I was ten minutes away from ending it all the first time, after my wife and I divorced. I came home from work during lunch. I never did that—it's a half-hour each way. I forgot a CD that I promised a co-worker. On a whim, I took a long lunch and thought I'd drop by the house to pick it up. I didn't bother calling first. Why should I? I figured I'd just say "Hi" to Lisa, grab the CD, and head out the door.
I caught Lisa in bed with another man. Our bed. I had no clue—I was too shocked to react, to do anything except stare at my wife straddling a stranger, cowgirl style, bucking her beautiful bare back up and down in rhythm while stabilizing herself with her arms on his bare chest. That was no rape. He saw me first, gasped in surprise and Lisa turned around, saw me and jumped off. There was a great deal of shouting, mostly the man and Lisa shouting at me and to each other. He grabbed his clothes and dashed off as I stood there in a daze, disconnected from reality.
That was the beginning of the end. Counseling didn't reconcile us: far from it. I had pushed for counseling, but she reacted by becoming even further distant. At dinner she was so far away, we might as well have been living in other countries. I could see her body, but the window to her soul was permanently boarded up.
Ironically,
she
divorced
me
. Although she brought up the divorce, demanded it actually, I easily acquiesced. Lisa had been my whole life, my reason for working each day and night. I was too blind to see her disappearing before it was too late. But there was no point in pretending any further. She aggressively went after our possessions—and I didn't care. We sold our beautiful house in Northville so we could split the proceeds. I didn't want it anymore. In the depressed Detroit market, it didn't fetch much. Less than what we bought it for: about ten grand less what we'd paid down on the mortgage was about all we could get back out. Minus broker fees and lawyer fees. She took the majority of our joint belongings. All in all, she ended up with about 70% of everything. I let her. I was broke, and broken.
I moved into a low-rent apartment in Redford. Redford used to be a clean, neat little suburban town until the riots. Over the last forty years, white flight had left it a vestige of itself. Some artist-types were struggling trying to keep a run-down theater that had once been a gilded beauty from falling in on itself. That was about it for culture—the rest had slowly become a ghetto. I could care less about the shabby walls, the run-down appliances, and the decaying furniture. It was cheap, and I didn't want to look for anything better.
A pawn store was four doors down from my apartment, past an ethnic hair and nail salon and a dingy little party store. I walked in and bought a gun. I knew little about guns, but I knew a .357 would be plenty to take care of the job. I held it to my head, chamber empty, trying to see if I would have the nerve. I didn't—I chickened out. Just like I did with Lisa. That was the first time.
I decided I wanted to live—I needed time to regroup, and thankfully I wasn't spending any money doing it. The rent was the right price, and although a dump, the place was close to work.
Then, along with all the bad news in the auto market, GM reorganized. I was offered a severance package, thank God, but I was now unemployed. I started looking for another engineering job. I sent out tons of resumes, posted on Monster, Dice, you name it. After a long silence from the recruiters, and the rest of the world, my gusto changed to a half-hearted effort. Then I just gave up.
Being laid off was bad, because of the money of course, but also because I didn't have a place to go each day. I had a feeling of not belonging: not seeing my work friends or even my rivals. Just sitting in my little dump every day.
I played with the gun more and more, loading the clip, unloading it, holding it in my hand. It had been four months since Lisa left me, but I was as depressed as the day I caught her in bed. I remembered back to that fateful day, standing there dumbstruck, watching her for several seconds before they caught on, her beautiful heart-shaped ass bouncing up and down on some other guy's cock. Close enough to see his cock slick with her moisture.
Christ, let it end.
I finally did accidentally get a job. As a Santa. Almost ridiculous in its irony. The Santa job posted in the News was one of the last ditch before I finally gave up. I decided to take it—it would give me something to do, and something to just try to feel good about myself just a little before I went out. I didn't expect that I'd get it. I just applied like all the others. I had no experience, and not even any kids of my own, so my hopes weren't high.
Maybe it was a little bit of karma—a chance to let me give back before I permanently left this hell on earth. I didn't care about the pay—why would I? I had two weeks to go until Christmas, and I needed to have something, anything, to prevent me sitting in the apartment all day. I had already made up my mind that I would give myself a nice Christmas by killing myself. Accepting the job seemed symbolic: what could be more perfect than a Santa killing himself on Christmas?
My first day on the job started out loathsome. The job was downtown in the Ren Cen. I wasn't fat, so I had to wear a big baggy pillow around my waist, which was big, uncomfortable, and sweaty. I had to psyche myself up to be cheery around all those excited kids. I did the best I could, plastering over my decayed little husk of a soul with Christmas cheer, washing it down with a tall spiked Egg Nog a little after 1PM.
The line of kids was endless. Someone's little precious bundle of joy sitting on my lap, while the parents, almost always the mom, stood to the side. Each kid whispered toy after inane toy in my ear. I followed up each with a "Make sure you're a good little boy" or "Now Susie, remember to leave me cookies!" Always a great hearty "Ho, Ho, Ho!" shouted out beneath my massive fake white beard.
I could play a pretty good Santa to the kids despite being dead inside—they didn't deserve to see the hollowness inside me. I tried to only pay attention to the kids, glancing up at a mother here or there. Some were pretty milfy, but I didn't spend any more than the briefest glance at them. Lisa's betrayal hadn't made me hate women; I honestly just didn't care. Why should I get interested when in less than a month I wouldn't be around?
Somewhere around five o'clock, something rather amazing happened. Two beautiful little black girls, about four and six years old I guessed, came up to me as the next in line.
"What do you want for Christmas, little girl?" I asked the little one sitting on my knee.
"I want a Barbie play house!" she exclaimed. Standard fare.
I turned to the older girl, sitting on my other knee.
"And what do you want?"
"I want my Daddy back," she said, quietly but deadly serious.
She was the first child to have said anything to me except spouting the newest fashion in toys. It tore me up inside. I'm not a crier, but her reserved sincerity made my eyes start to water.
I looked up at the mother, and my heart leapt. She was an amazingly beautiful woman, with big doe-like eyes and a perfect feminine face. She wasn't wearing makeup, but her skin was smooth and light chocolate brown. She wore an ivory quilted coat, slimmed at the waist, and with fake fur ruffs around the neck and hands. Her curly black hair was topped by a little white beret. I had been ignoring any other woman I saw, trying to keep my mind on the kids and the job, trying to be a good Santa, trying not to let my depression leak out. I couldn't ignore her.
A lump formed in my throat. I looked at the mother much longer than I had meant to—I was staring. I couldn't believe how amazingly gorgeous she was. I finally pulled myself back together, but not before I noticed that she looked back at me with a smile. Her smile burned into me.
I turned to face the little girl with a heavy heart, and whispered in her ear.
"Santa will see what he can do for you sweetheart." What a complete lie.
They popped off my lap, their supermodel of mother collecting them up and marching off. I don't think I listened to another thing any other kid said until closing time. I just sat there, thinking about that little girl's daddy—maybe ran off with another woman, maybe killed in Iraq, maybe just left his family for no good reason, who knew. Whatever it was, the man was a complete idiot. Just like the guy who left Halle Berry. To me, the mystery woman was even more beautiful. I couldn't believe I felt like this—I didn't believe in love at first sight. I didn't know her name, but I was sad at the thought that I'd never see her again.
The day ended, the line shut down, and I needed to pack up. I started thinking about moving up my suicide schedule. I was cleaning up the presents around the Santa chair, readying for closing when she came back. The gorgeous black woman in her white coat and beret was standing behind me, softly clearing her throat to get my attention.
