February Sucks: Same Old Me (2of4)

"It's not like..."

"Still Talking. Or, hey, maybe the cheese slips off my cracker. I get drunk and punch her in the face. I break her nose and put her in the hospital. She loves me! I love her! And she'll get over it, so there's no problem, right? I said I'm sorry! So, tell me; should she forgive me? Should she accept domestic abuse because of love and kids and not breaking up the family yadda yadda? Isn't that the kind of thing that gets thousands of women killed every year?"

"Jim..."

"Shoosh. Linda wants to make me accept what I should not accept. She's treating me with complete disregard because she's selfish and thoughtless and she figures she can just get away with it. She's going to invoke our history, our responsibility to the children, all of it. She'll use her tears and my sympathy as tools to manipulate me. She'll use my love for her as leverage to make me endure the damage she's doing.

"That is intolerable. I will not stand for it. I will not accept it. And all this talk about 'he's upset but he'll get over it' and trying to 'get him back under control' and 'make sure he doesn't do anything stupid' is enabling that Abuse. So, if you want to call yourselves my friends, you'd all better shut the fuck up with that shit right now and allow me to protect myself from further harm."

I dabbed the end of my french dip in the au jus and took a bite. They really do a good french dip here.

"That is where I'm at right now. And that's what you can tell my estranged wife Linda."

"Estranged? Really, Jim, this is just a fight. A disagreement. Surely, you don't..."

"Hang on Helen. I said it and I meant it. I'm pursuing a divorce. I've already consulted with a lawyer who's drafting a joint petition. I'm not suing her for divorce, we're going to do it together because we'll agree, or else we won't do it. I'm not going to fight her, but it IS on the table. Yes, this is estrangement. The relationship we had, the one I THOUGHT I had, is over. Done. Finished. I'm never going to look at that woman the same way again. That's just a fact. Whatever else happens going forward, well, I'm still working on that, but there are no guarantees. None."

"Jim, I understand," said Andy. "And I can see that part of the problem is that you feel like you're not being taken seriously. The thing is, you're right. Linda wasn't taking you seriously on Friday, and we weren't either. Some of us still aren't," He cocked his eyebrows and looked meaningfully around the table, "but we're going to have to. This clearly isn't just a bump in the road. You're not throwing a tantrum or having a little pity party. It's demeaning and disrespectful for anyone to suggest that's what's happening. All those things you said when you left, when you made us think about it happening to each of us, well, that cast a lot of light on the situation.

"But I don't think the women in our group really appreciated the kind of impact this has if you're a man, though. That part hasn't sunk in, and maybe it never will. This kind of thing is a direct blow to our self-esteem. There could hardly be a more humiliating or disrespectful thing. Getting hit by a car, getting into a fight, losing your job, well, those aren't personal. We're expected to tough that kind of thing out. But this. He took your wife like he was entitled to her. She turned her back on you like you didn't exist. That's personal. That's a betrayal. That's an insult. That rips out the roots of everything it means to be a man in our society. We're expected to be tough. Secure, Self-reliant. Strong. But she took all of that away in an instant, leaving you with nothing but the laughter and the pity at that table. I know I couldn't have handled it. I'd have been unable to function. It would take me years to get over it, if I ever even could. A lot of guys might have walked in front of a truck or thrown themselves off a tall building. Most guys would crawl into a bottle for a while, and many of them wouldn't be able to crawl back out. I've gotta say, I am amazed you're able to hold it together right now. I really admire that. You deserve nothing but respect from all of us."

"Hear hear," said Gus. "Yeah, I don't think the girls know how this lands. There's a significance they don't understand. Especially not Dee. And Jim, I want to apologize right now for my complicity. I guess I wanted to be on the side of not rocking the boat. I wanted to stay in my own wife's good graces, but Andy's right, they don't get it. I know a guy named Mike. His wife 'traded up.' She had an affair and left him for an older, richer, more powerful man. He had a nervous breakdown. Lost his job, his house, all his money. He's living in his sister's basement and barely speaks a word to anyone anymore. He doesn't work, he doesn't do anything. That woman might as well have put a bullet in his brain."

"But Linda didn't..."

"HELEN." I said. "Linda had an old boyfriend in high school. Don Snyder. He died two years ago. Killed himself, overdosed on booze and pills on Valentine's Day. Do you remember her talking about that?" Helen was frozen, like a deer stuck in the headlights when I snapped at her. She gave a careful nod. "He died of a broken heart. He was hurt. Some woman hurt him, and he died from it. Okay? He was Unmanned. Defeated. Broken. It killed him. Hear me? Killed Him." She nodded again. "My father, Helen. My dad died six years ago, right when Emma was born. Prostate cancer. It was not quick. He'd been wasting away for a long while before that, like four or five years. Towards the end, he was in a lot of pain, and there wasn't a lot left of him. My mother."

I couldn't speak for a moment. Something lodged in my throat. It wasn't food. Everyone was staring at me while I worked it loose.

"My mother took up with another man before he passed. She took comfort where she could, because Dad wasn't good for that anymore. His sickness was a drain on her, and she needed all the strength she could get. Anyway. That killed my father. He knew. He was a sensitive, insightful man. She couldn't hide it, and it broke him. He wasted away even faster. He didn't last but a week after he knew."

I grabbed a napkin and discovered my face was wet. How did that happen?

"So when you talk to Linda about this conversation, please remind her that this kind of thing kills people. People actually die from this kind of shit. Harmless Fun. Just Sex. Fuck you. Fuck Her. People are dead. Her old boyfriend is dead. My father is dead. And the man Linda knew as her husband? He's dead, too. I'm just a body that hasn't stopped moving yet. If I'm lucky, I'll find another purpose and have another life. But make no mistake- the life I used to have is over."

Helen was actually shaking a little.

"Ordinarily, I'd swing by here with a smile and ask 'How's Everything Tasting?'" said Lynn, over my shoulder. "But I get that you guys are working some things out. Can I do anything for anybody? Can I get you anything? Here, let me refill those," she said as she grabbed a few of our glasses.

"Actually, Lynn, is it?" Andy piped up. "How well do you know Jim?"

"He's a regular. I know him well enough to smile when he comes in. I know his wife, er, however that's going to work, too. Jim comes in for lunch sometimes and brings her along for dinner on the weekends here and there. They're nice. I never would have guessed they'd have this kind of trouble."

"It's just like you looked like you had something to say a while ago."

"Ah. Yeah. Okay. Hang on, I'll be right back." She was. We didn't say much. Helen was off in her own little world, no longer trying to make a case to get me back on the program. "All right. I was going to just share this with Jim, but I guess it isn't too personal. Just a kind of a general observation. Jim. Do you want me to just say it to your friends, too?"

"You might as well."

"Okay. Thanks. You asked a question. You wanted to know if 'women are just like this.' If we'd all just flounce off with a sufficiently attractive stranger. Right?" I nodded. She nodded back.

"Frankly, yes. We are. But it's not just women. Men are like that, too. I will tell you this: anyone, man or woman, who is physically capable of the sex act, is capable of cheating. The smart ones recognize it and take precautions."

"You mean, precautions not to get caught?"

"No, I mean precautions to prevent themselves from straying. Precautions to avoid falling to temptation. There's two ways to do it, and you need to do both. A two-fold strategy.

"First, understand that, under the right circumstances, most people would cheat. That's just a fact. It's like eighty-five percent of men and sixty-eight percent of women, I think it's something like that, provided they're sure they'll never get caught. So, if you don't want to cheat, you need to stay clear of those 'right circumstances.' You know, like how you'd avoid drinking and driving. Don't put yourself in situations where it might happen, and create an 'out' for yourself in case you get close. A lot of it's pretty obvious. Don't flirt with strangers or let them flirt with you. Don't go out with the boys or out with the girls to the bars where everybody's drunk and pawing at each other. Don't develop emotional attachments with co-workers or clients or bosses. Don't call up old lovers or love interests. Don't tempt fate, you know? But a lot of people aren't smart like that. They figure 'I can handle it,' or 'what's the harm?' while they're all distracted by the energy and attention and affirmation they get from attractive people who excite them, and the next thing they know, they've got someone else's hands down their pants and they're not sure how it happened.

"The second way is to boost up your partner. Go out of your way to think about the things you like about them, what attracted you in the first place, the qualities you admire. You take the time to remember the good times and plan for more of them. You check in with them and let them know they're valued and appreciated and loved. Convince yourself you've got a good thing with them, and that's why you're together. Sell yourself on them. Make it your business that they know how much they mean to you.

"The 'out' you need to create for yourself is like a final test. See, when you find yourself in the danger zone, you've got a choice. You're about to do something that your partner definitely would not like if they saw it. This is called 'the wife test' or 'the husband test.' You can either go ahead and do the thing, figuring that what your spouse doesn't know won't hurt them, or you can NOT do the thing BECAUSE it would hurt them if they knew about it. The first choice fails the test. It's cheating, and it always leads to more cheating. The easiest way to fail is to not be thinking about your partner. The second choice passes the test. It's frustrating, but congratulations, you're a good person, and it's worth it in the long run. The easiest way to pass is to ALWAYS be thinking about your partner."

I kind of goggled at that.

"Wow. Uh. I guess that makes a lot of sense. I wasn't expecting you to say quite so much. But none of that really applies here. I mean, the Asshole just walked up to Linda like he owned her and she just fucking left with him. There wasn't even any flirting. She went to that club with me, promising to dance ONLY with me, and the whole thing happened right in front of everybody. It's like he found her magic slut switch."

"Right. Okay, so there's an explanation for that, but I need to make the rounds. I'll be back in a minute, okay?"

I nodded and she whisked off to check her other tables. The place was pretty full for a Sunday, and I'm sure she really couldn't spare the time to talk. I'd have to tip her twice as much. She dashed into the kitchen and came back straight away.

"Right. Well, Linda may not have put herself in a position to cheat, like physically or socially, and she didn't already have her lover picked out, but mentally, I'm sure she was primed for it. She had to be. It sounds to me like she fell into a classic trap. Y'see, everyone in our society dreams of escape. Every kid wants their Golden Ticket to Willy Wonka's chocolate factory. Everyone's still waiting for their letter from Hogwarts. Who hasn't imagined that their closet might turn into a gateway to Narnia?

"Our fantasies break us away from the everyday, from the mundane. You know that song, the Pina Colada song? It's actually called 'Escape.' It's about a guy who's getting tired of his lady and takes an ad out in the personals, looking to have an exciting affair. The woman who answers his ad turns out to be his girlfriend, who wanted to step out on him, too. This is something that lies deep within each and every one of us. When it looks like those fantasies might be real, some of us can't resist, especially while we're young. And yes, every young woman, specifically, dreams of being swept away from everything she knows, to be claimed by a powerful man for a romantic adventure. It's an old, old story. Linda just got caught up in the myth. It's not hard to understand.

"Your wife is a very attractive woman. She turns a lot of heads when you guys come in here together, but I don't think she's ever noticed. But then she's not very self-confident about her attractiveness, is she? Does she tend to say 'I'm just plain old me,' or something like that? Gently deprecating herself? When you tell her she's pretty, does she shrug it off?"

I was amazed that Lynn had read Linda so well. But then, she's a veteran bartender and very good at her job, so I guess it came with the territory. I told her she was right.

"Think back to high school. The star quarterback invites the plain girl, or the girl who thinks she's plain, to the prom. What are the chances she'll say no? To that, or to anything that he might want?"

"If the plain girl is already married to someone else, I'd have to say NO. Even in high school, if she's got a steady boyfriend, that's a serious betrayal. Shouldn't that count for something?"

"Sure. Unless you're immature. I once saw something from an interview with a one hundred year old man. They asked what it was like to be that advanced in age and he said 'I don't know, I've always been the same age in my head- it's just my body that's aged around me.' Or something like that. It stayed with me. So my best guess is that the 'always the same' Linda in the body of that woman who's married with kids? She's stuck at the effective age of about fourteen or fifteen. She's insecure about her worth and her place in the world, she depends on others for attention and approval, and she feels like an unappreciated Cinderella waiting for her prince to come."

"SHIT." I said.

"Gotta run. I'll be back." With that, she whisked off to tend to her other customers. My head was still spinning from all this new perspective.

"That woman," said Gus, "has got to be an excellent bartender."

Andy nodded. "It's like being a clinical psychologist. It's like she was inside Linda's head."

"I've spent the past two days wondering what the fuck was going on in that head," I said, "and I came up completely blank. It's like a black box. I had no idea. I had no fucking idea. And Lynn read her like a street sign, just from a few snippets of conversation today and all the times she's ordered the tomato soup." I shook my head. "Sorcery."

"Wait, Jim," said Helen, "How did you not know Linda's like that? It's perfectly obvious."

"Not to me."

"Well, duh, because you're a man. But still. After ten years together, you'd think you'd have a clue."

"Linda has always behaved like an adult."

"Yes, but it's an act. She might look like an adult and function as an adult, but the waitress is right. She thinks like a teenager."

"Not just a teenager," said Rose, "a teenage girl."

Gus, Andy, and I all groaned out loud at the same time.

"They're the worst," said Andy.

"The absolute worst. Level ten," added Gus. "It's completely unfair. When boys are teenagers, we're simple creatures. All we want to do is eat, sleep, and fuck. Maybe compete with each other. That's it. Nothing else registers. We're no more complicated than bacteria. We only gain subtlety as we get older and our character flaws catch up with us. Girls are the opposite. They start out as a mess of ferocious contradictions and get more reasonable and less complicated as they age. It's completely unfair when you're young."

"Fairness? Linda has no grasp of the concept right now," I said. "Along with basic empathy, and appreciation of the consequences of how she affects other people. God Damn It. She is a fucking teenager."

"Yeah, it's even worse than that," said Rose. "Linda is actually what, thirty?"

"Thirty-one."

"Yeah. She's peaking. All the girls in our little cohort are. You guys remember being, what, seventeen, eighteen?"

We nodded.

"Boys that age have their hormones in a state of constant agitation. You were horny all the time, for like, no reason. You could barely think of anything else. Remember?"

Gus nodded. "God, yes. I got erections in the middle of the day from just being within six feet of a girl. Or even imagining that I was."

"We called them NRBs," chimed in Andy. "No Reason Boners. We had to keep our shirts untucked, or carry a notebook or a backpack up against our crotches to hide the tent pole effect."

Rose continued, "That's the age when men are in their sexual prime. Sex on the brain all the time, the body is always ready to go at the drop of a hat. Now, guess when womens' sexual prime happens. Go on, guess."

"I think I know this one." Horror gripped me as I said it. "It's like... now, for you guys, isn't it? Late twenties to early thirties."

"Yep. Our biological clocks are ringing and our bodies want to make babies. So not only does Linda have the mind and attitude of a teenage girl, she's got the libido of a teenage boy."

The implications rolled over me like a tsunami.

"It's the perfect storm, isn't it? She's horny as all fuck, but frustrated and conflicted about it. Her priorities are all over the place, she's been stymied and distracted for the entire month of February, and at the end of it she spends DAYS teasing both of us in anticipation of the big release, so she's all primed to go off. She makes herself all beautiful in that fucking blue dress, but she doesn't get the affirmation she needs from me because I don't count- I'm just her dumb husband who's obliged to say that kind of thing. My approval just gets brushed aside with her insecure 'same old me' attitude.... and then Asshole swoops in and activates her secret juvenile Cinderella escape fantasy. MOTHER FUCKER. It's the magic slut switch."

"Everybody's got one." Lynn had cruised back over to our table on her way somewhere else with a tray of food. "Some are better guarded than others, and timing is everything. Marc LaValliere is just really talented at finding them. He's famous for it. A good predator chooses the right prey."

"Wait, what? Predator? I thought he was the Hometown Hero. All around Great Guy. Isn't that what he's known for?"

"Please. He's got a press agent, for god's sake. Spin doctors, stuff like that. He's a notorious poon hound, and I hear he likes 'em married."

"You hear?"

"Sweetie, I'm a bartender." She hurried off to deliver her tray.

"I suppose in addition to being clinical psychologists, bartenders must also be experts on the inside scoop about what goes on in town. They'd be great gossip columnists or sociologists" observed Andy.

"Fuck."

I was lost in my own little world at that point. Up until then, Linda had been completely unfathomable to me. With this series of insights, that was no longer true, but I still didn't know what to do with the information. None of it translated into anything more useful than 'Linda is simply out of her damned mind.'