadn’t been for Gloria.”
I asked him gently, “Did she fit in there?”
“At first...I thought she was just accustomed to people and places like
that, but of course, it was her home. She started coming home and bragging about some guy hitting on her at the bar, and I’d tell her, ‘Oh, yeah, you’ve gotta be really, really hot for some drunk, possibly high asshole to think you’re sexy, baby! Woo-hoo!’”
“That’s-”
“True. It’s absolutely, one hundred percent true . No wealthy, educated,
or even hygienic men frequented that place. Women, either.”
“How did you react to the hickey you said she got?”
“I was pissed. No...I was more disappointed, really. I thought there was something wrong with her. If you’re gonna cheat, cheat up, not down. Don’t let some nasty redneck paw you between chaws of chewin’ terbakkie, go find some young, horny college boy at least...”
“You knew she was cheating?”
“I knew she’d started drinking. With Andrew. He was an alcoholic. He needed someone he knew with him when he drank, and he seemed to need the people with him to be drinking, also. Andrew would sometimes get home at two in the morning with a bunch of strangers, invite them in, then go to bed. He’d admit he had no idea who they were--they’d given him a ride home. I’d get pissed because of the noise and go sleep in the car. Sometimes he’d make it home, but the door to the apartment would have been left wide open all night long. Sometimes I’d get ready to leave for work and he’d be face-down on the living room carpet, the door open.
Quite often, he’d sleep through his alarm clock. It was a loud one that
had to be manually shut off and we’d lie in bed for two hours, trying to
get back to sleep, wishing he’d regain enough consciousness to shut the damn thing off. He kept getting fired for failing to show up for work. At first, we’d try to wake him for work, but after a while, it just got too annoying. He was always asking us for money, too. He’d need money to
go drinking, then be short on the rent and utilities. He’d lose a job and be short the next month, too. He never bought groceries, but helped himself to the food I bought all the time. I bought it. Gloria only gave me half the money once. Ever. She paid her share of the bills, though.”
“Were you still trying to live off of fifteen dollars worth of food a month?”
“I was,” he grunted. “She wasn’t. Gloria’s grandmother had fed her steak
and chicken and pasta and baked a cake every week. The girl ate like a horse, but gained weight slowly. At first, she didn’t seem to gain weight at all, but when we finally parted she was thirty pounds or so heavier. I’d gained ten pounds and my skeleton wasn’t showing through my skin quite so bad by then. I’d cook steak for her, then Andrew would show up and help himself to my share of the meal. I always dished her
servings first...” Donovan paused, looking pained, looking angry. “I did
so much for her...little things, bigger things. I made so many sacrifices just to try and keep her happy. It wasn’t enough. Andrew would help himself to the food, and I’d get a small portion, or sometimes none at all. I actually started fasting one day a month to
conserve food and money. On days I ate, I’d try to get by eating just one serving of one food a day.”
I asked softly, “And you cooked and served Gloria steak and cake?”
“I paid for it, too. And it wasn’t even enough for her. She’d go to work and have food delivered during her lunch break.” Suddenly, he closed his eyes and bent double. “God...I’m so fucking stupid. She’d bring home these plates of food. Leftovers. Foam cartons of meat and gravy, chicken wings, cold spaghetti and pizza and tell me to feed it to the dogs while she got ready for bed. And I’d eat some of it because I was starving. After a while, I started eating...all of it.”
“You had dogs in the apartment?”
“No. They stayed at her grandma’s. But, she’d give me instructions to bring them treats on my way to the horse farm.”
“You were eating cold leftovers meant for the dogs.”
“It wasn’t bad stuff. Sometimes I’d eat it cold and sometimes I’d re-heat it.”
“When did it occur to you that you were a doormat?”
He sighed, composing his next words for me. “I’d told my co-workers years before that if I ever, ever found someone who liked me, a girlfriend, someone who wanted to be with me and love me at all...that I would gladly lie down before her and let her wipe her feet on me if she wanted to.”
“It sounds noble and sweet...if you’ve never been in a relationship before.”
“Duh,” he said, rolling his eyes. “Of course, you always figure the person who loves you would never let you go to that extreme, or would act the same way towards you.”
“Duh,” I repeated, and he smiled slightly.
“I know I was stupid. Can’t you imagine how wonderful it would be if someone you were nuts about treated you like they were nuts about you, too? But, like most fantasies...” he shook his head in disappointment. “I gave her everything I could give...my time, my money, my love...I did everything she asked me even if it felt wrong...and none of it was good enough. Not a bit of it meant anything to her except that she had a real dumb sucker on the end of her line.” Sighing again, he made a fist and told me, “I hated who I was with her. It wasn’t me. After the hickey, I realized things were going badly out of control. She was obviously
steering us toward a wreck, and I knew I had to jump in and do something
before we lost everything.
“Gloria was a moron. She was about as intelligent as a hyperactive thirteen year old. At first, I started thinking she was some sort of a bitch, but she really didn’t have the gall to be a true bitch. She was furtive and cowardly in her actions. She was nothing but a stupid child, learning nothing from life, heading nowhere fast. I thought I could encourage her to try and better her life, but it was far, far too late. Andrew had her hooked on cheap beer and loud country music. The redneck in her cried for attention, and she decided to nurture it. She fell to the white trash side.” He shrugged, trying not to smile so wickedly. “It was in her blood. She deserves every cotton-pickin’ thing she got out of it.”
I asked him, “How did you avoid becoming what you think of as white
trash or redneck if you were so submerged in it?”
“I wasn’t,” he replied. “I was an anti-social little bastard. I didn’t fit in anywhere. I remember this kid in high school making fun of the way all of us walked to class one day. The teacher allowed it because he mimicked all of us, and we all thought it was pretty damn funny. He said, ‘And this is Donovan’, and he did this walk with his back ramrod straight, moving briskly, head high, eyes forward, almost military but with an up and down movement I later heard was typical of people who lived in big cities. I didn’t have the country slouch, the shuffle. There was nothing relaxed about me. I was always brisk and efficient. People have even tried to place my accent as something New York, or Philly, even a touch British or Irish. I remember kids in public school
thinking I was rich because I used ‘big words’. I enunciate when I speak. I read constantly. I don’t like to waste time or energy. I never got into drugs or alcohol. I never wanted anything to slow me down or make me feel like I’d lost any control-”
“Almost neurotic.”
He nodded. “To many people, I seem neurotic. I check and recheck things.
I’ve been told by co-workers that I take my job too seriously. I’m awful
at parties...I’m always picking up other people’s abandoned plates and
drinks, taking their coats for them, refilling the chip bowl. I always stay afterward and help the host or hostess clean up.”
“When do you relax, Donovan?”
He watched me, eyes bright, jaw tight before answering. “I dunno. I don’t know. I’m tense as hell when I’m painting. I fidget when I’m watching TV. I have tried meditating before...I like it, but I just seldom find time.”
“What do you meditate on?”
“Relaxing,” he admitted. “Just trying to let go of things, trying to stay calm, trying to find sense and purpose in life. Looking for guidance. Seeking reassurance.”
I asked him, “What do you daydream about?”
“It used to be turning invisible, flying, then money, then it was sex...and now it’s just something peaceful. A quiet place to call my
own. Not ever having to move again. A quiet house in a secluded area surrounded by nature, with apple trees and nuts, a pumpkin patch just for fun, a stream I can fish in, a fireplace...I daydream of hours of sweat rolling off my back as I build stamina chopping wood in the fall, keeping a trough near the woods for wild deer to feed from through the winter snows, taking time to sit on my porch in the sunshine watching dragonflies give way to lightning bugs...”
“That doesn’t sound redneck to you?”
He chuckled. “Sure, if I had a couple of dogs chained up in the front yard near the rusted-out carcasses of old cars, was proud of anything with a Confederate flag on it, with a live-in chick who was always pregnant and never cleaned anything. I just want a peaceful place to live all alone. I want calm and quiet in my life. I want the free time to do art at my leisure and sell just enough to keep the place running. I want to grow old knowing what to expect as the seasons change, keeping myself fit with long mountain hikes, enjoying good healthy foods, fresh air, clean water...and then I can die happy.”
Unfortunately, I suspected all Donovan really wanted was the ultimate peace death could bring him, releasing him from all of his past and current nightmares. “What about a wife, or at least a loving companion?”
His features clouded. “Why do you keep trying to bring everything back to sex and relationships? Why is that so important to you? Why does everybody have to breed?”
“Sex and relationships make up the bulk of most people’s lives. Some people are motivated almost entirely by sex, even if it’s just a form of attention from somebody else and nothing more. Most people enjoy getting into relationships-”
“I don’t think that’s true . Most of the people I know have told me they really don’t like their spouses or girlfriends after all, that they wish they were just friends. Everyone I know who has kids has always told me they wish they’d waited to have them, They love the kids to death, but they all wish they’d waited longer to have them. We used to need relationships of some sort to ensure the strength of the tribe, to have plenty of hunters, plenty of defense, plenty of stock to choose from
when breeding. Marriage was developed to help whiny little guys keep their women from being taken by bigger, stronger guys, and also to help create more members of tribes, then later, churches. It became an important part of government as civilization developed because it helped ensure a steady supply of new soldiers. We’re overpopulated right now, nobody likes me that much anyhow, so why should I go out of my way to try and breed with anybody? Breeding doesn’t cement relationships. Giving time and love and money to a kid for eighteen years doesn’t ensure they’ll be grateful for it at all. I’ve never felt loved, or
secure, so could I offer things like that to anybody else? I’ve never had a place I ever felt was my true home, I don’t have time or money. I get sick, I suffer ‘til I can eventually afford a doctor, or until I just get better on my own, but I’m supposed to find a girl and breed with her? For the well-being of any child I might ever possibly create, I cannot in good conscience ever knowingly breed! I’ve never met anybody I ever felt was worth breeding with anyway, and we sure don’t need any
more people like me running around!”
“You’re intelligent, talented as hell, very funny when you wanna be, you have amazing willpower-”
He countered, “I’m a big fucking wimp! I’m flat broke! I have a hair-trigger temper, a facial tick, I’m near-ulcerative from stress.”
“You don’t have a facial tick, do you?”
“Well...it hasn’t surfaced in months. Almost a year now. I developed it late in my relationship with Gloria. She gave me a facial tick. Sometimes, when I’m chronically stressed, my left eye twitches quite noticeably. Mom gave me the ulcer. Now I’m with Donna. God knows what she’ll eventually leave me with.”
“When did you develop the eye twitch?”
“Gloria started blatantly lying about where she was at any given time.
Sometimes she wasn’t showing up for work--she’d spend the night elsewhere. At bars, I guess. Maybe with other guys. She came home one morning from ‘work’ and I could smell dog on her. I asked her what that smell was, and she immediately says, ‘What smell? Oh! I bought some new cologne. Do you like it?’ I told her she smelled like a dog, and she calmed and admitted she’d been over to this guy’s house playing with his pitbull. I asked her who the guy was, and why had she been there. She
told me it was this guy from the bar, but she was vague on why she’d been there. I’d call her work at night and they’d be asking me why she wasn’t showing up anymore. We started arguing about where she was going, and she’d tell me she didn’t have to tell me where she was all the time because she was a twenty-seven year old adult-”
I interrupted with, “Didn’t you say she used to make you produce receipts from gas stations and stuff to prove where you’d been?”
“Yup. I told her that adulthood is a maturity level, not a physical age. She didn’t care. She’d come home for inner, but she’d tell me she wasn’t hungry. She’d tell me she was going to the bar and make me promise I wouldn’t show up there unexpectedly. I already knew she was cheating on me. I wanted to give her the distance she obviously desired, but I wanted to be there once she realized she was making a huge
mistake. Her cousin, Jennifer, was going through problems with her current boyfriend and kept calling the apartment to talk to me about it, and Andrew would overhear part of the conversation and tell me I had no business discussing things like that with her. I don’t think he realized
what we were talking about. I think he told Gloria I was cheating on her with her cousin. I knew she had found someone new because she stopped going to the bar with him. She started just going there on her own. She came home one night and I told her how worried about her I was, how much I loved her and missed doing things with her, and she told me to get out, so I did. I spent the night at a co-worker’s place. The next day, I found out some guy had spent the night in bed with Gloria. Some of his stuff was still there. I called her at work, outraged, and she got upset because she’d hoped I had left for good...even though all my stuff was still there. I told her I paid rent, therefore I had every right to stay there, but she had told this guy I wasn’t returning and he was on his
way to the apartment to wait for her until she got off work. I told her I didn’t appreciate her bullshit, and we needed to talk.
“So, he shows up at the same time as Andrew. I don’t know where he’d been earlier that day, but he didn’t seem happy this dipshit was there. He was a fucking kid, for chrissake! I found out later he used a fake ID to get into the bar! I think he was maybe sixteen! He brought his girlfriend’s fucking baby with him when he came to the apartment to wait for Gloria! It was so fucking bizarre, it was almost hilarious! He
didn’t look at me or speak to me. He just sat on the sofa and waited. I sat there, too, waiting for Gloria to get off work. It was almost like some sort of a sick joke!”
“You didn’t confront him?”
“About what? Doing his homework? He was scared to death. I’m sure Gloria had lied to him about our status together. He was already cheating on his own girlfriend. He was just some stupid, scared kid! He meant nothing to me. Gloria was the one who was lying and cheating on me! You don’t steal a girl from some other guy, they go willingly. You blame the dumbass girl, not the other guy. He’s been lied to, too. What good would me whipping his ass do? I didn’t need a police record. He was nothing but a dumbass little prick. I’m very non-confrontational anyhow. I don’t
like to fight...it triggers...something. I lose control.”
“It triggers..?”
Very quietly, Donovan told me, “I’m scared I’m gonna kill someone. I’ve
been so angry before that I’ve seen squiggly little silver lights in my
eyes. They say it’s blood vessels bursting. I’ve drooled and screamed
unintelligibly. I’ve hurt myself in my rages, but didn’t even realize it ‘til long afterward. Sometimes it’s just so hard to control... I’m scared I’ll go too far and maybe not even realize it. Or, maybe I will. My mother confronted me once when I was getting something from the ‘fridge, and I’d been studying this book on martial arts techniques, and I don’t even know what she was screaming at me about, but she had this
tight grip on my arm and was shaking me, and I looked at her and I saw the fucking target diagram from the book overlaid right over top of her. I instantly knew all the places I could strike her just right and maim or kill her instantly if I wanted to. Scared me to death. That had never happened to me before. She wasn’t even real for a moment...she was just a practice dummy I could test all the different blows on. If she hadn’t released me, I might’ve gone ahead and killed her. You just have no idea how close I came. I dreamed one night that I stood by her bed while she slept and drew back an arrow in my longbow. I was getting ready to release it when I saw the arrow was facing me, not her. I turned it around, but every time I drew back, the arrow faced me again. I woke up
and I knew that one of us was going to be dead very shortly, but I didn’t know which one of us it was going to be. I think I could kill somebody,” he said, looking almost ill. “I think if I really had to, I could do it...or if the right situation ever came up and I got...it got triggered...then I really do think I could just go off, snap, and the other person would wind up dead.”
“Gloria’s lucky you never snapped around her.”
Donovan brightened as he chuckled. “Are you kidding? I hate her guts. I hope she’s dead soon on her own. Nothing would please me more. But she was from the ninth level of hell. My childhood was the tenth, and it’s been the worst so far. Gloria was actually a step up from that. I wanted to beat the living shit out of her more than once and even told her once I wished she was dead, but she was never in any danger of being killed by me. The only one in that kind of danger back then was myself.”
Grab those side-irons, saddle up and join former Civil War sharpshooter Luther Henry for a ride into pure terror, western-style…think ‘Wild Wild West’ meets ‘The X-Files’.
Happy Halloween. A volume of Horrible Haunts & Twisted Tales taken from the horror books La Belle Rouge has written every October for a decade and a half. If you have read her works in the horror genre, you know the invitation is for you to enjoy thr
Pray for the light. Pray that you last that long. The Long Hour Before Light is a classic collection of Horror tales, re-mastered by Champagne Book Group
