Shrewful

“Life Sucks, Get A Helmut” - Part 1

Scott and I met Duke for an early afternoon lunch at Yak’s. After Scott casually mentioned his reason for coming to town, I asked, “What do you mean, you don’t know when you’ll be going back? What does Leslie have to say about this?”

A waiter interrupted for our order. Duke made sure we all ordered beers.

Scott said, “Listen. I’m here to have fun and to not feel like a piece of shit. Home is the worst place for this. Whenever she is around, I’m tense, I try to stop her from getting agitated or anxious or apathetic or aggressive or some other asshole-like word. I know four words for fucked up that start with the letter ‘A’. If I went through the alphabet, I’d name dozens more. There are times when Leslie is worried, there are times when she anxious, and those aren’t the same. I could tell you a story about how she’s skeptical that the roses will bloom in spring, and if they do, how she’s concerned that the rabbits will eat them. She’s anxious that the neighbor’s roses will look better. Even if that shame doesn’t deflate her, she’s frightened she’ll developed some undiscovered allergy to rose varietals from the southern hemisphere and that means that she’d have to euthanize the whole damn garden because she’s troubled that she possibly misplaced her gardening journals with all their finely appointed detail. That dysphoria would pale against her mounting paranoia that Boo will take a bat to each new baseball-like bloom in a series of defiant rages, and in the process become some Barry Bonds like monstrosity, juiced and vengeful. She’d then be tormented, victimized, and hallucinate that it’s entirely my fault.”

Duke said, “Nice.”

I interrupted my note taking to say, “Life sucks, get a helmut.”

“You’re copying. I stole that line from Denis Leary.”

I didn’t know Scott had stolen it. I had given him credit for this comic insight.

He continued, “My story grows in the telling. I always feel better because something always seems to make more sense. Today, I added the bit about the southern hemisphere varietals. That so Leslie.”

Duke said, “The water spins backwards there, you know.”

“I didn’t tell what actually happened though. Leslie exploded into her constitute molecules after Boo called her a bitchy fucking bitch.”

“My God,” I said before I could stop myself. Scott was surprised at my reaction.

Duke laughed, then asked, “How old is your son?”

Scott ran his hand through his hair before he said, “He’s eight. He curses worse that I do. He calls me names, too. It’s really bad. But when I tell my friends, we all laugh. They laugh because it’s funny. I laugh because if I didn’t, I’d have to cry. So in any case, after Leslie calmed a little, she blamed me. She said, ‘our marriage is all fucked up’.”

Scott extroverts dialog. He’s good at quoting others. I introvert it.

Scott continued with Leslie’s speech, “‘You don’t take me seriously, you don’t take Boo’s problem seriously, you encourage his awful behavior towards me, you taught him such foul behavior and even worse language. I need to be alone. Leave and I’ll let you know when the two of you can come back. I don’t think this marriage works any more.’ And that’s how she is when she’s calm.”

I think Duke felt a little out of place by Scott’s directness. He said, “Wow. But you know, my last girl friend was at least as bad.”

When did Duke have a girlfriend whose story I didn’t know? It must have been short and recent.

He continued, “She’s a redhead, you know?” As if that’s significant. “After the third or fourth time we had sex, she thought she could tell me how to do everything. She was a shrewy bitch. I didn’t get her fuck-you speech. I texted her, ‘can’t go out with you.’”

“Shrewy. That’s a mouthful.” Scott added.

“Yeah. Try saying that after a few beers. Hell, it’s even funnier after tequila shots.”

… continued