Garbage

"Well I'll take you then," I said. "I'm just going out for a drive to clear my head so it's no problem. When you get done, if you can't get a ride from a co-worker just call me and I'll pick you up too."

"But that's too much trouble," she said.

"Honey, the thing about being old and retired is that since you never have anything to do, having ANYTHING to do is exciting," I said.

"Thank you so much," she said. "Without you, I'd be in a lot of trouble."

"Don't mention it," I said. She took my arm as we walked over to my car. As I started the big v8 the car shook with the engine's vibration as if it was waking up from a long sleep. Within seconds I'd backed out of my stall and left the building.

Once we got on the freeway, it took me only 10 minutes to drive downtown. I followed her directions once we got there and put a way point in my GPS.

"There," I said.

"Why'd you do that?" she asked.

"In case you need me to pick you up. I'll be able to find this spot from wherever I am. I have no idea where I'm going," I said.

"I'm sure I'll be able to find a ride so I won't have to trouble you, Mr. Laurel," she said.

"Dahlia, I'm an old man, humor me. Give me your phone," I told her. She smiled and handed me her phone. I punched my number into it and called my iPhone. Then I handed her phone back to her.

"If you need me, you'll be able to call me now," I said. "And it's really no trouble." She got out of the car and I drove off heading back for the freeway.

I loved to just drive. I tended to stay on the freeway as opposed to the streets because I didn't have to stop for traffic lights or pedestrians. I also like to drive fast. Usually it's just me, me car and my stereo, with no distractions to come between us. I took advantage of Arizona's perfect February temperatures and let the warm night breezes blow directly into my car. In exchange, I let the loud ass music from my stereo permeate the silence of the evening as we drove. It was all about numbers.

A man in his 50's driving a car designed to look the way they did 40 years ago, grieved for the ending of his plus 30 year marriage while listening to songs that were over 20 years old with the volume cranked up to 10.

Tonight my album of choice was the Cult's Sonic Temple. Listening to American Horse helped me to both focus my rage and to steel my heart against what was to come. It isn't easy to get past the hurt that finding out that someone you've loved, laughed, argued and fought with for over thirty years had betrayed you.

It really isn't easy but it's not impossible either. I guess what made it possible was the fact that, like I've said before, I love her but I really don't like her. Maybe we really had grown apart over the years and this was just her way of dealing with it. She went to him for things that she either didn't want from me anymore or that she thought I wasn't capable of giving her.

I just couldn't figure out what those things were though. I was in far better shape than Dino even though he was younger. I had far more financial resources and more available time. The only thing I could think of was maybe he was just more willing to put up with her mood swings and bullshit. But even that was hard to believe because when he was done fucking her, he just walked off. He got the wham and the bam, but didn't even offer her the "Thank you ma'am."

Maybe she loved him or vice versa. I couldn't even see that though because they didn't kiss. Not once, she just walked up and started sucking his dick. This obviously wasn't the first time they'd done this. Their movements were too practiced. They'd done this before and probably quite often. Then it hit me. This was why she was taking the fucking garbage out so often now.

She really thought she had me fooled, didn't she. I shook my head and laughed. I'd come to that realization just as Ian Astbury started singing the song's chorus. In my mind I substituted "She's" for "He's" in the lyrics and sang along with Ian and Billy.

"She's gone crazy, completely crazy. Trying to tame the American Horse."

The she I sang about was, of course, Linda. My wife of all these years had flipped her lid if she thought I'd put up with all of this. And, of course, if she thought that being nice to me after weeks of treating me like shit over something as stupid as taking out the fucking trash could somehow control me, then she was definitely crazy. I, like the American horse in the song, could not be tamed or controlled. I'd really started listening to the song because I guess I'd always seen the American Horse as a metaphor for my Mustangs. It was strange though the way the song now reflected my feelings about my dying marriage. And dying it was. There was no way I intended to spend the rest of my life with a woman who neither loved nor respected me. Both she and Dino would get what they deserved.

I took the next freeway exit and got back on in the opposite direction. I was heading for home with a new fire in my mind and a new dose of steel in my backbone just as Fire Woman came on in my stereo. My foot took off, plunging downwards on the gas pedal and the more I pushed it down, the bigger my smile got. In my mind, I started figuring out all of the moves I'd make over the next few days. Each new idea heightened my pleasure, and then an electric shock went through my body. I slowed the car down quickly and pulled off onto the side of the road.

Shit, I thought I'd been having a heart attack but it was only my phone. My stereo was so loud I hadn't heard the ringing, I'd only felt the vibrations.

"Hello," I said.

"Mr. Laurel," sniffled Dahlia. "I'm sorry to bother you. But I really do need that ride," she said.

"I'll be right there, Honey," I said. "Just wait for me by the front door where I dropped you off." I got back on the freeway and roared towards her location with all thoughts of my own misery and revenge gone.

Once again I roared into the night but this time I had a destination in mind. All thoughts about my own pain were banished at least for a while. Dahlia had sounded awful over the phone. That wasn't like her. She was one of the most cheerful people I knew. I wonder what could have happened to upset her.

As soon as I got off of the freeway I started the GPS and quickly followed its spoken directions. Within minutes I was back at the building I'd dropped Dahlia off at. She ran over to the car and got in as if she'd just escaped some kind of nightmare.

"Home?" I asked.

"Yes please," she said in a very tiny voice.

We drove in silence, both lost in our thoughts. About five miles away from home her hand shot out and held mine. I didn't say anything. I was glad to give her some kind of comfort. As I drove into the garage, she let out a sigh of relief for the first time since she'd gotten back into the car.

"Thank you so much," she said.

"Dahlia, it was nothing," I said.

I watched her walk away. She seemed very different. The confident, beautiful young woman I'd seen only a few hours ago had somehow become a very frightened young girl.

"Dahlia," I called after her. She turned to look at me.

"If you need someone to talk to, I'm always available," I said. She nodded her head and headed for her condo.

I gave leaving again serious thought, but decided that more than anything else, I needed sleep. Tomorrow wouldn't be the busy day I'd envisioned. It wouldn't be filled with doing things with Linda, but it would be busy none the less.

I went to my condo and opened the door. Linda was watching TV. She smiled at me as I came in. I walked past her and just went to bed. I couldn't figure out why she was smiling at me so much. It came to me a few minutes later. She wasn't smiling at me, she was laughing at me. She was doing that because she didn't think I knew. Now, I understood why she'd been so fucking nice to me lately. It was all one big fucking joke to her. She'd ordered me to take out the garbage and I'd refused so she tried her favorite little game. She pulled out her "No sex for Stanley," card and I'd called her bluff. I guess It was my way of showing her that her sex as a weapon game couldn't control me anymore. She had to find some way to win so she decided to just do it behind my back.

On the surface, she was being nice, but on the inside she was probably thinking that I'd beg her to take out the garbage before she was done. Meanwhile, she was giving what she should have been giving me to someone else as another form of punishment.

Yep it was one big fucking joke, but we'd see who was laughing when the punch line came.

That night when Linda came to bed she kept moving closer and closer to me in bed and finally rubbing her legs against me. I pretended I was so deeply asleep that it didn't wake me.

"Poor Stanley," she said. "You must really be tired. You'll never know what you missed. I love you Stanley."

Yeah, I do, I thought. I missed a chance at pity sex from a woman I no longer care about. And if this is your idea of love, fucking me after you been with some grease ball, I'll stick with people who hate me. They treat me with more respect.

I woke up the next morning and put my running clothes on. It was generally a little chilly in the mornings so I opted for running tights and a sweat shirt. Just as I was tying up my laces, Linda woke up.

"Stanley, you're awake," she said.

"Yeah," I quipped. "I do that every morning though I'm sure you wish I wouldn't."

"What are you talking about Stanley?" she asked. "I've loved you for over thirty years. Do you want me to make breakfast?"

"Nope, I'm going out to run," I said.

"Why don't you run on your treadmill?" she asked.

"Because it's going to be a nice day," I said.

"Stanley, we live in Arizona. Except for the middle of the summer when the heat is ungodly, they're all nice days. Isn't there something you want to say or do?"

"Yeah," I said. "See you when I get back." As I walked towards the door, she looked shocked. Suddenly some of the pieces started to make sense. Maybe Linda was laughing at me because she didn't think I knew what a whore she was, but there was something else too. Linda somehow knew about the bracelet that I'd bought her. Then I realized it, one of her big mouthed best friends worked at the jewelry store, so Linda probably knew about it before I'd brought the fucking thing home.

She might even know about the dinner too, because I'd talked to the jewelry store owner about my plans. Well, fuck her. She wasn't getting shit out of me. No wonder she had been so busy trying to give me some of her dried up old pussy. Now it made sense.

Well, Linda made sense, I thought as I ran but the whole Valentine's Day thing didn't. Men were expected to go out and spend ridiculous amounts of money on candy, flowers and jewelry, just to get the same thing we got most nights anyway. What was the point? To show someone that we loved them? Why not just say it? So does this mean that women don't love us? Or is it just that they're so terribly fucking insecure that we have to have a special day to prove it.

I wondered if there was a Valentine's Day card for people you didn't love anymore. Maybe I should make them. I could probably get rich.

As I ran around the park, I saw lots of other people out enjoying the sunshine too. There were walkers, skaters, bike riders and other runners. There were different classifications of each. Some were just meandering through the park more intent on enjoying the sunshine than anything else, but a few in each activity group were out for a serious workout.

It was fun just watching the people go by and imagining things about them. There were some really nice looking women out here, but most of them were far too young for me. I just wasn't the sugar daddy type. But in a way, I guess that was one of the things I'd need to start giving serious thought to. When I was done with Linda, what would I do? Shit, I was only in my fifties. Although I'm no spring chicken, I'm still young enough to get married again. But after wasting most of my life on Linda, I just wasn't sure that was even something I should think about.

I did a quick easy five miles, enjoying both the sunshine and pleasantly cool early morning breezes, but also I enjoyed people watching. I decided that from now on unless the weather was bad or I was nursing an injury, I'd run outside. There was no use trying to stay with or spend time with a woman who was cheating on me.

As I walked back towards my condo, I went over again all of the things I needed to do. I needed to see my lawyer about the divorce. I also needed to do some financial things. And lastly, I needed to start looking for another condo or a small house. I was going to either sell the one we were currently living in or just leave it for Linda.

When I walked back in the door Linda was cooking up a storm. She was acting more like it was Christmas than Valentine's Day.

"Are you ready to eat, Honey?" she asked. She'd put on a sheer robe with some incredible lingerie under it. There was a camisole like top that must've had a built in girdle because it squeezed her waist in. She still looked fat, but not as fat. It also pushed her sagging boobs up but that only served to make the stretch marks at the top of them more pronounced. She'd put on make-up and done her hair too.

"I'm going to take a shower and then go out for a while," I said. "Jimmy McDonald is retiring this week. I'm going to take him to lunch along with some of the guys at the plant."

"But Stanley, don't you remember what today is?" she asked.

"Yeah," I said. "It's Wednesday."

"Stanley today is Valentine's Day," she said smiling.

"Oh yeah," I said. "Happy Valentine's Day, but to tell you the truth, it kind of slipped my mind."

She looked at me crazily and then started smiling. "Stanley, do you think I should wear something special later on? I mean did you have plans to go out or something?"

"Nope," I said. "But if you want to go out you can."

"Stanley, I was talking about us going out together," she said. "You know like maybe to a restaurant or a show or something."

"Oh, that's an idea," I said. "But I think that maybe we'll have to wait until the weekend. All the good places are probably booked up by now because it's Valentine's Day." I went into the bathroom to shower and left her standing there with her mouth open.

After I got out of the shower, I dressed and got ready to leave. My lawyer, Ollie, was an old friend. I was sure that he'd see me without an appointment.

I could hear Linda talking on the phone in the other room. "Arlene, he's playing some kind of stupid game. I wish I could just tell him that I already know about the bracelet and the dinner. He's really enjoying himself this time. Yeah, I guess those little things are what spice things up when you've been together as long as we have. So I'll let him have his fun. Ooh, gotta go he's out of shower."

I waited for a few minutes and then loudly picked up my keys and opened the bedroom door.

I walked into Oliver's office less than twenty minutes later. His secretary, an attractive brunette looked up when I walked in.

"Mr. Hardy doesn't have any morning appointments that I know of," she said. "Let me tell him you're here."

She got up and walked into Ollie's office leaving me to sit there and contemplate how youth was wasted on the young.

She ushered me into Ollie's office and asked me if I'd like any type of refreshment. I just smiled and told her I was fine.

I found Oliver inside his large office playing with one of those putting trainers.

"It's not going to help, you idiot," I said. "You can barely drive the ball 80 yards on a good day. Improving your putting isn't the problem. You need to work out and get some strength back into those arms."

"Shut the hell up Stanley," he smirked. "Just because you don't have a job, doesn't mean you can come over here and harass hard working people while they're doing theirs."

"Oh please, excuse me," I said sarcastically. "I didn't know I was in the office of Oliver Hardy professional golfer. I thought this was my crooked lawyer's office."

"So what do you need this crooked lawyer to do sir?" he asked, with exaggerated formality. He hadn't taken his eye off of his golf ball since I entered. He'd lined his shot up and lifted his club.

"Just arrange my divorce," I said, just as he swung the club. His shock at what I'd just said caused him to swing much harder than he'd intended. The ball rocketed across the floor, bounced off of the ramp built into his putting green and flew across the room. It bounced off of and cracked the LCD computer monitor on his desk.

"What?" he said. Oliver had been the best man at my wedding. He'd been to my house so often that it was almost as if he lived there too. He was my daughter's godfather and the executor of my will.

"God damn it, Stanley," he said. "Quit joking around. You owe me a new monitor. I almost had a heart attack."

"I'm not joking, Ollie," I said.

"But why, Stan?" he asked. He looked almost as bad as if it had been him who was going through it. "All marriages go through their ups and downs. You just have to make it through a rough patch. It'll get better. Anything beats the alternative, Stan."

"Oh," I said. "I thought watching her fuck the guy who does the maintenance for the condo complex out in the alley by the trash was as bad as it could get. So go ahead, tell me what's worse."

"Shit!" he said. "You have to get rid of that whore. I didn't know. Who knows what kind of disease she could give you. And I'm not talking about STDs; there are all kinds of scary bacteria around garbage. Shit. Whatever you do, don't have sex with her."

"So tell me Ollie, how do I get this started?" I asked.

"It's already done," he said. "You hired me. I'll start drawing up papers. We'll outline a settlement that's fair to both of you. Then we have her served and she gets a lawyer and we all sit down and work something out. Most of these things never go to court."

"What do you mean fair to both of us?" I asked. "I've heard bad things about divorces."

"Well, shit Stan, you guys have been married for what, thirty years?" he asked. "You'll probably have to split everything 50/50, no matter who did what." I looked at him like he was crazy.

"Fuck that," I said. "I thought you were supposed to be the crooked lawyer. I could get that kind of shit from the internet. Stop thinking about this like BOTH of us are your friends. We need to come up with a way where that bitch doesn't get a quarter."

"Stanley," he said, looking at me.

"Oh alright," I said. "She can have a quarter, but no more."

"Stanley, that's illegal," he said. "Even in the worst cases, a judge would probably give her at least forty percent of your assets. A quarter is only twenty-five percent."

"No fucking way," I said. "You've got your numbers wrong. I was talking about twenty five cents, not twenty five percent of the money I worked my ass off all of those years for while she sat on her fat ass eating bon-bons."

"Before I'd give her that much money I'd just walk the fuck away. There is no way I'm going to pay her for fucking me over."

He looked at me like it was the first time he'd ever seen me.

"Let's start looking for loopholes," I said. "Can I legally sell my condo?"

"Is her name on the paperwork from when you bought it?" he asked.

"Nope," I said.

"Then I guess technically you could. But if we did ever go into court over this, it could get really messy."

"Is there any law that says that two married people have to live together?" I asked.

"No," he said. "It is assumed that you would want to live with the person you marry but there's no actual law that forces you to live with anyone."

"Is there any law that says I have to divorce her?" I asked.