She cleaned up the mess, put it in the trash can, and walked back toward her bedroom. Her bedroom now. Not their bedroom anymore. It was just the way it was, now.
Suddenly she found herself wondering what HE was doing at this precise moment. Was he awake, staring up at a ceiling in the darkness, thinking of her? Was he hating her?
She lay down beside Doug and rolled toward him.
“Hold me Doug, just hold me. Don’t talk.”
And he did.
The phone on my desk beeped. It had been a busy Monday. The trial of the second of the scumbag drug-dealing, kid-killing Thompson brothers – this one was named Rashon – was scheduled to begin. I was going to help but let the younger SAs handle this one.
Carlisle had pissed me off, but he made me realize that I couldn’t go around antagonizing all of our young foot soldiers by making them do the crap work and then stealing the glory because I was big enough to do it. You don’t build loyalty or a team that way. I wouldn’t have stuck around if I’d been treated that way.
As usual there were ten million calls but Cheryl’s voice over the intercom warned me, “It’s your – wife, sir. You want to take the call?”
“She tell you what it’s about?”
“No.”
“You ask?”
“No.”
We hadn’t talked in the last month and a half, since her call that Friday. Lew was still doing a dance with Deb’s attorney and I wondered if it was something legal. If it was I’d tell her to go fuck herself, politely. I didn’t want to talk to her, but it could be about the kids.
“Hello.”
“Hi.”
There was a silence.
“You called me.”
“I – uh.”
“Is there something wrong with the kids?”
“No.”
“Well, Deb, much as I’d love to chat, I am very busy right now. What do you want?”
“I….just wanted to call and talk for a minute.”
“The meter is running.”
“Shit! You have to be an asshole? We haven’t talked in nearly two months and the first time-“
“We haven’t talked because I don’t want to talk to you. Thought you’d figure that out by now.”
“Bill…I know you’re angry.”
“Duh, you think?”
“Please, can you be a human being for just a few minutes?”
“Define human being. Is that a guy whose wife can screw around on him, fall in love with somebody else, rub his nose in her cheating, and then expect him to be nice and polite? The answer is no. If that’s all you got to say, Deb, then-”
“Dammit, Bill. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I hurt you the way I did. I’m sorry you found out the way you did. I’m sorry I don’t love you anymore. I’m sorry our marriage failed. I’m sorry you’re hurting. I’m sorry for all of it. But we were married for nearly 20 years. We have two kids. We’ll have to be in each other’s lives in some way for the rest of our lives. Can’t we be – civilized? People do get divorces and manage to stay civil.”
I leaned back in my chair and took a deep breath. I tried to run through in my mind every moment of every endless long lonely night I’d laid in bed watching the minutes on the electronic alarm clock click forward and praying morning would eventually come. I tried to remember the emotions I’d felt visualizing her writhing under his big dick while I couldn’t even work up an erection with porn. That got me in the right mood.
“I guess you’re right, Deb. Why should I be bitter? After all, you got the house and the kids and our friends. You got our life in other words. And a young stud to keep you warm on cold nights. I, on the other hand, got---let me think. Oh, yeah, I got it. I got shit. I got a tiny damned condo where I can lay awake all night and watch porn trying to imagine a real live woman in my bed. Why would I be angry?”
There was a silence and if could have made myself believe it, I almost thought I heard crying. But that had to be my imagination.
“Someday, Bill, we’re going to talk. We’ve both been too angry and hurt to talk to each other. Our emotions are too raw. But someday, we have to talk and end this hurt. I loved you for a long time, and I know you loved me. I know you wouldn’t be like this if you didn’t still love me.”
“Never going to happen, Debbie. We already said everything we needed to say to each other. You said it all, actually. Remember. I just don’t love you anymore.”
“Bill-“
“Listen to me carefully. Unless one of the kids is hurt, don’t call me again. I won’t take your calls anymore. Anything we have to say goes through our attorneys. Goodbye.”
That day I managed to leave by 7 p.m. Assistants Sandy Bell and Bruce Saku were handling the case well and I tried to make myself fairly invisible so they wouldn’t feel like I was looking over their shoulders.
As I was getting ready to walk out, Cheryl said, “He wants to see you.”
I didn’t need to ask. It had been a long time since I’d talked to him in the flesh. But as long as the office ran like a smoothly functioning motor, he spent his days meeting and greeting and pressing the flesh and wooing reporters and business types. The kind of things the top guy does instead of actually working at what the voters elected him to do.
I took an elevator to the top floor and just smiled at the golden vision behind the desk. She was the only woman I’d ever seen that made Debbie look plain. Movie star looks and at least a 44dd cup atop a wasp waist. She smiled at me and I smiled back.
There was a hint of a speculative glint in her eyes as I walked past her, probably because I was almost certainly the only guy in the world who didn’t strip her with my eyes whenever I saw her. I could make myself look better and say it was because I was THAT married, but actually it was because I could never even in my erotic dreams make myself believe I’d ever touch that body.
And naturally, because I didn’t visibly lust after her, Myra, the Big Man’s main squeeze, always gave me the eye when I came up.
I walked into the office of the man who signed my checks. Dallas Edwards.
He smiled up at me, only because he was sitting down. Standing he was 6 foot eight and solidly built. He'd been a University of Florida basketball star center a generation before and still moved like an athlete. He’d also been Mayor of the City before becoming State Attorney and before he died he was determined that he was going to sit in the Governor’s Chair in Tallahassee and maybe even make a run at the Presidency.
“Hi, guy,” he said with that easy grin that voters loved. “How are things?”
“Just peachy, boss. Everybody should have their wife take a lover and throw them out of their house and their life.”
We had been friends and co-conspirators enough years that he just smiled at that.
“I know, Bill. I’ve gotten the lowdown. I never would have believed Debbie would do that, even after the incident at…oh, at the basketball court. Anyway, I heard you got Walters handling the divorce. Everything going smoothly?”
“Yeah, pretty much. I’m still married but I expect to get that remedied in a few months.”
He sat up straight in his chair and said seriously, “Are you alright? I can give you some time off if you need it.”
“No. What I need is more time in the office. I just need to keep my mind occupied.”
“Okay. I won’t ever fight your spending more time working here. Just don’t burn yourself out.”
The deal we had made a long time before was that I’d get him enough favorable publicity to fuel his run for Governor when the time was right, and in return I could basically do anything I wanted in terms of how I ran the office. It worked for me.
As I walked past Myra I could feel her eyes giving me the once over and I couldn’t help looking at her and saying, “God, you make me feel like such a piece of meat. I want to be respected for my mind.”
She snickered.
When I left work, at Carlos’ suggestion, I grabbed a small salad and small broiled
chicken breast at a downtown health store/restaurant called FreshNGood. It wasn’t the best thing I’d ever put down my throat, but it wasn’t bad. Whether it was psychological or not, I hadn’t had a roaring appetite for anything since – actually since the trouble had begun with Debbie.
I drove to the Liberty Street condo, but it was just an address. I had to go somewhere so it was a tossup between a bar and Hurly’s gym. I wound up at the gym. I used the same black personal trainer and an hour and a half later felt like someone had ripped all the muscles out of my arms and legs so that I hobbled around like a broken doll.
I had a late night coffee at a Starbucks and went back to Liberty Street. I was there 30 minutes and realized I couldn’t stand it there. I drove back to Hurly’s and this time there were only a couple of dozen people there. I couldn’t really move my arms anymore so I slid onto one of the stationary bikes and very, very slowly cycled to nowhere.
By the time I virtually collapsed and almost fell off the bike, I realized there were only three people left in the gym, Hurly and the black trainer and a pretty blonde.
“Are you alright?” she asked with a worried expression.
“Just let me catch my breath.”
Despite worried expressions on their faces, I got to my feet and walked out with them to my Escalade. I managed to get to the Liberty Street condo and again collapsed onto the bed. I woke up at 3 a.m., stripped and got under the covers. And once again I managed to escape dreams of Debbie. This gym thing wasn’t going to be bad.
CHAPTER 4: THERE’S A REASON WHY LOVE IS A FOUR LETTER WORD
My name is William Maitland. I’m an Assistant State Attorney in Jacksonville, Florida. Actually I am The Assistant State Attorney but I’ll explain that below. I’ve been married and happy for nearly 20 years with a beautiful wife and two typical teenage kids. Until the night my beautiful and loving wife Debbie made a slip of the tongue and before you could say “Divorce”, we were on the way to one.
I found out that my wife was indeed loving, but she was loving another man. Or at least she was falling in love with a younger professor at UNF where she’s an Associate Professor of business. I did some things that I shouldn’t have, and didn’t do some things in hindsight that I should have done.
I did make a fool of myself fighting with her young boyfriend at a posh UNF faculty event, but it was one of those foolish things that a man has to do if he wants to be able to look at himself in the mirror. Unfortunately, I got the crap beaten out of me keeping my self-respect.
Now I’m living in a condo I hate after my wife threw me out and started divorcing me, working as much as I can, exercising my flabby middle aged body when I’m not working, and trying to pick up enough boxing expertise to beat the crap out of the young man who embarrassed me and stole my wife if we ever go up against each other again.
I’m not talking to my wife even though she’s tried to re-establish a dialogue because after, “I don’t love you anymore,” there’s not a hell of a lot more to say from where I stand.
After a friend who’s an old boxer and boxing coach set me up at a workout gym, I found myself over the next month at the gym after work almost every night. I went by a Westside bar called O’Brien’s a couple of times, but I restricted myself to a couple of drinks and made sure I hit the Hurly’s Gym in Avondale afterwards. Working on the machines at 9 or 10 p.m., with no one else around, was almost relaxing.
They left the lights on for me if I got in just before the last of the staff left. Cops cruising the neighborhood stopped in or three times before everybody got the word on who I was and why I was there. After that once or twice they’d stop, knock at the window and after I waved at them went on.
I got to where I’d put in 20 minutes on the stationary bike, 20 minutes on the treadmill and 20 or 30 minutes on the Nautilus machines. There wasn’t that much that worked the gut particularly, but one of the staff showed me the machines that worked the abdomen. I lay on the sit-up bench where you hooked your feet around the upper bar and groaned and sweated to raise my back an inch off the bench. I actually felt a thrill of triumph the first time I lifted my back – actually my neck and head - two inches off the bench.
There were also upright bars that you could position yourself on and then try to raise your knees toward your chest while your feet were off the floor. I was lucky if I could raise my knees halfway toward my chest once, but at least I was doing something.
I had made it to Carlos’ gym a half dozen times during the month. He put me on the heavy bag and for the first few days it barely budged as I pummeled it, but he kept the younger guys from laughing too hard and just quietly told me to keep at it. As I got strength from the gym workouts, he said I’d get better with the bag.
Bill Jr. came one weekend and Kelly the next, even though I wasn’t scheduled to get either one of them until the next alternate weekend. I called Cathy or Roy to set up the pickups so I didn’t have to talk to Debbie or see our house. I did the best I could to shove the picture and memories of the place that had been the center of my life into a deep, dark hole.
I’d like to say that the visits with the kids were good. But...Bill Jr. griped about the apartment until I finally agreed to let a friend’s dad pick him up and that’s the last I saw of him during my visit. He called me toward the end of my time Sunday afternoon to apologize. He had two friends had run into three “hardbodies” at the mall and gotten tied up all that day and evening. He was going to have a friend’s mom run him back to his house.
Kelly lasted about four hours before she got an urgent call on her cell, followed by two more urgent calls and a flurry of conversations about some guy who was supposed to be her boyfriend but had been spotted at a theater in the company of “some whore” and naturally she and an entire female posse had to investigate. I didn’t have the heart to put my foot down like your standard TV sitcom dad so she vanished, re-appeared late that night, got up early and was out the next morning. In all I spent about six hours of my weekend with her.
After that I didn’t push too hard for visitation. I figured if they wanted to see me, I’d always be available. But, it appeared that while our relationship might not have died while I wasn’t looking, it was fairly tenuous. As in, non-existent. But, as with Debbie and even more so the kids, I couldn’t blame them for a relationship that existed almost only on paper.
Debbie and I had started our marital suicide in mid-April. It was now early July and hotter and stickier than hell. Walking from my Escalade to the office less than a block left me sticky with sweat. Summer in Jacksonville, as any native will tell you and I had lived there since I was a kid, can be downright nasty. There are none of the romantic and tropical attractions of summer in South Florida, and none of the relatively cooling breezes you’ll find a bit north in Georgia It is just hot as hell, day after day after day.
People’s tempers get short. I hadn’t seen much of the kids. I had stopped drinking every night. I hadn’t gotten laid in more than four months. I found myself snapping at assistants and reduced Cheryl to tears one day. I had seen Jessica Stephens three times. Each time she looked sadder. I thought she was just drying up and shriveling away. I almost found myself asking her to go out for drinks one afternoon, but stopped myself.
I knew it would be a shitty thing to do, to basically destroy her life for a piece of ass when she didn’t mean anything to me, but the real reason I didn’t was because I had the nightmarish vision of her lying naked under me and my dick just laying there like a limp noodle. The pity on her face would have had me driving the Escalade into one of the support towers of the Fuller Warren Bridge.
On the brighter side, Dick Cheney told Larry King on Larry King live that the Insurrection in Iraq was nearing its end and that the war should be over by 2008. That made me feel much better about life in general.
On the home front, my life was getting up and having some protein like a piece of chicken or a portion of cottage cheese, driving to work, working all day until the late ev
ening, taking work home and either collapsing at home or four or five nights a week getting to Hurly’s gym or Carlos’ place when most people were turning in. It wasn’t much of a life, but such as it was, it was mine.
The only good thing was that since I had absolutely nothing to do but exercise and work, I was working my ass off and outperforming everybody in the office. I was generally in the office when the first secretaries arrived and I usually walked out while the night cleaning crews were doing their thing.
It had only been a few months since I’d had a life, and it was beginning to seem more and more like a vaguely remembered dream. There were whole days when I could go without remembering that I was still a married man, still a father.
So naturally, Debbie picked that time to screw with my head. I got a call from Lew one afternoon.
“Good news, I hope. Is everything set for the divorce to proceed?”
“No, sorry, Bill.”
“Why? I promised her child support, I’m giving her the whole damned house, half of all our savings and stocks and bonds. What the hell else can she want?”
“She’s being a real bitch about the alimony. She wants a ‘generous’ amount for alimony for at least the next 20 years and half of your retirement as well.”
I sat back in my chair and tried to breathe slowly and rhythmically to keep my heart from bursting out of my chest.
“Alright, tell her no deal. We’ll fight this out in court. You got the time for this? I’m not going to pay you the megabucks your paying customers would. You owe me too much.”
“I’ve got the time, Bill. I wouldn’t be where I was if it wasn’t for you and even if we weren’t friends I’d never forget your help. But, it doesn’t make any difference. I’ve done research. She’ll get some alimony. You guys were married for 17-plus years, you have two kids, she’s been a loyal wife. And you make considerably more than she does.
“There’s no way in hell she’s NOT going to get alimony, and a share of your retirement. I’m good, but I’m not THAT good. Look, you make good money and you could do private off the table consulting work and make more. Why not let her have what she’s asking for. It will get her out of your life that much quicker.”
The Long Fall Page 13