The Coward

The Coward

By Bruce Watson. All rights reserved.

"Civilization is but a thin veneer stretched across the passions of the human heart." Bill Moyers

Climbing the stairs to the second floor of his house, Andrew Shan heard the moans coming out of his bedroom and wondered again if he was doing the right thing. He didn't have to be here: he'd sent the PI's report to his attorney and filed the papers, setting the cold machinery of the legal system in motion. He could end it all with zero contact, zero stress--a sterile transaction, in which Doreen would get the papers and he would wash his hands of the whole sordid affair.

He'd thought hard about taking the easy route, but something about it stuck in his craw. He'd been there at the beginning of their relationship, and it seemed only right that he be there at the end. Then, too, there was something about the running away, the cowardice of it all. Sure, he'd be protecting himself, but he'd also be giving her a free pass. Protecting

her

from the ugliness of her mess, from the consequences of her stupid, shitty failure.

But the big thing, the real reason he was there, was that he needed a definitive ending, an absolute closure. It was hard to escape the ingrained habits he'd learned over their five years together, and they both knew that, if Doreen pushed hard enough, he'd usually cave. Sure, this was different than an argument over the color of a couch or the shape of a headboard--this was a matter of principle, and that's something he never bent on--but at the end of the day, he knew he'd be faced with the bleak choice between a teary, remorseful wife and an unknown future in the dating world, and he didn't trust himself to not give in.

He needed something that would slam the door on any reconciliation. And if that meant that he needed to put his fingers in Christ's wounds, see the look on her face and know that the life they had built together was dead and buried--well, that was what he was going to do.

He'd read the transcripts, so he knew the way they talked about him when they got together, but it was different hearing it through the door of his bedroom. Different hearing her screaming out her ecstasy. Hearing her soul-crushing insults.

"Does he fuck you like this?"

The bed was slamming against the wall, pounding out a bass accompaniment to the staccato beat of her high-pitched moans. Drew wondered how the wall hadn't cracked, how he'd never noticed scratches on the bed, scuffs in the paint.

Something

.

"Never--

uh

--NEVER fucked me like this! Only you!"

Drew's pulse was rising.

Calm the fuck down!

He took a deep breath, then another one. Felt the coolness pouring into him. The pain and anger flowing out.

Pound, pound.

"Whose pussy is it?"

"You--

uh

--yuh--"

Pound, pound, POUND.

"WHOSE pussy is it, bitch? WHOSE?"

"Yuh--

uh--

YOURS!"

It came out as a scream. A wail. Drew had heard that sound enough times to know what was happening. She was coming. Flooding the douchebag's dick.

The pounding slowed, and Drew chose that moment to slam open the door. Doreen was on her knees, her hands white-knuckling the headboard, while the asshole was clutching her from behind. Drew stifled a laugh. It was just so ridiculous--her boyfriend's gangly arms holding onto her hips as his scrawny ass pumped into her. An image flashed into Drew's head--a spider monkey fucking a thoroughbred. He snorted.

Shithead looked up and sneered, right before Drew grabbed his oily hair and yanked him off his wife. The naked man fell on the ground beside the bed in a tangle of limbs, his face red with rage and embarrassment. He scrambled to get up, but Drew put his size ten in the middle of his chest and slammed him back into the floor.

"One word, asshole," he growled. "One word, and you're pissing through a catheter." He glanced at the douchebag's shrinking cock. "A

small

catheter."

Drew watched the quick play of emotions across her boyfriend's face. Rage. Fear. Disbelief. And... finally... understanding. The realization that, in all his manly posturing about the stupid, weak man he was cucking, he'd neglected a few important pieces of information--information that, now, could mean the difference between walking out under his own steam or going out in a stretcher.

His eyes fixed on Drew's and he nodded slowly, carefully. Drew took his foot off, and he slowly got up. Drew let him. Head down, he gathered his clothes while Doreen watched, stunned, from the bed.

"Drew...Uh, baby--" Doreen started.

"Not now," he snapped. "Let Casanova finish his walk of shame." The asshole started to glance up, then thought better of it. A moment later, he was gone.

That was when Drew realized his mistake. The plan had been to do this all quickly--kick the boyfriend out, tell Doreen the terms of divorce, and get the hell out of Dodge. Ten minutes, tops. By the time she got her act together, he would be long gone.

He'd remembered the big stuff--lining up a place to stay, splitting the accounts, closing out the credit cards. When Doreen was served tomorrow morning, their separation would be official, at least as far as the bank, the court, and his company's HR was concerned.

But he'd forgotten to pack a bag. He'd meant to save it to the last minute--no need to alert Doreen with an empty closet--but in the flurry of moving money, filing papers and informing HR, it had fallen through the cracks.

He sighed. Nothing to do for it now. Shock and awe had bought him a little time; with any luck, he could still get out before she had a chance to get her bearings. He pulled a suitcase out of the closet and tossed it on the bed, narrowly missing her feet. "Drew--"

He was throwing clothes into the bag. Two suits and three shirts, two pairs of slacks and one pair of jeans. No need to worry about wrinkles--they wouldn't be in there long.

"Drew!"

He flinched. "Doreen, let me save you some time: I know this isn't the first time. I know you met him at work. I know about the Starlite Inn, and I know what you said to him while you were in bed together." He looked at the heap of clothes in the suitcase. Did he really need to take all the hangers? He shrugged--better safe than sorry--and moved on to his dresser. Five pairs of underwear, five pairs of socks. "I know more than enough, Doreen. I'm going for irreconcilable differences. A 50/50 split of assets. No alimony, and I keep the house."

Doreen's face was pale. She snuffled. "I can't live on that."

He thought about giving her advice--cut the luxuries, give up the country club, get a cheaper car--but the last thing he wanted was to get dragged into a discussion of her finances. He tossed in a pair of sneakers and some workout clothes. "You could probably get a better deal in court, but if you fight it, I go for adultery and my PI's report gets on the record." He chuckled, but there was no humor in it. "Trust me, you

really

don't want that."

She flushed red. "So that's it then?" Her voice rose. "You catch me in bed and it's all over?"

Fuck, she's getting started.

Drew cursed himself again for forgetting to pack a bag.

Stay calm, dude. It's almost over.

He shrugged and headed to the bathroom. "Pretty much--it's the fastest way to get you out of my life, and I'm not going to spend a minute I don't have to on you." He started throwing things into his dopp kit--toothpaste, toothbrush, shaving cream. "How easy it goes is up to you. I've got videos, pictures, transcripts. My lawyer has copies. If you bust my chops about counseling, it's going to get ugly."

"No talking?" Her voice cracked.

Fuck

. "No discussion?"

Drew braved it out. "What is there to talk about? You cheated, you insulted me behind my back, you fucked him in my bed. Do you think I'm remotely interested in your excuses?" He zipped up the dopp kit. "To hell with that. I'm out of the understanding Doreen business. Talk it over with your friends, or your therapist, or your parents, or your fucking sister. I don't give a shit anymore."

Her face flushed with anger. "You--you COWARD!" she hissed. "You don't have the balls to talk about our problem, so you're just going to run away! Take your toys and go home! I was right--you ARE a pussy!"

Drew tamped down his anger.

Stay calm. Detached.

He shrugged off her words. No response.

Don't give her anything. Not anymore.

In the absence of fuel, her fury seemed to feed on itself. "You always run away!" she snapped. "You're such a fucking wimp! Pussy!" She was out of bed now. Naked. She punched his back. Punched it again. And again and again and again. "You fucking coward!"

Drew glanced at her. Saw her sweaty hair, the cum running down her leg. He started zipping his suitcase. Almost finished.

He barely felt her fists raining down on his back, but something moved inside him. He imagined it opening an eye. Cocking its head.

"Fucker! Coward!" The fists kept coming. "You're afraid to fight! You're so fucking WEAK!"

I REALLY should have packed the bag beforehand,

he thought. Then she connected with the side of his head and he saw a flash of stars. He whirled on her.

*

When Drew was fourteen, he found out that he had a temper. Before that, there had been a few episodes--yelling at people, getting into fights, mouthing off--that sort of thing. "Boys will be boys," the adults said, shaking their heads and maybe remembering back to their own rambunctious youth. They'd punish him, he'd apologize, and nobody'd think much of it.

But when he was fourteen, something happened, and he--and his parents--could no longer pretend that the anger inside him was just high spirits. Was normal.

It started out like a lot of nights--Drew was sitting on the couch, watching TV and talking on the phone with his best friend Jeff. They were shooting the shit about the usual stuff--English homework, Pearl Jam's latest song, the color of Callie Soncini's panties and the eternal question of whether she knew she was flashing them to the entire class. An ordinary conversation on an ordinary night.

Drew's sister Fiona was taking up two thirds of the couch and was intent on seizing control of the whole thing. She started kicking him, but she had small feet and not a lot of leg muscle, so he was able to pretty much ignore her. Hell, he didn't even break the conversation. Not until she connected with the phone and it slammed into the side of his head. For a moment, he saw stars.

Drew later remembered that night in scattered sensations. The jarring clunk of the phone as it hit her. The shock that traveled up his arm. Fiona holding her head and screaming. Him telling Jeff that he'd have to call him back, then hanging up.

The blood trickling through her hands as he tried to help her up.

The screaming.

So much screaming.

Drew's first impulse was to run: his father had a temper, too--he'd once pulled out a handful of Drew's hair just because the kid opened a car window on the New Jersey Turnpike. Drew couldn't even imagine the punishment he'd get for bashing his sister in the head. But once Drew escaped the house, he couldn't figure out what to do next. He got as far as the front yard before he realized that there really

was

nothing to do. Nowhere to go. He collapsed on the ground and tried to come up with a plan.

The tears came. He couldn't make them stop.

After a while, Drew's dad sat beside him. Drew felt a mix of terror and embarrassment--his dad didn't have much patience for tears, and ever since Drew had turned ten or so, he'd heard the litany of lines that fathers tell their sons when they want them to toughen up. "Men don't cry," and "man up," and the evergreen favorite, "if you want something to cry about, I'll give you something to cry about."

Drew tried to stop, but the tears kept coming. This time, though, his dad didn't even seem to notice. He nudged Drew. "I was your age the first time I really hurt somebody," he said.

His voice was low and soft, and Drew strained to hear him. He tried to hold the sobs in and shook as they crashed through him. "R-really?" he whispered.

"Yup. Kid in my ninth grade class. Dennis Greenbaum. He kept touching my watermelon." Drew's dad shook his head. "I told him to get his filthy fucking hands off my watermelon. He didn't listen."

"What did you do?"

Drew's dad flinched. "I stabbed him in the hand with my protractor." He stared out at the road. "I got three days suspension."

Jesus

. "Did-did he ever get you back?"

Drew's dad chuckled. "Yeah, about a week later. He broke a pencil off in my thigh."

Drew had seen it before--a piece of dark graphite floating just below the surface of his father's skin. This was the first time he'd heard the story, though. "Then what happened?"

"I sucked it up." His dad sighed. "I guess I had it coming. We ended up becoming friends. He was one of the groomsmen at my wedding."

"Uncle Denny?"

"Uncle Denny."

"What... what are you going to do to me?" Drew sniffled. "What's my punishment?"

Drew's dad stared at his hands for a while. Finally, he let out a long, slow breath. "I'm guessing you're thinking some pretty terrible thoughts right now, aren't you?" Drew nodded. "I'm guessing you're feeling pretty bad about it."

"Yes, sir."

The old man sighed. "You got your temper from me. You're going to need to learn to control it. Like I did."

Drew remembered back to the New Jersey Turnpike. To the time his dad dragged him out from under the bed by his ankles and he limped for three days. The time he threw Max, the family cat, at him. Drew still had the scar. He wondered how well his father had learned to control his temper. Now didn't seem to be the time to bring that up.

"How--how do I do that?"

"Hell if I know." His father turned quickly and his eyes--brown, almost black--speared Drew. He stared hard at him for a second before turning back to the road. "But you need to do it, son. You can't be fighting this your whole life. Learn to catch your breath. Learn to walk away."

"W-what about Fiona?"

"Your mother took her to the emergency room." His dad was quiet again. Drew wondered if he should say something, but he couldn't think of anything. "Fiona's going to need some attention," his dad said. "She's going to be angry and you'll need to suck it up. Hell, maybe

that's

your punishment."

It took nine stitches to close the gash in Fiona's forehead. Luckily, it was behind her hairline, so the scar didn't show; unluckily, it happened the week before school pictures, so the couch episode was permanently memorialized in a class photo where her severe, off-center part made her look like a deranged version of Hester Prynne.

As for Drew, he sucked it up. Fiona yelled and screamed, shoved him and pushed him and blamed him for everything. A week later, when he leaned down to pick up a sack of groceries, she hauled off and kicked him in the head. Holding his temple, Drew gave his dad a look. "Fiona, go inside," his dad said. "Drew, pick up the groceries."

Drew didn't say a word.

With time, Drew found other ways to get the anger out. Screaming silently in his room. Punching pillows and--when that didn't work--punching walls. Sometimes punching

through

walls. A couple of his friends commented on the haphazard arrangement of pictures in Drew's room. He shrugged.

The last time Drew punched a wall was in grad school; that time, he hit a stud and broke two knuckles on his right hand. The doctors called it a boxer's break and gave him a cast. Years later, he still had pictures from that summer at the beach--him in water up to his waist, his arm held high above his head, so he could keep the cast dry.

After that, he did some research and read some books. He learned a few techniques for handling the anger. Taking deep breaths. Counting to ten. Letting it out in sports, where he played with a fierce competitiveness that often surprised his friends. Somewhere, he read the line "Don't sweat the small stuff--and it's all small stuff," and he took it to heart.

He became a gentle man.

After the wall stud, Drew never lost his temper again, but the anger never died; it still flared when someone cut him off in traffic or shot their mouth off at the grocery store or yelled at their kids. But he kept it chained down inside him, feeding it the swallowed emotions that he never expressed. Controlled and imprisoned, but never completely gone.

That was the man Doreen met and that was the man she married. A nice guy who rolled with the punches, and rarely punched back unless it was something that really mattered. Firm yet kind. Unyielding in his principles, but gentle in their application. Drew resolved that, when they finally had kids, he'd never be a man like his father, never let them see the fury that he worked so hard to control. His kids would respect him, but they wouldn't fear him.

As for the anger, it slumbered quietly, content in the life Drew had built.

*

This wasn't going the way Doreen expected. Where was her kind, gentle man? The sweet guy with the ready, goofy smile, quick with a joke and open to compromise? She couldn't believe how fast he'd gotten rid of Will, how easily he'd stripped away the layers of her lover's posturing, showing him to be little more than a boy hiding behind a paper wall made up of big words and self-delusion.

Except Will wasn't the only one deluded here, was he?

She ignored the little voice and focused on Drew. The fact that he was throwing her aside. Didn't he care about her? Wasn't he going to even try to make it work?

She was surprised to realize that she felt betrayed. It wasn't supposed to go like this. He was the one who was supposed to apologize. Well, maybe not

apologize

, that was probably asking too much, but at least forgive. Try to make things right. Try to find a way to keep them together.

But Drew wasn't doing that. Fuck, he wasn't even looking at her! He'd told her he was going for a divorce. Announced it to her in a weird, flat voice, like she didn't even matter. Like he couldn't wait to get her out of his life.

HER!

The woman who was his world. The future mother of his children! The woman he'd cherished, protected, treated like a precious diamond for the five years they'd been together.

She felt a flicker of anger. Fuck him.

No, seriously,

FUCK HIM!

She let the anger grow larger, warmer. Let it pour over her guilt and shame. Let it burn away her doubts, drown the little voice that told her it was her fault, that she'd broken him.

With the anger came strength. Fury. Vengeance.

And then she was yelling at him. How

dare

he dismiss her? Act like she didn't matter! "You--you COWARD!" she snapped. "You don't have the balls to talk about our problem, so you're just going to run away! Take your toys and go home! I was right--you ARE a pussy!"

And then she was hitting him, her fists pounding on his back. "You always run away!" she screamed. "You're such a fucking wimp! Pussy!" Punching him. "You fucking coward!"

He didn't stop packing. Hell, he didn't even slow down. It was like she wasn't even there.

Her fury burned hotter. "Fucker! Coward! You're afraid to fight! You're so fucking WEAK!"

She punched the side of his head. He spun on her, and in a flash she felt his hand on her throat. The torrent of words stopped short.

It was a soft hold, almost a caress.

Gentle. Firm.

Her fists froze in the air and for the first time she saw his eyes. Saw the empty coldness there. The eyes of someone she didn't know. She slowly let her arms fall to her sides.