In my dream I see my funeral but with the dream came information concerning the future. In my dream, I hadn’t written four stories. There was T.B.O.T.E. parts One and Two. The others I didn’t recognize. In my dream I had been afraid to seriously pursue publishing my stories. But after my death the stories were published and I know my family is financially taken care of. I had left them a box of half stories and ideas that could fill at least thirty to forty books if the right people take over.
The next day I found a reason to go back to the store and try to talk to the woman I just met. I got there late and she was about to close. The studio closed an hour before the store did so I knew all I had to do was get there before she left. I did. I got there as she was walking out. When I saw her it was just like the day before. She took my breath away.
I walked with her, said a few jokes and we laughed. Then I asked her if she wanted to get something to eat. She said she couldn’t. The rejection blew right off me. I asked her about the next night and then the next. She said no and no. I was like, ok, fine, Saturday night then? For some stupid reason I still had confidence.
Again she said she couldn’t and that’s when it hit me. She’s not interested. Then I hear her, “But, what about Saturday morning?”
That was all I needed to hear. I left that store with a date three mornings away. I was happy. That was out of character for me. I didn’t ask girls out. The result was very few girlfriends. But this woman was different. I knew she was.
Three mornings later, I arrive thirty minutes early at the restaurant we are to meet at. I wanted to get there before her so that’s what I did. I ordered a coffee and talked to the waitress. I ran my mouth like I always do. I told her what I was doing there and why. I was nervous. I couldn’t help it. An hour later, I’m still waiting. I’ve had two cups of coffee and no matter how strong my doubt was. I would not let it over take my thoughts. She would be here any minute. That’s what I told myself for the next hour.
“Honey, you sure you don’t want to order some food or something?” the waitress asked me.
I look up and shake my head no. I understand why she says what she says and I hear the sincerity.
“I don’t think she’s going to show baby.”
“She will.”
That’s all I could say. I ordered another coffee and took a deep breath. How big a fool have I made of myself is what I began to think. Why did I think this beautiful woman would be interested? I was a manager of a grocery store video department. This was stupid. I should leave is all I could think. That is the thought I had for the next thirty minutes. Every time the waitress walked by and smiled, my embarrassment increased. Then at the two and a half hour mark I knew it was over. I knew when she had to be at work that morning and that time was almost here. She wasn’t coming. The waitress had been right and I had been wrong. Again I was wrong. Then something different happened. The woman I was convinced was going to be my wife. The one who was the reason I had sat there for two and a half hours walked through the door. She was walking fast and she had a look of a long morning on her face. She sees me and walks to the table. I stand and as she is apologizing I realize that I don’t hear a word she’s saying. I was so happy that she showed that I didn’t care. I wasn’t tired, hungry or insecure anymore.
“I’m so sorry. I went to three different restaurants trying to find this one. I wasn’t sure where it was and I’m so sorry.”
I still wasn’t listening. I was in awe of this woman and that was it. I told her not to worry about it and I was just happy she found me.
She tells me that she’s late to work and that she can’t eat. She has to go but she asks me to come with her. She says maybe it will be a slow morning and she won’t have any customers.
I shook my head yes. I still couldn’t form words. I stood up and left a good tip for the waitress. I saw her, she was staring at me, smiling as Sally and I left.
Two days later I walked into that department store and got a job. I was going to work seasonal for the holidays so I could buy a ring and ask her to marry me. I did get a job there and my time with Sally increased more everyday.
We saw each other darn near everyday for the next month. We did Halloween with the children and like I said, we were spending a lot of time together. I couldn’t get enough of her. I still can’t.
My ability to manage the video store was greatly affected by my relationship. It wasn’t Sally’s fault. It was mine.
I remember one night Sally and I are at a park, watching Bryan and Jessica run around. I watched her watching the children and nothing but my son’s birth had ever felt so right. It was getting dark and soon we were going to leave. He and I had been talking about us and for reasons beyond my control I bent down to one knee. I reached for her hand and then I looked up into her eyes. I did something I had told myself I wouldn’t ever do again. I placed my trust and faith in a woman.
I told her that I loved her. I knew it was fast but it was true. I asked her to love me, to give me faith and trust. A knot formed in my stomach and with each second that passed it became harder for me to breath.
“Sally, I have issues. I’ve made many mistakes in the past but I’m working on it and if you have the time and the patience to help me through them I promise with all of my heart. I will make you the happiest woman ever. I promise you this.”
She bends down and with eyes that tear from love she hugs me. She says that she will. She says together we can do anything. There is nothing that we can’t defeat.
One month later, Sally and her daughter Jessica move in with my roommates and me. There wasn’t much of a plan other than we didn’t want to live away from each other. It was at this point that I start making my first mistakes in our relationship. I didn’t think about how much trust and faith she placed in us.
Sally was a single mom who was working to support her daughter. She was living at home with her folks after several unsuccessful attempts to make a life for them. This was a big step and I didn’t recognize it. Not for years later. It’s a simple but costly over sight. One of many I’ll make.
The reaction to our decision to move so fast was interesting. Family and friends had different responses.
Some of her friends told her that she was moving too fast and that she was making the same mistakes she’d made before. Her family, which is Mom, Dad, and two brothers, were pretty cool.
My family, which is Mom, Dad, and two brothers, were themselves. My father was mad. My older brother, Johnny, was mean, and my younger brother Joey. Joey could only say congratulations because he was as guilty as me in his own life.
My younger brother, Joey, was in the military and was stationed in Germany. There he fell in love with a local and that is where he married her. We met her and her kid when they came home for Christmas.
That Christmas was crazy. It was our first together and she had only lived with us for a few weeks. My brother and his wife stayed at our house and for about twenty to thirty days we had over fifteen people staying there. Family, friends, and my brother’s army buddies, who were great, all crashed at our apartment.
A couple weeks after that Christmas Sally and I began fighting all the time. I was the reason we fought. I was a scared insecure little boy trying to live a man’s life. That’s harsh and probably not completely accurate but that’s how I felt.
It was during that time that my girl and I lost our jobs on the same day. We laughed about it. We didn’t care. We had each other and that was all we needed. It was during that time that my roommate, Michael, met the soon-to-be-mother of his child, Tammy. Tammy was an employee at the video store with me and was pretty cool.
I was a jealous person. It wasn’t because of her. It was because I had no confidence when it came to relationships. In one way or another every woman I ever dated ended up cheating on me. I didn’t trust women. I didn’t trust myself.
One time when a friend of mine was visiting, my wife got to see a part of me I was trying to lose. It was stupid. I got
mad when he lit her cigarette. I had this whole reason of logic, which was pretty good and almost made my behavior acceptable. I was so stupid but I was lucky. I had a good woman and a good friend. They handled me the way they do and the truth is if they didn’t I’m not sure this idiot would have realized his own stupidity. To point out others’ stupidity is easy but to hold that mirror in front of your self is hard. Its hard but in the end if done right it can make one stronger. The truth is always better. It’s that simple. It is what I was learning anyway.
The truth is the more I think about how stupid I was, the more I distract myself. I stop and yell.
“Who cares, I don’t care!”
I take a deep breath. I need to focus. I need to understand why I am here. Our story T.B.O.T.E. is good and I should have no fear in that thought. I do though. I know why. Writing, I can’t write. My lack of education hinders my ability to describe my thoughts.
In my head my memories are clear. I see them. I experience them. They are mine to travel through at any time I choose. That is how it is and that is how I want it to be.
I remember, I remember it was close to New Years and my wife and I were at a bar. Well, at this time she wasn’t my wife yet, but we were at a bar. She and I were cutting across the floor in route to the bathroom. I was leading, holding her hand guiding her though the crowd. Now, both of us had been drinking so balance and focus was not normal.
We reach the bar and I stop because there’s a guy blocking our path. Sally, being under the influence that she was, didn’t stop. She walked straight into the back of this guy. He turns around and sees her, then looks at me. I should say looks down at me.
I’m like five foot six nothing and this guy is like six five. I shake my head when she tells him to move. I knew what was next.
“Control your bitch.” that’s what he said to me.
“What did you call me!” she was yelling at him. I grab her and pull her back as she points her finger up in the guys face. Then another guy stands. He is a little taller than the first and he is staring down at me as I hold my girl back.
“Control your bitch.”
These guys were making me mad. They made no sense and I was drunk so I was quickly losing my ability to stay focused. I figured my little brother was around and that he’d see the commotion. I also knew that I had a few big friends around, they’d help but then the biggest one stood up. He stood in the middle of the other two and he was staring down at her and me.
They said control your bitch!
I let go of my wife and she stumbles into and then past them. She is going to the bathroom, and I’m alone standing in front of the three guys. A guy I know came up and stands beside me. I was happy about that because he was a big guy. I look at him to see if he’s there to help me but his words answer that question before I speak.
"Do you know who that is?”
I had no idea who any of them were, and I didn’t care. I knew they were all huge and that I was going to get my tail end kicked. I didn’t care who they were or what the results were going to be.
“That’s Jefferson.”
Instantly I knew who Jefferson was. He was a guy who had played on the State University football team and was in his first year of the pros. Jefferson was a number one draft-pick for my favorite pro football team. He was twenty-three and was a mountain of a man.
I turn around and look up into Jefferson’s eyes. He arrogantly smiles, knowing that there’s nothing that I can do to him. I thought what the hell so I yell as I rear back to hit him. Instantly, two bouncers grab me from behind. I am not going to lie, I was glad they were stopping me. I did not want to fight those guys. I should have asked Jefferson for his autograph but I didn’t.
The beginning of our relationship was fast. For reasons I will not try to explain, we decided to start our family. Sure, we were only three and half months into our relationship, but why wait. That’s what we said. We didn’t use protection for three days and then on the fourth day something funny happened. We lost our jobs and both our cars died. On the same day we both became unemployed. That was a funny Friday.
We decide to wait on the family idea. I had to ask for her hand in marriage. I had saved the money from the seasonal job and with a little help I was able to get a ring. I wasn’t really worried about employment. I knew what I was going to do next.
So on the fifth day she and I were sitting on the couch playing video games. I go upstairs with the phone and walk into our room. I get inside the closet and dial a number. That’s the day I asked her to marry me. She was downstairs playing the game and I had the radio on so she could hear it. The DJ came on and said that he had me on the line and that I wanted to ask my girl a question.
“Sally will you marry me?”
A second later I hear a scream of joy from downstairs. The DJ played a song I requested and afterwards he got Sally on the phone to hear her answer. That was a good memory.
We were good but we were still fighting. I couldn’t stop. I just couldn’t. Most of our fights were silly and small but we did have some big ones. I know they were my fault. I know that it didn’t matter if I was right. I was still wrong.
The truth is out of all the fights I caused there are two that stand out more than others. They were the ones that made me start to change. One of them may make my Sally sound bad but trust me. If it weren’t for her then I wouldn’t be the man I am today. I like myself, most of the time.
One of the memories was in the basement of our apartment. We were playing pool. In the morning I had been a jerk and there had been a fight between us but at this moment we are ok. Then like always something happens and I run my mouth. Shut up, that’s just something I haven’t mastered.
We began to fight, argue and I continued to run my mouth. She told me she had had enough and to stop. Why? Why didn’t I just listen? It takes all my focus to listen and on this day I had no focus. I made her so mad she began to chase me around the table. She was going to hit me. In this fight I was right and I don’t think I was taking it as serious as she was. I know I wasn’t and around the third time around the table I decided to stop. I was going to let her hit me. So, that’s what I did. I stopped running and flexed my back expecting to be attacked.
I didn’t expect her to stop and grab a pool stick but she did. She also turned that stick around and made sure she hit me with the thick part of the stick. My legs buckled and I dropped to me knees. I take a deep breath and I stand up turning around. I see the look on her face. She was in as much shock as I was. I said the only thing I could as I kept my anger.
“Never do that again.”
She never did, and I tried from that moment on, to listen. I was going to stop my mouth. I loved Sally and she didn’t deserve an A-hole. She was better than that. I was better than that.
My presence flashes forward a month and I’m walking with Michael. This is the second memory. I know this one. Sally and I had just had a vicious fight and it was not a good moment. I thought in my argument that I was right, but I was still learning what it meant to be right. Accuracy is not always relevant.
At this time Sally was pregnant and we knew it. She had taken a pregnancy test and we were going to the doctors in a week or something like that. Things weren’t going good for us. I just couldn’t control my mouth.
I remember, Sally was walking with Michael’s girl Tammy, and I was walking with Michael. It was something that we did sometimes after a big fight. They would help us calm down and then we’d make up. This time it was different. I just felt it. I don’t remember the reason we fought. I just remember what happened afterwards.
The walks didn’t help us. She was mad. She was leaving. She was leaving me. I had a pregnant girlfriend that I made so mad that she was going to leave. Why did I do that? I don’t know.
I remember standing in the apartment, begging her to take a walk with me before leaving. She did, and we walked. It was in her eyes. Sally had had enough. She was a strong woman who could take no more.
I was done. There was to be no more jealousy. She was too important to me. I changed. I changed instantly. I became completely honest, and she allowed me. I learned to trust her in ways that no other can compare to. This was my woman, and she was soon to be the mother of my child. I wasn’t going to let her down. I wasn’t.
I remember the day Sally and I found out that she was pregnant. She was in the bathroom and had just taken a pregnancy test. It was a good day. We called everybody we knew. The reaction to our news was, well, to be kind, the majority was not very supportive. They weren’t happy that we’d only known each other for three or four months.
After a while her brother and his two kids move in with us. They stayed for a few months then moved out. As far as the families and what they thought of our pregnancy? They were coming around to it. All were being supportive but one, my father.
My father still lives in Kentucky. He was in our living-room in the apartment arguing with me. He was saying some pretty bad things about me and about Sally. I would have none of it. He was asked to leave and that’s all I’ll say about that. He was funny. Our family is funny. We don’t like to stay mad, some of us dislike it more than others but as a whole it isn’t something that we do. My Dad would call me about three times a week, if not more. He would try to talk about anything and I would only talk about what he said. Sally and I were something he had to get used to and that was it. It wasn’t my fault that he had gone his whole life without feeling like Sally and I. That’s how it was for a while with him.
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