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| The heart with a mind of its own.(Be present.) | The mind with a heart of its own.(It's past.) | The dream that is your waking life.(Go there now.) | |||
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Why Write About Him After All This Time?
The Italian Stallion The first time I went to Chris's apartment, he pulled a gun out from behind the chair and showed it to me. Then he held it up to my temple. "Is it loaded?" I asked calmly. He said, "Yeah." I met Chris when I was twenty-two and working as a clerk in a video store. He was twenty-four, Italian, worked at Radio Shack. He used to come in to the video store to rent movies and would let people go ahead of him in line until I was free. He would come up to my register and chat me up and finally one night he asked me out. Going out with Chris meant going over to his apartment, watching a rented movie, eating take-out, fucking. (Yes, I fucked him that first night, the gun night.) This went on for several weeks, during which time we saw each other with increasing frequency. I wasn't particularly interested in him, but I wanted the sex, so I kept up some semblance of a relationhip with the guy. He laughed and put the gun back behind the chair. And the next thing you read will sound crazy. I was surprised the first time he hit me. It was Christmas Eve and we argued over a box of candy and he grabbed me and then pushed me into a set of concrete steps. He left when I told him I was calling the police. The police came and told me that they could do nothing. (I didn't tell anyone else, not my family or friends, because I was ashamed that I hadn't been able to handle the situation, strong woman that I was.) I had to call into work the next day. It was several more days before I could move my arm without its hurting. And the next thing you read will also sound crazy. I took him back when he asked me to. He cried and said he was sorry. He cried and said that he hadn't ever done anything like that before. He cried and asked me to forgive him, and I did. I felt sorry for him. I took him back. The next time he hit me, it was less of a surprise. We argued in his apartment because he hadn't gone to work. He said it was my fault because I had said something mean to him the night before. I said more mean things then and went to leave his apartment. He grabbed me and shoved me down. I managed to leave the apartment after that, walked to the nearest pay phone and called a friend to come and get me. (I didn't say anything else to the friend. I didn't call the police. I didn't tell my family.) I took Chris back when he cried and begged me to take him back. We moved in together when the lease on his apartment ran out. I'm pretty sure that it was my idea for us to move in together. Chris had shown me the scar on his hand where his mother had stabbed him with a fork one night at dinner when he reached for something rather than asking for it to be passed to him. She was teaching him manners I suppose. He told me about his father's having beaten him for not scrubbing the toilets well enough. These stories were the tip of the iceberg. Chris was amazing in bed, would do anything to please me. We used to fuck all the time. It made him feel like a man when he could make me come. He used to beg to eat me out. We would rent porn flicks and watch them and do what the performers did. I began to think that his liking to fuck me meant that he cared about me. He used to tell me that he loved me. I'd say it back, though I didn't love him. I always felt bad about lying to him, but I did it anyway. I wasn't trying to avoid a beating by telling him that I loved him. I said it because I felt sorry for him. I wanted to make him feel as though he were worth something to me. I didn't think it was going to change him, my loving him, I just didn't want to add to what had already been, for him, a lifetime of misery. The last time he hit me was after we were living together. We argued and he grabbed my wrist and twisted it. I broke out of his grip. He grabbed me again, this time with both hands, this time by the throat. He began to choke me. We were by the sink, which was full of dirty dishes. I reached into the cold, dirty water and pulled out a knife, a nine-inch chef's knife. He backed away once I had the knife in my hands. I told him to leave or I'd kill him. He left. He went across the street to a pay phone and called the police. I was arrested for attempted assault with a deadly weapon, a felony. To his surprise, he was also arrested. He was charged with domestic violence, a misdemeanor. I spent several hours in jail and was released on my own recognizance as I had never been arrested before. I was told that Chris would be held overnight to give him a chance to cool down. I went home. He showed up at the door about an hour later. He wanted me to let him in but I refused. He went to spend the night with a friend. At my arraignment, the judge would not allow me to plead guilty--something I wanted to do so that I could put an end to the whole embarrassing ordeal. The judge said that he could not allow me to plead that way because he didn't believe that I was guilty and that the evidence would not support a guilty verdict. I was frustrated. I would not go through a trial because I was ashamed and embarrassed and wanted it to be over and I knew that if there was a trial Chris would be subpoenaed as a witness and I never wanted to see him again. The judge suggested that I plead no contest to the charges and I did. He gave me the least possible sentence that he could (six months probation and an anger management course) and waived all the court costs that I was supposed to pay. I thought then that it would be over, but of course, it wasn't. Chris began showing up at my door, in tears, begging me to take him back. He had cleaned himself up, found a good job, wanted me to know that he was doing it all for me, so that I might come back to him. Each time he came to the door, I told him I wasn't coming back and closed the door in his face. He began to call, to show up at my work, to drive by my house. Whereas he had once been contrite, now he began getting angry. I filed for a restraining order. It made not the least bit of difference. Each time I called the police, they showed up after he had left and told me there was nothing they could do. Of course, I was subpoenaed for his trial. He had entered a not guilty plea, in part, he said later, because he knew I'd have to show up to testify against him or face being arrested again. It was a way for him to see me again. I did show up for his trial. He did get to see me again. I showed up to his trial because in those days I still had some belief in the ability of the system to administer justice. This was, obviously, before the O.J. Simpson trial. Outside the courtroom, Chris told me that he would change his plea to guilty if I would come back to him. I refused. Inside the courtroom, I was put on the witness stand. I described what had happened the night he had attacked me, tried to choke me. What happened next was a bit of a surprise. Chris had told his lawyer that I had, years ago, taken medication for depression. (About three years before I met Chris a doctor had given me a sample of Zoloft. I took the drug for about a week before deciding never to touch it again.) The lawyer began asking questions about my "drug use" and questioned my mental stability. The judge stopped this line of questioning. Not that it mattered. My testimony didn't matter in terms of the judge's ruling, but this fact did: The cops who had arrested Chris declined to show up for the trial. It was a waste of their time, I suppose. When they didn't show up, the judge had no choice but to throw out the charges. Meanwhile, I had transferred to an overnight job and was attending anger management classes right in the middle of the day--that is, right in the middle of my night. Once a week, I had to wake up in what was, for me, about two-thirty in the morning, and drive across town to sit with a group of women who had each made the same mistake I had made by pleading guilty. Many of them were strippers who drank on the job and then came home to jealous boyfriends or husbands who started fights with these women then did what Chris had done when things got out of hand: They called the police to report that the women had assaulted them. Most of these women were tiny. One was under five feet tall and weighed less than a hundred pounds. I happened to see her boyfriend drop her off one day (like Chris, he had pleaded not guilty and his charges had been thrown out when the cops declined to attend the trial). The boyfriend was about six feet two inches tall and weighed over two-hundred pounds. After the trial, after the anger management classes, after the restraining order, I wish I could say that it was over. The next thing you read will sound crazy. I went back to him. We were together for several more weeks at least. And it finally ended this way: He had rented an apartment and I would go there to visit him. One morning, we were in bed after a long bout of fucking. We got into a fight. I don't remember what the fight was about. I got dressed, left his apartment, got into my car. He ran out after me and picked up a cinderblock and hurled it at my windshield. I was already backing the car out of the driveway, so instead of shattering the windshield, the cinderblock hit the hood of the car. I drove away. I never saw him again.
More lies:
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