Call Me Cockroach: Based on a True Story

by Leigh Byrne

  “I’d love to work in a place like this,” I said.

  “Why don’t you put in your application then?”

  I glanced at Chad. He shook his head, no. “You already have a job—taking care of the house and kids.”

  “But Chad, both Molly and Daryl are in school now. I could work during the day before they get home.”

  “It would only be part-time,” the clerk pointed out. Chad ignored her comment. She pulled a sheet of paper from under the counter and gave it to me. “Here, take an application anyway in case you change your mind.”

  As soon as we were in the car, I started in on Chad. “I would just like to have my own money so I don’t have to ask you every time I need to buy tampons.”

  “My money is your money; it’s our money.”

  “You say that but it doesn’t seem that way to me.”

  Over the next couple of days, I chinked away at Chad’s resistance, until I’d talked him in to letting me apply for the job at Ashley’s. “I probably won’t get it anyway,” I told him. “I have no experience at all in retail.”

  The next morning, I filled out the application, listing my high school creative writing teacher and Mindy as references. When I had finished, I looked over what I’d written and became convinced I wouldn’t get the job. I remembered thinking the same thing when I saw the crowd of teenagers interviewing for the cashier position at McDonald’s. But this was a much better job that paid over minimum wage, with a store discount and everything. Still I tried to stay positive. Maybe I’ll get lucky; maybe no one else will apply and they’ll have to give it to me.

  I wanted to get the application to the store before Chad had a chance to change his mind, which meant I had to take it there while he was at work, which meant I would have to deliver it myself. Confronted with my fear of driving, I reconsidered my decision to apply for the position. How am I supposed to hold a job at Ashley’s when I can’t even muster enough courage to drive there and drop off the application?

  Fretting was getting me nowhere. I decided to move forward, to start getting ready to take the application to Ashley’s without thinking. After I took a shower, I dressed in white pants and one of the new tops Chad had bought me. I put on mascara and pink lip gloss, and used a curling iron to shape the bangs of my long shag into perfect feathered wings. Then I grabbed the application, got in the car, and began backing out of the driveway as if driving was something I did every day.

  When I pulled out onto the highway in front of our house, I stopped breathing. With the car still in reverse, I slammed both feet on the brake and began taking in quick, shallow breaths of air. Sitting there, with half the car in the road and half still in the driveway, it suddenly struck me that I could be plowed over by a coal truck. I shifted the car into gear to go back up the driveway toward the house, but right before I turned in, I hit the brake again. Getting a job was my chance to change the definition of who I was, to be something more than Chad’s wife. While being a mother had nourished my soul like nothing else, now that the kids were both in school, I feared too much idle time would put me at the mercy of my memories. I fought off the impulse to pull back up to the house, and began slowly creeping forward on the highway.

  As I drove, my heart raced and sweat from my armpits trickled down my sides. While my many other fears were an inconvenience, none of them had proven to be as debilitating as this one, threatening to rob me of the freedom and independence I now craved. I struggled to see the road through angry tears. I couldn’t process the absurd anxiety driving brought on, or locate the source of my fear. Unlike my long list of other fears and phobias, it had no direct connection—of which I was conscious—to my childhood abuse.

  Creeping along at a snail’s pace, not only were my thoughts on the possibility of having a wreck, but also getting lost. I had no sense of direction. Starting when I was in junior high school, I lost my way in my day to day life on a regular basis. I had trouble finding my classrooms even after I’d been to them dozens of times. One year, when I was in high school, I lugged all my books with me to every class, because I couldn’t find my assigned locker. The few times I’d driven Aunt Macy’s car, before this new phobia set in, I used landmarks to locate where I had parked. As an adult, I often took the wrong turn coming out of the bathroom at restaurants, and found myself wandering aimlessly for several minutes waiting for Chad to come looking for me. But no one with half a brain got lost in Sullivan. The entire town was on one street and the highway in front of our house led directly to it. Even so, every now and then, when I looked along the roadside, my mind would trick itself into believing I had somehow landed in unknown territory.

  The drive to Ashley’s should have taken ten minutes, at the most, but for me it took an hour—or at least that’s what it seemed like. When we got there, I couldn’t go in right away because I was sweaty and shaky. With the air conditioner at full blast, I sat in the parking lot for a few minutes to get myself together. Then I refreshed my melted makeup, grabbed the job application from the seat beside me, and went inside.

  When I walked in, a sales clerk out on the floor approached me and said hello. The woman who had sold me my clothes stood behind the counter. I could tell from the expression on her face she recognized me. “Hi, again,” she said. “What are you shopping for today?”

  “I didn’t come to shop this time.” I extended the application to her. “I came to drop this off.”

  “Great, we still have a position available.” She glanced over the application. “Do you have time for an interview today?”

  “I guess…”

  “It won’t take long; we’ll just step in the back.”

  The friendly clerk’s name was Becky, and she was the store manager. She asked me a few questions about why I wanted to work at Ashley’s, and if I was hired, when I would be available to work. When we’d finished the interview, she told me I had the job if I wanted it. Walking to the car I was stunned. What just happened?

  Filled with the excitement of the change to come, the trip home from Ashley’s was much easier than the drive there had been. When I passed the Dairy Maid, I decided to go off my diet and treat myself to a soft-serve cone. It was an ice-cream kind of day.

  That evening, over Chad’s favorite meal of fried chicken livers and mashed potatoes, I told him I’d been hired at Ashley’s. Even though he had said it was okay for me to apply, I could tell from his reaction he didn’t think I would actually get the job.

  He grabbed a slice of white bread from a stack in the center of the table and took an angry bite out of it. “My mom’s not watching the kids while you work,” he said.

  “She won’t have to. Becky’s going to set up my schedule so I will only work while they’re in school.”

  “Is Becky gonna cook my dinner too? Cause I’m not waiting until seven o’clock every night to eat.”

  “I’ll make sure dinner is on the table by the time you get home.”

  “Well, if this house starts going to hell, you’re quitting! You got that?”

  “I can take care of the house and work too.” I touched his arm. “I promise, Chad, everything will be fine; you’ll never even know I’m gone.”

  He jerked his arm away. “Yeah, we’ll see about that.”

  After dinner, Chad positioned himself in his usual place in front of the TV and sulked over his beer. Although he claimed to be concerned my job would cause me to start neglecting the kids and house, his insecurities ran much deeper. For the rest of the night, I stayed out of his way, because I knew if we started arguing it would be about more than my job.

  Chad’s fears were not unfounded. For the last few years, I’d been harboring a secret yearning to be free from the prison my marriage to him had become. I had been locked up as a child, and now, once again, I was shackled by Chad’s controlling nature. Maybe if I had enjoyed a nurturing upbringing, from which I had gained the confidence to pursue a fulfilling young adulthood, a simple life like the one he was offering me, as a mothe
r and homemaker, might have sufficed.

  I was as much to blame for my predicament as Chad. Just as he’d known before we were married that I’d missed out on my childhood, I’d known about his jealous and controlling nature, and made the decision to build a life with him anyway. Maybe his promise of constraint was the very quality that made me love him. His control had felt familiar, and familiar felt safe. Even knowing there were better paths to take, I chose the one I knew, because the unknown was too threatening. And maybe my need for someone to take care of me was what had drawn Chad to me, made him feel more like a man.

  With mature eyes, I could now see that what you want at twenty is not necessarily what you will need when you’re thirty. For the first time in my life, I had a choice. With Chad’s help, I could continue to seclude myself from the rest of the world, sinking deeper and deeper into the quicksand of isolation, or I could confront my fears, kill them, and trample over their dead bodies on my way to join the living.

  All I wanted was a tiny slice of independence pie. For too long, I had sat quietly while everyone around me ate; now I wanted my fair share. And I thought I deserved it. For ten years, I had been a good redneck wife. I’d tolerated Chad’s kooky, backward family, his excessive alcohol consumption and resulting drunken rampages. I had, on many occasions, watched, not only our kids, but also his sister’s, when they went bar-hopping at night. I had done all the cooking and cleaning. I’d made his lunch every day, packed it in his bucket, and then when he got home washed the bucket, along with his crusty mining clothes. I’d even gone fishing with him and pretended as if I liked it. Except for a short time during the projectile vomiting phase of my pregnancy with Molly, I’d never turned him down when he asked for sex. Granted, in recent years, it had become robotic for both of us, still he got off.

  In his defense, he had put up with a lot from me too: moodiness and a tendency to inertia, my obsessive behavior first with the pageants, then volleyball, and then exercising. He had provided for me and bought me everything he thought I needed. And he was willing to continue to do all this as long as he called the shots.

  THE DARK STRANGER

  The first few days of driving to work were stressful, and I sometimes had panic attacks along the way and had to pull over to the side of the road. But each day it got easier as I became familiar with my route, until eventually, I was fine as long as I went the same way every day.

  As far as I was concerned, other than the driving, working at Ashley’s slipped seamlessly into my life. Three days a week I went in at nine in the morning, and Becky let me off at two-thirty in the afternoon, so I’d be home before the kids got off the bus. On my days off, I cleaned and caught up on the laundry. It was a bit of a challenge to help the kids with their homework and have dinner ready before Chad got home, but well worth the trouble, because working kept my mind occupied and put a few dollars in my purse.

  With each passing day, Chad became more resentful of my job. Sometimes I’d come home chattering about something funny that had gone on at work, or an interesting person I’d met, and you could almost see smoke coming out of his ears. He began picking at everything I did, and finding fault in my cooking and housecleaning, even though nothing had changed since I’d started working. Already struggling with insecurities, he sensed my longing for freedom and began holding on even tighter, not in a loving, affectionate way, but in a watching-me-like-a-hawk way. But I refused to allow his behavior to deter me. I clung to my job with every ounce of determination I had.

  Besides the kids, my work was the one bright spot in my life. I enjoyed helping other women put together trendy outfits, and showing them how to accessorize with jewelry and scarves. To my surprise, I was good at it too. Becky was quick to praise my fashion sense and attentiveness to the customers. She began pushing for me to put in extra hours on nights and weekends. Although I wanted to work, because of Chad I had to turn her down.

  Chad and I continued to go through the motions of marriage, doing all the usual things married people do, but my job had become a wedge between us. When we were home together, I kept busy and stayed away from him as much as I could. Ours was a problem I didn’t want to address, because I knew solving it would mean I’d have to quit my job. Somehow we made it through a year this way. He did a lot of hunting and fishing, and my volleyball team joined another league and I began playing twice a week. He wanted me to quit my volleyball team too, but I refused. My newfound independence had taken on a life of its own since I’d discovered, aside from physically restraining me, Chad couldn’t stop me from doing what I wanted.

  It was around lunchtime, on one of the coldest days of the year. Business was slow at the store, so I decided to change the clothes of the mannequins in the front window. When I’d finished, and was stepping down from the platform, I noticed a couple of men outside walking down the sidewalk. The men stopped in front of the store, looked at me curiously for a minute, and then came inside.

  Men rarely came into Ashley’s, except on Christmas Eve when they frantically searched through the lingerie and blouses for gifts for their wives. They seemed lost as they thumbed clumsily through the racks, their eyes imploring me to tell them what to buy, in what size, and then wrap it up. I liked helping these men, because money wasn’t an issue at such a dire time, and they usually bought whatever I suggested. They were a refreshing diversion from the women who took ten outfits into the dressing room, stayed in the store for hours, and then left without buying a thing.

  While it was unusual for men to come into the store at all, men like the ones standing before me now never came in, even at Christmastime. Both of them, who appeared to be in their early forties, were dressed in expensive-looking suits, and top coats with tartan scarves draped around the collars. They both had spiky short black hair. The taller man had a neatly trimmed beard; the shorter, and more handsome one, was clean-shaven. Their shoes were shiny and stylish. Their fingernails were manicured better than mine, and they smelled better than me too.

  I didn’t even know there were such men in Sullivan. The local guys wore John Deer caps, Carhartt jackets, and Wrangler jeans with Scoal can rings on the back pockets. Their tee-shirts had sports logos and names of rock bands on them. Clearly the men before me were not coal miners, and most likely from out of town. They looked like Italian mafia men I’d once seen in a movie on TV.

  “Hello. May I help you with something?” I asked.

  “You may be able to,” the short one said. He had a throaty accent I didn’t recognize, but I was sure it wasn’t Italian. It reminded me of a girl from India I worked with at McDonalds, but this man’s skin was much lighter than hers. “I’m looking for a present for my wife.”

  “Do you have anything in particular in mind?”

  “As a matter of fact I do. When we were at dinner the other night she saw another woman wearing a pair of pants she liked. They were leather and had zippers on the sides of the legs,” he said, his s’s and z’s rolling from the back of his mouth. “Do you have anything like that here?”

  “Were the zippers at the ankles?”

  “No, they started at the hip and went to the ankle.”

  Why would anyone need zippers down both sides of her pants? Maybe she’s a stripper. I was sure he was mistaken, but he was my customer and my job was to assist him. “No, I’m sorry; we don’t have anything like that here. Can I show you something else? We have pants with stripes on the sides.”

  “Stripes won’t do; it has to be zippers.” He glanced down at my feet. “I like the boots you have on though. Do you sell those here?”

  I had on cream colored canvas knee boots that I’d bought at K-Mart. He’d probably never seen the inside of a K-Mart “No, I’m sorry, we don’t sell shoes here.”

  “Shame; I suppose I’ll have to shop for them elsewhere. Would you mind lifting your skirt a little so I can see them better?”

  His request made me uncomfortable, and I debated whether or not I should do it. The simpler solution would have b
een to go ahead and honor his request, instead of trying to concoct a refusal that didn’t come off as rude or presumptive, risking offending him and embarrassing myself as well. I scrutinized his softly rounded eyes that drooped down at the outer corners. They were kind eyes. And he was a married man. A married man who obviously loved his wife enough to buy her gifts.

  “No, I don’t mind at all,” I said, as if it was no big deal, and lifted my long prairie-style skirt up to my knees so he could see the boots.

  A smile appeared on his face revealing teeth so perfect they looked like dentures. “Lovely!” he said. “Yes, I’ll definitely have to have those.” I got the impression he wasn’t talking about my boots.

  “We need to get back to work,” said the tall one, who had a similar accent. They work around here? My curiosity got the best of me. “Where do you work?”

  “The Job Corps Center,” replied the tall one.

  “Really? My dad used to work there!”

  “He did? Well where does he work now?” the shorter man asked.

  “Nowhere; he was killed in a car accident almost fifteen years ago,” I answered, glumly.

  He touched my shoulder. “So sorry. What’s your father’s name?”

  “Nick Storm; he was head of personnel.”

  “Yes, I’ve heard of him; he was well-liked and respected around the center.”

  “We’ve got to get back to work,” insisted the taller man.

  The short man glanced at his watch. “Wow, we really do.” They both turned around and headed for the door. The short man waved as they walked out.

  For the rest of the day, I thought about Daddy. The mornings he snuck to my bed to give me a hug and a kiss before he left for work. And the day the lady from social services came to the house, and how mad he’d been at me then. When I thought of the lies he told the social worker to cover for Mama it hurt so much I had to shake the thought from my head to keep from crying. I could see him loping away across the parking lot of the bus station after he dropped me off the day I left home. And the last time I saw him before he died, sitting on Aunt Macy’s front porch, pleading with me to forgive him for not doing more to stop Mama’s abuse of me. That was when he told me to marry a man who made me feel good about myself. With maturity, I’d realized the significance of his advice.