Poor Hunter

I did get a sizeable payout from Metro. I had been brought up to have modest tastes and live within my means, so money was never a big factor or concern in my life. I accepted the money because even I knew a jury does not look kindly on any government organization that trumps up charges after falsely arresting, and beating a handicapped orphaned, (handicapped? Yes, Asperger is considered a disability), plus an honor scholarship student, while he is delivering meals to senior citizens.

++++

A week later Dawn showed up at my place.

"Come on, Anthony." Dawn said surveying my small accommodations. "I heard you got your check from Metro today. Let's blow this dump, go out and celebrate."

I looked around my one room efficiency. "Dawn I have a bed, desk, and small eating area, it may be a bit spartan, but it is clean and functional, certainly not a dump."

"Fine." Dawn said exasperated. "You live in a F'n Taj Majhal, now take me out someplace nice. I 'm worth it and you and me gonna PARTY tonight!"

+++++

"I can't eat any of this." Dawn exclaimed, throwing down the menu.

We were at one of the town's best steak houses. A classic establishment that my grandparents would take me to celebrate, if the occasion was special enough, and we had the funds. It had the best beef, plus crabs or lobster, when in season.

I looked at Dawn over the menu. "What is wrong with the choice of meat?"

She gave me a disgusted look. "I am a vegetarian." Pointing at the menu, Dawn said. "Is there anything in this restaurant to eat that did not die a horrible death!"

"You're a vegetarian?" I asked, and she nodded.

I recalled something my Grandfather once told me. "You know Dawn, the original meaning of the word 'Vegetarian' is 'Poor Hunter'."

Dawn pointed her finger at me. "You don't know anything. Nature did not intend us to eat hamburgers."

Again I quoted my grandfather. "If Nature did not want us to eat hamburgers, why did they make cows so easy to catch? You never hear of cheetah burgers."

Dawn looked annoyed. "Humans were never meant to eat meat. Our prehistoric ancestors had a diet almost completely of wild grains, fruits, and vegetables."

I gave Dawn a puzzled look. "But you are not living in prehistoric times. If so you would be dead, because the average lifespan of a cavewomen was less than twenty years of age. The cave men got to live an extra five years longer."

She waved her hand at me. "No one seems to know that our ancient cave dwellers were only successful less than 10% of the time on a hunt. Hunting was dangerous, you could break a bone, twist an ankle or be injured in the hunt. A fast way to a quick death with no medical care. Without greens and tubers, they would have starved."

"Dawn you are scared of spiders, I cannot picture you eating termites."

She made a face. "Anthony that's gross!"

Putting my hands together I continued. "People living in the caves got most of their protein by eating insects. Termites were plentiful, and are 38% protein. One particular Venezuelan species, Syntermes aculeosus, is 64 percent protein. Termites are also rich in iron and calcium, essential fatty acids and amino acids such as tryptophan

Dawn dismissed me by waving the menu. "People need to get back more to basics, like our ancestors. Not all this industrialized farm crap."

Putting down my menu I continued. "So we should not use penicillin, or antibiotics? Do surgery without anesthetics? Go back to where the main killer of woman was childbirth?"

"No." Dawn replied. "We got to be more self-reliant." She waved her arm around the room full of diners. "It bothers me no end what all these people are eating."

I tried to consider her point of view, but it seemed silly. "Dawn what other people eat bothering you is like getting mad at someone eating a donut because you are on a diet."

Dawn laughed and tossed the menu on the table. "I'll have a salad, but the dessert is on me at your place."

"Are you sure?" I asked, turning the menu to show Dawn the pictures of various desserts. "Tonight's special is homemade Key Lime Pie with whipped cream, and I cannot think of a better idea for dessert."

++++

OK I was wrong. Dawn's idea of dessert was MUCH better than the Key Lime pie. Besides, I was never allowed to have Key Lime Pie three times in one evening.

"You have not been in relationships with a lot of women, have you?" Dawn said, snuggling up to me, as we lay naked on my bed.

I held up one finger. Dawn looked at me, and sighed. "That's OK, I have only had three serious relationships myself."

"But I had sex more than once." I protested, thinking of my escort lady friend.

"Oh you mean sex!" Dawn exclaimed. "That is different. I have had sex with more than three guys."

"How many?" I asked.

"I do not recall." She said looking at the ceiling. "It's not like I hook up with a guy every month."

"That is Okay if you do not remember, I can do the math for you." I offered. "You started sexual activity at seventeen, as is the norm -correct?"

Dawn hesitated. "Sure, let's say seventeen..."

I began to do the numbers. "A sexual partner every other month for five years, equals 30 men. Wow, that is a lot of guys." Pausing for a second, I added. "I do not think I even know thirty guys."

Dawn threw a pillow at me. "That cannot be right."

"Well the average female has 23.9 sexual partners before she is wed, even though most women will only admit to under ten partners. The average age of todays bride is 29, you can look it up yourself. Therefore your behavior would be considered to be 1.25 times more promiscuous than the median. At your age and on the current trajectory you will have sex with over 70 males before you marry. That is well above the baseline." I looked at her. "Do you consider yourself a slut?"

Dawn narrowed her eyes at me. "Are you calling me a slut! We just screwed, and now you are calling ME a slut!"

I was confused. "I am sorry, I am not calling you a slut, merely asking a question. You seem to be upset, and I did not mean to upset you. I tried to explain at dinner about my condition. The unspoken emotional subtext that most people take for granted is mysterious and invisible to me. My obliviousness leads to bad feeling, and I never know exactly how and where I went wrong."

Dawn relaxed, putting her finger on my chest. "That's alright Anthony. I am not a slut." She started moving her head down my body. "But I can be your slut."

++++

It seemed logical that if Dawn was my girlfriend then she should be living with me. It followed we could not live together in my small place, so I got a bigger domicile. Fortunately the payout from Metro allowed me to afford larger quarters. Money was never a big priority for me, but Dawn seemed to enjoy all the things money bought.

I was majoring in mathematics and accounting. I loved math, but Grandpa said I should have a trade and people always needed bookkeepers. I am not sure what Dawn was studying in school. She always was involved with some rally or protest on campus, be it 'Gays for the Metric System', 'Indigenous Muppet Rights', or 'Stopping Condom Testing on Animals'. I never bothered to keep them straight, but Dawn reveled in every demonstration and march.

But if it made her happy it made me happy. On that note I was determined to please Dawn in bed, so I did what I always did, and conducted extensive research about everything sexually related to the pleasure of women. I examined Internet forums, magazine articles, videos, and best-selling books, I even paid for a session to quiz my escort 'lady friend'. NO, I did not do anything with her -I had a girlfriend now!

++++++

"Wow!" Dawn exclaimed, flushed in the face and falling back on our bed. "What made you come up with that!"

I put the 'toy' back in the bedside drawer before answering. "The clerk at the Pleasure Palace recommended it. She even brought me in the back room so she could demonstrate on herself how to use it correctly. My research investigations showed it was one of the most highly rated units."

Dawn looked at me hard for a minute before she burst out laughing. "YOU are the only guy in the world who can say with a straight face that watching a strange girl masturbate is research -and I believe you."

++++

Dawn became pregnant, which upset me. Not that she was with child, but because it deviated from the linearity of our relationship. Dawn seemed unconcerned that the conventional path was courting, living together, marriage, THEN children.

It took me two weeks to convince Dawn of my logic and get her to the courthouse. It was a great year for me as I had two wonderful things happen. Dawn married me, and most important the birth of our daughter.

The birth of our daughter brought our first real fight. Dawn wanted to have a home birth with a midwife.

"Anthony I do not want our daughter born in some place full of sick people. I want to have our child here in a place of love, near the bedroom where she is going to live and the kitchen where she is going to grow."

"Dawn you do not even like to cook in the kitchen, yet you want to birth a child here?"

With a baby girl in my life everything seemed great. I again researched everything about proper parenting. I badgered the best child psychologists and child care professionals the University had for advice and information. Dawn became upset at my constant corrections to what was obviously her incorrect mothering of our daughter. Soon Dawn just left the child's raising primarily to me. I do not mean Dawn was not a good mother, she just tired of me always taking our daughter to the zoo, recital, aquarium, and such. I felt it was my duty to expose my baby and stimulate her, besides Dawn was still involved in her campus activities.

+++++

The next decade seemed to fly by. I ended up working on Wall Street after I got my Doctorate. A big dog from one of the major hedge funds was recruiting from diverse fields such as Mathematics, Theoretical Physics, and Engineering. He wanted people who were, as he put it "..brainaics who can take 2 + 2 and have it equal 5."

I found this great fun, a giant three dimensional puzzle. On Wall Street the way the various accounting and investment rules were written, we could make 2+2=9.

We all got paid a buttload of money for this Rubix Cube arithmetic, but I did not care about the bonuses, raises and salary, as I never cared about being rich. Truth has often said a poor man wants to be rich and a rich man wants to be king, but a king is not satisfied until he has everything. Besides this Wall Street stuff was a big rigged shell game as far as I was concerned. However, if the money made Dawn and my daughter happy, I was happy.

It never crossed my mind that Dawn would cheat on me. We both had some late nights, but Dawn continued her activist work, now on bigger scale. This time she was saving the world environment. For a time, she was big on saving endangered animals.

"You do know Anthony that man is the reason whales are almost extinct. Man is most dangerous predator the Blue Whale face."

"Dawn while that is a true statement, it is not entirely accurate. They are the largest mammal on the planet, what other predators do Blue Whales have? Pelicans with machine guns? Lions on jet skis?

I could not see her logic in climate change either.

"Dawn do you see anything odd about you driving to a 'Save the Planet' rally in a massive Cadillac Escalade?"

Dawn gave me a look I could not decipher. "Anthony, it is a hybrid, they are very fuel efficient. For example when I come to a stop in the SUV for more than a few seconds, the engine shuts off to save fuel."

"Dawn, my grandfather must have been way ahead of his time, years ago he had car whose engine shut off whenever he came to a stop for more than a few seconds also." I replied.

"Anthony, you do not understand, this is about our carbon footprint."

I pulled up a webpage on my laptop. "The resources that went into your Cadillac Escalade, not to say what is needed to dispose of the hybrid battery, create a massive carbon imprint the size of Bigfoot."

Dawn, threw up her hands before answering. "What you want your wife and child to drive around in a Volkswagon Jetta?"

"Well they are one of the safest cars, and the diesel model far exceeds your SUV hybrid mileage, plus..."

We never really fought, I could see no point, but I was unable to see why Dawn needed so much 'stuff'. She would buy these ugly dresses with designer names, and always hold them up saying.

"This looks so much better on."

I thought "On what? On fire?" but knew better and held my tongue.

When Dawn delivered us a son, I was over the moon with joy. I do not know who was more happy with the new arrival of the new boy, his older sister, or me.

However the housing bubble burst a few years later and that is when life hit the skids- at least as far as Dawn was concerned.

+++++

Like most Americans I did not get a bailout from the government. That was only for the CEOs and financial institutions that were "...too Big to Fail."

I ended up at a small town bank far from Wall Street in the southern part of the country. My salary was a fraction of my former pay, and the house we bought was almost underwater as soon we bought it.

Gone were the European vacations, Private clubs, private schools, spas, Tutors, Cadillac Escalades, and Starbucks was history.

I was proud how my children adapted. My daughter loved the public school and my young son was thrilled to have a big yard to play in. My job at the small bank was not as challenging as Wall Street, but the people were friendly.

However even I could tell Dawn was not happy. I did not know how unhappy Dawn was until I walked into our bedroom eight months after we moved, to see her packing clothes into a suitcase.

"Dawn it looks like you are packing for a trip. I do not get my one week vacation until I am at the bank for a year."

Dawn grabbed a second suitcase from the closet. "They need me in Manhattan Anthony, I am going to help out with the 'Occupy Wall Street' protest."

"Dawn we cannot leave now. It is the middle of the school year, I am just over my probation period at work. Besides our bank accounts are pretty low."

Dawn never stopped folding her clothes. "I don't care, 'Occupy Wall Street' is a huge event, they need me. I will only be gone a few weeks."

"Dawn, we need you here. What about our children?"

"Do not be such a baby, Anthony. Our daughter is old enough to take care of herself after school until you get home. I arranged to have that teller at the bank with the kid our boys age...Janet, I think, was her name, her babysitter will watch over both her boy and ours until you pick him up."

Dawn turned to face me before speaking. "During war, families in the military have to endure long separations when soldiers are called up into battle."

"Dawn, you are not a soldier in the military, there is no state of war, 'Occupy Wall Street' is not a battle. And no one called you up."

Dawn waved her hand at me and continued packing. "Anthony, they need me, it's my calling to help lead them."

"Dawn you cannot lead from a crowd. A well known psychologist, Dr. Goncalo, has proven the sensation of belonging to a group of like-minded people activates the pleasure centers of the brain If the majority has done your thinking for you, you probably should move on to something else. Basically it showed people don't want to think."

Dawn slammed the suitcase shut. "Don't fight me on this Anthony. You are not going to win this fight."

I sat down on the bed and tried to reason with her. "Either spouse can win a fight in a marriage if they wish to go far enough. It is called a divorce."

She turned from her suitcase. "We ARE NOT going to be one of those 50% marriages that end in divorce."

"Well Dawn, the other 50% of marriages end in death, as in till death do us part"

I tried to make Dawn understand the foolishness of her trip. "Look, the tires on your car will not make it to New York. I was planning to replace them next pay period."

Dawn hefted her suitcases off the bed, walking toward the door. "I am not taking the car. I am catching a ride with a guy I met online blogging about the movement."

"And how are you going to pay? We barely have enough to cover living expenses this month."

Dawn just shrugged. "He said we could work something out."

For the first time in my life I did not have any answers. I sat stunned speechless and did not even hear the car that drove Dawn away. I do know she did not even kiss her children goodbye.

++++

I could not wrap my mind around Dawn's leaving. I was honest with the kids that Mommy was at rally up north and I did not know how long she would be gone.

However the media had a field day when they found that there was a protestor at Occupy Wall Street that was married to a banker. Dawn was dubbed "Occu-Mom". Even in our small town this kind of coverage had consequences.

"Dad" my son asked me. "What's a hoe?"

"Son, a hoe is a type of rake used in gardening." I replied.

My son looked confused. "Why would all the kids at school tell me Mom is a garden rake?"

Just than my daughter came in. "It's 'Ho' you idiot, not 'hoe'. You know, like in whore."

My son turned to me. "Dad what is a whore? And why is Mom a whore?"

"Son your Mom is not a whore, and that is a bad word. Now go outside and play until dinner."

After my son left the room my daughter, sat down heavily in a chair. "Dad you gotta stop Mom. She is ruining my reputation at school. Do you know what people are saying! I hate to think what they are thinking about us."

I put my hand on her shoulder. "Honey we cannot stop what people are saying, and if you knew how little people even think about us you would not be concerned."

"DAD!" she said with all the drama a teenager can muster. "Don't you care that Mom is shacking up with some strange guy in a tent! It all over the internet."

I shrugged trying to hide my feelings. "If it bothers you so much, do not go on line."

"DADDY all my friends keep tweeting me links to the blog. It's gross, You gotta do something."

I kissed my daughter on the forehead. "I will Honey, I will"

++++

After days of voice mails I finally got through to Dawn.

"Anthony sorry I have not called sooner, it has been crazy here."

"Dawn I do not see how you are sorry as you have yet to call. I am the one who has been calling and leaving messages."

"Anthony you cannot even begin to comprehend what is going on here. No one is listening to the problems I am having."

"Then don't tell anyone your problems." I said. "Twenty percent don't care, and the other 80 percent are glad you have them and not them"

"Whatever Anthony. You would not understand, there are thousands of people here. All walks of life from common people to Movie stars."

"How good for you Dawn. Any other Moms there who left their husband and children?"

"Don't be a wise ass, Anthony. You make it sound like I put toilet paper and tinfoil as more of a priority than my family. "

"Dawn, toilet paper is a pretty high priority in most of the world. I am not being a wise ass, but the fact is how can I, and the kids be your priority when you are sleeping with another guy?"

"Don't be dense, Anthony I am just sharing a tent, we are not having sex."

"Dawn let me read to you from your 'tent mates' blog. Yesterdays entry was titled 'Occupying the Occu-MILF Muff'."

Dawn interrupted me as I got to the graphic parts. "Anthony you do not believe everything you read on the internet do you? He is just making stuff up to get some street cred."

"Dawn when an unemployed male immigrant living in a tent with my wife describes in the exact detail the birthmark on the inside of your thigh, I tend to believe the rest of his writings. You need to come home now. I have arranged for us to see a marriage therapist that came highly recommended."