I Love You and I'm Leaving You Anyway

by Tracy McMillan

  I am getting sicker by the hour, so I lie on the sofa while Kenny loads everything into the Subaru. I have only a few boxes and a single futon that can just be rolled up and stuffed into the trunk. Antonia, the girl from the nightclub bathroom, is out of town, so I just lock up and, unceremoniously, we drive off.

  Good-bye, Salt Lake.

  It is a beautiful night for driving. The moon is full and huge and it’s throwing the towering peaks of the Wasatch Front into silhouette against the night sky. I have come to really love Utah, and as we travel south on Interstate 15, I try to “feel” this part of my life come to an end. But I can’t, really. We stop in American Fork and spend the night. It’s more than a little forlorn, listening to the sound of the trucks on the interstate bleeding through the cheap walls and windows.

  The next morning is one of those glorious Zion days, with the snow-capped mountains and the intense saturation of the blue sky. Perfect for getting high. I pull out a film canister where I have stashed a large bud of sinsemilla that JT gave me. Kenny is known to partake of some good weed, and nothing goes better with a road trip than a joint. Probably some of the greatest fun we’ve ever had together was driving from Minneapolis cross-country when we moved to San Francisco. Hard to believe that was less than three years ago.

  In minutes we are burning one down. “I got this from a friend of mine,” I say as I roll a flawless little pinner joint. I like them slim because I’m a lightweight, and my rolling technique is unsurpassed. “He’s in a band?” I half-swallow the words, because I’m busy sucking in the smoke.

  Kenny glances at me but doesn’t really respond, which isn’t unusual. Most people would call Kenny “laid-back” but that’s not completely accurate. Really he just doesn’t react to things. It’s like a defense mechanism. If you don’t know him well, he seems relaxed, but if you do, he seems removed, even arrogant or superior. In any case, I’m ignoring him ignoring me.

  “His name is JT. We got to be good friends over the past couple of months.”

  Kenny still isn’t saying anything so I keep talking. It’s almost like that’s my job in this marriage, to keep the conversation going. Probably so neither of us notices how lonely we are.

  “He’s great. I think you’d like him.” I can feel a thousand little urges popping words right into my mouth. It’s like I’m dying to just come right out and tell Kenny I fucked this guy last night. I want him to know that I’m guilty and I’m a liar, because I’m from Minnesota so I hate lying, and if I just tell him the truth I won’t be a liar anymore. Twenty-four hours of lying is about all I can take.

  I also want to tell him so he’ll finally be disgusted enough with me to leave me. Because I resent the fact that Kenny is making me do the leaving. That he doesn’t have the balls to do what we both know needs to be done. Especially when it’s so obviously the right thing to do.

  “Yeah?” is all he says. Just “yeah.” Like Uh-huh, everything’s cool, you’re not trying to tell me anything, there’s nothing to see here, folks, so just keep driving “yeah.” The sad truth is that I could probably tell him all about JT and even that wouldn’t make him leave.

  “Yeah.” I inhale sharply again and hold my breath. “He’s in this band. They’re really good friends with Robin.” Robin is (was) my best friend in Salt Lake, the one I go out with, drink with, do drugs with, and blame for everything I can’t or won’t admit to. I’ve been hanging out with her constantly, but I probably won’t really miss her.

  I pass the joint back to Kenny and he takes a hit off of it. What he doesn’t do is say anything.

  It’s just as well. My high is coming on now. For the first twenty minutes, it’s like having a halo all over my body. I feel more alive, more perceptive, and nicely, finally, at one with the sky and the mountains and the road. I love this feeling. Kenny loves this feeling too, not as much as I do, but he loves it. Especially, though, Kenny and I love this feeling as a pair. It’s when we feel the most “together.”

  Kenny pops a cassette tape into the deck. It’s Prince, which reminds us of home. My favorite one: Dirty Mind. The thoughts about JT recede into the background as Prince tells me that morning, noon, and night he’ll give me head. I imagine being Prince’s girlfriend. With him I would be who I really am. I am sure of it.

  Neither Kenny nor I mention that it’s Christmas. Anyway, out here, in the middle of nowhere, it’s just Wednesday.

  THAT NIGHT WE HAVE SEX. I lie there without making a sound. Afterward I turn over and pull the worn motel blanket up around my shoulders. For the first time in years, I cry. Not some big major dramatic cry, but I squeeze out a few tears. Which never happens. I am so numb from my daily pot habit, and the neural bridge to the neighborhood where I keep my tears washed out a long time ago, maybe around tenth grade, that even when I want to cry I can’t. I’m quiet, so Kenny doesn’t even notice I’m crying. He wouldn’t want to notice even if he could hear me. Some old part of me has awakened, a part that has been asleep for a long, long, long time.

  I know I have to go.

  When my eyes open the next morning, the room is empty. I immediately turn on the TV. I don’t want to be alone. The news anchors are talking about the second-biggest shopping day of the year. I’m going to be returning something today, too. Something that never quite fit.

  I wait for Kenny. A few minutes pass and I start to worry. Where is he? It hits me that maybe he knows I’m leaving—did he “hear” my thoughts somehow?—and he’s beaten me to the punch. I throw on some clothes and run down the motel stairs. The car is still there. I’m relieved. I don’t want to stay, but I don’t want him to leave.

  Barefoot, I walk across the parking lot to the truck stop café. Kenny is eating breakfast, alone. He’s always been an early riser; it’s part of his normalness. He was probably just letting me sleep in. He’s so considerate; he was raised so well. I love that he still opens doors for me. But that’s not enough of a reason to stay married. He sees me and smiles, but right away it fades. He knows something is not all the way right.

  Fifteen minutes later we are on the road again. It’s cool, and gray, and flat. I have said hardly a word, unusual for me. He has said hardly a word, either. After a long, long ripple of highway, I cannot stand it anymore.

  “I think we should get a divorce.”

  There. I said it. I am shocked at how “done” it already sounds. The words only just came out of my mouth! This is where I learn that the words are the last part of the truth that comes to pass. Even if I wanted to, there is no way to take them back. The words are only symbols for an energy, a knowledge, an understanding, that has been there for months. Probably it was there the day we married. Maybe it’s been there since we met.

  “Should I turn the car around?” he says. Perfect acceptance. He is so graceful, Kenny.

  We are in Albuquerque, 622 miles from where we started. Five hundred forty-three to go. It will take almost as long to reach San Antonio as it will to get back to Salt Lake.

  “No,” I say. “We’ll need the rest of the drive to work out the details.”

  And with that, my first marriage is over.

  IT’S SWELTERINGLY HOT IN CHICAGO. After a few days apart, we couldn’t stand it anymore so Paul bought me a ticket to fly out for a few days. I arrived early this morning on the red-eye from Los Angeles. I am so excited to see him.

  Paul is directing a music video for an old friend of his who manages a British pop star. Actually, she isn’t quite a star, she’s more of a pop asteroid. But she’s trying to take things to the next level and since Paul wasn’t working on anything else, he’s volunteered to make a video that will help her do that. He’s either so nice that way or so codependent that way. But I don’t really care since I’ve never really experienced Chicago and I’m going to have a great time just hanging out, all expenses paid.

  We are staying in an adorable (and empty, except for us) bed and breakfast. The owners are loaning us the room as a favor to Paul’s friend, and we are happily ta
king them up on it. I don’t even feel guilty that there are no other guests here, which is probably just because it’s a Monday.

  After sex, Paul and I walk to a cute coffee place down the street. It’s been a week since I’ve seen him, and it’s nice just to be back in his presence. I’m a softer, more subdued person around him. I’m not totally sure why this is, but I guess that it has something to do with the fact that he is quite manly and dominating. He has a big voice and hair on his chest, and for whatever reason, he brings out the submissive in me. The most interesting thing is how much I like it.

  “You know what we need for this video?” he says.

  “What?”

  “One of those backdrops with a forest of trees. You know, it’s like a giant photograph? Totally cheesy seventies,” he says excitedly.

  “I remember those!”

  “Can you call around and see if you can find one? You should be able to get one from a professional photo-supply store.”

  “Sure,” I say. “I can do that.” Feminism be damned, again.

  I’m a strong woman who is used to being the dominant partner in my relationships. How many boyfriends have accused me of being domineering? The same number who have said what a great lawyer I would have made. Which is to say, all of them. My last boyfriend left me over it, in fact. To be honest, I’ve always felt guilty about my need-slash-tendency to wear the pants in a relationship, and it’s kind of a relief to be with a man who is no way in hell going to let me boss him around.

  Paul and I spend the day side by side, carrying out a zillion little tasks related to the shoot. We are never better than when we are traveling or when we have a project to focus on, and now we’re doing both. It’s heaven. By the end of the day, there’s a sense of being totally in sync, totally connected. Even the pop asteroid notices, and she’s completely self-involved.

  “You guys are so good together,” she says.

  We look at each other and smile. It’s true. We are really good together. People say it about us all the time.

  As dusk settles in, the skies open up into the kind of torrential downpour that never happens in the summer in Southern California. Where the heat and the humidity build up into such a stifling thickness that there is no way out but thunder and lightning and rain. It’s glorious.

  Paul and I are just getting out of the car when the clouds burst, but rather than running inside we stand there, embracing each other while the warm water washes down. It’s similar to that moment in Stanley Park; we really feel as one.

  After a long kiss—there’s so much steam between us—he looks at me. For a long time.

  Oh, my god. He’s gonna ask me to marry him.

  Then he does.

  He says, “Do you ever think of getting married again?”

  All I can do is nod for a couple of seconds. I don’t really want to say anything, because it might break this feeling and this feeling is so pure and perfect. I used to be afraid of this kind of intensity—the sheer force of actually getting what you want. It makes me understand why most people never have their dreams come true. They’re afraid. Of this. Finally, I am able to speak. “Yeah, I do,” I say.

  He looks at me for a long moment. “Will you marry me?” He says it with the emphasis on “me,” not “marry.”

  I can’t believe I’m hearing these words. I know that sounds absurd since I’ve already been married twice before. But the first time, I never really was proposed to in the classic sense of the word. Marriage was more of a decision we arrived at together. And then only at my urging. The second time I did hear the actual words, but it wasn’t like this! I was pregnant, so it felt like it was something he had to do.

  This feels like my life has finally landed where it was supposed to be all along. This is what I imagined as a girl it would feel like to hear those words. Like the most handsome, most talented, richest, best man in the land has just chosen me to come live in the castle.

  Any doubts I have, about Paul, about myself, about the serious challenges we are already facing as a couple, are immediately wiped from my mind. Not as in forgotten-about wiped. As in the-universe-will-find-a-way-to-resolve-those-problems-for-us wiped. Because I’m still considering everything that happens after my prayer part of the answer to my prayer.

  Which leaves me with only one thing to say:

  Yes.

  Eleven

  I Love You, Even Though I Just Told You to Go

  I THINK MY DAD IS DOING crime again. I can tell by the tone of his voice. We’ve been close ever since we reconciled in my college years—he gave me money from time to time when I really needed it, and one time he even drove all the way out to Salt Lake to visit me (and ended up on a sort-of date with one of my friends; don’t ask me how). I’ve come to know him very, very well, even though I’m living in Portland, Oregon, now and most of our relationship is carried out on the phone.

  But I’ll wager we do more “relating” over the phone than many family members do in a whole season’s worth of Tuesday-night debates over who should be the next American Idol. Maybe because we can’t be duped (or distracted) by facial expressions, or fashion choices, or whatever’s going on in the room. Like blind people whose ability to listen is heightened beyond the normal range, we listen between the (over the?) lines. We lean in really close.

  Over the phone.

  And now I’m hearing some things, between the lines, that I don’t want to hear. My dad’s been dropping definite hints that he’s back in the game. It’s almost like he wants me to know.

  “How’s everything?” I ask him.

  “Yeah, well. Good.” He says “good” like he’s considered it and he’s come to the conclusion that “good” is a true answer—at least for the time being. “I got a couple of things going on. Nothing major.”

  I know what “things going on” means—it means some kind of criminal activity—and I find it alarming. But we’re on the phone, so there’s only so much I can say. In case the FBI is listening.

  “You know you can’t just think you’re just gonna just do…whatever…and just…” I search for words that will communicate what I mean—“commit crimes and not go to jail”—but without incriminating him. In case the FBI is listening. “And just be fine,” I say, putting a heavy emphasis on the word “fine.” “If you know what I mean.”

  “I know what you mean, little gyurl,” my dad says reassuringly. “Don’t you worry about me; I know what I’m doing.”

  Now I’m really worried. My heart rate is climbing like that of a white person on Mount Everest, and I have a terrible spinning sensation. Because if my dad says he knows what he’s doing, then that means he’s done it before. And if he’s done it before, then one thing is for sure: it didn’t turn out well.

  “You know they’ll catch you, right? You know they’ll catch you. That’s what they do! The whole system is set up to catch you.” Fuck incrimination. I don’t care if the FBI is listening. Freddie needs to understand that there is no way he’s going to get away with anything. It just doesn’t work like that. The FBI can play this tape in court for all I care…

  BEGIN FLASH-FORWARD

  INT. COURTROOM—DAY

  The PROSECUTOR (early forties, a Sam Shepard type—except with good teeth) produces an audiocassette tape like it’s the proverbial smoking gun.

  PROSECUTOR

  I’d like to play this tape for the jury, Your Honor. On it, you will hear the defendant’s daughter [he nods toward me, played by Halle Berry] implicate him in the crimes he’s been accused of.

  (The prosecutor hands the tape to an ASSISTANT D.A. [a comely, ambitious late twenties woman], who loads it into a tape deck and presses “play.”)

  TRACY’S VOICE

  You know they’ll catch you, right? You know they’ll catch you. That’s what they do! The whole system is set up to catch you. They never rest. They just wait, watching, for you to do whatever it is that you always do, and then when you take your eye off the ball for one second, BOOM! They
’re right there. Isn’t that how it works? You know that’s how it works. Admit it!

  FREDDIE’S VOICE

  Now, now, little gyurl. Your dad is smarter than that. Maybe they could get me back then…but I’m a smart fellow and I’ve learned what I needed to know to stay one step ahead. Besides, if you know the right people, it doesn’t matter what you’re doing…

  END FLASH-FORWARD

  I can’t stand talking to my dad when he gets delusional. When he insists that everything’s going to turn out fine, that he’s got it all under control, that he’s going to outsmart the Drug Enforcement Agency. But there’s nothing I can do about it. I can’t stop him from thinking what he thinks, even if I know it’s bullshit. If he was here, sitting in front of me, I would probably start making arguments—pulling out different facts, bringing forth examples of past behavior—trying to make him see that there is no way in hell he’s going to get away with any significant criminal enterprise. He’s too much a recidivist, and the police are too constant a presence. It is plainly obvious to any outsider that if you commit crimes for long enough, you will eventually get caught. It’s like being in a Las Vegas casino or shopping at Whole Foods. If you stay in there long enough, you will end up broke.

  Period.

  The conversation is over. I see the writing on the wall. And there’s nothing I can do about it. I hang up and call my friends. It’s Saturday night and three hours from now, if I drink enough, I’ll have forgotten all about this.

  I’VE BEEN IN PORTLAND almost two years. I came here with my now ex-boyfriend Michael after a long postgraduation stint on the sofa, which involved a lot of frustration and many ounces of weed. Michael is one of the best friends I’ve ever had, but our relationship was pretty much doomed from the very beginning.