Baby,
When you reached inside the shower curtain when I didn’t know and turned off the cold water and burned me terrible, JESUS, I still don’t even know if you were pissed or did it for a laugh, but you know the hot water heater could boil eggs, you KNOW that, and when I punched in the wall and busted my hand, it wasn’t you I swung at, I PROMISE I didn’t even imagine your face on the square pink tile that cracked and caved in (and don’t worry about that, I’ll replace the whole wall when I do the remodel) but that night, when I tore down the shower curtain and came freaking into the hall, naked as an ape, it wasn’t you I expected to see, and what I said, JESUS what I said, I didn’t mean it for you at all, I thought I’d find some bastard friend of mine, or even your brother, that fuck and his jokes, but you took off and didn’t give me the chance to explain and I couldn’t follow, being naked, and you went and went to your parents and you KNOW how that makes me feel, I’ve told you, it’s like you’re on their team and not mine and when you wouldn’t take my calls and I didn’t stop calling and your father finally answered and told me QUIT IT and I told him to go to HELL and GET FUCKED and that I’d be over to get you, over his broken ass if need be, it was all only because I was so afraid of losing you and because I LOVE you so much. I know, I KNOW I’m no good at ‘communication’, you don’t have to say it AGAIN, I get it, OKAY?
I can see how you didn’t understand, but when I got to your parents’ and the police were there, do you know how that FELT? And didn’t it say something about how much I love you, that I didn’t give up, even then? It took three of those PIGS to bring me down, that’s got to mean SOMETHING, doesn’t it? Sure the stun gun finally got me (it felt like someone set my blood on FIRE) but even then, on my knees, did I really seem beat? And the MACE? Of course it blinded me but still I could sense you, halfway up the stairs, in a crouch, your knees pulled to your chest with that beautiful look of a child you sometimes have when you get scared. I could feel you there, and as I rolled around blind, covered in my own spit and snot and tears, as they creamed me with their night sticks, it was YOU I was still reaching for.
Of course once I was out cold they did what they wanted with me and I can only imagine their scrawny arms struggling to get me off the ground, my ass or heel dragging on the concrete of your parents’ walk as they hauled me to the rear door of their cruiser, tossing me to the back seat next to the puke stain of some highschooler brought in from a keg bender, and you, baby, forced to watch from the steps of that house, that place I once rescued you from, and that’s what feels the worst, sending you back to THEM after all they did to you. I remember when you first told me, that night at Frazier’s brother’s with the rum punch (remember the back porch, the two of us with the stars so bright they were reflected in the pond and you told me you felt safe and I said you should because I’d fucking pummel anyone who even looked at you wrong and then you smiled?). It KILLS me to think I ruined all that, to think that now I seem worse than them, worse than your mom constantly telling you she’s prettier and your father silent forever. I haven’t forgotten, I remember everything you said that night and I’d do anything to get that back, to have you feel safe again. ANYTHING.
I know what you’re saying, you’re saying it’s more than the night in the shower, you’re saying what about when you punched the shit out of the brand new microwave and we had to bring it back and lie and say it came that way in the box? What about the time you threw the mug through the window in the back door? And what about the hole in the bedroom door or the hole in the mudroom wall or the radio you shot with a RIFLE? I know, I KNOW I get crazy sometimes, you don’t have to beat me over the head with all that shit, I’m not retarded, I remember it fine. It’s like some switch gets hit and I go nuts, like I’m Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Fucking Hyde and I don’t know what it is but I’d do anything not to be that way, I’d take a steak knife to my brain if I knew what part to cut out. I don’t want to be that way, baby, BELIEVE me, I want to be better for you, I want to be NORMAL, I want to take you back from your parents and forget this ever happened.
I know they’re telling you I’m no good, that you have to finally leave me for real, but what do they know? Do they know how good it was between us like ninety-nine point nine nine percent of the time? Do they know that, thanks to them, you’re no peach either (especially with a few cocktails under your belt)? The time you scratched that girl’s face and threw her on the floor just because she was standing too close to me at the bar, did you mention that? Or the time you got drunk and swore that Jenny and I were fucking and screamed at her in front of everyone until she started crying and eventually admitted she only liked girls just to get you to quit and then her roommate moved out as a result of her being a lesbian and she couldn’t cover the rent by herself and had to move back home? I bet you didn’t mention that, or the fact that I stood by you through all of it, no matter how many of my friends told me what a complete fucking WHACK-JOB you were.
I want to remind you that this all started with one twist of the wrist (YOUR wrist) baby, and I know what you’re saying, you’re saying it started before that, with me and Kelly, but there’s nothing between me and Kelly and besides, you can’t just go and burn a guy. I don’t know what’s going on between you and her, but there’s nothing between us, CHRIST she’s practically like my sister and when I spent the night at her place, it was on the COUCH, and it was only because I had too much to drink and unlike SOME people, I don’t want to lose my license. I’m not trying to say that this is your fault but I’m not trying to say this isn’t your fault, or that it isn’t my fault either, because I think we both got nuts and I think we’re both fucked up and I think that’s why we shouldn’t split because if we can’t understand each other, WHO is ever going to? You with some Beaver Cleaver type and me with a prom queen, come on, who are we kidding? They wouldn’t last a week with the likes of us.
We were made for each other baby, so just hurry up and say goodbye to your fucking folks and come drop the charges and get me out of this shit hole of a cell before I have to kill the stinking old man in the corner who keeps looking at me and rubbing his crotch and we’ll go home and we’ll have a bonfire and light off some fireworks, the BIG shit you like from the catalog and we’ll sit in the lawn chairs just like it’s Fourth of July only it’ll all be for us, star crossed and crazy exploding lovers, and if the neighbors complain, we’ll be NICE for a change and apologise and invite them over and it will be the start of something new for us, something different and BETTER. We’ll try, REALLY try, and it will work this time, I KNOW it. I PROMISE.
Love,
Gerald