"It's all good, Bill," I said, never taking my eyes off my former friend. "We're done. These two pathetic excuses of humanity are welcome to each other. But..." I grabbed Lewis under the chin and turned his head to face me. "The next bar you see me in, you will leave. The next time you see me on the street, you will turn around and walk away because if I see
you
first... Not even Bill will be able to save you." I shoved him back onto the floor again, pulled out a few notes for Bill with an apologetic look to cover any damages, and - for the second time in as many hours - walked out the door.
It was funny. The day before, Bill, Lewis, and Sarah would have called me a nice guy, a gentle giant. The predilection for a temper, let alone actual violence, was simply not something that was in me. It is surprising what a man can be driven to. I was just happy to be out of a situation that I didn't even know I was in.
********
Hey Stacy, It's Dan. I just wanted to get a message to you quickly before the rumors, lies, and/or excuses start. Lewis will be coming home at some point today with at least a black eye, probably more. We got into a fight at Bill's. In the interest of giving you the truth that I know you won't get from him, I punched him because I found out that your husband has been having an affair with my wife for the better part of a year, if not longer. Get a lawyer! If you can't afford a lawyer, let me know, and I will pay for it.
There are also some things that might give you a head start. Lewis keeps a bag in the back of your daughter's closet. He calls it his bug-out bag. I thought it was a joke, but he said it was for when you found out about the other women he had on the side, and he could get out quickly... I'm guessing it wasn't as much of a joke as I thought. There is cash in there, I suggest you take it. He also has a 'secret bank account.' I'm not sure how much, but I know he has a fair amount tucked away in there too. I don't know the details, but a decent lawyer will be able to find them.
I wish I had the strength to do this in person or even on call. I'm not proud that it has to be by text, but I think you can probably understand how I am feeling right about now. I am so sorry that it had to happen at all. If you need anything, anything at all, for you or the girls, please let me know, and it is yours.
Dan.
I should have felt bad when I hit send and tucked my phone back into my pocket. There was a part of me, however small, that felt like I was flushing a couple of decades worth of friendship down the pan, that felt like I was responsible for everything that had happened. The rest of me knew better. A few quick phone calls to the bank had canceled all the rest of the credit cards, except the ones I knew were in my wallet, and another to my lawyer started the divorce proceedings and changed my will to make sure that if I drank myself to death, she would get nothing. My money could be split between my parents and my brother. That bitch would die in destitution before I gave her a penny.
I know what you're thinking. I know you're wondering about the spiteful, vengeful, soulless excuse for a man sitting at a bar in the airport with little idea of how, or why he had come to the conclusion to go there. For the record, the logic was simple: I had leave that my boss had been begging me to take, one phone call got me as much of it as I needed, and I decided I needed to get away. The distance of that "away" could only be achieved with the utilization of civilian aviation... so the airport seemed like a good choice. Most of my shit was in my car in long-stay parking. I'd swapped out enough of my clothes to fill a small travel bag, I had gone to the ticket desk, asked to go somewhere hot, paid the fee, and here I was. I wasn't even entirely sure where I was supposed to be going. All I knew was that my flight left at eight from gate three... And gate three was right next to the bar.
Music. To. My. Ears.
Alright, I think we are far enough along here to set a few things straight. I had hoped to do this when my patience was a little less frayed and my mood a little less homicidal, but I have a plane to wait for, and this does
not
seem to be the opportune time to get drunk.
Let's start at the beginning. As you may have guessed, My name is Dan. I am a 35-year-old, soon-to-be-divorced guy from a town you have never heard of in the midwest... the cold part of the midwest, just to be clear. What I do for a living is a little complicated. On paper, I would be called a structural engineer, but in practice, there is a little more to it than that. Essentially what I do is build self-sufficient, eco-friendly houses and small office buildings. That sounds a lot more complicated than it is, but my personal role in all that is part engineer, part architect, part builder, and part accountant. It's the sort of job that makes people's eyes glaze over when you tell them about it. I get paid well for my work, and I live comfortably.
Or I
used
to live comfortably..., or I
will
live comfortably.
Whatever... There is comfort involved at some point in my living experience.
What the recently unconscious Lewis failed to appreciate is that far from being a desk jockey, my work was primarily spent on construction sites, where if I wasn't supervising construction, I was actively participating. And if I wasn't helping with the building, I was slogging shit around the worksite like a manual laborer. Eight hours a day, five days a week, every week of the year apart from Christmas, and multiply that by more than fifteen years of hard graft. That equated to the sort of workout regime that some men spend eye-watering amounts of gym time to achieve. So not only was I a little over 6 feet tall, I was in peak physical condition. My body wasn't covered in rippling muscles, but they were there, and unlike the gym guys, these ones were not just for show. They worked... as Lewis's face had recently discovered.
I still couldn't decide if I should feel bad about that.
I mean, I don't. Not even a little bit, but I am aware that I probably
should.
Before the phone call from the credit card company, I would normally have been described as a laid-back, easy-going guy with a good sense of humor and a head of jet black hair that stubbornly refused to adhere to any recognizable style. My hair grew extraordinarily fast, but it all seemed to want to grow 'out.' As my former wife joked, I was a prime candidate for an afro. When I was younger, I tried to grow it long, but no matter the weight or length of my hair, it abjectly refused to fold under its own weight. I had given up and shaved it all off... right down to the wood. It was then that I discovered that I have a fairly odd-shaped head, and the bald look was no better for me than the afro.
The rest of my head seemed to follow the same principles. My face is not ugly but seems to be too far removed from any aesthetically pleasing pattern to be called handsome. On a scale of one to ten, I would be a solid five. That isn't self-depreciation or lack of confidence; that is just a simple acceptance of the realities. I'm the personality guy. Someone has to be, and that someone was me. I would never drop panties at 50 paces, but I could make a girl laugh until she peed herself. I had been told that was more important. For the sake of fair comparison, Lewis, the asshole, was a safe eight on that scale. That tells you all you need to know about where a lot of women stand on the looks versus personality argument. Stacy, his wife, was possibly one of the most stunning women I had ever seen, even compared to Sarah, who was hardly a slouch on that scale herself. What was worse, Stacy was one of the most decent, funny, and all-round nice women I knew. Even so, Lewis had cheated on a woman that most guys would sell body parts to date, and Sarah had shown about as much loyalty as one of those sharks who eat their siblings in-utero. Recent events had given me the impression that I was not the best judge of character.
Fuck, Lewis had kids. Who the fuck does that to his kids?? My taste in the people I spent time with was starting to look a little less than stellar.
Back to the point, I was a tall, well-built guy with a fairly average head balanced precariously atop his shoulders. Inside that head was a man with what I would like to think was a decent character, a good personality, a well-paying job, a good work ethic, and a somewhat sketchy bullshit detector.
But one with a 100% knock-out record in bar fights.
One for one... Go me.
When it comes down to brass tacks, what I say about myself doesn't really matter; it is up to you to decide for yourself whether you think I am a good guy or not. I'm just going to tell my story and let you make up your own minds. I will, however, concede that so far, you have seen me mercilessly walk out on my wife, punch my best friend in the face, possibly destroy said best friend's marriage, and spend a lot of time in bars. I am aware that I am not off to the best of starts.
They say that before you judge a man, you should walk a mile in his shoes.... That way, when you
do
judge him, you are a mile away, and you have his shoes. Just a little something to bear in mind.
I took another sip of my coke and looked around the bar. The barman, a man with as much customer service enthusiasm as the damp cloth stupidly hung over his shoulder, looked back at me with an air of contempt, as if he was doing me a favor by... holy shit, I really was in a bad mood. I needed to stretch my legs. I downed the rest of my drink, paid the exact sum on the bill, purposely not leaving a tip to the guy who apparently didn't want one, and headed out into the main lounge.
