Discovery

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The long road to understanding and remediation.
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Jidoka
Jidoka
1,635 Followers

"If you're really a mean person you're going to come back as a fly and eat poop." — Kurt Cobain

Julie turned to face me as she reached the door.

"Thanks, Brayden. Will I see you tomorrow?"

"You bet."

She stood on the tips of her toes and kissed me softly on the cheek. Her scent lingered for just a moment as she spun around and made her way into the hallway. I watched her hips sway back and forth as she made her way to the elevator. She was a beautiful young woman. There was no doubt about that. She turned and gave me one little wave before she was gone.

As soon as I clicked the door to my condo shut, she started.

"A little young for you don't you think?"

I paused, staring at the back of the door, wishing for a moment that there was a mirror there so that I could see the look on my own face. I waited. But it didn't come. Maybe it was finally over. Maybe I had finally moved on. I searched for the anger, but it wasn't there.

"Well she is young, Melanie. I wouldn't know about the rest."

I turned and walked past her without bothering to give her a second glance. I walked into my loft and toward the kitchen suddenly feeling the need for a drink. I opened the fridge to take a quick inventory. There were the fruits and vegetables I liked. The chicken breast thawing for the dinner I was no longer in the mood to make. Yogurt, milk, energy drinks and beer. I grabbed one, just one, of the seven bottles left from the case that I had purchased almost a month earlier. It was a far cry from the pace I had set during the first year after my divorce.

I heard her following me. The click of her heals the exact opposite of my bare feet. I opened the bottle and set it on the sparse stainless steel counter top. I opened the cabinet door to place the bottle cap in the trash, exactly where it should go. Everything was in its place. Like it always was. Orderly. Neat. Clean.

I made my way to the living area, crossing an invisible line delineating the large open spaces. Kitchen, dining room, office, bedroom, gym, living room. The furniture was all top of the line but could never be confused for a matching set. The living room was no exception. Two stiff black leather lounge chairs on one side, separated by a metal end table, and crystal based lamp. The chocolate leather oversized loveseat was next, fronting a huge 60" LCD and a glass topped wooden coffee table. But the recliner was my favorite. Plush tan leather, big enough to hold my 6' 4" frame. It was definitely comfortable enough to sleep in. Nothing matched, but nothing looked out of place. Each piece called to me when I purchased it. Everything had a story. Everything was me, so it fit. Everything except her.

"Not even going to offer me a drink?"

It was the first time I really stopped to look at her. She showed up unannounced. It was the first time I had seen her in eight years. I was honest enough with myself to admit she looked good, beautiful even. But, then again, she always had the looks. It was her other qualities that I had trouble with.

"I wouldn't want you to get the impression that your presence was welcome. You're not my guest. If you want something, you can find it yourself."

I watched her spin on her heals and head back to the kitchen. I had missed that ass. It was perfect, after all. She knew it, too. Which is why, as she was at that moment, she most often wore a skirt that said, 'Yeah, I know you're looking'.

I allowed my eyes to wander from her sexy ass to her long, toned legs, to the straps around her ankles, to the four inch heels of what had to be her very expensive shoes. I let my primal urges rule the moment as I imagined her bending at the waist was more for my pleasure than to search for whatever she was looking for. I was waiting for the longing to set in, a reminder of the pain and heartache that always came with being forced to look at something that wasn't yours anymore. Something that had been taken. Stolen. Lost. What I felt instead was something all together different. Pride, maybe? It was definitely more of a, 'Yeah, I've fucked that' kind of a moment.

She returned having found her signature wine glass and Chardonnay. Her eyes were calm, coolly hiding her true intentions. For the first time that I could remember that realization didn't frighten me.

"You look good, Brayden."

"I feel good, Melanie."

The chess match had started, and it felt good to not be on defense right from the outset.

"You're not even going to ask me why I am here? You're not even a little bit curious?"

"It's not that I'm not curious. A person can never have too much information."

Her tell tale smirk told me that she thought we were on even ground.

"It's just that I don't give a shit."

Even in the most surprising situation, Melanie had an uncanny ability to maintain her poker face. I had firsthand knowledge of that fact, so it felt good to see her slight wince, even if it only lasted a second.

She turned to face my wall, an eighteen foot length filled with of framed pictures of my journey. It was a floor to ceiling reminder of how I had gotten here and the lessons that I had learned. Rock bottom. That's the name for it. I had heard it mentioned. I certainly had never felt it. But that is where I started. Right after Melanie divorced me and destroyed my life.

***

I won't lie and say that ours was the perfect marriage. It wasn't. We struggled mightily in the beginning, mostly because we didn't have any more than twenty extra dollars between us at any given moment. Still, we were young and hopeful and impulsive and committed. Our marriage didn't fail early on because we didn't believe that was even possible. After all, soul mates never gave up on each other. So memories and moments were created, like searching for loose change in the couch so that we could scrounge up enough to split a fast food meal and have enough left over to share a cupcake on our first anniversary. Or the time we made our first Christmas ornaments from paper and crayons and hung them on the fake tree that we found in the trash behind our apartment. When Melanie had them laminated before our second Christmas, I loved her even more. And more every year we placed them on the tree.

Still, even when you love someone, they can be annoying. Melanie had a habit of re-organizing things. She'd remove and replace all of the utensils in the kitchen or the spices in the rack or everything in the hall closet, in a pattern that only made sense to her. Just when I had gotten used to the new configuration, she would do it again. It was a small thing, and wouldn't have even been a thing, except that once she was done, she couldn't remember where anything was.

"Hon, where are the scissors?"

"In the drawer somewhere."

"They're not where they were last week. Did you move them?"

"Probably. I can't remember. Just keep looking. They are here somewhere."

I would often have to go and buy a replacement of whatever was missing, if I needed it with any urgency. Sometimes it would be weeks before things showed back up. And we were broke, so any extra expenditure was a problem. So, yeah, it was little annoying.

More often than not, though, I never thought about our lack of funds though. Probably because of the sex. I only had a hard-on anytime she was in the room. She was as insatiable as I was. If we had five minutes alone anywhere, at any time, we were more often than not in a state of undress. I loved the sound of desperation in her voice when I was holding out on her.

"Please, Brayden. Pleease......Oh, God. Let me come. I'll do anything you want. PLEASE!!!"

Then, after her arched hips fell back to the earth, I would stare at her exhausted body and watch her while she recovered. She was perfection with a slight sheen of sweat on her gloriously tanned skin. Her body was young and tight and soft and voluptuous, an impossible combination of femininity and sexuality.

And I loved her 'looks'. The one that announced long before her clothes came off that I was getting laid was my favorite. The one with her on her knees with her lips holding onto my cock as she pumped her hand frantically to earn her reward followed close behind. The over-the-shoulder look of surprise that came when I was pounding her into orgasm and started to play with her ass was also in the running. And I never tired of her crystal blue eyes.

Memories. Those were the important things.

After the dust had settled on our divorce, and I had placed the cap back on the bottle, I had my first epiphany. Those hard years, when we never knew where the money for next month's rent would come from, showed me that, together, we could survive even the worst situation. For Melanie, they were a nightmare, never to be lived again.

At any cost.

***

I watched her peruse my collection. Her eyes gave her away with double takes at the photographs of places we always said we would visit together, back when our dreams were impossible but shared. She was the epitome of walking sexuality. The glass dangled in her fingers, the wine swirling to match the sway in her hips. When she tipped her head, to look up at the pictures on the top row, her shoulder length blond hair draped across the shoulders of her silk blouse, opening the view to the gentle sweeping lines of her neck. The very neck I had dreamed of strangling so many times.

"I guess it's true. You really travelled to all those places."

"I did."

She was watching me again as if she was trying to anticipate my next move. Unfortunately for her, I didn't have one.

"You've changed."

"Oh, I doubt that is true. In fact, I know it's not true. I am the same man I have always been. Perhaps with just a little more me and a lot less you."

"See, that's what I mean. You never would have said things like that to me before."

Life is full of things we want to say, plan on saying, and dream about being able to say and remaining silent. We get lost in that silence or we lose the person we should be. Are we pretending to be someone we are not? I had spent a lot of time looking for that answer. I finally decided we try to be the person we think we are until someone shows us our reflection in the mirror and we can no longer maintain the lie. Some get over the shocking truth better than others.

"Maybe."

That smirk had returned.

"I knew it. So what's different now?"

"There is nothing more of mine you can take. We are not connected in any way. And that means you can't hurt me anymore."

She started to speak, a lump catching in her throat. I wanted to believe that she was moved, but I didn't. Not even a little.

"I want you to make it stop."

"I didn't start it."

"But you could end it."

"I am not certain that is true. Though, even if I could, I am not certain I would."

"You're enjoying this."

"Not particularly. I have very little interest in a constant reminder that the person I loved most in the world was a lying, cheating whore."

I am not sure why. It's not like I had said anything that she hadn't heard before. But I could tell that this time it had stung, if only just a bit.

"And besides, I am smarter now. 'Never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake.'"

"Sun Tzu?"

"Napoleon."

***

I had been woefully unprepared for the total devastation that had been hurled upon me during our first conflict. I wasn't prepared this time either but, fortunately, I also wasn't alone.

The rumors had started months earlier. People were whispering everywhere I went. The economy was tanking, a job, any job, was worth its weight in gold, and layoffs were on the horizon. Walking the factory floor was bad enough, with eyes following my every move, people stopping me when they thought no one was looking, asking me if I had seen the list. But I was getting it much worse at home. Melanie was near panic, asking me, every day, if I had heard anything. Did I still have a job? Was I sure? What was my plan? What were we going to do?

I didn't have a plan. I didn't need one. My boss was a good man and he had my back. He had looked me in the eye and told me not to worry. So I hadn't. And it would have been fine, if he had been the one making the final decisions and other people hadn't intervened.

If there were signs, I missed them. There were some possibilities. I recognized after it was much too late. Our sex life had taken a noticeable dip. I thought it was stress. I knew I wasn't in the mood as much as I had been before. I guess I thought it was my fault more than hers. Then there was the fact that Melanie knew, before I had stepped one foot into the house, I had been laid off. My boss was dumfounded as he told me, that the man with the highest team production and best quality rating was lost from his staff. Melanie wasn't even surprised. Unfortunately, it wouldn't be my only long term commitment that was about to get blown to hell.

Melanie gave me absolutely no hint that our marriage was in trouble. She went through the motions of a dutiful wife with ease. Loving embraces, kisses on the cheek, keeping me well fed and the house spotless. She was so much more of a Suzy homemaker during those last few weeks. She never let me leave the room without telling me she loved me, probably to mask her guilt.

I was served while waiting in line for my turn to access the company sponsored outplacement resources. I came home to find the locks changed, my clothes boxed and in the driveway with another copy of the restraining order placed neatly on top. My severance package should have lasted for months, but I was almost immediately forced to choose. Should I use my remaining funds to fight the divorce and for custody of my daughter or to live? I chose to fight, but I was simply outmatched.

Lawyers, psychologists, judges all came to the same conclusion. I was a mentally abusive, unfit parent. I was unemployed, and without means to care for a child. I was worthless. They said so in writing. All legal like.

The final blow came when I had my last harebrained idea. If I could just speak to April face to face, she would listen to me. At the time, she was nine. Old enough to tell them that she loved her daddy and that she wanted to see me and that we were like peas in a pod. And so I stood in the darkness, behind the bushes, hoping to see her. Staring at what used to be my house. That was the first time I saw them together. My wife, my daughter and the company vice president of operations. He was the son of my former company's founder and a womanizer, an asshole and perhaps the worst business manager ever to hold an executive position. But his old man was respected and people were loyal and the only ruined life was mine. And I was a nobody. They had all said so.

He was a strange looking man, ten years my senior, with an expanding waistline, a large checkbook and my pre-made family. I would be the first one to admit that my description was biased by my hatred. He wasn't deformed or anything, but all I could see was ugliness.

That was the night I took my first drink. Not my first ever, but the first one I took to mask my pain. It was a long drink. It lasted a year. It might have lasted forever but I saw her one more time. I was wandering the streets. Unkempt facial hair, unwashed clothes and a foul odor that announced my presence long before I arrived. I was a couple of weeks away from being homeless, if you could call my dilapidated studio apartment in the nearly condemned pre-war era building a home. She was coming out of one of the downtown boutiques, bags weighing down her arms, searching her designer purse for the keys to her luxury SUV. I think I frightened her. In fact, I know I did. She was momentarily at a loss for what to do next, shield her possessions or her body. The drunken haze that shielded me from the real world meant she was in no danger from me. It took me far too long to recognize her. The 'Oh, my god' and her hands covering her mouth in shock before she started her car and drove off finally registered several minutes later.

A few minutes after that, I stole the beer bottle from the convenience store. That was why I was searching for the bottle opener. I was too stupid to lift one with a twist off cap and Melanie had rearranged the kitchen utensils again, for no damn good reason. I couldn't find the fucking bottle opener. After the bottle was smashed and the contents of all but one drawer were tossed on to the floor, I found it. There was no Melanie, it wasn't our home, and the bottle opener was right where I left it. Right where it should have been. Everything had been in its place.

I stopped drinking that day and left my hometown the next with a backpack full of everything I owned and almost fifty dollars to my name. It wasn't hard to stop. I wasn't an alcoholic, I was a broken man trying to hide in a bottle. And failing.

***

"Is everything an inspirational quote with you now?"

"Not always. Not everything inspires someone. Sometimes things are just a reminder of where we have been."

"What the fuck, Brayden?! What does that even mean?"

"I have no idea what it means to you but, frankly, I have no interest in explaining what anything means to me. Especially to you."

***

I wandered for eighteen months that first time, walking, hitchhiking and taking the occasional bus. I worked odd jobs until I had enough cash to move on. Money was tight, but my eyes were open. I put up camp wherever I found myself. There was always someplace to lay my head, grab a shower, snag a meal. I indulged myself with the anything that looked interesting from any used book store I passed. I could grab a dozen books for the price of one movie. So I read.

I wrote down anything that I wanted to remember, and anything that I was feeling, in an old, worn spiral bound notebook. It was a diary of pain and discovery. I kept up on world events with newspapers that others had discarded. They were often out of date but the news that filled those pages didn't really affect me anyway. And I talked to people. Well, listened mostly. People liked to talk and I was a good listener.

I splurged, once, on a well used digital camera from a pawn shop. I took pictures so that I could remember the locations I had been, people that I had met and, much later in my journey, things that had inspired me. About once a month, and for around five dollars, one of the chain drug stores would transfer all my pictures from my memory card to compact disc. After a year and a half, I settled in a dusty little town in the middle of the country. I worked my first, post divorce, full-time job in the warehouse of a fertilizer factory. During the day I slaved away, hauling shit, and at night I retired to my rented room above the local garage to read and write. I exchanged my notebook for a used laptop and spent my free days at the local library using their free internet to load my thoughts and picutres to a blog. People followed me, commented anonymously and, though I was writing as a cathartic alternative to therapy, I enjoyed knowing that people were interested in what I had to say. I enjoyed it a lot.

***

Melanie paused at the only picture that I had of my former family, a strip of photographs from a booth at an amusement park. April was four years old at the time. Her pony tail wrapped in pink ribbons and her newly pierced ears shimmered with the fake diamond studs. The overly bright flash couldn't compete with the smiles on the faces of the three subjects. Each captured the moment. The first was surprised, the next silly, and then genuine laughter.

"I could help you get in touch with her. Help you reconnect."

"Oh, so you're close? Down with all the latest comings and goings of your daughter?"

I could see her try and search my gaze for information. It must have been hard for her not to have the upper hand, to not be a step ahead, to be wondering what I knew or didn't know.

Jidoka
Jidoka
1,635 Followers