The U-Haul Diary

by K. B. Draper

  Yep, no way am I peeing my pants. I started frantically looking around the room.

  “Well?” Sabrina’s irritated question interrupted my search.

  I stared blankly at her. Well, what? I was relatively sure she wasn’t asking me about where I’d elected to pee and fairly certain she didn’t want to know that I had decided it would be the top drawer of her bedside table.

  Guessing she was probably asking something about us working it out or staying together, I replied, “I still want to break up.”

  She looked at me, began to cry, and then stormed out of the room. Relieved that my pee problem had resolved itself, I stood to make my escape from the room and then heard the thud. Sigh. I grabbed my money, my book bag, and walked down the hall. This time she had made it into the living room where she conveniently missed the coffee table. I grabbed my keys, stepped over her, and walked out the door. Two seconds later, I reopened the door, stepped back over her, walked down the hall to the bathroom, peed, stepped back over her for the third time, and left the house.

  Absence makes the heart grow fonder.

  Of someone else …

  Stacy March 1993–July 1994

  It was the most serene, free, and non-invaded Saturday morning of my life. My world was completely silent and undisturbed. Despite a minor adjustment at 8:43 a.m., when I’d pulled the covers over my head to block out the morning light, I’d slept in the complete sprawled-out wonderfulness of my bed for the first time since my freshman year of college. At 10:58 a.m. I reluctantly opened my eyes. Seeing the empty pillow next to me, I pulled it in close to reunite myself with my long-lost cotton-filled night companion. The all-too-familiar smell of Aqua Net and Liz Claiborne assaulted my nose. Sabrina. To-do list today: Wash the sheets.

  With the comfort of my bed interrupted by ghost smells of girlfriend past, I elected to move to the wonderful spaciousness of my couch. I threw back the covers and the cold air hit me. EVERYWHERE. Glancing down, I quickly realized I was naked and in need of some Tylenol and apparently a shave. Foggy, liquor-erased memories of the night before slowly crept their way back into my head: Sabrina packing up the rest of her belongings and a few of mine while I sat quietly, figuring a few CDs and a couple of T-shirts were a small price to pay for freedom. Sabrina’s parting words: Blah, blah, blah, fuck you, blah, blah, blah, I love you, blah, blah, blah, don’t ever speak to me again, blah, blah, and everyone is expecting you to be in my wedding so you’re going, blah, blah. My replies: Sorry, I know, okay, I don’t think that’s a good idea, the neighbors can hear you, okay fine but I’m not wearing some stupid poofy teal dress. Then she left.

  I remembered sinking into the couch as I realized the person with whom I’d spent nearly every waking minute of the last three years, had just walked out of my life. Sabrina was my first girlfriend, my first real love, and there were times I thought we’d be together forever. But now she was gone and the life we had been living was over and … and I decided to celebrate.

  I’d gone to the liquor store to pick up a bottle of champagne only to realize that I’d now be living alone (as Kristi had moved out the semester prior with a basketball buddy, not the Someone Special), which meant I’d now be paying the bills alone and my champagne tastes would need to be replaced with my new Boone’s Farm budget. And that’s where my memory began to fade. I’m relatively sure I drank two bottles of Boone’s Farm, ate an entire frozen pizza, stripped off my clothes, and made two naked laps around my house ending with a naked victory dance, before throwing up the pepperoni and the cheap, toxic red liquid. This explained my current naked status, my nauseated stomach, my irritated throat, the dull throbbing in my head, and, after a glance in the mirror, my newly acquired red mustache.

  Despite my earlier “do nothing all day” proclamation, I threw on my favorite lounge wear—holey sweats, T-shirt, no bra, no underwear—and stripped the bed of its memory-scented sheets, deposited them in the washer, took three Tylenol, brushed my teeth, and washed my mustache. Twice. I decided I could live with a red lip and moved to the couch where my plan was to spend the rest of the day. After forty minutes of random channel flipping (because I could without protest and complaints), there was a knock at my door. I prayed it was the Chinese delivery guy with an order of egg rolls and shrimp fried rice. But since I hadn’t actually called an order into Master Wong’s and I doubted Master Wong had begun using psychics as order takers, I figured it was the eight-year-old neighbor girl who was going to con me into buying some five-dollar candy bar or a twenty-dollar candle. Or it could be the Jehovah’s Witnesses, sending in their recon team after our last encounter. Not wanting to fork out cash or have a religion conversion so early in the day, I ignored the knock and resumed my channel flipping.

  The knocking persisted, making me wonder how much those trapdoor-into-the-alligator-pit setups cost. It was obvious after five minutes of unrelenting pounding that my unwanted visitor was not going to be discouraged. Definitely the eight-year-old.

  She so better be selling something edible or she’s going to end up on the back of a milk carton. Mmmm, milk. Maybe she’s selling Girl Scout cookies.

  With the potential of a delectable box of shortbread cookies or Peanut Butter Patties, I leapt to my feet. I opened the door looking for the four-foot-tall, green-adorned sales leprechaun peddling boxes of cookies but instead was greeted by Stacy sporting a suitcase, a trash bag, and the beginnings of a black eye. This was sooo not going to be as good as Girl Scout cookies. I watched as tears began to slide down the cheeks of my normally tough-talking, somewhat spirited, and strong-willed teammate and childhood friend. I assumed or hoped this had to do more with the black eye versus seeing me in my current unwashed, red mustache, holey-clothes-wearing state.

  “What the hell happened to you?”

  Stacy moved past me and into my house. “We got in a fight and she hit me.”

  And by “we” I could only assume she was talking about her girlfriend. “Okay?” I watched her drop her suitcase and trash bag in the middle of my living room. Still looking at Stacy, I began to shut the door only to have it met with resistance. I looked down at a tennis shoe. I looked up and it was attached to Sheila, Stacy’s kind, goofy, overly nice sidekick, whom I’d only recently met.

  “Hey,” Sheila said, carrying her own armful of belongings.

  I watched as Sheila too unloaded her things in the middle of my living room. I glanced out the door to see if any more baggage-toting women were on my porch and if overnight someone had erected a sign in my yard advertising “Home for Wayward Lesbians.” Nothing. I closed the door and Stacy threw her arms around me.

  “Sooo, what’s going on?”

  “We got into a big fight. She found out about us,” Stacy said.

  “Us?” I asked. “Exactly what did she find out? And how?”

  I was curious because there wasn’t really an “us” or I hadn’t really thought there was an “us.” There was, for the last few years, a “Stacy flirting with me, but I was with Sabrina and I’d never done anything in return, ‘us.’” Well, not until last week when Sabrina and I officially ended our relationship for the third time and there was a moment on a softball trip that I might have felt vulnerable and Stacy might have slid her tongue down my throat, but I didn’t think that qualified as an “us.” To do list tomorrow: Get a lesbian dictionary and see if making out was Lesbianese for relationship.

  “And she found out about us too,” Sheila said.

  I looked at Sheila then back to Stacy for an explanation.

  Not that I needed an explanation. I knew about Stacy and Sheila’s little college dorm affair their freshman year. I was looking for how all this information had come to light so early in the morning on my peaceful, do-nothing-all-day day.

  “I told her,” Stacy volunteered.

  “I know it’s Sunday, but I think you’re only required to confess your sins in a church and to a guy with a collar, sitting in a closet-like thing,” I informed her.

  “We
ll, we were fighting and it all just came out. Then she hit me and kicked me out of the house.”

  “She kicked me out too,” Sheila chimed in.

  “So can we stay here?” Stacy asked, tears still sliding down her bruised cheek.

  Ahhh, damn. “Sure,” I sighed, as the thought of living alone faded to a distant memory. “But, Sheila, you have to order some Chinese food and if the Jehovah’s Witnesses or a short blond girl shows up today you’re dealing with them. If the girl is wielding cookies, I want two boxes.” Sheila shrugged in compliance. Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad?

  An hour later, Sheila was settled in the front bedroom, once occupied by Kristi, and Stacy was asking where the sheets to my bed were while settling into my bedroom, once occupied by Sabrina. So I guess there’s no need for the lesbian dictionary.

  With the foundation of a friendship and rivalry that began in elementary school, Stacy and I fell into a relationship easily. We’d known each other since I was in sixth grade, she in fifth. She’d grown up in a small neighboring town and we played together on a regional traveling softball team. During the summer, we were teammates and friends, and during the school year we were at rival schools and arch sport enemies. When she arrived at the same college, we ended up playing for the same team again. We quickly rekindled our summertime friendship, despite that when she arrived I was dating Sabrina. Sabrina had taken an instant dislike to Stacy and Stacy was still dating her high school girlfriend, who had taken an instant dislike to me. But now Sabrina was gone and after the girlfriend’s recent career change to boxer, Stacy and I had turned our friendship into a relationship.

  Sheila and I became quick friends. Besides being sweet, fun, and just plain likable, she would order the pizza, answer the door for the very persuasive eight-year-old neighbor, and entertain the persistent Jehovah’s Witnesses who, after four visits in a one month period, I was now convinced were targeting my house because there was extra “Heaven credit” for converting lesbians.

  My life was coming together quickly and adulthood snuck up on me. I acquired a new best friend-girlfriend, a new best friend whom I wasn’t sleeping with, and I graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Criminal Justice. My summer internship with the local sheriff’s department had turned into a full-time job as a deputy, and as every irresponsible person does with their first real paycheck, I spent it all on a boat. Stacy and I loved to water ski and Sheila loved to … try.

  “Can I drive?” Sheila asked.

  I flashed back a few months to the last time Sheila asked me this same question. We were visiting my mom and stepdad on our farm, and we decided to dust off my old 70cc motorcycle. Stacy and I had both taken the motorcycle out for a couple of spins around the vast, unobstructed, and sprawling hillsides of the farm before Sheila asked if she could drive it. She’d gotten on it and drove exactly fifty feet, directly into the side of my mother’s house (a small fact my mother doesn’t let Sheila forget).

  I quickly assessed the damage potential while looking around the lake. Nice open water with no boats, no houseboats, no houses close to the shore. I looked in the glove box for my insurance card and under the seat for the floatation devices. Check. No apparent and immediate dangers and, unlike last time, I’d be seated two feet from her versus running two feet behind her yelling, “Brake! Brake!”

  “Sure, why not?”

  While Stacy was out in the water getting her ski on and into position, I gave Sheila a brief instruction on basic boat driving.

  “Steer like you do in a car. Push this lever down to go faster and pull it back to go slower.” Sheila nodded her head in understanding, and I looked back at Stacy to see if she was ready.

  Stacy looked and recognized I was in the passenger seat versus the driver’s seat and began to give me hand and finger gestures that were not usually in the hand signal dictionary for water skiers.

  I took that as a ready signal. “Hit it!”

  And Sheila did. Full throttle. As I was being thrown to the back of the boat, I realized there was one hazard of letting Sheila drive that I failed to recognize: My girlfriend was going to kill me or at best never sleep with me again. When I righted myself from the floorboard in the back of the boat, I looked back at Stacy. Amazingly, and despite Sheila’s over-enthusiastic acceleration, she’d gotten up with her arms still in their shoulder sockets. However, she was now frantically trying to hold on while flipping me off, giving me the slowdown signal, and attempting to put her bathing suit back in the usually preferred “covering your privates” position. Oh yeah, definitely never going to sleep with me again.

  “Slow down!” I yelled at Sheila and she did, to nearly the speed of a paddleboat being powered by a one-legged eighty-seven-year-old. Crap. I watched Stacy’s eyes go wide and then saw her frantically start gathering the excess rope over her head as she began to sink.

  “Speed up, speed up!” I yelled again. And in a consistent and overly literal manner, Sheila did. I dove for the throttle before Stacy got yanked out of her ski, but I was too late. Not only did I watch Stacy get jerked forward from the force of Sheila’s near stop to warp speed acceleration, but I watched as Stacy’s face and body went skipping across the water while her ski went flying in the air, followed by her legs, both going in different directions.

  “She’s down, she’s down. Stop!” I instructed.

  I looked back at Stacy only to see half a butt cheek sticking out of the water. Oh damn. Yep, we’re definitely never having sex again. Why couldn’t Sheila have just hit a houseboat? I have replacement insurance for that. I’m pretty sure my coverage doesn’t include loss of copulation privileges. Which now, thinking about it, might be a good policy to have for the future. To-do list for tomorrow: Call State Farm.

  “So how’d I do?” Sheila asked. I again looked back at Stacy who was struggling to get upright.

  “Oh, I think you’ll know in a minute,” I replied and watched Stacy’s head surface while at the same time she began giving hand gestures that were definitely not associated with water skiing. Well, at least I have life insurance. “If by some miracle of God you survive and I don’t today, make sure my mom knows I want to be cremated.”

  “What?” Sheila asked. Then she too turned to look at Stacy. “OH SHIT!”

  “Exactly,” I replied as we watched Stacy walk on water, more like stomp on water toward us. I briefly wondered if I was dating She-Jesus, but once she reached the boat and unleashed her cussword-filled scolding on both of us all thoughts of that dissolved.

  After the better part of the rant was over I tried to expedite the conversation’s end.

  “Stacy, it’s okay. You’re okay. Sheila was just learning. She didn’t mean to-”

  “You get your happy ass out there and let me pull you around like a bat out of hell,” she yelled.

  I didn’t think it would be a good time to correct her that my ass wasn’t all that happy at the moment, after being chewed on for the last ten minutes. Nor did I think it was a good idea to point out that it wasn’t likely bats could ski, considering that even if they could hold the rope with their freakishly small hands, their wings would cause them to have more of a parachute effect so maybe parasailing would be a better option over water skiing. Plus, with the rumored temperatures of Hell it was unlikely that there was any water, since it would all evaporate. I refrained from expanding on the bat-skiing theory because I didn’t want to ruin the very slight chance of having sex with her again someday. Besides, by this time she had turned her attention back to Sheila, telling her some very interesting things she could do with her head and her ass, some of which were in combination with each other and some to be done individually.

  It took a week, a cookout, and a case of beer for Stacy to forgive Sheila and me for the boating incident. And it wasn’t because she wanted to forgive us or that we’d been the ones to throw the cookout or buy her the case of beer. It had taken those things for her to do something equal to, if not worse than, an almost drowning.

  Sta
cy had gotten a summer job, and after work one evening her company had a family and friends cookout for all the customers and staff. Since Sheila and I were still on “I hate you” probation, Stacy went alone. After a few hours of sulking and boredom, Sheila and I decided to meet up with some guys from work and have a few beers of our own. As we were leaving the house a car pulled up and a very drunk Stacy got out of the passenger seat.

  “Where are you bitches going?” Stacy slurred.

  “We were going to go have a couple of beers with the guys,” I replied.

  “Cool. Let’s go. I need a couple more beers,” she said with a drunken smile.

  “You sure about that?” I asked as Sheila raced over just in time to catch Stacy from falling face first in the yard.

  I got a glare in response. So, I had two options: Don’t take her and prolong the “I hate you” probation or take her and take advantage of her drunken happy state.

  “Put her in the car,” I instructed. Sheila maneuvered her into the backseat of my car and we headed to the bar. “So you had a good time today?” I asked.

  “Yep. I had like seven hotdogs. They were sooo gooood.”

  “And you apparently washed them down with a couple of beers?”

  “Yep, had seven of those too.”

  I parked and turned to see my girlfriend laid out in the backseat. “We’re here, baby.” I got a grunt as a reply. I looked at Sheila. “Maybe this wasn’t a good idea.”

  “We should probably take her home,” Sheila suggested.

  I glanced back. Stacy was snoring. “Or we could leave her in the car, lock it, have a beer, then come back out and check on her?”

  “There is that option.”

  Ten minutes later, I returned to the car, like a good girlfriend, and checked on her. Still snoring. She’ll never know if I have just one more beer.