Any Ol' Tuesday

It was raining. Freezing rain. And it was dark. I don’t recall where we were before or what my day consisted of, but I was in a suit and a pink wool coat that I loved, yet it would be ruined from that cold, dark, rainy night. My pale pink coat would never recover, but I would.

Tom and I had definitely been drinking the day before, which was no different than just about any other day. We had left my car in a parking lot that stretched across many businesses, but it wasn’t quite a strip mall. I know one establishment was a bar; I can still see the neon window signs through the rain and my eyelashes that kept catching the freezing drops. There was also a K-Mart across the most expansive part of the lot from where we were. Where were we? I can’t recall the exact location, but I know we were fighting. Again.

So here we are, drunk and coming to get my car, which should stay put, really. But because it’s in this lot that belongs to I-don’t-know-who, I’m concerned it will get towed if it sits there for another night.

I don’t know what we’re fighting about, but usually it was about cheating (he did, repeatedly; I didn’t, until we hit the bitter end, and I’d moved out of the house by then.), or money or drugs or his kids or nothing. Suddenly, he turned and RAN towards the K-Mart, slip-sliding his way to the entrance wherein he eventually disappeared. I stood there, the miserable frigid rain soaking through my coat, my head dizzy with booze; I knew I wasn’t running ANYWHERE. I pulled out my cell phone and called him. Surprisingly, he answered. We both slipped easily into alternate personalities, slightly passive-aggressive, yet amenable: “Let’s talk about this,” I pleaded. “Ok,” he replied. We decided to meet in the store, back by the toy section, which he said was straight back from the entrance he’d ran into. We talked on the phone with me telling him I was approaching the store.

Through a second entrance, further away from the first, he ran out, sprinting back to his truck, having lied about wanting to resolve anything. He sped away, traversing the approximately 20-minute drive as quickly as possible, in slick, dangerous conditions, while drunk, which never seemed to phase us. Ever.

I remember that the code to open the garage was his daughter’s birthday, and I punched it in countless times. But for the life of me, I can’t remember it now. Odd how that happens, that details fade and disappear, but feelings can come back and hit you like a Mack truck. That garage where my car had carved out an indentation in the wall from continuously, drunkenly parking too far forward. The garage was utilized as our main entrance to the house. The other doors, front and back patio, were always locked. I don’t even know if there was a house key.

Tom arrived home, panicked and anxious and hopped out of his truck, punched in the code, and tucked his truck into the garage, away from the cold and wet night, quickly hitting the button to close the door. He did NOT want me in that house. Previously, during cocaine-fueled paranoid nights, Tom would pull the plug on the garage door connection so as to disable it completely. And that was his plan: disconnect the garage door opener, and I wouldn’t be able to get in the house. As he climbed up on his truck to “win the fight”, he heard coughing and hacking coming from the bed of the truck.

Startled, he looked down at a puddle. It was me in the bed of his truck. A sopping wet, drunk and stinky woolen mess. He reacted with surprise, or course, and more than a little admiration because I’d outsmarted him: I was IN the house.

 

I don’t know how I knew, but when you spend enough time around a chronic liar and wiley manipulator, you pick up a few tricks of your own. I never took one step towards that store. I crouched in the bed of the truck, banking on the idea that he would do exactly what he did. I talked to him on the phone as if I was walking towards the entrance, commenting on the miserable weather and puddles I was (not) stepping around. As I talked, I watched as he exited the store, sprinting back across the parking lot, determined to leave me there. Eventually, as he neared the truck, I said I’d see him in a minute and hung up. Perfect timing because he got behind the wheel, and I slid down in the wet bed of the truck, hugging the metal that separated us.