Things Change

by Patrick Jones

  I jumped out of the car and marched over to the passenger side of the Firebird. Like a hundred times before, in one smooth move, Paul opened the door for me with his foot while pushing a CD into the player with his hand. He had no idea what he had just let into his car as the sounds of "Thunder Road" filled that small space we had shared so many times.

  "Star, what are you—"

  "I hate you!" I screamed at him; even through the tears, I made the words clear.

  "Joha, what is the—"

  "You bastard! You lied to me! I hate you!" My fists were clinched so tight, I thought I was going to pinch my fingers off.

  "Calm down, calm down, just calm down." He was repeating himself. He was slurring his words. He was drunk.

  "You lied to me! You bastard!" I couldn't stop shaking even once I sat down.

  "What are you talking about?" Paul said as I reached over to eject the CD, but he grabbed my hand.

  "Don't you touch me!" I shouted at him and pulled my hand away. I pulled my arms around me; I was so cold, so very cold.

  "What's wrong, Star?" His eyes showed his confusion, his lack of sobriety, and his lie.

  "I'll tell you what is wrong." I was rocking back and forth, trying to somehow push some of the pain away. "But I have to ask you a question first."

  "What?" His tone was catching up with mine; he snapped off the words.

  "Did you make love to Carla before or after you beat her up?" I was a crazy woman; I was a wild woman. I didn't care.

  "What are you talking about?" The panic in his voice was so obvious. I knew, and I could tell that he knew that I knew.

  "You know what I am talking about," I said, staring him down. "You lied to me."

  "I don't know what you are—"

  "Don't you dare! Don't you dare sit here and lie to me any­more!" I was enraged. "Listen to me; I know. I know about you and Carla!"

  "Is that some crap that idiot Kara told you?"

  "Do you want to know how I know?" I asked, never giving him a chance to answer. "I talked to her. God, why didn't I do that months ago?"

  "You did what?"

  "I talked to Carla. She told me how you hit her. How you slapped her. Bruised her arms and blackened her eyes. How you beat her up after the prom. She told me how you said you would change. I knew her story, Paul. I knew every word because it happened to me, too!"

  "Listen, that was just the one time." He was pushing himself against the door, as far from me as possible in the cage the Firebird had turned into.

  "How can you sit there and lie to me?" I screeched at him.

  "You never asked me, so I never lied."

  "More lies. I asked you if you had ever hurt anyone like you hurt me, and you told me no." My damn memory. Despite being filled with formulas and proofs, I had allowed lots of room in my brain for Paul. He had a whole wing. I filed every word. I remembered the conversations, the questions and answers, and so did he. He was lying to me still.

  "Get out of my car," Paul said in a voice that sounded almost dead.

  "What are you doing here?" I asked. I had been sitting in the parking lot of Pizza Hut trying to get my mind around it. What was he doing at a mini-storage facility at eleven at night?

  "None of your damn business." He jabbed his index finger at me, hard into my shoulder. I could feel the bruise forming. My body's memory knew that process all too well.

  "More secrets. What other things are you hiding from me?" I asked.

  "I said, it is none of your—"

  "This is so you, Paul. I've been such an idiot." I slapped my forehead with my palm, trying to knock some sense into my head. "You hide things. Is this where you drink?"

  The dome light of the car was off, the lights of the parking lot dim; but I could see those green eyes glaring at me, cutting through me. He turned the music up, trying to drown me out. Springsteen's "Back Streets" filled the car, but I was shouting louder than Bruce could sing.

  "You promised me. Promised me you would change. I saw you dump the beer out that day I told you I was getting a job.

  You promised me you wouldn't drink anymore. You lied."

  More angry silence from Paul; more impassioned vocals from Bruce.

  "You try to hide it. Like you are hiding whatever you do here."

  He sprang at me. He grabbed my arm and twisted it. "I'm not hiding. I'm right here for you to see! That is, whenever you find the time for me. I wanted to leave Pontiac, but I stayed here because of you. Now you give me this shit!"

  "You stayed for you, not for me. You stayed because you were afraid to leave."

  "The truth is I should be at Stanford right now," he shouted.

  "No, the truth is what Carla told me. I keep forgiving you, Paul; I keep forgiving you, thinking that you will change. But you don't. You don't even try."

  "Shut up!" He shouted at me, and then tried to wrap his hand around my mouth.

  I pushed him away. "I can't believe I let you touch me. You beat Carla up, and you beat me up. Why do you act this way?"

  "Sometimes I get angry, that's all." He wasn't looking at me.

  "So do I, Paul; but I don't hurt people like you. It's not that simple." He had the air-conditioning in the car turned up, and I was starting to shiver. My muscles were remembering that February night; my eyes were reliving Paul kicking the Dumpster, then hitting me. "You hurt people. I've seen you put people down with your tongue. I heard you call me names. I know how you talk to your mother. I know how you lied about Pam. I hear the names you call Kara. And now I know what you did to Carla. I know how you hurt me and hurt yourself."

  "No, that's not true, Joha; you have to understand—"

  "And now, you're drunk." I moved closer to catch the aroma. "I can smell it."

  "Just give me a chance, Joha, just a chance." He hands moved toward me, like so many times before in this small space; but I retreated back into the corner.

  "I gave you a chance after you pulled that stunt at Santi's. I gave you a chance when you lied to me about why you didn't go away to school. I gave you a chance after you hit me in February. I gave you chance after chance after you bruised me, thinking if I didn't say anything, it would stop. Thinking it was my fault and that I couldn't live without you. You've run out of chances."

  "Don't say that," Paul said softly. "One more chance; this time it will be different."

  "You don't want another chance, you want twenty more." In the darkness of this godforsaken mini-storage parking lot, everything was coming to light. "Paul, I don't believe you. You told Carla you would stop, and you didn't. You told me you would stop, and you didn't. I can't give you any more chances. I don't want to wear long sleeves the rest of my life."

  "Shut up!" Paul, realizing soft wasn't working, returned to hard words delivered harshly.

  This was it. This was our final exam. I moved over, my face almost on top of his. I took off my glasses and set them on the dash so I could get as close as possible. "You want to hit me now, don't you?"

  "You shut the fuck up!" He shouted at me, his mouth almost bumping against my ear.

  "Go ahead, Paul. It doesn't matter now. Nothing matters to me now." I was as crazed as he was, maybe more so.

  "I said shut up!" I watched his right hand, expecting it, like the times before, to sweep in high, but he surprised me. Both hands came from below, like a cobra, and wrapped around my throat. "Shut up! Shut up! SHUT UP!!!!!!!!!"

  He was screaming into my ear and choking me. I tried to pull his hands away from me, but he had strength and he had leverage that even in all my fury, I couldn't match. I was coughing, trying to scream, but he was strangling the words in my throat.

  I managed to get his right hand from around my throat, breaking my star necklace in the process; but that was a mistake. His right hand now free, he raised it high in the air, formed a fist, and brought it down hard against my face, over my left eye. I tried to scream in pain; but with his left hand still around my throat, I could only push two words through, "Please, Pau
l."

  He stared back at me, then took his hands off my throat and slammed them time and time again into the dashboard until blood was spurting from the cuts on the sides of his hands.

  I sat back, breathing in deeply, holding my head and feeling the blood trickle down my face. Paul sat forward, his head resting on the steering wheel, his bloody hands pushed against his face. The ordeal had sucked all the tears from my body and the energy from both of us. Trapped in the small space, we said nothing as Springsteen sang about being "Born to Run." Part of me wanted to reach over and touch him, just run my fingers through the long blond hair like I had so many times before. Part of me believed I could make him feel better, take that pain away. That part of me was dying.

  "Why do you hate me?" Paul asked, his voice as lonesome as I could imagine.

  It took all the energy I had to resist hugging him; he knew me too well; he knew what I would do; he knew how to get the reaction he wanted out of me. "I don't hate you, but I can't go on like this. I hate that you lied to me, and I hate what you did to me and to Carla."

  "You do hate me." He sounded as if he was going to cry. "You don't care about me."

  "I loved you, Paul." I made sure to use the past tense. "I loved you so much."

  "They why are you leaving me here?" Paul did this often, and it had always worked. He made me feel sorry for him. He burrowed his head into my shoulders.

  "Paul, I just—" I put on my glasses and resisted the temptation to comfort him.

  "Don't leave me! Oh, God, please Johanna, please don't leave me." I could barely understand his words; they were wrapped in tears.

  This was it. This was what I knew I would have to say. I just didn't know it would be so soon, although I figured it would be taking place in the Firebird, my second home. "I've never lived anywhere else. I've never loved anyone else. I've never made love to anyone else."

  "Why are you saying this?" He put his hand on the seat next to me; the blood was flowing into the upholstery. "You don't want to be with me anymore, so what does it matter."

  I took a deep breath. I needed all the power I had in my lungs and heart. "I know, Paul, it's over."

  We were not breaking up; we were breaking down.

  "Listen, about Carla, let me explain." He tried brushing his hand against the side of my face, but I moved his hand away.

  "There is no explanation, Paul. That's what you're not hearing. I'm sure you have reasons and excuses, but none of them matter. You don't hit other people; you don't beat up and bruise people that you say you love."

  "Don't say it like that; it was once or twice." He said it like he was twelve years old, trying to make excuses for taking too many cookies. "I won't do it again, Johanna, I swear."

  "Paul, I talked to Carla. It wasn't once or twice; it was more. It was a lot."

  "Look, I was having a bad time then, maybe drinking too much, but—"

  "No, Paul, that's not the truth." I was done shouting; my throat was dry and sore from the screaming on the inside, the choking on the outside.

  "I know I won't. I promise I'll change." He put his hands together, like he was praying. "I'll quit drinking; everything is going to be okay. Joha, please, please trust me."

  "Paul, everything is not going to be okay." I turned back the words that used to be so soothing to me; now the same words were just smothering. "I don't trust you."

  "Johanna, please, I won't drink anymore. I won't do it again.

  I won't—"

  "Paul, you broke that promise already." I pointed to the swelling around my left eye. "It's not the drinking, Paul. It's you. It's you, Paul."

  "No, this time, Joha, Star, this time—"

  "There is no this time or next time. We are over." I couldn't believe I said the words.

  He grabbed me by the shoulders. I didn't resist. I could tell he didn't know what to do or say. I guessed part of him wanted to hold me; the other half wanted to hit me. In the darkness of this deserted parking lot, I was seeing those two sides of Paul battling right before my eyes.

  "No, Star, please don't say that; everything is going to be dif­ferent." His forehead was against mine; he was speaking softly, slowly. It was like we were in bed, pressed up against each other, like nothing else in the world mattered.

  "Paul, please, listen to me." He looked at me, those green eyes sparkling with tears, loaded with fears. "You say that; you say everything is going to be different; but it never is. When I learned what happened to Carla, I knew it wasn't just me, and that is what scares me worst of all. If I stayed with you, this would just keep happening again and again."

  "No, this time, really, Joha—" he touched my hands, but I felt nothing.

  "It's not just because you hit me. It's not because you lied to me. It's not because you keep drinking. It is because you can't stop doing these things, and that scares me to death."

  Sitting in my seat, digging my short, well-chewed fingernails into the beaten-down black upholstery, I looked down at the cluttered floor thinking about what I had yet to say: the words that would break my heart, but probably save my life.

  "One more chance, Joha, just one more chance, please," Paul begged.

  "Paul, you are part of my past, not part of my future." I ended it.

  He slumped back in his seat. I never looked up as I opened the door of the Firebird. I knew in about a year I would start college at Columbia. After I graduated from there, I hoped I could see the world, write stories for newspapers or magazines, and visit every corner of the globe. But I wondered if I might ever travel again any greater distance than the distance between the Firebird and my mother's Jeep.

  After I got back into my car, I sat there, watching as Paul quickly backed up. He pulled around me, leaving a patch in the parking lot of the Atlas Mini-Storage. I tried not to watch the taillights of the Firebird, but the temptation was too great, the habit too strong. So many times I had watched him Firebirding down the road after a morning, a day, or an evening we spent together, making me laugh or smile; watched him Firebirding down the road after bringing me ice cream or roses; Firebirding down the road after spending the time in a crowded movie theater on a Saturday night. But as I watched those taillights disappear in front of me on this cool Michigan September night I knew in every fiber of my body that it was for the last time. I didn't need to taste any tears to know my life was mine and that it would never be the same again.

  THIRTY-TWO

  Dear Dead Dad:

  It lasted from the first "I want you to kiss me" to the last "you are part of my past, not part of my fu­ture," and now it was over. Over. Dead, just like you. I have not slept for almost twenty-four hours. I drove all night; but even still, no matter how many miles I covered, I couldn't deal with the distance.

  It wasn't the distance on the road. It wasn't the distance that was now and forever between Johanna and me. It wasn't the distance between the steering wheel and the gas pedal; between the gas pedal and the wheels; between the wheels and the road. It wasn't the distance between what was and what would never be again. It wasn't the distance between her tears and my fears. It wasn't even the distance between the truth and the lie: between the part of me that wants to die ("it's a suicide rap"), and the part of me that wants to live.

  Dad, it is the distance between innocence and experience.

  Dad, it is the distance between the womb and the world.

  Is that what scared you?

  I finally have you figured out, dead man. I know why you drank and why you hit Mom and why you ran away. You were afraid. I don't know what you were afraid of other than life itself, which can be pretty damn scary I have to admit; but I won't let it get to me.

  I know you; I know everything about you. I listen to your music and I live your life, but I will be better than you. I will change, and Johanna will take me back. You hang your hoods in hell, dead man, but I'll be out of this town full of losers before you know it.

  There was an envelope on the table when I finally came home the nex
t morning. Mom said that Johanna had dropped it off and that she looked terrible. When I came home, Mom didn't comment on my appearance; it was obvious. She said she was sorry, and she didn't mention Jesus even once. I picked up the envelope. I had been through this before. But this time it was light. Ashes. That is all I thought it was. She took everything and burned it. Turned them, like us, into ashes. Burning hot, but utterly useless.

  I opened it, dreading what was inside. I poured out the contents; but there were not ashes, there was just a note. This note did not tell the twelve-year-old me to tell my mother that her husband and my father was running away from his responsibility. This note did not reassure me that everything would be okay as I watched our bills mount, watched my mother turn to Jesus, and watched our house get turned into a trailer and me into a trash bag. This note did not say "trust me," because that is just another lie.

  Guess what, Dad? Everything was not, and is not, okay.

  Instead, there was a note from Johanna. It was written on stationery from the Hilton, from our night together in August.

  Dear Paul,

  I am writing this as you are in the shower. We knew this day would come. I don't know, sitting in this hotel room, what either of us is feeling as you are reading this.

  I don't want you to hate me.

  If I toldyou that I hated you, I didn't mean it.

  If we are breaking up, then I want us to promise to hold on to all of the good memories we have created for each other.

  I want us, once some time has passed, to be able to forgive each other and maybe even become friends. There is not much I can write that you don't already know, but if you don't mind me saying it again, I think you are wonderful, the best thing that ever happened to me. I love you more than I could ever tell you or show you. Despite the bravado you might have observed that first day in your car when I asked you to kiss me, I was really a mess. You cleaned me up. You made me a better person. You made me laugh, and you loved me. I hope you will remember me. I know I will remember you.

  As I told you just moments ago as we lay together on the bed, no matter what, we need to forgive each other. We've meant too much to each other for too long to have anything but love between us. I wouldn't trade my memories of you for anything in the world. I will keep them, my thoughts of you and this beautiful star-shaped necklace that you gave me tonight, forever. You are my first love, and you will last forever. I don't know why you are reading this other than we must have decided to break up. Paul, I know we will break up; but we will never be broken. What we had will last forever. We will always be together.