Don't Get Mad, Get Even

"But you two seem to get along so well," I sputtered.

"That's the difference between LOVE and LIKE," she said. "Love lets you separate the person from the shit they do. Love makes you accept a person and all of their flaws and forgive them when they slip. Like makes you drop a person as soon as you discover that 'A,' they aren't perfect, and 'B,' they've fucked up really badly.

The first time Rick cheated on me, we had been married for almost exactly seven years. He started acting really strange and overdoing all of the niceties. He was working way too hard to be nice to me, the bastard even put up with my mother and he hates the fuck out of her. It turned out that he had fucked some stripper while he was on an out of town business trip. I might never have known had he not brought me home an STD.

I threw him out of the house and refused to speak to him for three months. Even after we finally got back together and I let him come home we slept apart for another six months. Every chance I got, I stuck it to him. We would have a wonderful dinner at my favorite restaurant for an occasion like our anniversary. Everything would be perfect. He would do the most romantic things he could think of. He'd lean over and kiss my hand and tell me he loved me. And I would say something like, "Why? ... Can't you find another stripper?"

It took 8 years and two kids before I really relaxed. And then he blasted me between the eyes again. I went through his phone and found a bunch of text messages between him and his high-school sweetheart. We were in counseling for almost two years. I discovered a lot of shit that time. We'd been married for 15 years and there were things that we didn't know about each other. There were things that I did that just emasculated Rick. I had almost thrown him into the arms of that bitch by the way that I treated him.

She came along and built his ego up while I was still tearing him down over shit that had been over for years. If our home life was a workplace, I would have been sued for harassment. I had made our home a hostile environment for Rick. Every chance I got I was still busting his balls even though neither of us could even remember the stripper's name. I would withhold sex from him at the drop of a hat. I called him names. I did everything I could to make him feel worthless. I figured he deserved it.

The thing our therapist did that helped us the most was really shitty. He asked to see our home. He actually came over for dinner. Rick, the kids and I were on our best behavior of course. The dinner went well. "So the two of you CAN be civil," said the therapist. I wondered what that was supposed to prove.

What neither Rick nor I knew was that the therapist had bugged our kitchen and living room with a couple of those tiny cameras. When we went back to our session six weeks later, he played some unedited video for us. It was eye opening.

I had never realized what a bitch I had become. Without the therapist, during our normal meals and interactions I was merciless. If Rick complimented me on a meal I cooked, I lashed out at him and never made it again. If he told me about something good that had happened to him at work, i belittled him or whatever he had done. I called him names and insulted him for no reason.

If something bad happened to him, and he'd told me about it hoping for some kind of compassion from the woman who loved him and had vowed to be with him till death do us part ... I ... I told him he deserved it. Steve Rick was almost killed in an accident at one of the plants he worked in. When one of his coworkers who had to drive him home, stood there in my kitchen telling me how close I'd come to almost losing my husband. I laughed that it was too bad it was almost.

But that wasn't my lowest point. My lowest point came during what was supposedly the worst snow storm Michigan had seen in over twenty years. For a while I was having migraine headaches. They were so bad that I almost couldn't see when they struck. I took a prescription pain reliever for them. And I had run out. Rick and I were sitting by the fireplace when my headache started. The snow was piled up so high that he'd barely gotten home. He reached over and tried to kiss me. I slapped him so hard that it left a mark. You could see the hand print on his face in the video.

"I have a headache," I yelled at him. I went up to our bedroom and you could hear the door slam on the audio track. I called him all kinds of names. It took more than two hours before I went back downstairs. I heard something tapping at the door. I looked out and didn't see anything so I went back upstairs. I hadn't given Rick a thought. Almost twenty minutes later I got a call. Our next door neighbor, the guy you bought your house from told me there was someone on our porch. I screamed for Rick to see who it was. He didn't answer me, so I decided to get the door myself, but I was going to make his life hell.

When I opened the door Rick fell into the house. He was almost unconscious. But I didn't care.

"Where's your key, dumbass?" I laughed. "Did you leave it at some whore's house?"

"S-s-so cold. Fingers don't work," he said. "Thanks for let-letting m-m me in."

"There's a blizzard out there, stupid ass," I said. "Only an absolute moron would go out in that."

"P p pocket p p please," he stuttered. "He looked as if he was really out of it. At that point I hadn't tried to help him up or even closed the door. His legs were still out on the porch in the snow.

"What's in here, used condoms?" I asked. I felt though both of his coat-pockets and pulled out my headache pills. He had walked five miles in a blizzard to get them. Rick ended up getting really sick but I didn't care. I never even said thanks. I just continued to snap at him.

"I know why you went and got my pills," I snapped. "We were lying there in front of that fire and you thought we were gonna have sex. Well you can fucking forget that. I'm not one of your whores."

He looked at me, Stevie, and a rock would have melted with what he said. "I know that," he said. "We only do it when YOU want to. I just wanted you to feel better. Your pills take some of your pain away."

I was confused. I didn't know what to say. "Fuck you, Rick," I told him and left him there on the floor.

As I said we missed a bunch of sessions. Because of Rick's frostbite and pneumonia, it was almost six weeks before we went back. The therapist played all of the videos' for us. Rick sat there unmoved by it. The therapist watched my every move. I made him stop the video several times. I was in tears long before it ended.

"Rick, why the hell do you put up with that?" I asked him. "What you did was bad, it was very bad, but the way I've treated you is far worse. I never realized I was doing it. Why didn't you leave?"

He just looked at me. "People make mistakes," he said. "I should know. My mistakes are what got us here in the first place. What I did was wrong ... Very wrong, but you never left me. And ... I love you Georgia. I know I get stupid from time to time. I've done it twice now. But there has never been anyone I loved nearly as much as I love you. You're my life."

I ran out of the therapist's office. I was crying my eyes out and had no idea where I was going or what I would do when I got there. I was older than you are now, Stevie. I'd been married for fifteen years and had three kids by Rick, but that was the day I found out what real love was. I was amazed by how much that bastard loved me. For all of that time I'd been thinking that he didn't deserve me. But after watching that fucking video, I realized that maybe I didn't deserve him. People always talk about what they would do for the person they love. Rick had nearly died just to get my prescription filled.

My temper just left me. My personality went back to normal. Well ... Almost. I did track down Rick's high-school sweetheart and beat the fuck out of her in front of her co-workers. The bitch had been divorced three times. She'd cheated on all of her husbands.

I did have to get back at Rick before we could go back to normal. But since I couldn't get mad at him, I got even. There was a college kid who cut our grass and did painting and chores for us every once in a while. I waited for Rick to go off on one of his business trips and spent an entire day fucking that boy's brains out. He was twenty one years old but I wore him out. And that's the way I handle it now. I know that Rick loves me. I know that he may not be as romantic as you are, but there is nothing he won't do for me. I also know that he is going to have the occasional slip. So when he does, I don't threaten to divorce him or kick him out of the house. I just get even."

"So that's it?" I said. "The wisdom of the ages is that true love doesn't really exist. Everyone is going to cheat, so when your spouse cheats, you just cheat too?"

"Steve, I know what I've told you doesn't work for everyone," she said. "I guess I just wanted you to understand that Sarah making a mistake doesn't have to end your marriage. You think about it some, Honey, okay?"

The next morning, I hit Home Depot and got new locks for the front, side and rear doors. Home Depot is open very early in the morning and I was accustomed to being up all night, so I was there when they opened.

By seven thirty, I had the front and side door locks changed. I figured I was good since only the front door was accessible from outside of our six foot privacy fence. I wasn't actually worried about being robbed. The only person I was worried about was the one who had a key to the old locks.

I decided that I could change the rear door locks and get the garage remotes recoded the next day. I went out for a short run in the early morning breezes and came back refreshed. I was just getting out of the shower when I heard someone yanking and trying to get in my front door and cursing.

I went downstairs and saw Sarah trying to get in.

"Hi Sweetheart," she said. "I stopped by to make breakfast for you and grab a few things. Maybe we could ..."

"I don't think we could," I interrupted. "Look Sarah, I'll let you in so you can grab more of your things. But I'm not ready to talk to you yet. It's just too soon."

"What about breakfast?" she asked. "I know you just went out and ran, so you're probably starving."

"Sarah, I have to learn how to handle things like that myself," I said. "When this is all over I ..."

"When this is all over, we'll be back together so I'll still be making your breakfast, Steven," she smiled. "Honestly, I wish you would just talk to me. Why are you putting us through all of this?"

"Look, Sarah, you're the one who put us through all of this shit," I snarled. "So fuck you if your inability to keep your legs closed is causing an inconvenience for you. Just go upstairs, grab your shit and get the fuck out of here before I change my mind."

My anger shocked her and she hesitated before speaking. "I'm sorry Steve," she said. "That's why we need to talk. We need to clear things up so your pain can end and we can get back together."

"I already told you that I'm not ready to talk to you," I said. "We can talk after the divorce."

"What fuckin' divorce?" she shrieked. "Who said anything about a divorce? Steve, you're taking this too far, Honey. I was wrong as hell, but this isn't worth getting a divorce over. Are you going to throw away ten wonderful years over a stupid fling? It was Rick for God's sake. He's no threat to us. He's almost fifty and balding. He has that stupid beer gut. He's also your best friend. The guy would take a bullet for you, so there's no way he would ever tell anyone. Don't you love me anymore?" She had almost fallen off of the porch as she screamed and reeled drunkenly.

"I do now," I said guardedly. "But I'm working on it as hard as I can."

"Then why do you want a divorce?" she asked. She was almost hysterical. "Do you really want us apart? It hurts me so bad not to be here with y ... What the fuck do you mean you're working on it? Are you trying NOT to love me?" I nodded.

"But why?" she whined. She sounded so pathetic that I felt almost sorry for her. Then I remembered ten years of busting my ass for her, only to have her cheat on me, and any sympathy I felt evaporated.

"You cheated on me," I said. "You ruined our marriage. You DESTROYED our relationship. You took something pure and beautiful and you just shit all over it. Right now it's something broken and bleeding. And what will we have if we do manage to put it back together? It will be something really ordinary."

"But we love each other," she whined.

"We had that and so much more," I said. "We trusted each other implicitly. I can't trust you anymore. And one of the things that made us so God Damned special was the fact that we had this bond. You were like my other half. You were mine alone. You belonged to ME, Sarah. Why the fuck do you think I always called you MY Sarah. Even to your parents."

"But ..." she sniffed and wiped away the tears. "I'm still ..."

"Don't say it Sarah," I said. "We both know it isn't true anymore."

"But I promise you, Steve. It didn't mean anything. It was only sex. There was no love involved either way. I only love you and he only loves Georgia. I swear I'm still yours. And I always will be."

"There are two problems with that," I said. "The first is that you cheated on me so we've already established that I can't trust you. So you could be lying when you say that. The second is besides you declaring that you're mine, I have to want you. And I'm not sure I do anymore. Sarah you're not the woman I fell in love with any more. You're just ..."

"A fucking skank in the grass," screamed Georgia from behind us. "You fucking Bitch. We were friends. Why the fuck would you go after Rick? Out of all the men in the world you went after my fucking husband. I should kick your fu ..." Georgia ran back next door as she saw Rick trying to sneak off down the street.

"See, now you've ruined two marriages," I said. "Go on into the house and get your stuff and then please leave. I'll be in the garage until you're gone. There's no need to let me know when you leave. Just close the door on your way out." She just nodded with huge tears rolling down her cheeks.

"I guess you didn't really love me as much as you claimed, you liar," she cried. "All I did was give someone some pussy and all of a sudden, I'm not yours anymore. It's not the end of the world you know. It's not like it's the last pussy I'm ever going to give. It's not like I'm going to run out. If you're so concerned with my pussy why aren't you in it right now?"

"You really don't understand this at all, do you?" I said, shaking my head. I turned towards the garage.

"Then talk to me, Steve," she said. "Explain it to me. Talk to me. Make me see it your way. Convince me."

"I told you when you first got here that I didn't want to talk to you," I said. "It's too early. The pain is too fresh. I know that we have to talk, Sarah. But right now, I'm hurting too badly to think rationally. All we've done this morning is to make things worse. I wanted to protect Georgia. She didn't need to go through this. But now you've hurt her too. Go away, Sarah. Let me grieve in peace. Haven't you hurt me enough?"

She burst into tears and ran away. She got onto her car and finally drove away. For the rest of the day I puttered around the house until I had to go to bed to get some sleep before my Sunday night midnight shift at the hospital.

My night was normal. When you look at it my job is pretty bizarre. I wait around for someone to get hurt, then I help take care of them when they come into the ER. My way of taking care of them is to shoot beams of ionizing radiation at them to determine the extent of their injuries.

For A summer Sunday night it was pretty quiet. It gave me a lot of time to think. I thought a lot about two things. The first was the look of pain on Sarah's face. She'd really believed that I loved her enough to try to get past what she had done.

The second thing I thought about was what Georgia had told me. In our short time talking, Georgia had told me a lot. But two things stood out from the rest. The first was the difference between love and like. Real love involved caring for the person so much that you accepted their flaws and mistakes. As much as I wanted to believe that. As true as it sounded, Sarah made the third time that Rick had cheated on Georgia. There was no way that a sane person would put up with that. I know I wouldn't.

Georgia had told me something else that was interesting. She'd said what basically amounted to "don't get mad, get even." Now that was something I could embrace. In the early morning hours, I found myself thinking about ways to get even with Rick.

A patient gave me the idea. He'd come in at about three in the morning with a broken hand. He was a maintenance man at a school and he worked the overnight shift. The air conditioning unit had been malfunctioning and he was working on it. The unit had large metal doors that closed vertically. The strut that was supposed to keep the door up when it was being serviced got knocked out of position when he reached for a wrench and the large metal door slammed closed on his hand.

He ended up with three fractured metacarpals. He was in a lot of pain and his left hand would be in a cast for six to eight weeks, but it could have been a lot worse. After he left all I could do was smile.

My shift is called a midnight shift but it isn't really a traditional midnight shift. I don't start at midnight and work until eight. I start at eleven p.m. and work until seven a.m. So at seven a.m. when I left the hospital I already knew what I would be doing that day. I stopped off at Home Depot again. But this time I was looking for one particular item. I bought a roll of very thin, very strong monofilament line. It was just like a fishing line except thinner. It was like the stuff they use for movie effects and puppet shows. And I had a puppet in mind.

Almost as soon as I drove into my driveway I went into action. I studied Rick's house and heard very little activity coming from it. It was only about seven forty and I knew Rick's schedule about as well as I knew mine. He would leave the house at eight o' clock and arrive at his job in a downtown office building by eight-thirty. That way he could shoot the shit with his co-workers for a half hour or so before he started work at nine. It was a good habit because during Michigan's terrible winters it gave him an extra thirty minute cushion for those snowy days when weather and road conditions could delay him.

I worked on switching out the lock on the back door of my house while I stared at Rick's garage. Rick did a lot of things to copy what I did. Like me he kept his lawn mower and yard tools in a shed. Shit, he'd bought the same shed I did, the week after I bought mine. It sat in his yard in three big boxes until I helped him put it up.

Having the shed meant that like mine his garage was the home for his car only. And not the car he drove. Rick and I were working on a 1970 Chevelle SS 454. The Chevelle had been a beast back then in the original muscle era. The car had been rated at around four hundred horsepower in the ads. But everyone who knew cars back then knew that GM, in an era of increasing unhappiness with high horsepower-low gas mileage cars, had under rated the car's performance. The engine's actual output was reported to be between 470 and five hundred horsepower.

That was incredible back then and more than respectable now. Sure there are a lot of cars nowadays, including my Mustang that eclipse five hundred horses. But most of them do it with superchargers or turbos. The Chevelle's performance came from the motor only and that is impressive even now.