I didn’t know where my truck was. With the keys in my pocket, I figured I’d head back to the Chat and Chew. If it wasn’t there, at least someone there would probably be able to tell me where it was.
I headed on foot, like I had done so many times before. I became lost in my thoughts, again, taking me back to places I had been…
At age 17, I put my thumb out. I didn’t care who picked me up. Wherever they said they were going, so was I. I was trying to head as far away as I possibly could. I wanted to get away, be away. Even my dad, who I loved and wanted to know, couldn’t hold me down. I left without much thought to where I was going, or what I was doing with no keys in my pocket to either one of my parent’s homes.
This cute long, haired girl pulled over.
“Where you headed?” She asked with a smiling twinkle in her green-blue eyes.
“Were you planning on going far?” I replied to her.
“Not really. Some errands around town.” She stated.
“Aw, well, I wanted to go a little farther than that.”
“Well, that’s as far as I’m going.” She continued smiling.
“Would you be willing to take me to the bus station?” I quickly came up with something as I didn’t want to be an idiot in her eyes.
“Sure I can do that. Where you planning on going?”
“Someplace far.” I answered.
“Far away from here you mean?”
“Yeah.”
“Get in. I’ll give you a life.”
Oddly, I didn’t know what she meant by that and she didn’t offer me any indication of what she meant by “I’ll give you a life.” I’m not sure she even realized what she said; I think she thought she said “lift.” “I’ll give you a lift.” But for whatever reason, she said life and stranger yet, that’s just what she did.
She gave me reason to live life.
That was my first girlfriend. The one I really fell in love with. The unfortunate thing though, I didn’t know how to keep her.
She did drive me to the bus station, but we had started talking and there was something about it. Our conversation was real. It wasn’t phony or fake and I was very attracted to her. We were very attracted to each other. When it came time to leave, wherever I was going, I wouldn’t get on the bus. We kept talking. Then the last bus pulled out for the night and we were still sitting there talking.
“Wasn’t that the last bus?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, weren’t you supposed to be on it?”
“Yeah.”
“You’re not going anywhere, are you?”
I smiled at her. She smiled back. I started shaking my head no. She smiled more and I swear at that moment, my heart burst. I think she must have sensed this.
She took my hand and said, “Come on, let’s go somewhere else and talk.”
When she took my hand, she had my heart. She led me away and I followed her, wherever she let me be with her, I followed her. Until one day arrived and she wouldn’t allow it anymore.
“What do you mean I can’t stay?” I asked in shock while she stormed around the room furious with me.
“I told you why and if you don’t remember, you need to leave.” She looked me hard in the eyes and stood her ground.
I couldn’t remember why, so I walked out the door. (Beat) I wish I had never done that.
After that, I couldn’t get her back, although I tried.
Even after all this time, I still don’t remember what I was supposed to remember. I don’t know what it was. Sometimes that torments me. If I had remembered, would I still be with her?
Now, after all this time, I don’t think so. She would have still thrown me out, despite my love for her.
She called me Horse.
She told me I was a wild horse who didn’t want to listen, created his own foolish path, yet craved a family he could call his own, but that I was untamable.
“You want a family?” She snarled at me.
“Yes, I do. I want a son.”
“And if you get a girl?”
“I’ll get a son. We’ll keep trying until we do.”
“And if you have ten daughters and I can no longer have them, you will…?”
“That won’t happen!”
“And having a daughter is that bad for you?”
“Well, I want a son.”
After that, we stopped having sex. I felt like she was purposely punishing me, taking away my chance to be a man. I started to sleep with other women. A man can go only so long without sex. I was such a goddamn fool. I was too young, too wild to know any better.
Just like she said.
“So, how’s the baby making going for you?” She sarcastically asked out of the blue.
“Well.” I answered smugly before I realized I had hung myself on the spot.
“That’s good. I hope you get exactly what you’re after. I know it’s not me. It’s something that doesn’t exist for you. And it never will.”
I grew furious over that remark. I felt my manhood was in question, that she castrated me. I started to call her all sorts of names, all the names I wanted to call my mother, accusing her of cheating on me, accusing her of not loving me, accusing her of keeping me down, creating obstacles to my goals and denying my right as a man to have his family.
She didn’t flinch. She looked at me. “Do you love me?” She asked in a calm, stilled voice. I didn’t hear her. She repeated it in the same manner. I was still in my fury, so still, I didn’t hear her. Or, at least, I thought I didn’t.
It was the next day she threw me out.
I have often wondered why she asked me so calmly. I’ve wondered if she had said it with emotion, if that would have made a difference; why couldn’t she yell at me?
It didn’t occur to me until now that she did say it with emotion. A lot of emotion. She loved me. It was something, I regretfully, questioned without thought. I questioned her love for me. Then I realized that was what I was supposed to remember. She had wanted me to answer her question: Did I love her?
My heart sank hard.
And now I carried a heavy heart like I carried a sword. The only difference was one was a weapon, the other a wound.
I don’t know why I was so dumb. Why I was so blind. But she was right. I never got the family I craved or the woman or the job or the career. It hurt knowing this because I could see it. I never had any of the things I wanted because what I was after, I got in my own way, just like I had done with Mr. Hadley.
I had other girlfriends, but none meant the same. I felt lost without her and pined away for something and someone I couldn’t obtain.
Now I knew that’s why my other relationships failed, too.
I destroyed them because I wanted her.
While I was deep in my thoughts, meandering the streets, I saw from a distance what looked like my truck.
It just couldn’t be.
The closer I got to it, the clearer it became.
It was mine.
“What the hell!” I said under my breath. I couldn’t believe I’d found it. I walked over to it and pulled out my keys.
While I was fiddling with the keys, trying to find the one that unlocked my door, I realized this set wasn’t mine. I felt my heart sinking further into a chasm; the keys that had been jingling in my pocket this whole time were Mr. Hadley’s.
“Jesus!” I cringed at my own stupidity. I stood there looking at the keys in my hand while looking at my truck.
Was this some kind of a joke? Some kind of poetic justice?
I kept looking back and forth between the two images in utter disbelief.
Where the hell were my keys?