Call Me Cockroach: Based on a True Story

by Leigh Byrne

  Daddy would never have approved of the husband I’d chosen. Chad was nothing like him—he had no college education, no ambition, and a tendency toward violence. And he definitely did not make me feel good about myself. That may have been one reason I married him—as an unconscious act of defiance against Daddy, because even after so many years the burn of his betrayal was still with me.

  It was getting close to Christmas, and Becky had persuaded me to put in more hours at the store. In addition to working an extra day during the week, instead of getting off at two or two-thirty, I’d been staying until four-thirty or five.

  Molly, now twelve, had been doing some light babysitting for family and friends, so she was responsible enough to keep an eye on Daryl for a few hours after school while I worked. A soon as I got off, I rushed home and slapped something together for dinner. As my job became more demanding of my time, our family meals became more processed. Lately we’d been eating a lot of Hamburger Helper and frozen pizzas. When I was off work, I tried to make a huge pot of soup or chili to keep from having to cook again for at least two days.

  One afternoon, I got caught up with a customer, lost track of time and didn’t get home until after Chad. When I drove up he and the kids were walking out of the house.

  “Where are you guys going?” I asked.

  “The kids are starving; we’re going to Mom’s for dinner.”

  Later on, when Molly and Daryl were asleep, everything came to a head.

  “You’re quitting that fucking job!” Chad screamed.

  “Keep your voice down; you’ll wake the kids.”

  “I’m tired of eating the slop you’ve been trying to pass off as dinner!”

  “I’m not quitting!” I said defiantly.

  “We don’t need that piddly-ass money you make! You need to be here when the kids get home from school.”

  “I don’t want to have to ask you for money when I want to buy something.”

  “What the hell do you need to buy?”

  “Well, for one thing a Christmas present for you.”

  “I don’t want anything for Christmas!” he said. “Now what do you need it for? Tampons? Tell you what. I’ll pay you whatever you make a week working at Ashley’s.”

  “I’m not quitting, Chad!”

  “Oh yes you are, unless you want to be out on the streets!”

  I broke out crying. “You can’t just kick me out!”

  “You’ll change your mind about that when you come home one day and find out the locks have been changed on the door.”

  I knew he couldn’t put me out on the streets, but he could make my life a living hell. “At least let me work through Christmas,” I said.

  “Okay, but go ahead and tell Becky tomorrow so she can be looking for somebody to take your place.”

  A few days later, around lunchtime, the man looking for the zippered pants came back into the store. What could he possibly want now? We didn’t have the weird zippered pants. We didn’t sell boots. I walked out onto the sales floor to greet him. “Hello again.”

  “Hello! I was so rude the other day, I didn’t even introduce myself.” He extended his hand. “My name is Mehmet Demir. But everyone calls me Matt.”

  That’s definitely not Italian. I took his hand “Nice to meet you, Matt. I’m Tuesday Sutton.”

  “I also have a confession to make,” he said. “I wasn’t really looking for pants with zippers down the legs.”

  I knew it! I thought. There aren’t any pants like that. “You weren’t?”

  “I made it all up so I would have an excuse to come in.”

  “Why would you do that?”

  “I saw you in the store window and was so overtaken by your beauty I had to talk to you.”

  Overtaken by my beauty? I’d never had anyone say anything remotely like that to me before. As far as I knew the word, beauty, and a reference to me, had never before been used in the same sentence. Cute, yes; good looking, maybe once—but never beautiful. His intention—for whatever reason—was to compliment me, I knew that, and yet my reaction was the opposite. I felt like I was at the gynecologist and my legs were spread and up in stirrups.

  I felt a blush coming on and I tried to ward it off. “Don’t be silly.”

  “You’re blushing!” Matt said “Why are you embarrassed? People must tell you you’re beautiful all the time.”

  “No, not really.” Please, please don’t talk about beauty anymore. I steered our conversation in a different direction. “What about the boots?”

  “I actually did like the boots. But I asked to see them hoping I would get a peek at your legs.”

  “You’re kidding me!”

  He bowed his head. “I know it was wrong and I apologize.”

  Never before had a man found me so attractive to lie to get to know me. Not even my husband. Definitely not my husband. If Chad thought I was beautiful he’d never voiced it. Sometimes I didn’t want to have to assume I was desirable, like he expected me to. I wanted someone to tell me, but at the same time, hearing it from Matt made me nervous.

  My legs were still up in stirrups, as my mind fumbled for something to say. “Is there something I can show you for your wife while you’re in here?”

  “Oh, no.”

  Did he make his wife up too? “You do have a wife. Don’t you?”

  “Yes, that part is true,” he said, dismally, as if he were telling me about a bunion he couldn’t get rid of. “But it’s a marriage only in name. It was sort of arranged by our parents.”

  Arranged? Where is he from? “If you don’t mind my asking, what is your nationality?”

  “Not at all. I was born in Turkey, but I’ve been an American citizen since I was eighteen.”

  Geography wasn’t my best subject in school, but I was pretty sure Turkey was somewhere in the Middle East. “Oh, really?” I said.

  “My wife and I have agreed to get a divorce,” he continued. “But there hasn’t been an urgency to file, so we decided to live in the same home in separate rooms. It’s mostly for our son. He’s ill—kidney disease.”

  “I’m sorry your son’s sick.”

  “What about you? Are you married?”

  “Yes. Ten years.”

  “Happily?”

  “No.” Why did I say that? It was a reflex—a hiccup. I was so pissed at Chad for making me quit my job, it slipped out. But I had no business telling a stranger about my personal life. I wanted to take it back. No sounded too absolute. There had been good times with Chad, and he was the father of my children.

  Right about then, a regular customer walked into the store with her teenaged daughter. Thank God. “Well, Matt,” I said, sales clerk politely. “It’s been nice talking to you, but if there isn’t anything I can show you I need to tend to the other customers.”

  “Yes, of course.” He nodded his head twice and then left the store.

  When he was gone, I was relieved because I couldn’t bear to hear one more compliment. And yet, later, alone inside my head, I found myself recalling our conversation and wallowing in his words.

  Several days later, Matt came into the store again. Now what? I thought when I saw him walk through the door.

  Smiling, as if someone had just told him a joke, and with a confident swagger, he made his way through the racks of clothes to the counter where I was standing.

  “Hello, Tuesday! How are you?”

  “Hi Matt; I’m fine.”

  He chuckled. “She remembered my name!”

  “Is there something I can help you with?”

  “No, no, just came in to say hello to you. I woke up this morning and realized what day of the week it is, and thought of you, my beautiful friend, Tuesday.”

  Oh, no, not that beautiful crap again. “How nice of you.”

  “I was wondering if you might like to join me for lunch sometime.”

  Had he forgotten I was married? “Sweet of you to ask, but remember, I’m married.”

  “I know you’re marr
ied. So am I. That doesn’t mean we can’t be friends. I like you better than anyone I’ve met in a long time. We both have unhappy marriages; I thought we could talk about it and maybe help each other.”

  Friends? I can’t be friends with someone who thinks I’m beautiful. Besides, I knew Chad would never go for me having a male friend, particularly one who looked like Matt. He didn’t even like the idea of me being friends with women. “No I really shouldn’t; it wouldn’t be right.”

  “Ah Tuesday, you’re making more of this than is necessary. It’s only lunch.” He pressed his hands together as if he was getting ready to pray. “I’m not taking no for an answer.”

  Something told me he was telling the truth about that. I decided to agree to go just to get him to let up on me. I could come up with excuses later. “Okay then. I’ll have lunch with you.”

  “Excellent! I’ll pick you up here. So when should we go, tomorrow?”

  “I don’t work tomorrow.”

  “Then Thursday?”

  “Thursday I have something important I need to take care of on my lunch break.”

  “I’ll go with you to run your errand, and then we’ll have lunch.”

  “It’s personal.”

  “Oh, okay.” He thought a minute. “Tell you what. I’ll drop by again next Tuesday and we’ll decide then.”

  “That’s fine.”

  After Matt left, I entertained the notion of going to lunch with him. Maybe he was right; I was making too much of it. We’re not having an affair; we’re going to a public place to eat in the middle of the day. The more I thought about going to lunch with a handsome, dark foreigner, the more I liked the idea. It sounded so sophisticated and worldly. We’ll do lunch. I’d never been out to lunch with a man, except for the drive through at the Dairy Maid with Chad. And it was clear Matt was not going to give up. I figured I may as well go and get it over with, just the one time. Chad never even had to know.

  The following Tuesday, Matt stopped by the store like he said he would and we agreed to have lunch on Friday. Although I had put up a fight not to go, I found myself looking forward to our date. I liked Matt—as a friend, of course, but he did make me feel good about myself.

  A COWARD’S DREAM

  Friday morning, before my lunch date with Matt, I spent an inordinate amount time trying to decide what to wear. My concern was that I might be too casually dressed. Every time I’d seen Matt he’d had on a suit. The day he came in to confess he’d made up the story about the zippered pants, he’d been wearing a gray suit. When he dropped by to ask me to go to lunch, it was navy blue, and then when he confirmed our lunch date—charcoal pinstripe. With the charcoal suit he’d worn a pink shirt, tie, and matching handkerchief. I remembered thinking I’d never seen a man in pink before. In the world in which I lived, if a man wore pink he was labeled a queer.

  After trying on everything in my closet, I chose a soft blue sweater and slimming black pants I’d bought with my first paycheck at Ashley’s. The outfit was dressy enough without coming off as trying too hard.

  As lunchtime neared, I started to get nervous. I’d told Matt, since I hadn’t had a chance to explain to Becky that he was only a friend, to wait outside for me so our leaving together wouldn’t raise any suspicion. At twelve o’clock, I went out to the parking lot, and there he was standing beside his car, smiling as usual, not a forced smile, but rather a spontaneous result of being genuinely glad to see me. I couldn’t help but smile back. As I’d expected, he had on a suit, a black one with a teal blue shirt and tie. Peeking out of the pocket of his jacket was a silk handkerchief that was a spot on match to his shirt.

  As I approached him, he walked around and opened the passenger side door of his car—a sporty red Mazda with black leather seats—and with a welcoming wave of his hand, motioned for me to get in. When we arrived at the restaurant, he got out first and opened the door for me again. By the time we’d walked up to the restaurant entrance and he jumped in front of me to open that door too, I’d figured out I would not be opening any doors while I was with him.

  We’d decided to eat at a barbeque place in a neighboring town. I suggested we go there because I thought we would be less likely to run into any of Chad’s friends. Not that Matt and I had a reason to hide, but I was married to a man who’d once gotten mad at me for driving to the Kwik Pik to get a Popsicle.

  The minute we walked in, everyone in the restaurant turned their eyes to us. Matt was conspicuously different from every other man in town, possibly in western Kentucky. Where we lived he was not considered to be handsome. He was too dark, too foreign, too queer. But by universal standards, except for being on the short side, he was definitely a handsome man. His eyes were deep enough to be sexy, yet soft with compassion. Every jet black hair on his head was in place, unlike the guys I knew that wore shaggy mullets trimmed irregularly by their wives. His light olive skin didn’t have a blemish or trace of razor stubble on it. His teeth were all present and straight, and not speckled with chewing tobacco.

  Sitting across from him, enjoying his immaculate hygiene, his expensive cologne, I reeked of guilt, because in my mind, I was comparing him to Chad, who always had coal dust in the corners of his eyes and the curves of his ears. Chad, who, no matter how many showers he took, never seemed to get completely clean of the musty smell of the mine.

  Despite my nerves leading up to our lunch date, I was surprisingly at ease around Matt. Over soggy pulled pork sandwiches, dill pickle wedges and potato chips, I found out he and his wife, Fatma had come to the United States when they were eighteen to go to college, and had lived here ever since. By the time they graduated, they had both become American citizens.

  “So tell me why you’re not happy at home?” he asked.

  “Chad—my husband—is not a bad man. He’s a good father to our kids and a good provider, and he gives me anything I want. But he’s so… so… protective. He doesn’t want me to go anywhere without him.”

  “That’s not protective; that’s controlling,” said Matt

  “Now he’s making me quit my job.”

  “He’s making you quit? Tuesday no one has the right to make you do anything. You’re married to the man, but he doesn’t own you.”

  He was right; the words sounded absurd even as they came of my mouth, but in the isolation of my small world, it had become accepted behavior.

  “You’re too beautiful; he’s trying to keep you hidden from other men,” he said “He’s afraid of losing you, but the sad part is by holding on too tight he’s pushing you away. The man doesn’t want a divorce. He’s bluffing.”

  “Yes I believe you’re right. I think he’s afraid that if I get out in the world too much he will somehow lose me.”

  “Go ahead, agree to give him his divorce and see what happens.”

  “What if he takes me up on the offer?”

  “He won’t, but if he does, you have to ask yourself if you’re willing to continue the rest of your life under his control. Do you love him that much?”

  I knew the answer, but I didn’t say it out loud.

  “If he truly loves you he will want you to be happy, not force you to do something against your will.”

  “But I’m afraid I couldn’t take care of myself without him, let alone my kids.”

  “You would be surprised what you’re capable of. But you’ll never know unless you challenge yourself.”

  “I don’t have any family to help me.”

  “Has your mother passed away too?”

  “No, but I can’t go to her for help.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t have time to get into that right now.”

  “So, there’s more to the distant sadness in your eyes.”

  “Yes, much more.”

  “Tuesday, I want you to know you have a new friend now. I will be there if you need me.”

  Back at the store, my mind buzzed with all that Matt had said. He’d made me aware of the few remaining threads that sustained my co
nnection to the rest of the world. Under the burden of my fear, I could feel the threads yielding, as though any minute they might break. Would I ever find the courage to enter unknown territory? Or would I take the easy route again, the route on which I knew I would never get lost? If I stayed with Chad, I would slowly withdraw and once again find myself alone inside my head, a dark, scary place to be. And I knew it would be only a matter of time before the emptiness returned. What would fill the void next time? Another obsession? An eating disorder?

  By Thanksgiving, I’d made up my mind to leave Chad after Christmas—but I hadn’t told him. And I couldn’t tell him because if he knew I was thinking of leaving and taking the kids he would do everything in his power to keep me from it. He had once told me if I ever left him he would kill me. I wasn’t sure if Chad had it in him to kill, but I knew he was capable of hitting someone in the head with a ball-peen hammer. He grew up in an environment where gun wielding and physical aggression from the alpha male was a tolerated part of the family dynamics. I didn’t know how far he would go, because I hadn’t pushed him since the night he threatened to shoot Molly and me. I had been a submissive, compliant wife to avoid unleashing the violence inside him, because I was afraid of revisiting the abuse I had escaped. No, I could not tell him I was leaving beforehand. When the time was right I would simply have to leave.

  Matt stopped by the store every day on his lunch hour to give me moral support. We went to lunch together once or twice a week.

  One day, Becky asked me why he hung around the store much.

  “He’s just a friend,” I said.

  “That’s not how it appears. The customers are talking, asking about the foreign man who’s always in here. It doesn’t look good.”