I don't look for Drama- Drama finds me

I tried, oh I swear I tried...

I tried to keep away and ignore him and to wish his existence away into the nothingness it was in the months before I met him. It didn’t work.

Two days after the phone-call with that drooly sounding chick from the pub I got word that a very juvenile member of my family had been impregnated by a young MC (read: fly by night –oh I think I’m the shit but no one knows my music- grown up with a kid’s mentality-been the next big thing for the past ten years trifling-good for nothing low life) who now no longer wanted anything to do with her or the child she was carrying.

What was worse is that this academically gifted girl had been in my house the weekend before and apart from a very pimply pubescent face and a voracious appetite, nothing was amiss. Nothing told of the already six month old life wriggling within her. Her belly was flatter than mine has ever been and her disposition was generally cheerful with her head stuck in a book, as usual. I just thought she enjoyed my cooking...a lot.

I was crushed. Nowhere near as gutted as her mother who had , as per our custom contacted me as the closest older sister to track this turd down and make him accountable if not for his actions, at least for the upkeep and maintenance of the child. I did as I was asked by my mother and tracked him down (My investigative capabilities are on levels) only to be verbally abused, threatened and to have every female in my ascendancy literally called a whore by someone I to this day do not know. Any man who has ever tried to absolve himself of paternity was in one fell swoop put to shame by my new “in law” he proposed amniocentesis to establish if the DNA my cousin carried was indeed his.

 After I told him that it is an invasive, unnecessary and highly dangerous procedure which can even lead to the loss of both lives at this stage in gestation it occurred to me that maybe that was the outcome he actually wanted. The only thing he would accept thereafter was a conclusive paternity test as soon as the child was born. I am sure his aggression after that was brought on by his having investigated the costs that would entail because the next time I looked him up I was told that my cousin wasn’t a virgin when he laid her and it only happened once and he used a condom and she told him she was being sexually assaulted by a close relative and candy floss is sold at fairs and lava erupts from volcanoes and he will sue my entire breed until we sell off our last shoelace to pay him off.

None the less, I put the phone down and with calm I didn’t necessarily feel I called my aunt to tell her I would no longer be doing this. It brought back ugly feelings of resentment and anger at my own situation with the father of my child. Mine was wanted and planned but listening to this sonnofa... spewing such vitriol made me remember all the things I have come to know for a fact about my ex-husband that I wouldn’t ever have known or heard if I hadn’t gotten divorced. It stung me in places that had long since forgotten the feeling of having to beg for acknowledgement, for validation from someone whose ego is a deep, gaping eternally hungry abyss that gives nothing and takes until it sucks the soul from the very thing it needs to keep it fed.

I felt personally affronted. Weak. Helpless. And to think that this wasn’t even my own battle, for it to have left me feeling so cheap stripped my sensibilities to their naked, shrivelled core.

I hurt for her. I hurt for myself. I hurt for OUR fatherless children.

I needed to talk. But I couldn’t find anyone. All the people I called either went straight to voicemail of just rang continuously. I found myself already having dialled his number in resignation and didn’t even feel a fool for needing him to just say “Ok, I’ll meet with you”.

I was dressed for a workout and bugger me if I was going to change just to do my make-up and mess it all up when the inevitable tear fall came to the party.

Nemesis was at my gate in fifteen minutes. As I slid into the passenger’s seat I vividly remembered the last time I had sat in it and made my theatrical declarations before slamming the door in the face of the same person who was the only person who actually picked up the phone. The last resort became the only resort.

Wordlessly he drove. I mumbled that he find somewhere we could sit and have a discussion in private where I could also just cry and not be judged for it. He nodded, handed me some Kleenex and drove.

Cue waterworks/ smile/ shrug/waterworks.

As we got to this little restaurant I had managed to pull myself together enough to be able to make a half decent entry with my head bowed. I pushed past him as he paused to greet a few friends that he had recognised on the patio and left them wondering why I was so uncharacteristically unfriendly and so inappropriately dressed. By the time he came in I had picked a table and pushed myself tightly into the furthest corner the seat in the booth would allow. With that taken care of I proceeded to stretch my leg out in front of me so that he clearly got the message that he would not be sitting next to me and that there would be no canoodling of any form.

Nemesis asked what I would like to drink and I managed to mumble beer. He ordered for both of us and asked how my day was...

?

Is that really the best he could do? Through swollen eyes I managed to throw a massive scowl his way and threw my chin on my palm in a massive exhale of defeat. I proceeded to regale him with the gory details of the horrendous two days I had just endured and three drinks, a cold steak and a great many tissues later I reached over the table, lightly touched his fingers before sense took over and yanked my hand away as fast as it had casually placed itself in this odd position.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?

The spark was still there :(

Objection Overruled

DAMNIT!

Surely this was a bad joke, right?

I proceeded to dole out half of the intel I had been able to gather in furious typing outbursts after I had given ‘ye olde Nemesis’ his marching orders. By the time that he got home he would have to read through enough words to fill up several encyclopaedias. Note that this was only half of what Detective Clouseau had been able to gather- I couldn’t totally play my whole hand.

Yes, I meant every single word. I am not to be effed with....

Or so I thought.

The man is stubborn- probably worse than me, pepper that with a need to vindicate his very sensitive self it was a recipe for flaring emotions, tearful explanations and even nonsensical justifications over days and days. I would simply read through his messages and give a one-worder in response. I was sincerely trying to get past the jolts of fear of my phone suddenly ringing and having to actually speak to him; every single time my phone so much as gave me the eye.

He would persist in sending the good mornings, how is your day goings and the jokes here and there; all this in the face of my coldness. One day when it got too much I got a phone call from a very concerned waitress at the bar we used to frequent before I discovered that I was a potential home wrecker. At the same time that this was happening the damn mobile kept shooting off messages left-right-centre… giving me that evil eye. I picked the thing up wearily and warily, with a major eye roll to boot because I knew what was coming as if I was reading it off a script…

…………cue very syrupy voice- you know that type you can never say anything but yes to?.......

“So hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii , wow larrrk we haven’t seen you down here in like fahever! Larrrk when are you coming down hun” (we’ll call her Slooshia)

*eyeroll,sigh,clearing of my throat*

“how are you Slooshia?”

She immediately cuts to the chase …“aww bless I’m fantastic hun, but larrrk my dear uncle Nemesis isn’t doing too well yannow”

I say “ but why though,” in a very deeply concerned voice because I know for a fact that I never gave Sloosh my number at any stage. She wasn’t one of the ones who like to keep Nemesis happy by keeping his woman’s beauty business going over the weekends.

Unbeknownst to me I had stood violently enough to pour the beer I was cuddling in bed with all over myself and the bedding I had washed just the day before. I could hear my pulse pounding at my temples as I was gripped by panic, trembling, nausea and fearing he was dead. Lord knows I was angry but I certainly didn’t want him dead, crazy especially since there was no logical reason for him to be dead. He couldn’t possibly go and do something dumb to try and get us back to where we used to be…could he?

 Anyhow that was my first thought

I choked on my own saliva as my brain raced my mouth to get words out that neither of the two could do fast enough. I crumpled to the floor and begged her to make sense, any damn sense. She all this while was silent and waiting for me to calm my breath enough for me to hear her over the phone. This was futile, so she proceeded to railroad into what had necessitated this auspicious phonecall. I am not being sarcastic here, it was auspicious.

Slooshia then proceeded to explain how for the past 3 days in a row Nemesis had hardly done anything but sit alone in a dark corner with a book; pretending to read, pretending to drink a beer and genuinely sobbing like a baby and smoking cigarette after bleeding cigarette as he stared into the distant cobwebs on the ceiling.

He had been there from the time their doors opened that Sunday and it worsened whenever people would approach him expecting his usual jollity when they inquired after his ‘wife’ only to be assailed by a barrage of tears, maybe even spit and snot as he reached for their t-shirts to wipe the tears off his teary sweaty face (poor people, you will remember this man’s high propensity for those ugly heaving crying sessions).

I asked her if she knew what exactly was wrong with him. Did he say anything at all to her? 

Right there with the phone pressed to my ear I almost felt her hand land on my shoulder softly as she stared me in the eyes and said …

 “Please just talk to him”

(follow me on Twitter ~ @mazituwe)