This is the third and final series from a group of nonfiction stories that began with "Angelina" and continued with "Sisters."
~ ~ ~
Sometimes there is no way to explain or even justify life. It simply assaults you, absolutely at random. Things happen that are so utterly cruel, you realize the gods must have it in for you. Then, just when everything seems completely hopeless, and crushing despair is all you can feel, life often changes its fickle mind and blesses you with something equally wonderful....
~ ~ ~
My beautiful wife of six years lay dying in a hospital bed. Christ, she was only twenty-seven; way too young to be on a fucking life-support machine. Still, there she was, slipping away, and all I could do was hold her hand as I cried at her side.
The EKG monitor finally went flat. My angel had lost her battle to survive, and we never even got to say goodbye.
Some drunken asshole had passed out at the wheel and crossed the center line, effectively ending two lives when he crashed into Angelina. She was just driving home from the grocery store, and suddenly she was gone. I may as well have died too.
The asshole drunk driver? He hardly suffered a scratch, and didn't remember a thing.
I was lost. I didn't want to live any longer.
One dreary Wednesday evening I was sitting at the dining room table writing my suicide note when my older brother burst into the kitchen.
Scott was like Kramer from
Seinfeld
in that he never knocked before he would just come barging in. He lived in L.A. with his wife Monica, but he was in San Francisco that week on business so I had him staying at my place.
He sat down at the table with me, and before I could say anything he snatched my paper away. "What's this?" he asked casually.
Once he read the first few sentences, he slammed the paper on the table. Pissed off, he shoved me in the chest, knocking me to the kitchen floor. "This is bullshit!" he roared. "You are
not
going to do this to Mom! You cannot fuck us over like this!"
He expected me to fight back, or at least attempt to explain myself, but I had no fight in me, and nothing to say.
When he finally calmed down, he made me tell him everything. We talked deep into the night, then he called Monica to let her know what was going on. Long story short, we agreed that the only chance I had was to move somewhere far away and try to start a whole new life.
"Here's what's going to happen," he said. "I'm taking you out of here. You're coming to live with Monica and me, and we're leaving tonight. We'll worry about the rest later."
~ ~ ~
The months dragged by. Life went on. I didn't care, so Scott managed to sell my house. I was staying in one of his extra bedrooms in their modest, well-kept home in L.A. He and Monica tried to keep me involved in things, and I did my best to be courteous and friendly, but mostly I was just existing. I would get up and go to work, then come home and watch TV with them until it was time to go to bed. On my off days I'd help around the house and otherwise try to keep busy somehow.
I wasn't still thinking about suicide; at least not constantly, anyway, the way I had been before. I sure as hell wasn't thinking much about living, either. Like I said, I was just existing.
I appreciated all of their help, so I gave Scott a portion of the equity from the sale of my house. He didn't want to take it, but I insisted, and I put the rest in the bank. I felt the time had come to stop being a burden to them, and I had at least regained enough emotional stability to convince them that I wasn't going to kill myself. I'd be okay eventually, was the working plan.
We decided I would get my own place. That was the whole point of moving away, wasn't it, to start all over? At some point I was going to have to try, and they grudgingly agreed it was time.
I didn't want another house. I didn't want anything other than an apartment, or maybe even just a room for rent. I wanted as few responsibilities as possible.
A few days later I was browsing the local classifieds over breakfast at a coffee shop. I circled a fairly promising 'Room for Rent' ad...
Single woman looking to share a small but nice two-bedroom apartment. Good location, clean apartment. Male or female, either is fine. Pets are negotiable. No smokers and no flakes.
I called the number and was shocked to hear my friend Stacey answer the phone!
"Stacey?"
"Dan? Is that you? Hey, whatcha doing? We haven't talked in, what's it been, a couple of years now?"
"I was...well, I was calling in response to your room for rent ad!" I said, laughing.
That was the first time I'd laughed in I don't know how long.
"My room for rent ad? What happened to your house up north? Where's Angie?"
"Stacey, can I come and see you? We need to talk."
"Definitely. Come on over," she said, and she gave me her address.
"I can be there in about an hour. Is that okay?"
"That's fine. It's so great to hear your voice again! See you in a bit!"
Two hours later I was sitting on her couch, and I'd told her everything. We cried together for a long time.
"Oh, Dan, I'm so sorry. I can't believe it. I can't believe Angie is gone. I'm so sorry I wasn't there for you."
"It's not your fault, Stacey. Things happen, and sometimes people just fall out of touch."
~ ~ ~
Stacey and I were best friends growing up. We were next-door neighbors, so we went to elementary school, junior high, and high school together. She was a tomboy, always just 'one of the guys.' Although we were never boyfriend and girlfriend, at nine years old we were each other's first kissing partners. Hiding beneath the stairs in our apartment complex, we played 'I'll show you mine if you show me yours.'
We always sat together in class, and she would cheat off of my work. We did homework together too, and when we were in high school we went to football games and movies as part of a larger group of friends. We were inseparable. We remained friends throughout high school before heading off to the same college.
By that time she was no longer a tomboy, and I definitely noticed the change. She had become a very beautiful young woman.
The thing is, during all that time we never managed to date. She had her boyfriends, I had my girlfriends, and it became difficult to keep seeing each other.
Although we promised to stay in touch when she moved on to grad school three thousand miles away, our contacts became much less frequent. Because we did at least manage to keep up with each other via the occasional letter, she came to our wedding when I married Angie, my on-again/off-again girlfriend from the time we were eleven years old. The three of us were friends in high school, but Angie and I ended up taking it all the way.
Stacey always seemed to be okay with it, though there was often an underlying current of tension between us whenever the subject of Angie came up. "Dan, I'm fine with you two being together. I like her a lot, and she's good for you," she told me one day during our summer break before the start of college. "Besides, it's not as if we're boyfriend and girlfriend, right? I get it...we're only friends. Look, I admit I sometimes feel a little jealous about you being with her, but I know I have no right. Let's not make a big deal over it, okay? Just let me handle it on my own, and I'll manage."
"Really?" I asked. "You? Jealous? I never knew."
"I never wanted you to know, alright? I'm just 'one of the guys,' remember? So can we drop it now?"
The last time I had spoken to Stacey she'd just earned her master's degree and was looking for a job. She was thinking of moving back to L.A., where we all grew up together. That was more than two years ago.
~ ~ ~
"So how long have you been back in L.A.?" I asked.
"About a year now," Stacey said.
"Why didn't you call or write to let us know where you were?"
"I don't know, I guess I just thought it would be best if I left you and Angie alone."
"Were you ever going to call or write?"
"What about you?" she responded defensively. "It's not like you kept writing me either."
"Stacey, you know I would have always made sure you had my new address and phone number if anything ever changed."
"Well, I'm sorry. Now I'm really sorry," she added, hugging me.
"Anyway," I continued, "what's your story? Why are you renting out your second bedroom?"
"Oh, well, my last roommate was a total flake. She skipped out on me with no notice. She didn't even pay her final month's rent. That's why I put 'no flakes' in my ad," she laughed. "I'm still paying off my school loans, and while I'm working and doing okay, I need to be pretty frugal about things. Besides, you know me, I was never into money, flashy cars, and all that fancy stuff. This place is fine for me. I'm always working, so I'm hardly ever here. I just need a reliable roommate."
Of course we made the decision that I'd come live there. She was thrilled, and I was at least relieved. We talked about how it would work living together, especially with her place having only one bathroom. We agreed there would probably be times when we'd need to share the bathroom in emergencies, and that knocking first would be a good idea. When necessary we'd throw on a towel, and if worse came to worst we would try to avert our eyes.
The idea was to keep things really casual and low-stress.
The same held true regarding the way we would dress around the apartment. Neither of us typically wore much at home anyway, so we wouldn't insist that the other wear a fur parka for modesty's sake.
"What about dating and bringing people here?" she asked.
"There won't be anything for you to worry about there with me. I won't be bringing home any girls. Believe me, that's the last thing you have to worry about," I said, sullenly.
"Oh, Dan," she frowned, taking my hand.
"What about you?" I asked, changing the subject. "Dating anybody?"
"Nothing serious. I date here and there, but mostly I just don't have the time. If I ever do bring someone here, I promise I'll try to be discreet."
"It's your place, Stacey. You do whatever you want."
"Uh-huh," she said, eyeing me closely.
Finally we'd talked everything through, and I moved in the following week.
~ ~ ~
To be honest, not much had changed with me. I'd moved in with Stacey, but I was still working the same job. A couple of months had gone by, and I remained sad and withdrawn. When I wasn't at work, I was mostly staying to myself in my room.
Well, okay, one thing had changed. My brother Scott had decided that I needed to start looking at women again, so despite my protests he hooked up a new computer in my bedroom.
"Porn, you idiot. What else would you need a computer for?" he laughed.
He also decided to start taking me to strip clubs almost every Friday night. Simply to humor him, I went along with it. We went to the clubs, and I watched the beautiful dancers. I even browsed various porn sites, both the soft and hardcore varieties.
