Call Me Cockroach: Based on a True Story

by Leigh Byrne

  No matter how others perceived me, for too many years Mama had drilled into my head that I was ugly, too many times she’d called me horse face, so regardless of the truth, ugly had become my reality. She found my face so repulsive she made me wear a mask so she wouldn’t have to see it. Hundreds of men would have to tell me otherwise, hundreds of times, to even begin to silence her voice inside my head.

  The following Sunday was a slow night at work. No ballgames, no buses, only the usual steady flow of customers. A regular—a sweet guy named Bart who played on the Vanderbilt football team—came in and walked up to my register. Even when there were other registers open, he always came to mine. He ordered his usual—a Big Mac, no onion, large fries and a vanilla shake. A Big Mac with no onion was a special order, so he had to wait for the crew in the back to make it. They couldn’t simply take the onions off of a regular Big Mac because the manager told us some people were so allergic to certain foods that even the juices could cause them to have a reaction.

  Bart was preppy cute. He had sandy blond hair, a strong jaw, the typical broad neck of a jock, and a smile that entered the room before he did. The workers in the back hated him because he messed up the flow of things in the kitchen. But I liked him because he was extra friendly to me and made a point to chit-chat while he waited for his order.

  Like always, I made Bart’s shake and gave it to him so he could drink it while he waited for the rest of his order. When I handed him the shake, I noticed he seemed stiff when he extended his arm. “Is everything okay, Bart?” I asked.

  “Wanna go out sometime?” he blurted out of nowhere.

  What? Why would he want to go out with me? He’s a college guy, who attends a real college, a university, and not just any university—Vanderbilt! On top of that he’s a football player! Surely I’d misunderstood what he said. While all these thoughts were racing through my mind, I stood there like an idiot and stared at Bart.

  Thankfully, one of the guys in the back saved me. “Special order up,” he called out. I turned away from Bart to put his food in a sack, all the while trying to figure out what I was going to say to him when I had to turn back around. One thing I knew for sure; I couldn’t go out with him, and although I wouldn’t allow myself to think the actual words, I knew in my heart the reason why: I wasn’t good enough.

  “Well do you?” he asked again.

  I turned around and handed him his food. “I don’t know if I can; I work almost every night,” I said. “But I’ll let you know.” I was relieved to see there was a couple behind him getting antsy. “May I take your order, please?” I asked, using them as an excuse for looking away from Bart.

  The same night, less than an hour later, another familiar face walked in the restaurant—Chad from the liquor store. With a slow, don’t-mess-with-me swagger, he headed straight toward me as if he’d known ahead of time exactly where I was. “I’m picking you up after work tonight,” he stated matter-of-factly. “What time do you get off?”

  “Ten-thirty,” I answered. It was eight o’clock then.

  “I’ll wait in my car.”

  For the rest of my shift I was a bundle of nerves to think Chad had come all the way from Kentucky to see me. At ten-thirty, I clocked out and went out to the parking lot to look for his Mustang. It was nowhere to be found. “Figures,” I mumbled to myself. As I headed back inside to call Aunt Macy to come and pick me up, I heard a car horn behind me. What looked to me like a racecar—shiny blue and white, with the numbers 442 on the side—pulled up to the curb beside me. Chad was driving.

  “Where’s your Mustang?” I asked.

  “It’s at home. I brought the good car tonight.” He grinned and then leaned over and opened the passenger door. “Get in.”

  Even though I hardly knew him, I did as he said because he didn’t give me the choice to say no. He came across as being in control. I was used to control.

  “Where do you live?” Chad asked, pulling out of the parking lot.

  “On Westwood, not far from here.”

  Every so often, when the street lights whipped across Chad’s face, I snuck a peek at him. He was too pretty to be a guy. Aside from the thick black hair, he had full, perfectly shaped lips, and eyelashes any girl would kill for. “Did you really come all this way to give me a ride home from work?”

  “To give you a ride and get your number. I forgot to ask for it the night I saw you at the liquor store.”

  The first thing I noticed about Chad’s personality was he didn’t talk much. After about ten minutes of his monosyllable answers to my questions, and another twenty of riding around town with the stereo full blast, he said, “Better take you home now. It’s a long drive back to Sullivan, and I have to work in the morning.”

  “Where do you work?”

  “Coal mine. Where else is there to work in Sullivan?”

  From my time living in western Kentucky, I knew miners made good money. That explained the nice car. “How long you been there?”

  “Coming up on two years now. My dad got me on as soon as I graduated.”

  “Do you like it?”

  “I like the money. A job’s a job. Ain’t too picky about what I do as long as they pay me.”

  “I guess you have your own place too, huh?”

  “Nope, not yet. Still live with the folks, but I’m saving up so I can move out soon. For now I figure there’s no sense me paying rent if I don’t have to. What about you? You live by yourself?”

  “Not on a McDonald’s paycheck. I live with my aunt Macy.”

  “Where are your parents?”

  “My daddy was killed in a car wreck, and my mama lives in Spring Hill, about forty-five minutes from here.”

  He reached over and touched my arm. I flinched as if it were the first time anyone had ever touched me. “Sorry about your dad.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Why aren’t you living with your mama?”

  “Long story, and there’s not nearly enough time to tell it tonight. We’re almost to my house.”

  “When did you live in Uniontown?”

  “About seven years ago. I moved here in the middle of seventh grade.”

  “I asked around and nobody from school seems to remember you.”

  “I didn’t get out much.”

  He walked me to the door and gave me a gentle kiss, like he was kissing the top of a baby’s head. I dug in my purse for a pen and wrote my number on the back of his hand.

  RETURN TO SURVIVAL MODE

  For the next month and a half Chad called me every day. He drove down from Kentucky to see me on the weekends and sometimes during the week. Mostly we rode around Nashville drinking beer, and then ended the night with clumsy sex in the back seat of his car.

  He didn’t like me going out with my friends from work, and if I told him I had plans to, he’d say he was coming down. And he would do it too, even if he had to work the next morning, or go in on third shift at the mine, just to keep me from going anywhere without him. “I’m looking out for you,” he would say. “I don’t want anything to happen to you.” His protectiveness made me feel cherished. Pretty soon, I got to the point where I didn’t go anywhere without him because I didn’t want him to worry.

  One night Chad drove me to work, and as had become his habit, sat out in his car and waited for me to get off. He parked close to the restaurant—so close I could see the fire of his cigarette get brighter every time he inhaled. Now and then he waved to let me know he was watching over me.

  He’d been out there a little over three hours of my four-hour shift, when in walked Bart. He had on a yellow polo shirt with the collar turned up, and a brown bomber jacket. His jeans were the perfect tightness to show off his muscular legs without being vulgar. As he approached the counter, I hoped he’d forgotten about the whole going out thing.

  “Hi, Bart!” I chirped. “Big Mac, no onion?”

  “No thanks,” he said. “I didn’t come in to eat this time. I came in to talk to you, to ask you if yo
u’d thought any more about going out with me.”

  I picked up a straw wrapper someone had left on the counter, and rolled it into a ball with my thumb and forefinger. “Well, yeah I’ve thought about it, but I’m kinda going out with someone now.”

  “No problem. You’re young; you can go out with anyone you want. I only want to take you out to dinner so I can get to know you better.”

  He was too gorgeous to look at. His teeth were too straight, his eyes too green, and he had dimples. I loved dimples. “I probably shouldn’t. The guy I’ve been seeing doesn’t like me to go out with anyone else.”

  “C’mon Tuesday, it’s just dinner.”

  Right about then the side door flew open and Chad walked up to where we were. “What the hell’s going on here?”

  “Just talking to a friend,” I said.

  “Did you tell your friend you were going with someone?”

  “Yes! We were only talking, Chad!”

  “About what?”

  “I was asking her out,” Bart said, defiantly. “I don’t see a ring on her finger, and you don’t own her.”

  Chad moved in close to Bart. From where I stood, their noses appeared to be touching. “Listen here, meathead…” he said.

  The night manager came out from the back. “You boys need to take this somewhere else.”

  Bart turned to leave and Chad followed. I knew if it came to a fist fight, Bart would kill Chad. I looked at the manager. “Can I take my break now?”

  “Go ahead and clock out for the night; your shift’s almost over anyway. When you get out there, get ‘em away from the restaurant, or I’ll have to call the cops.”

  Out in the parking lot, a few feet from the door they’d gone out of, Chad and Bart were squared up, face to face. Chad moved in to Bart’s personal space again. “Listen here, you mother…”

  “Please Chad,” I pleaded. “Stop or the manager’s going to call the police.”

  Bart turned and started walking off. “I’m outta here,” he said. “I’ve had about enough of this redneck crap.”

  I was embarrassed for Chad, embarrassed for myself. Bart was a nice guy, a classy guy. As he walked across the parking lot to his car, Chad yelled out, “Don’t ever mess with her again, jockstrap, or I’ll kill your ass. The last guy who crossed me got a ball-peen hammer to the head.”

  After he’d calmed down, Chad drove us to the duck pond in Centennial Park, a place where we liked to go after I got off work. We got out and sat on the hood of his car. I was still trembling from what had happened at the restaurant. There was quiet all around us and a big gap between us.

  In the limited time I’d known Chad, I’d learned if he had something to say, he said it, otherwise he didn’t talk. I’d convinced myself his reticence stemmed from him being a thinker, a sensitive man who contemplated life, and his I-don’t-give-a-shit exterior was a cover to protect his male ego. God only knows what Chad was thinking then, but I had one thing on my mind and one thing only—ball-peen hammers. Ever since I heard Chad tell Bart he’d hit a guy in the head with one, I couldn’t shake it from my thoughts. I had to know. I took a deep breath. “What’s the deal with the guy you hit with a hammer?”

  “He pissed me off.”

  “How? What could he have done to make you so mad?”

  “He was running his mouth.”

  I sat there a second waiting for him to elaborate, but he didn’t. “Where did this happen?”

  “In the parking lot behind the bowling alley in Sullivan. You know where that is?”

  “Not really.”

  “It’s about fifteen minutes from Uniontown.”

  “Where’d you get a hammer at a bowling alley?”

  “I keep one in my car in case I need an equalizer, if you know what I mean. Here, I’ll show it to you.” He hopped down from the hood, opened the car door, reached in and pulled the hammer from under the back of the driver’s seat. He handed it to me and the sudden weight of it caused my hand to descend.

  “You hit somebody in the head with this?”

  “Several times. The bad thing is I’m not sure if he lived through it. I got the hell out of there when I saw he was bleeding pretty bad, and haven’t been back to the bowling alley since.”

  I stared at him in disbelief. Who the hell are you? “Wow! Guess I’d better not make you mad, right?”

  He took the hammer back. “Baby, don’t look at me like that. There ain’t no reason to be scared of me. I’d never lay a finger on you. But I would defend you with my life.” He put the hammer back in the car and sat beside me again, this time he moved closer.

  “Want to tell me about your mom now?”

  Did he just start a conversation? “It’s complicated,” I said. It was something I’d heard people on TV say, and I’d always wanted to say it.

  “Try me; I’m pretty smart for a dumb ol’ country boy,” he said, chuckling at his own cleverness.

  I wasn’t in the mood to talk about Mama, or my abuse, but I knew I would have to sooner or later. “Basically she hated me when I was a kid. Still does, but she won’t admit it.”

  “So ya’ll don’t get along.”

  “Well, it’s more than that. She used to beat on me.”

  “Yeah, my old man used to knock me around sometimes when he was drinking. But not anymore; he knows I’ll kick his ass now. Your mom a drinker?”

  “Not really. Not in the beginning anyway.”

  “That leaves crazy, then.”

  “Yeah, that would be her.”

  “My old man’s just a mean drunk. He’s good as gold when he ain’t drinking, and he hasn’t been on a drunk in a long time.”

  “My mama did some pretty strange things to me while she was stone-cold sober.”

  “There ain’t no reasoning with crazy.”

  “You got that right.”

  “Any brothers and sisters?”

  “Brothers, but I barely know them. We weren’t allowed near each other when we were kids.”

  “She mean to them?”

  “Nope.” I was beginning to understand the value of monosyllable answers.

  “Hmm, strange.” That was all he needed to know about my family, either because it didn’t matter, or he didn’t care, or in his compartmentalized world he couldn’t find a way to neatly file what I’d told him away in his mind.

  After a stretch of silence he asked, “Do ya love me?”

  It was the last thing I expected him to say after what we’d just talked about. Do I love you? Like I love Aunt Macy? Like I loved Daddy and Grandma Storm? Not even close. But I loved Chad in another way, or at least I thought I did, mostly because I believed he truly loved me. And I liked the way he protected me, protected our relationship. Now we had an abuse bond.

  Maybe we’re kindred spirits. “I guess so,” I said.

  “You guess, or you know?”

  “I know; I love you.”

  “I love you too then.” There was a minute or so of more silence. “This driving back and forth from Sullivan to Nashville every few days is getting old,” he said. “We may as well get married before I wear the tires out on my car.”

  He has to be joking. Why else would he ask me to marry him after having known me for only two months? Ha-ha, funny, Chad! I played along. “Sure,” I said. “Why not?”

  “I’m serious.”

  I turned to him. His eyes were black ice. I peered deep into their darkness trying to see my future.

  Suddenly, I abandoned the notion of love, and my survival instincts kicked into full throttle. Is this my answer, my way out of living with Edwin and Aunt Macy and having to go back to college? I thought of Aunt Macy and how she deserved a life of her own with Edwin. The simple fact was I had to find a place to live and a way to take care of myself before May. Take care of myself. Chad wanted to take care of me, provide for me—marry me. Something about being around him gave me a sense of safety, yet some of his other traits frightened me. I thought of the ball-peen hammer and pictured the
poor nameless man sprawled across the bowling alley parking lot, his brains spilling from his skull. What if Chad killed that man? What if I’m sitting beside a murderer? I thought of Bart and what it would be like to date a nice guy like him. I knew I had no business marrying Chad. Every fiber of my being told me not to. Say no, say no, say no…

  “Sure,” I said.

  Chad put his arm around my shoulders and pulled me in to him. “I’ll take care of you. I promise,” he said, like he’d just bought himself a good hunting dog.

  For someone who’d agreed to give her life away, I was unusually calm. I wasn’t giddy, like a girl who was getting married should have been. The implications of what I had done had not taken hold. In my mind, I had secured my survival route.

  There were no ducks visible in the pond, so I stretched out on the car hood and looked up at the starry sky. Chad joined me. Before I knew it, he’d slid a warm, calloused hand under my uniform top and the elastic of my bra, to my right breast. He gave it a squeeze. “This will soon be mine.”

  I tried to shove his arm back, but it lay heavy across my chest. “No, Chad, not out here!”

  He laughed and retracted his hand.

  A few days after Chad asked me to marry him, or rather after we agreed to get married, he called insisting I quit my job at McDonald’s. He said there was no reason for me to work anymore because I’d be moving with him to Sullivan soon anyway. He had it all planned out. We would be married in Shawnee town, Illinois, where there was no blood test required, and only a twenty-four hour waiting period to be married after you get your license. After we were married we would move in with his mom and dad until he could afford to buy us a trailer.