Love, Carry My Bags

by Everett, C. R.

  We were at Thunder Road, a venue where the parade of raucous party-goers was endless.

  “Show your tits,” a stringy-bearded man hollered. A well-endowed woman flashed the crowd to a chorus of frat boy cheers. But frat boys weren’t the ones cheering. Gray-haired men, balding men in leathers, stoners, and the guy next door belted out hoots and hollers, again and again. There was an endless supply of women who seemed to have no problem with this.

  “You do it.” Glenn tugged at my shirt.

  “No. Are you crazy?” I answered, annoyed.

  Glenn looked like any other techno-geek; no one would have suspected his Hell’s Angel side. “Come on, it’ll be fun,” Glenn yelled, holding his ears as six Indians rumbled by.

  “Fun for who?” I asked, breathing in a cloud of exhaust. Glenn and I coughed. He pounded lightly on his chest, coughing until well after the fumes had cleared.

  “Fun for me.”

  Even your everyday Clark Kent didn’t always turn into a wholesome Superman.

  “You want me to flash these morons when you wouldn’t even let me wear a miniskirt out to dinner?” I asked, wounded once more.

  “That was different. This is Sturgis,” he said with enthusiasm. “What happens in Sturgis, stays in Sturgis.”

  But it didn’t. What happened in Sturgis came home with us and moved in. A long-term, uninvited guest.

  * * *

  Sydney and Elizabeth stood in the driveway when we pulled in.

  “Mommy!” they shouted as I got off the motorcycle. The three of us hugged, me in the middle. “Mommy sandwich,” Sydney laughed, happy to play our hugging game again. We traded places.

  “Elizabeth sandwich.” She beamed at her chance in the center.

  “I’m so glad to be home,” I said, squeezing them tighter.

  “Hi, Daddy,” Sydney said, still hugging me.

  Feeling left out, Glenn asked, “Don’t I get a hug?”

  CHAPTER 32

  “I’d stared at, pounded on, and cried by the closed door in front of me for years, not noticing the cracked door to my side until it was gaping.”

  —Hillary Reegen, Ph.D.

  I sat down to read Marital Counseling for Dummies—A Do It Yourself Manual. It opened with an uplifting poem:

  Marriage Postmortem

  And the two became one

  Dead

  Marriage

  Suffocated by the other’s greed

  Lifeless

  Soul

  Asphyxiated dreams

  It went on to say:

  In marriage, you won’t always be each other’s everything . . . . Don’t get married to someone you are theoretically in love with . . . . Practical love is paramount.

  I felt like a complete fool. How had I come to this station in my life, moored behind a self-help book ten years post-matrimony? In marriage, that ‘for better or worse’ thing—it doesn’t mean just being there for each other when the dog dies.

  I reviewed the promises I had made, in no particular order—vows witnessed by a hundred people. ‘Til death do us part: we were both still kicking (sometimes each other) although Glenn had said if he died first he’d haunt me, not a menacing haunt though. He kind of made a joking threat when he said it. In sickness and health: check. For richer or poorer: self-explanatory, yet relative terms; we’d had a flavor of both. I had gone from being concerned about minimizing four-cent local phone calls, making food stamps last the whole month, and pinching every penny, to a comfortable existence, unbound by the paycheck-to-paycheck lifestyle. I was a real rags-to-not-rags story. Not riches, never riches. It had a connotation of not appreciating what you had. And if I ever had enough to be considered rich, I’d give enough away to be considered just comfortable. For better or worse: we had a good share of each. ‘All other shit that may happen’ could take the place of worse. It would be more descriptive. For better or all other shit that may happen includes making a commitment to a person who is going to change, like it or not. Those changes could be anything—a scary thought. It’s hard to tell before the fact what they might morph into afterwards. Some caterpillars turn into beautiful butterflies and some end up as destructive moths.

  I didn’t need perfection, just a loving attitude. I didn’t think the answer to our problems was for me to grow impenetrably thick rhinoceros skin, capable of withstanding precision razor-sharp words from the person who was supposed to love me the most. Words delivered so swiftly that the wound and its source go unnoticed at the first. I didn’t believe the solution was a tough hide capable of feeling nothing, skin that endures the bludgeoning of mixed messages. A hide numb to all.

  Upon further examination, I discovered that I had grown into that weathered skin. My love for Glenn was difficult to see or even identify. It no longer radiated from the surface, but was scarred over, underneath. Only a delicate touch could debride my wounds, revealing what was long hidden.

  “I need you to be gentle,” I said to Glenn, laying the first instrument in his hand, realizing that his hard nature had calloused my own. 1 Corinthians 13, ran through my mind. Love is patient and kind, gentle, not arrogant or rude, does not insist on its own way, does not hold resentments etc. Love bears, believes, hopes, and endures all things. It was the same passage read at our wedding, words from an empty ritual, words not taken to heart. This is what you did at weddings—read the Love Chapter, lit a candle together, answered ‘I do’ and ‘I will’ to a few questions and then kissed, sealing the raw deal.

  If life had do-overs, our Love Chapter reading would have been a reaffirmation of meditated-upon, absorbed, and already lived words, not something to struggle through and strive for in the years to come. The candle lighting would have been a symbolic representation of us each taking only the oxygen we needed to burn steady, together, not one sucking up all the air, creating an intense flame while nearly snuffing out the other. Our ‘I do’s and ‘I will’s would have been answered thoughtfully, to well pondered questions, not rote answers uttered while preoccupied with shoe-pinched toes or a bow-tie noose. And the kiss would seal our sacred pact, signed in love well done.

  But that was not our reality. We had to do the best with what we had.

  “I know I’ve made mistakes,” Glenn said.

  I agreed wholeheartedly, but returned a straight face, listening.

  “I’ll try to be gentle, but I need you to wipe the slate clean,” he said, laying down a hard fact.

  Were the two tasks equally difficult to accomplish? Was making a concerted effort to be polite, unselfish, and patient just as challenging as wiping off well over ten years of accumulated shit and resentment? Did it matter?

  It had to be done. But neither of us fully got there—almost seemed like a physical impossibility. History repeated itself despite our best efforts.

  * * *

  Dear Megan,

  How are you? I am more fine than I have been in years. It seems like years since I last wrote. Sorry. And I have years’ worth of news to write.

  Mother was here for a visit. It was the best visit ever, as no one got screaming mad and she didn’t cry this time. She said she almost couldn’t afford to come because her money’s tight. Gee, I wonder why. Could it be all those get-rich-quick scams she’s falls for, the ones she never sees coming?

  Glenn and I have come to a new truce. He’s going to try and be nice and I’m going to try to forgive him for the millionth time. There is a good side to spending the best years of my life in the comfort of a dysfunctional relationship; at least I can make fairly accurate predictions. I know exactly what to say to spin Glenn up and less of what to say to calm him down, short of a silent ear.

  I never knew what spun Reese up. Which brings me to my big news. I’m halfway through writing the novel I’ve always wanted to write. I’ve christened it with the loaded title of Take My Breath Away. It is about a married woman who is bound and gagged by the rug that has been pulled out from under her life when her high school sweetheart reappears after twenty yea
rs. The writing process has been amazing, very therapeutic. I’ve compensated for my incapacitation and loss sort of like Helen Keller compensated for being blind, deaf, and dumb. Only she, ten times smarter than I, caught on much faster.

  Sometimes my ideas come so quickly that they can’t be stopped any more than an impending birth. Sometimes they proliferate like rabbits and I have to quick, grab a pen to catch them. And other times I have so many ideas that it’s like a hatching of sea turtles—there are so many, the relative few that reach maturity are enough to do the trick. What’s even better is that writing is a hobby I can do anywhere because I carry it around in my head!

  I finally figured out that while my God-given introversion may not have made me the best candidate for exchange studentdom, it has incubated some great ideas. And back when my parents divorced, some kids called me a hermit (like that was a bad thing), but what did they expect from a natural-born introvert whose parents were calling it splitsville? It was an epiphany, discovering that the personality traits I’ve been badgered and mentally beaten about over are nothing to be ashamed of because those are the same things that make me an artist. I’m not a reject after all. I have outwitted my jailor, escaped my cell. I’ve newfound poetic wings.

  I Was a Writer

  I could pick out the pieces and make them fit.

  Words were my medium and I searched for just the right one

  As a painter selects just the right shade from his pallet.

  I was a sculptor, forming the main work, adding some here,

  Removing some there, leaving a masterpiece behind.

  Ideas flowed, some days like a cascading spring thaw.

  Ideas melted down to the paper.

  Other days, a faucet drip,

  But all ideas were good in their own.

  And this was me.

  This was who I wanted to be when I grew up

  And I had grown.

  Internally, externally, physically, spiritually.

  I had matured from naivety to knowledge,

  From bewilderment to life direction.

  The high and low roads I traveled had been a glorious trip.

  I learned to test the world order as I had known it,

  Refrain from quick judgment, or not judge at all,

  Realizing that things were not always as they seemed.

  Things happen for a reason

  And although the reason may not be apparent at the time,

  In the end, it is known.

  All of life is a gift,

  Even the hard, miserable times—the low spots.

  Gifts most precious, do not come finely wrapped.

  Love, Camryn

  CHAPTER 33

  “You don’t throw the baby out just because he’s dirtied his bathwater.”

  —Arthur B. Adelweiss

  “I got my ass chewed today,” Glenn said as he got home. Hurt steam blew off each one of his words.

  “Why?” I asked, wondering who he’d pissed off this time—and why he stunk.

  “You know, same old shit. Expect me to get eighty hours’ worth of work done in forty hours.” Glenn rambled on, broke open a beer. “They wonder why all ten number-one priorities didn’t get done yesterday. It’s not safe, pushing people like that. Airplanes could fall out of the sky.” He pounded his fist on the table. “We’re talking lives here. And my name’s on the line.”

  “Well, you can just do your best,” I said, unable to make it better. “Do what you can.”

  “I know, but it doesn’t make it any easier when you get told you’re a worthless piece of shit just because you’re not superhuman. I stood there today, taking all his old-school crap, all the while thinking I’d love to just quit. I almost wanted to cry, it was so bad.”

  I felt sorry for him. I really did. I’d been there for over a decade in my own home and I wondered if he’d made the parallel between the shit he got at work and the same type of shit he dished out here.

  “Doesn’t make you like your boss very much, does it?” I asked.

  “No. Thank God I don’t have to live with him.”

  The irony of his words stung. “Good thing,” I said.

  I couldn’t count the times I had run around the house in a mad panic, completely exhausted, busting my ass to get every last thing done to avoid getting yelled at. My diligence had changed over the years from acts of consideration, kindness and loving service to resentful duty and punishment avoidance. Glenn expected this attentiveness to remain the same and never change. Never mind that the kids took up those evening hours when I used to clean the house. Never mind that I had finally taken that creative writing course I’d always wanted to take. The one he said he’d support whole heartedly. Shit still had to be done. Like clockwork.

  “Then he wanted to go out to the bar afterward and talk shop some more, kept smoking cigars and drinking himself stupid. Now I stink and my throat feels all scratchy. Makes me wonder what I thought was so great about it way back when.” He swallowed hard, scrunching up his face.

  Shocked by his words, I thought, maybe he was growing up, finally.

  “He said there’s more work coming and he’s counting on me to get it done.”

  “So, I guess that means you won’t be taking those leadership classes your boss promised you.” I threw Glenn’s bottle cap into the trash.

  “Hell no! He talks a good talk, but . . .” Glenn said, shaking his head.

  “Kind of makes you wonder if your boss is sincere or just doesn’t want you to leave, doesn’t it?” I asked.

  “I just don’t believe him anymore.” He took a swig. “Don’t trust him.”

  Glenn looked beat. His usual ‘always ready for a good duel’ attitude, vanquished. Not his normal self. He said, “I can’t take care of the airplanes under these conditions. It’s like giving up your own kids. I have no choice.” He sighed. “I have to give it up.”

  I had thought for years that he regarded the airplanes as his children. Knew them better than his own. It would be like a shepherd leaving his sheep. He watched over them, carefully making sure each with its own unique needs was taken care of. Tail 053 needed surface restoration, 024 had a sensor problem, 110, a fractured spar, while tail 027 had a stressed longeron, requiring much more detailed and intensive care.

  “What happens to the airplanes you’d leave behind?” I asked.

  “They’ll fly without me.”

  “Maybe they’ll crash.”

  “Maybe they will,” he said, twisting the cap off another beer, throwing it onto the countertop.

  Even though I knew the overwhelming stress of Glenn’s workplace wasn’t good, I panicked, thinking he’d quit the next day. “What are you going to do?” I asked.

  “Don’t worry. I’m not going to quit tomorrow. It’ll take a month or two to line something up, then I’m gone. I just can’t take it anymore.” He looked at me, his eyes asking forgiveness.

  “I don’t blame you. I’d have been out of there a long time ago.” I marveled at how long he had taken the beating.

  “It’s like I’m so stressed-out I can’t breathe,” Glenn said, looking ragged. “One way or another, the insanity . . . it’s got to end.” He broke off on the verge of tears.

  * * *

  Dear Camryn,

  I’m glad to hear things are going better for you. I wish things were going better for me, but I’m still the same—single. Grandma told me way back when to never depend on a man. “Support yourself,” she said, “you never know when they might run out on you and you’ve got to be able to take care of yourself just in case.” Well, Grandma, God bless her, meant well, but in all of her wisdom, I don’t feel any smarter than when I was in high school. I’m alone, and miserable, supporting myself, and can’t even find a man who’ll stay long enough to have a chance to run out on me. You might have had a rough go, but I have nothing.

  It’s not like I don’t appreciate my freedom. I know there’s give and take, and sacrifice, but you can only take just s
o many nights out with the girls. Most of my friends are married with children, so the girls I go out with are just that—girls. I feel like I’m the chaperone; I’m not one of them. I’m not a mom. I’m not a DINK.

  I’m an old SINK.

  I’ve done plenty of dishes. In fact, the nicest dish, Logan, is now my friend Barb’s feast. They got married last year, bun in the oven. (Forgive the bad pun.) And Paul: he’s with Cathy. Mitchell—you don’t want to know. I can’t even count the rest.

  Where’s that leave me? Used and empty, that’s where.

  Sometimes I think bad attention is better than no attention. You used to say you looked up to me and respected how I had it all together. Here’s a secret: I don’t. I admire how you’ve gotten through thick and thin and all the rest of it . . . . I hope before I die, I can claim the same. Surviving thick and thin is so much more admirable than surviving nothing.

  I’m sorry I went on and on with all that, but I’ve been really depressed lately and you are the only one I know who would understand. I don’t know what I’d do without you.

  Love and hugs,

  Megan

  * * *

  Dear Megan,

  No, no, no. You are not a depressed, empty, old SINK.

  You are priceless. Do you know how many times you have saved my life? Over and over and over again—just being there to talk to? How do you think I got through the thick and thin? YOU.

  Maybe you aren’t married and maybe you don’t have a family, but you said yourself that there are sacrifices and I so appreciate the sacrifices you have made for me over the years—listening. You’ve been a rock-solid foundation for me to stand on. What if you had gotten married and distracted and busy? You may not have been there for me—when my dad died, dog died; when I fought with my mother, agonized over Uncle Francis; wrestled with my kids, myself; had the Reese bombs dropped on me; lost myself, found myself—you’ve been there. It’s not like I wish for you to solely be my assigned sounding board, but in hindsight, I can see how it has played out. How many times were you there for me, understood me, when Glenn understood nothing? More than I can count.

  You might not have a husband, but you have a friend—ME. Thank you so much.