bleckblog: musings of a community college english teacher

Fortyonethousandtwohundredsixtyfour. That leaves nearly 9,000 words to go, by midnight tomorrow. I have a meeting. I get to be on the telly, cable channel 5 in Spokane to talk about the state of bicycling in the city and making it a better place to bicycle. I have to leave in about 15 minutes to do that. Upon my return home, I hope to churn out a few thousand more words, leaving me with a manageable task for tomorrow. If only I hadn't blown off writing on those several days I did so this month, the 50k would be so in reach. Still, I'll slog on. If I make it, I make it. Obviously, if I don't make it. Well, I don't make it.

--Justin, you there? Pick up the phone, man. I gotta talk to you. Pick up dude!

--Hello? Roddy, is that you?

--Yeah, it’s me.

--What’s up?

--Thanks for picking up. I didn’t want to leave a message.

--No problem. Where are you? I thought you were coming over.

--Dude, you fuckin’ won’t believe what just happened! I was on my way, but I had to go back home for my phone. And I walked in on them.

--What? What’re you talkin’ about?

--Man, I just walked in on Portia and my dad.

--Portia and your dad? What do you mean you walked in on them?.

--I walked in on them, man. I walked in on them.

--Uh, walked in on them what? What were they doing?

--Don’t you get it? I walked in on them, man, fucking each other on the couch at his house.

--What? No way. Noooo. Really? Are you sure? That seems pretty wild. Fucking? Your dad and Portia? That’s, that’s . . .

--That’s fucking insane is what it is. My fucking dad fucking my god-damn girlfriend. In his house. On his couch.

--My god. What’re you going to do?

--Do? Fuck, I don’t know. What am I going to do? I’m going fucking crazy is all I know now.

--Well, don’t do anything crazy.

--No, no, I won’t do anything crazy, I don’t think so anyway.

--But what will you do?

--I’ve no clue, man. What can I do? What should I do? I don’t think there’s a “dummies” book for this.

--No, no man. No dummies book, for sure. So, uh, can you tell me what happened?

--Well, I was on my way to visit you.

--Yeah?

--And like I said, I forgot my phone, so I went back to the house to get it. I parked in the drive, went up to the door, opened it, walked through to get my phone where I left it, on the table by the door, and as I walk in I see Portia bouncing up and down on top of my dad, fucking him. They were on the couch, and they didn’t even lock the door, not like that would have mattered.

--How do you know they were, uh, fucking? How could you tell?

--How could I tell? You mean like her blouse undone? Her bare ass jamming into him as she leaned over him, her hands on his shoulders, her tits hanging in his face? Fuck, how could I not tell? Dude, they were fucking each other.

--Ow, man. That’s gotta hurt.

--Yeah it fuckin’ hurts. Now what do I do?

--Whattaya mean what do you do?

--I mean what do I do? Do I go back and get my shit or do I just leave it there and not go back? Do I go home and throw Portia’s shit into the street, get her out of my house? What do I say to my father? Do I tell my mother? Do I talk to Portia and ask what’s going on? What in the fuck do I do?

--Man, Roddy, if I knew, I’d tell you, but like you said, there isn’t a Dummies book for this. I don’t know what you do. What’re you thinking of doing?

--Fuck, I’m clueless right now. I want to kill both of them. I wanna fucking choke them both.

--Maybe you should come here. Are you on your way?

--Yeah, I’m on my way. I’m actually on the road, off on the side. I was too fucking mad to drive see straight, to drive. I wanted to run this asshole over who honked at me. I’m as fucking pissed as I’ve ever been.

--You should be man; this is fucking harsh, seeing what you saw. I’d be worried if you weren’t pissed off. Still, what are you gonna do?

--Fuck man, I wish I knew. I was going to tell you about her confessing earlier that she had cheated on me, but I figured we’d be away from that down here. I figured it was someone at home, not my fucking father. Jesus Christ, my fucking father, fucking my girlfriend. And I’d been fucking her at the same time. This is fucked up. Fucked up. Shit.

--You’re right. It is fucked up, and shitty too. Shitty fucked up. Just keep coming over here and we can talk about it. But take your time. Take some deep breaths or something, calm down. Don’t kill someone on your way over because your pissed off at your father and Portia. And don’t go back there.

--Back there. I hadn’t thought about it.

--Don’t do it. I don’t know what good can come of it. Do go there.

--I’m feeling like I need to go back, to see if it’s what I thought I saw. Could I really have seen my dad fucking her? Her fucking my dad? Shit. This is messed up, fucking messed up. Maybe they wouldn’t do this to me, do this at all. Maybe it isn’t what I think. Maybe it’s something else.

--Something else? What? Like your dad raping your girlfriend, with her on top? Man, you saw what you saw and it doesn’t sound to me like you need to go back there to confirm it, to rub salt in your own wounds. You need to stay away, as far away as you can.

--No, no. I’m thinking I need to go back. To see if it’s true, to know. To know if they’re both as fucked up as I’m making them out. It’s not like it’s going to hurt anymore if I’m right in what I saw. I mean, how much more could it hurt? If I’m wrong, it could hurt a lot less.

--You weren’t wrong, dude. Going back will only make it worse, even if you don’t see that now. Don’t go back there. Come over here and maybe we can figure something out.

--Maybe?

--Fuck yeah, maybe. I don’t know. I’m no fucking psychologist or marriage counselor. And I don’t know anyone who is. But there has to be someone who knows more than we do, someone who understands this sort of thing.

--I don’t know if I want to talk to anyone who understands a father fucking his son’s girlfriend. I don’t know if I want to understand.

--Maybe the only thing to understand now is that you shouldn’t go back there looking for understanding. You don’t think they’re going to give it to you if they were doing what you say, do you? If there was any understanding, they wouldn’t have done this in the first place. I don’t think there’s any understanding to be had, not from them.

--Yeah, yeah. Maybe you’re right. Maybe I shouldn’t, but I want to find out what the fuck was going on, what the fuck they were doing. Why the fuck they were doing it. Why the fuck were they doing it? Why the fuck?

--Just take it easy for now, dude. Take it easy. Come over here, kick back a bit, chill a bit. And we can talk about what happened, what you can do now. And what you shouldn’t do for sure. And I know for sure you shouldn’t go back to the house and confront them. That is a for sure mistake, and even if it’s the right thing to do, it will be right to do later on, maybe more right than doing it now. If it’s a mistake now, it will be a mistake for ever and not something you can undo or do over or make better or fix. And what if your mom’s there? Are you just going to blurt it out in front of her? Man, there are so many traps, so many mistakes you can make right now, that doing nothing is probably the best thing you can do, so just come over here and do nothing for now.

--Maybe you’re right. Okay, I’ll come over. I’m going to sit here for a few more minutes, calm down a bit before driving. If I have to run someone over, I hope it’s one of them, not some idiot who pisses me off more than I am because I’m already pissed off plenty. Fuck! Fuck! Fuck! This is so fucked up.

--You’re right. It is fucked up, so don’t do anything to fuck it up more than it is. It’s too easy to fuck it up more if you make even a small mistake right now. Don’t do anything but come over here. Take your time, but come over here. Don’t go back there.

---Yeah, yeah. You’re right. Okay, I’m coming over. I’m on my way. I’ll talk to you. I’ll be there. I’ll talk to you later, soon. I’ll see you soon.

Portia,

I’m at Justin’s as I write this, not knowing just where I might start. As I’m sure you would expect, I’m not sure what’s going on at this point. Right now I’m wishing that we’d never met, that I’d never had a crush or any attraction to you. Sometimes I fooled myself into thinking I was in love with you, though I doubt now that I ever felt that way. I certainly loved sleeping with you the first few times, maybe more than that. And I know I enjoyed the sex. I can’t imagine not enjoying sex, though it’s the strings that come with it that sometimes make me wonder whether it’s worth the trouble. Maybe you’re thinking something similar now. Who knows, certainly not me, not now. That’s about all I know, that I don’t know. I just don’t know anything about you, me or us right now. Nothing. I guess there’s nothing really odd about that, not that I can see now anyway.

So, why am I writing this? Well, after I called Justin, and before I went back to the house, maybe while I was heading to or from the house, or at the house, Justin went online to research what to do for me, and there isn’t much. Some of the more manly stuff he found suggested I get drunk and get laid. I’m not sure that would matter much at this point, fucking some woman because I’m feeling fucked over. And while a drink or something to numb the pain sounds like a good idea, I can’t do that forever, not if I want to have a life of my own, or just a life. I’m sorry if this seems like it’s rambling, but it is. I don’t know what I’m writing here, I barely know why, and what I know, I don’t know if I agree with it, but Justin said he wouldn’t let me leave until I wrote down everything I was thinking about today, about how I was feeling now, what I felt earlier, anything and everything I could think to come up with. It’s almost like I’m writing some suicide note, some good-bye note, and maybe that’s what this is. Not a suicide not. I’m not thinking about that. But a good-bye note. I guess if that’s what it is, I’ll have to write one to my father too, though I don’t know yet what to do about my mother, whether she’ll understand, or even believe me, when I tell her about this mess.

It’s sorta funny, but before I came back to the house, Justin told me not to, and it turns out he was right. I don’t know what I expected to find. Maybe an empty house, maybe you and my father still with each other. I just don’t know. It’s not like I needed any of what I left in the house. I have plenty of underwear, plenty of clothes. I can buy a new toothbrush, a new razor, that sort of thing. I sure didn’t and don’t need anything I left behind. I can see that from where I am at this point. I think I was hoping you would come to me, asking forgiveness or something silly like that. Nuts is probably the best way to view that sort of thinking. Crazy, stupid crazy. Crazy stupid. Maybe just stupid. Yeah, I admit I wanted you to come rushing back to me, maybe crying, begging forgiveness, starting some sympathy sex, some make-up sex, something that might make me feel better about things.

But why the hell would I want to make up with, or have sex with, fuck really, some woman who was just fucking my father? Why would I want to stay with that person. Even though part of me wanted that, to stay with you, to make things better, maybe even to pretend it all never happened, I don’t think I’m dumb enough for that. But I was dumb enough to come back, to see what would happen, maybe confirm things for myself, just to be sure. Just so I could know for certain. I guess now I know enough.

I was surprised to find you sitting alone on the couch. My first thought was for my father, for where he was. In the shower cleaning up? And for how it would be to talk to you with him there, or to talk to him with you there, or to even see you two together after having seen you two together earlier. That’s something I’ll probably see for ever, more often than I want to see it. I mean, it’s bad enough to find out the person you thought you loved didn’t love you. And to learn that by being told that you have been seeing someone else, and then to find out it was my father. How can I forget that? Or you because of it? Or my father and the sense of betrayal? I’m still trying to figure out what’s the worst of it all. Who is the worst of it all, even though I seem to be getting the worst of it all.

So, to see you sitting there with a glass of wine in your hand, sitting there as if waiting for the bath to fill, or waiting for a roast to cook so you can eat, so casually, as if it was just another day, another run-of-the-mill day where nothing special has happened, not the day your boyfriend walked in on you screwing his father. But there you sat, reclining on the couch, having sunk deep into the cushions, legs casually crossed, the raised foot bouncing blithely, your toe twirling, almost like it was a stick drawing in a sandy beach, and the glass of wine propped in your hand, raised to your lips as you looked over the rim of the glass to me as I walked through the door, maybe expecting my father, or my mother. Expecting I don’t know who or what. But there you sat, sipping your wine, staring straight ahead, somewhat vaguely, blankly. But I noticed your eyes looked fine. Not red, not puffy, so no crying, or not much of it.

I guess I can see a tear or two slipping down your cheek. Certainly little or no more than that. But even then, I have to figure the tears, if there were any, were for you, what you might lose in the situation, how it might hurt you to have been caught as you were. And your behavior after that pretty much confirmed that for me. You looked over the glass, looked me in the eye, and a smirk appeared on your lips, glass of wine held to them, you took a sip and let slip a smirk, looking smug, self-satisfied, cool, in control, in charge. It was something I had never seen of your before, something I hadn’t seen but wasn’t surprised to see. Even though I don’t know why, or what, it all seemed to make sense. Sense of what, I don’t know. But it all seemed to make sense.

So I sat down beside you. You offered me some of your wine, and I took a drink. It’s funny how the taste of the wine made me think it fit you so well. There was a certain sweetness beneath the initial dry bite, the pucker it brought to my mouth. But that seems backwards now that I write it. At first you were sweet, then came the dry bite, the aftertaste. But I sat there, leaning into the cushions at one end of the couch while you reclined on the other end.

--You know, you said, that I was seeing someone else. It’s not like that was a secret. Right.

--Uh, yeah, I answered, but not my father. My father. And in his house. Seems like that was a pretty good secret, one you’d want to keep.

--Maybe, but it really doesn’t matter who it was with, does it? Just that it happened. Isn’t that right?

--How the fuck would I know? was all I could say. Who could fucking know? I walk in on you fucking my father and it’s not supposed to matter that it’s my father, that if it was someone else, it would be the same?

--That’s right, you said.

--That’s bullshit was all I could think. Pure and utter bullshit. The person who was supposed to protect me when I was growing up, who more or less did protect me, from the world, and now from my dickhead brother, he screwed me, literally. He screwed me. And we had sex in between the times you and he, my father, had sex. And it’s not supposed to matter that it was him? That he’s no different than if you had sex with my brother, or my neighbor, or someone else? Give me a break.

--Your break, you said, was getting to be with me, to sleep with me, to touch me, to feel me, and to have me do the same with you. It’s not like I owe you anything. In fact, I owe you nothing, not even an explanation, or this discussion. This is something I give you freely, whether you like it or not or want it or not. I give it because I want to, not because I should, or because you want it. That’s the way it is for any relationship, and if you don’t like that, tough. Deal with it.

--You’re right, I answered Totally right. You don’t owe me anything, and I don’t owe you anything. The rest of it, you’ll have to work out on your own I guess, with my father, however much that needs working out, with my mother if she ever learns about this whole thing. I guess with yourself, but if you don’t owe me anything, well, I don’t know, do you owe yourself anything? Or does it even matter? Does anything matter?

--Lots of things matter, you said. Lots of things. Through all of this you continued sipping your wine while seeming to listen to whatever I had to say. I hated the whole thing. I couldn’t focus enough to follow what you were saying all the time. I couldn’t follow from one sentence to the next. I had to hang on to one point at a time, hoping I could recall enough to make sense of things, but I have trouble with that, with listening, processing, understanding, comprehending what’s being said, especially in an argument. But I got the gist of it. You’re right. You don’t owe me anything and the same is true here. If it was possible, I’d owe you even less than you owe me, because you’re the one who cheated on me, even if I was aware of it at the end.

With that, as you know. I left. I went to the room we’d been sharing and picked up my clothes, my toothbrush, that sort of stuff, and left. I’m guessing you let me mother know I had gone when she returned. I also trust that you didn’t tell her why. Who would? I can’t see myself doing that, unless I was so confident that she would then leave. But what you didn’t know was that this wasn’t the first time my father had cheated on my mother. Far from it. My guess is you are about as special to him as I seem to be to you. I hate to slip into cliché, especially on purpose, but you’re just another notch in his belt, one in a long line of women he’s been with. Mother knows it as well, but this time, well, maybe he’s gone too far.

So, I’m expecting that you won’t be coming back to the house. I’m expecting you’ll be fine with me leaving your things on the porch. I’d like to throw them to the curb, but that might be even more than you deserve. At least on the porch they should be relatively secure from scavenging, at least initially. If you pick things up quick enough, it should all be there, but at this point, it’s hard to care, one way or the other. Maybe at all.

Dad, or should it be L------,

It’s hard to know how to start, where to begin, even what to think right now. I’m starting to think in some ways that B----- hasn’t been that far off about you in the things he’s said, but I couldn’t see those things until now. Or maybe I’m seeing them now because I want to, because I don’t want to see things in some other muted, obscured light.