Now You’re Just Somebody That I Used to Know

You sit in my grandmother’s brown swivel rocking chair–the one my grandpa gave me after Grandma passed away, greasy hair tumbling over your forehead, wearing the same pea-soup-green sweatshorts and white-turned-brown YMCA t-shirt you’ve lived in for the past six days. Yes, I’ve counted — because that was the last time I was close enough to you to smell you and tell you you HAD to take a shower. You did like I asked, trading your last rank uniform for this one and not changing since. Your six-day-old beard is littered with a fresh acne outbreak. Maybe there’s really something to that myth about junk food causing pimples. Or, maybe it’s the fact that you only shower when I remind you that you need to.

An open Pepsi sits on the floor next to the chair, and a scattering of empty cans — a once-pyramid toppled by one of the cats. I see a trail of ants marching from one of the cans, along the wall, and up the windowsill, heading for home with their haul of crumbs. You hold an open, mostly-empty bag of Doritos in your lap, likely the only food you’ve eaten today. The smell of stale cigarettes laces the air, and I spy the Pepsi can you’ve been using for an ashtray, ashes mixing with soda in the rim of the can to make a sludgy, gray mud, which means you’ve been smoking in the house again, even though that could get us evicted.

Your Xbox controller is in your left hand, and your thumb and pointer finger, stained orange with Dorito dust, are held out and away — God forbid you get Dorito dust on your precious controller. I’ve seen you bite this same controller in a fit of rage because you just “lost your guy”. You stomp your feet, and you scream obscenities at the TV screen. I know you want to throw the controller, but you don’t want to break the TV or the controller, because then how would you spend your days? Certainly not doing anything productive, like working, or cleaning, or showering. So rather than throw it, in order to vent this sanity-stealing rage that’s built up because this game is cheating, you grip the controller with both hands and bite it with all the force you can muster, bite it like you’d like to bite right through it. Your jaw muscles contract, and I wonder if this will be the thing that breaks your rotten teeth right out of your head.

You’re not raging this time, however. Your pretend life must be going your way in your virtual world. Your cellphone rests on your right knee, and your wireless headphone / microphone / headset thingie ensures you hear no one but the transatlantic boyfriends and girlfriends that consume your time. I’ve listened to you talk to people online for years, and I’m well aware that you’re gearing up to fight a notorious monster. What else could make you forget you needed to pick up your kindergartener from the bus stop; otherwise, they won’t let her off the bus? What else could have distracted you so much that it would cause you to shirk the one remaining duty I’ve asked you to complete each school day?

As things heat up, you rub your Doritos-covered fingers down your dirty t-shirt, so you can more fully engage in your play battle. You mash buttons on your controller and yell commands to people in your virtual world, “Trixxy! Strike here! Lavender, heal, heal!!”

All the while your real world stands in the doorway watching, wondering when her daddy is going to notice that he was so busy playing his stupid video game that he forgot to pick her up from the bus stop, and she had to ride all the way back to school and wait for her mommy to leave work and pick her up instead.

I nudge her into her room and help her change out of her school uniform. “Why did Dad forget me, Mom?”

“I don’t know, Lovey. I’ll talk to him. Let’s go downstairs and have a snack. Maybe you can help me make some lunch?”

We walk past the door to your game room, and you still don’t even know we’re home. You’ve never looked away from the screen, except to see which girlfriend is texting you.

I don’t speak to you when you come downstairs, except to answer your direct questions; you don’t notice that I’m upset. I know that I need to speak to you alone, and undistracted, away from your video game and your people; otherwise, it will be a waste of my breath.

****************************************************************************

I follow you into the garage — the compromise for a smoking area, so you won’t smoke in the house, even though you do when you think I won’t notice.

“You forgot to pick up Josie from the bus stop.”

“Oh no! Oh, man. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. Was she upset?”

“Her school called me. She had to ride the bus all the way back to school, by herself, and wait in the office for me to get there. I walked in, and she started sobbing. She thought she’d been abandoned.”

“Oh, man. I’m sorry. I don’t know what happened. I set my alarm. It must not have gone off.”

“That’s the one thing, Trevor. That’s the one thing I asked you to do. You said you’d keep the house clean. But you don’t. You said you’d do the cooking. But you don’t. You said you’d take care of Josie, so she didn’t have to be in daycare. But you don’t do that either. I can’t do this anymore. I’m done.”

I see you trying to manufacture tears when I tell you I can’t take it anymore, that forgetting to pick up Josie was my final straw, that I mean it — for real this time — that I want a divorce. I see the confusion flash in your eyes, followed by the words you choke out, “But you were never supposed to leave!” followed quickly by the anger and the guilt trip, because that’s always worked before.

Not long before this, I told you I was so unhappy, and you asked me what you could do. I said, “Be the man that I deserve to have.”

“I can’t,” you said. And that was the end of the discussion. Now that I’m telling you that I can’t, you’re telling me a different story. I see you cooking up your manipulative schemes to get me to stay. “Let’s have another baby,” you offer. And when that doesn’t work, “No? Okay, let’s adopt.” And when that still doesn’t work, “No? Okay, I’ll just kill myself then.” That always worked before, so why not this time, right?

I see you with eagle-eyed clarity. I understand now that all I ever was to you was a soft landing place, a comfort zone, a meal ticket. When you told me that your counselor wrote in his notes that you said you didn’t really love me, but decided you were going to stay married to me anyway — but that it wasn’t true, that you didn’t really say those things, I see now that you were telling me your honest feelings. I see now that this marriage was doomed from the start, because you were never in it for love, only for security. I was an easy mark, and as the cliche goes, you saw me coming from a mile away.

So, I stand in front of you now and tell you, with sincerity, that I am done. I have nothing left to give, and it’s time for you to leave. You tell me you’ll go live under a bridge; you’ve been homeless before, so you know how it’s done. I don’t try to talk you out of it this time, because I’m no longer responsible for your happiness. I’m no longer the provider of your stability. I’ve never really been your wife, and now, I’m quitting as your caretaker.

Your reactions tell me that everything I suspected about being a free ride for you are all true.

I see you. And, I’m over you. Now you’re just somebody that I used to know.