Chapter Three

Things started to change in both my bachelor pad and my bachelor life. While I still, to this very day, consider the existence of a phone in my home only for the convenience of me and mine alone, it was no longer simply disconnected and put away after use. It was now left out in the open for all to see, next to my favorite chair, sitting on a pedestal like some sort of shrine to communication, an answering machine with an angry red blinking eye adding to its evil presence. It was even plugged in and on the hook, in case she would happen to call. The dishes now dried on only one rack. The refrigerator shelves which had been removed to accommodate pony kegs for parties were returned and stocked with food. Clothes were worn only once before washing. The trash was no longer carried down the stairs for me to toss in the company dumpster when the bag was overflowing. It was now dutifully tossed off the back porch into the pharmacy dumpster right before the weekly pickup.

I gave up my long battle with the gas company. My apartment had been empty for so long that they had pulled the meter. In their haste, they had also removed a section of pipe connecting it to the building. When they reinstalled a meter they omitted that four inch pipe, declaring it to be my problem. I took exception to the bills I started to receive for gas usage. They were, in fact, meter rental fees, the distinction being lost upon the utility, but not my bullheadedness. Having been on several extended camping trips, and my sex life as it was, cold water bothered me very little. I couldn’t say the same for Kathy, and looking forward to a hot shower with my girlfriend, I paid them the few bucks they were demanding and called a pipe fitter.

The biggest change in the apartment, however, was the purchase of a television set. In my youth, I was usually parked in front of one for hours at a time, flipping between the up to four available pre-cable channels looking for anything to avoid any thought processes. The only television I had been watching lately was at my parents house between loads of my laundry and the odd jobs they had saved up during the week for me, more to provide topics for discussion than anything else. With a woman coming into my life as well as her son, I thought it wise to make the 149.95 investment, although I did decline the 159.95 limited three year warranty.

I decided not to join the Monday night dart league that year, and haven’t joined one since. While I did, much to my surprise, win a few hundred dollars the year before, I had grown tired of going to every other tavern in the city, each one a little seedier. The home bar was bad enough, I didn’t like to even walk in there alone. It wasn’t a bar I went into often, and I still wonder how I got hooked into playing. Some of the others were worse. But they all grew somewhat more tolerable after a few drinks had dulled my sensibilities as well as my senses.

I did, however, keep the Wednesday night backgammon. I was just starting to get kind of good at it, and wanted to win back at least some of my investment of the seemingly gallons of single malt scotch I had lost, two ounces at a time, learning to play the game. It was held at a somewhat nice, yet fernless, downtown bar where the drinks were slightly more expensive, but the carrying of concealed sidearms was actually actively discouraged. The players came from various backgrounds, so the game banter was a little more intriguing than "Damn, look at the tits on that waitress." or "My boss is a total asshole.", although similar phrases had been heard from time to time from each and every player.

I have always taken great exception to the latter phrase, preferring, in my belief anyway, that a more correct variation of that sentiment is, "My boss is the cork in the asshole of progress". After all, even an asshole has a purpose.

Thursday night was still reserved for happy hour and bachelor supper, but only one. It was no longer all that much fun to stumble from bar to bar. I was getting a life. I would hang out for a while at my favorite tavern to have a few and catch up on gossip, but as many of my cohorts had been busy acquiring lives as well, the evenings were getting shorter every week, much to the delight and relief of my liver.

Friday evenings were now, of course, spent with Kathy. We would be at her parent’s house on nights she had Billy, playing cards or board games until he went to bed. On weekends when Billy was with his father, we would usually be at my apartment doing what it is that young couples do when they are alone.

It wasn’t long before I felt as if I had known her forever, and told her so. She echoed the sentiment and we agreed to wed. We set the date to be on the following fourth of July for several reasons. First, and most important, we would always have the day off to spend together. Second, it would be impossible for me to forget. Third, it was after I had turned thirty, which I considered, and still do, the minimum age for such a commitment for males such as myself, due to the vast quantity and the extreme long half life of cranial fecal content.

Speaking of feces, and a rather large crock thereof, I might add, there was another great change in my life. It was one of those days, Martin Luther King Junior Day as a matter of fact. I woke up a couple minutes late and found the little bastards had turned and left my headlights on again. At 7:45, the traffic was barely heavy enough to prevent me from push starting it alone, a skill I had been forced to perfect over a few months before. I called my father for a ride. I could just get a ride home from Kathy, and, with a little luck, another ride from her when we got there. No problem.

I arrived at the office about ten minutes late. Noticing my desk had been totally cleaned off, I could only think, "Big problem." The boss was nowhere to be seen so I waited for the inevitable outcome, just standing in the doorway to his office, pondering my next move, and wanting a cigarette. Their next move was to escort me into officer territory, where I was immediately fired.

The reasons for my dismissal that you might hear will differ from source to source, as does any gossip. There are a minimum of two sides to any story, and the truth of any matter always lies somewhere in the middle. I could tell that they would accept no defense to their accusations, so I offered none. As a result, I was rehired on the spot, my old warehouse supervisor waiting behind a closed door to greet me. Apparently my career path was leading away from prime rib and double digit merit raises back to pushing brooms and loading trucks, hardly the ideal situation in which to start a family. We agreed I would gather my personal affects the following morning, well before business hours, and start at eight in the back.

"Are you going to be okay out there?" My now previous boss asked.

"I’ll be fine," I responded. "You officious, pompous, prima donna, jive-ass, mother-fucking, cock-sucking, father-raping, sack of shit, who just happens to have a right last name. Have another matinee with your autistic sister, and her little dog too. Then screw your boss’s secretary again in order to gain a little more favor, you worthless son of a bitch. I am not the complete asshole you tried to train me to be," I dared not utter.

Under escort, I was returned to the department to retrieve my coat. As I walked past Kathy, I told her I would call her later. To the senior customer service representative, seated at his desk, I leaned over and said, "See ya. You’re on your own." Ten seconds later, I was hitting the bricks on the four mile walk home, only glancing back but once. I had a lot of thinking to do.

Wishing I had a hat on this dreary January morning, I was thankful it wasn’t raining very hard. The first mile allowed the shock and anger to dissipate. The second mile covered all of the ‘What if I had’s with the sudden realization that they didn’t really matter anyway. What’s done is done. There is no going back in time. I refused to waste anymore energy on them, opting instead to learn from the experience and my mistakes contained therein and just move on with my life without regret.

I decided to make a side trip on my way home. I changed direction and headed to the unemployment office. The job offers I had received over the years, and there were many, all required me to relocate out of state, something I did not think would sit too well with Kathy. A local job was the only answer. I had mentally listed all of my qualifications and written my resume by the time I approached the office a mile later.

"Well, there’s my three for today," I thought as I found the door locked. "My jeep won’t start, I’ve lost my job, and now I can’t even remember that state offices are closed on federal holidays." The sky seemed a bit lower the rest of the way home.

The seventeen steps up to my apartment were harder than the walk home from work. I hung my coat on the hall tree to dry, hit the can, and changed out of my work clothes. I went into the living room to sit and have a smoke. Had I been epileptic, that first glance I took at the answering machine’s angry red eye would have dropped me in mid-stride. I couldn’t even begin to count the flashes as I finally got to sit down.

Before the tape had finished rewinding, the phone rang. It was Kathy.

"What happened? Are you okay? I was so worried."

"I got fired."

"How did you get home?"

"I walked."

"You could have taken the car. Why didn’t you?"

"I needed time to think and I really didn’t want to go back there today."

"What are you going to do?"

"I don’t know yet."

"You’re coming over tonight."

I wasn’t sure whether or not I really wanted to but agreed to anyway. What I wanted right then was to get off the phone. I didn’t want her to get into trouble for making personal calls and was having doubts as to the advisability of starting a family without knowing how much money I would be making. That wasn’t something that should be revealed over the phone and I didn’t want to let it slip. I would see how my mood was later and whether I was fit company or not before actually deciding to go.

I stuck around for a while and a few of the other reps called to check on me. They all agreed it was a total crock, but there wasn’t anything they could do. After the calls abated, I went down to check on the jeep.

Fortunately, I had left it parked at an angle, so I could take advantage of the slight incline of the street. As it was a holiday, everyone who had to be at work already was and the streets were almost empty. I got in and tried to start it. "Deader than Kelsey’s nuts," I thought as I left the ignition on, took it out of gear, got out and gave it a little shove. It rolled back perfectly. I jumped in, slammed it into reverse as I popped the clutch. It fired right up. I had perfected that technique out of necessity over the previous months. It wasn’t too hard to pull off in boots or sneakers, but dangerous as hell when wearing wing tips on wet pavement, and impossible if there was any traffic at all.

I drove around for a while in order to recharge the battery. After looping through the park a few times, I went to my favorite tavern. I figured I could always get a jump there if the battery had actually died this time, and then just go to buy a new one. It was closed. I drove to my second favorite tavern. By the time I walked up to the bar, there was a menu and a long neck Budweiser waiting for me. This was much better. That first sip of beer convinced me that it was the just the last thing I needed right then. I traded it for a watered-down Coke and went home, not bothering to order any food.

By late afternoon, I was feeling almost civil. Music combined with a lack of fluorescent light does wonders for the soul. It had been a very bad day, but I had experienced much worse. For example, the day after I was arrested for vagrancy, after I was kicked out of two hotels, after my car got creamed while diving through a snow storm, after leaving the state of Nevada with only fifteen cents, the clothes on my back, a maxed out credit card, a Snickers Bar, a cigar, and a Mister Pibb, only to return home and check my mail to find out that my girlfriend had moved on, my job had evaporated, as well as my acceptance in college the next semester. Oh yeah, my fish was dead too.

Compared to that, today had been peachy keen, with the exception of being in the position of having to tell Kathy there was no way I could marry her without knowing if I could provide for a family. By this time I had realized I had known her forever. She was the girl on the playground in grade school, the girl I passed in the hall in middle school that got my attention, the girl that was my best friend’s little sister’s best friend, the girl I saw leaving parties just when I was getting there in high school, the girl sitting behind the one man band at a late night bar that I had earlier bribed to learn ‘Aqualung’.

When I met her that night, it didn’t take her long to talk me out of calling it off.