Chet was right; he was acting way too drunk for the amount of beer that he had consumed. It was the middle of the afternoon on a Wednesday and the bar was mostly empty. As a matter of fact, he was the only customer
As I wiped a clean glass cleaner, I said, "So, tell me a story."
"Man, you don't want to hear it." was his sad reply.
"Sure I do. I'm a professional bar tender and listening to my fiends is what I do best. I'll set up a cold one and you tell me about life. Ok?"
"The kids are out of control, the boss hates my guts and even the dog is a pain in the ass."
Now, he had left out any reference to his wife. That fact alone seemed interesting. He had a wedding ring on his left hand and to my way of thinking; there was also a MAJOR problem with the wife.
"Tell me about your kids." Was my soft reply.
His face lit up as he talked about their two children. They seemed to be a great source of pride. He went on for several minutes. I finally cut him off with my question.
"What makes you think your boss hates you?"
"He sends me out of town on shit jobs that our entry level personal can handle."
I could tell that his suit was not cheap and the shirt and tie indicated a higher level of pay than I get. Once again I slid an open ended question at him.
"Tell me about your dog."
"Family dog, we got it for the kids. They love it but don't seem to realize that if it eats, it shits. They feed it and I get to clean up the back yard. I hate the smell of dog shit.
It runs wild ever where in the house, yard and neighborhood. It won't come when called and nobody else but yours truly will go out and chase the damn thing home.
My wife always tells me to go get the dog before it gets hurt and upsets the kids. She'll never go get the damn thing."
I went for the jugular, "Is your wife sleeping with your boss of her boss?"
His eyes teared up. I had hit the nail on the head.
"I don't know."
"Damn! Sorry man. That sucks!"
"She always works late, over time, on Tuesday, She's got the just fucked after glow and we never have sex on Tuesday or Wednesday. She's always too tired.
It's like living with a room mate. She's nice and cordial, but nothing in the fun and sexy department like she used to be a few years back.
Friday is family night and most often I can get a quickie after the kids go to bed. That's the extent of our sex life. Hers is probably considerably more."
"Seems pretty circumstantial to me, how long has the Tuesday thing been going on?" I asked.
"About four months now, maybe longer. I just became acutely aware about three/four months ago. And it's actually every other Tuesday."
He squeezed his orange slice into the golden brew in his glass and continued.
"She has a new laptop that she carries with her to work. She never did that before. When she's home she locks it in the trunk of her car.
That is HER new car. I don't even have access to a spare set of keys. She told me I didn't need to use HER car.
All of this has happened about three/four/five months ago."
"If she's working overtime, does her paycheck reflect that?" I quized.
"Her pay is direct deposited and she gets the mail during the day before I get home. I've never even seen an enveloped let alone a pay stub."
"She works part time 9:30 AM to 3:00 pm so she can be home when the kids get there. And she can get them off in the morning. She's great with the kids. She takes them to their sports events, bakes cupcakes for their fund raisers and shuttles a lot of the neighborhood kids too. Except on Tuesday."
"What about her cell phone call history and billing?"
"I would have to pry it out of her cold dead hand. Plus she does all of the bills so I would have to ask her were the bills were. She's always home when I leave and when I get back after work. I would have to search the house while she was at the grocery store."
I asked, "Do you file income taxes together or separately?"
"We've always filed jointly as married. This year she wanted to file separately."
"Do you E-file, have an accountant or paper file?"
"I'm an accountant so we've always E-filed. I'm sure she did too. Probably on her new lap top.
I am sooo fucked! I talked with one of the guys in the office and he just went through a similar situation with his ex. He caught her cheating; she divorced him and went with the new dick.
She got the house, custody of the kids, child support until the kids are eighteen and separate maintenance for two years. He gets to pay for all of that.
He now lives in a small two bedroom apartment and sees his kids every other weekend and when the ex-wife will let him. Translate that; when she needs a baby sitter."
"Welcome to no fault divorce." I commented.
"I don't want a divorce because I'll wind up an alternate weekend dad and have to pay her to screw around with her new fuck buddy while living in my house.
I think I still love her, I just don't know what to do."
He looked me right in the eye as a tear rolled down his cheek.
"I know what you need to do. It'll cost you time and money and you still may still just windup a weekend dad. But I think it's better than just rolling over and letting her stick it to you up the ass."
"What do I need to do?" he asked with a beaten
down voice.
"My advice is free if you take it. It'll cost you cash if you don't."
"Let me get this straight, if I take your advice it's free, right?
I nodded my head for, "yes".
"If I don't take your advice I have to pay you money?"
"Yup. Pretty simple. You want an example?"
He chuckled a bit and said, "Ok give me an example."
"Alright, here's a truly free example. Step number one, you hand me a hundred dollar bill next Thursday and I will advise you to walk twenty minutes every day.
Now at the end of two weeks, if you have walked twenty minutes every day, I'll give you the same bill back."
"So I have to deposit a C note with you to do what I should be doing for myself anyway?"
"Yup." I smiled and he smiled back at me.
"Your on." as he pulled five twenties, (Federal Reserve notes) out of his wallet and put them on the counter.
I left the money on the counter and went into the office and returned with a legal size envelope.
I sealed the bills into the white enclosure and handed him a pen.
"With your left hand, write you name on the back of the envelope where the flap is sealed.
After he followed my instructions I held up the writing and tried to read it.
"You can't write worth shit with your left hand. What the fuck does that say?"
"Caesar O'Rilley. Don't give me any guff about my name. My mom teaches English Lit and she loved Julius Caesar. Might be worse, I could be named Julius. And then my favorite color would be orange."
