Love, Lose, And Repeat

Manners, Jim

I used to resort to car keys to clean my ears, and my wife just said it was unwise. Now it sets off firecrackers in her eyes. The towel I wash with (and leave two seconds too long on the living room couch) gets hurled over at me. I look at her shocked, when it smacks the back of my head, but she just stares like she wishes it was a brick and she wishes I was dead.
    Beth expects me to meet her at this famous restaurant on second street that she loves. She expects me to flip the bill from an un-shared account, but I don't think she knows that if she breaks my heart, and tells me she's moving on--well, she doesn't get to break my wallet and keep moving on with her expensive French champagne and orange caviar that flops around the roof of my mouth like rubber bouncy balls.
    She sits. She orders her rubber balls and I settle for a beer. If her eyes really were fireworks, they would have been launched at me years ago. Years before the counseling and the PTA meetings I missed (and never was allowed to live it down) and the visits to my mother in Tampa, she would have been eyeless for all three of our children's lives.
    "We need to talk, Jim--don't interrupt me. You are always interrupting me. You think what you say has so much more importance then what I have to say--that's bullshit--I don't care if this is a fine dining restaurant, I have a lot to say--and not a lot of patience--Where are the kids?--With my mother, that's where. Just be quiet, so I can think for a second, okay--"
    Conversations with Beth started with "can we talk?" Years passes and it's "we need to talk" because by the end all that's left are demands and hollow, underground tunnels. They lead to nowhere, house nobody, and are good for no one except the rats that skit through shallow water, waiting for light to guide them through.
    "And I don't like how whenever I get home you are teaching little Jimmy how to build a fire-- I don't care if he is in Boy Scouts, Jim--I am his mother and I don't have to like it."
    Talk through me, talk to me because by the end all she does is pick at me leaving me for the vultures to finish. Niceties don't matter. She Needs now, because all the politeness wears off around kid number one and nice tones and soft strokes turn into sharp looks, jagged nails, rude manners--manners that a decade ago would have made the queen jealous. Now, home is a cold house, cold food on the counter, a list of things for me to finish, and a couch to crash on and catch sleep.
    "Sally needs to be picked up from soccer at 5:30 not 6:00 not 6:15--you always get there late!--Leave work early then because your daughter is more important than a job anyway. Is a job going to take care of you when you are retired?--I don't care about your pension, Jim--be quiet! You're interrupting me again!"

    I'm ready for her to call it. Tell me good game, high five me, and get me off the field. The whistles are over, red warnings have been given out, and we have a few grass stains, a few side blows to the dirt but we made it out alive and we are ready for the next opponent.
    I start thinking about if I would remarry. If I could find someone with more then temporary niceness and someone who would laugh when I tease them about their hair in the morning instead of trying to suffocate me with her pillow.
    "I just think that the love is long gone Jim and we both need something new before we find it while we are still married and I--I mean I've had some nights with my girls I'm not proud about but--that was years ago--before the girls and jimmy--No I never went that far! Be quiet Jim! I'm trying to think."
    I could get married again. Maybe have a few kids that aren't tainted with my wife's brimming bitterness towards me and don't walk around calling me asshole under their breath because that's what they heard mommy calling me. Maybe I need that. Maybe my happiness has worn off and my politeness and maybe its time for me to need something too.
    I get up so fast my beer is spinning and spilling on the table and she lifts her rubber balls off the table like I was going to taint them with my beer despite their porcelain plate.
    "I need to get out of here." I say and I throw my wallet on the table. "I need some air and I can't listen to this--this--shit--just shitting out of your goddamned mouth.
    "Please, Jim--sit down. Have some manners!" She yells over her shoulder. Her blonde hair twists around her back. the waiter wanders over and wipes up the beer stains. "I'm am so sorry, I'll take the check. I am completely embarrassed for my husband. We have been married fifteen years, he seems to have lost his manners along the way."
She is probably still searching, trying to find me, but I am outside and falling into
the dark of the city, and asking a cab to take me home, politely.