A Crossroad in Life

Crossroads in Life

I remember it as if it were yesterday.  I was nineteen and my girlfriend was pregnant with our first child.  She was seventeen.  So, I did the honorable thing and married her, but suddenly I wasn't the happy-go-lucky carefree guy I'd been before. Now a steady job and planning for the future were my top priorities.  I cut my long hair in hopes that I'd be able to get a better paying job but despite all my efforts, the best I could do was get a second job to supplement the meager paycheck from my first one.  We survived, and like a lot of young couples we were constantly in debt and couldn't see a way out.

Then one day my step-brother called and told me I could get a job in the steel mill where he worked.  They were now hiring and the paychecks would be almost triple what I'd been making, plus I'd have a multitude of benefits as well.  At last, my financial problems were solved and all we had to do was move from our big, busy city to a little hick town a hundred and some miles away.

John and Maureen had found us a nice basement apartment in a small, six suite building on the outskirts of town.  It was like living in the suburbs of our old big city, except it wasn't nearly as crowded and everyone seemed a lot more laid back and friendly.  To top it off, John told us that he and Maureen had decided that we could pay them back the deposit and first month rent at our leisure, things couldn't have been sweeter.  Of course, there wasn't much to do when you weren't working, aside from hunt, fish, go to the movie theater or go bowling, but we adjusted easily and got ourselves into debt once again.  We bought a very nice, two bedroom house on the end of a dead-end street with woods behind us.  It was a perfect place to raise our daughter.  We each had our own almost new car and life was nice.

A few years went by as well as several quick promotions and then as quickly as things had gotten better, things got worse.  The mill started laying people off and a few months later I was sixth in line to be laid off.  I was getting worried, but I had a plan, we'd sell our house and move back to the big city.  On our last visit to her parent's house I took off to visit my old boss at the engraving shop and it turned out that he'd turned the business over to his son.  I could have my old job back, which was a relief, but I knew I'd have to find something else as well.  As it turned out, the same day we moved back to The Big C an old friend of mine contacted us and offered me a job as his assistant managing a large apartment complex in the suburbs.  Great!  Free rent, part-time hours in the evening and I'd still be able to work as an engraver too.  What more could I ask for?

Our second daughter was born the following year and we decided we should start looking for a church we could all attend.  She was Catholic, I was Protestant, and in her mother's eyes we weren't really married since we'd been married by a Protestant minister instead of a Catholic priest.  Now we had to get remarried just to appease her mother, so I had to attend classes to join the church, but first I had to have a meeting with the priest so he'd be satisfied that I was serious about my commitment to the church.  He explained a lot of things about the saints, the stations of the cross and how the Holy Mother Mary could intercede for us.

"Wait a minute," I said. "You mean to tell me that if I ask Mary to pray for me that God will hear my prayers even better?" He couldn't have been happier it seemed, until I said, "That's the biggest crock of sheet I've ever heard!"

I was minding my manners and didn't cuss but my wife almost fell out of her chair sputtering, "You can't talk to a priest like that!"

"Sure you can," I replied. "As you can see, I wasn't struck dead. Now let's get outta here and I'm gonna tell your mom she's crazy.  And our daughters aren't gonna be Catholic either."

A few months went by and we continued to check out different churches.  Along the way we met an insurance agent named Frank and he took us to several other churches as well.  I continued my two job routine and somewhere along the way I'd gotten Frank interested in tropical fish and set him up with a tank, fish, filters, the whole nine yards.  Then came the day when Doug, my long-time friend and martial arts instructor, met me in the parking lot as I came home from the engraving shop.

"Tom, I don't know how to tell you this..." he started, "but Mae had been thinking about cheating on you with Frank and when she changed her mind he tried to rape her, but she got away."

I was stunned, speechless, all I could do for a moment was just stand there.

"C'mon Tom," Doug said in almost a whisper as he put his arm around my shoulder, "let's go for a walk for a bit."  He explained that my wife was afraid to tell me herself because she was afraid that I'd just explode.  Instead, I was simply numb, I didn't know what to say or even what to think.  I'd never experienced a betrayal so devious and unexpected.  A couple hours later my wife came back to our apartment and apologized and related all the details to me.  Neither of us talked much after that and I was thankful there weren't any emergency problems to be dealt with in the complex.

The next morning I went to work as usual but I wasn't my normal self.  All I could think about was the dual betrayal and I got sicker and sicker to my stomach.  I left at lunch to go home but stopped and bought some Pepto-Bismol on the way.  I think I drank about half the bottle before I got home and when Mae and the kids weren't there, I figured she'd just gone down to talk to Doug's wife, Sandy. I laid down to take a nap and when I awoke, I was still alone.

It was only about two in the afternoon and with no real plan in mind I slid my .38 automatic from behind my dresser and calmly grabbed the clip out from beneath the mattress and clicked it into place.  I tucked the gun into the waistband of my jeans and got ready to go visit Frank.  Oddly enough, no one seemed to be around anywhere; no cars on the street, no people on the sidewalks or in the parking lot, and I just walked to my car like a zombie.  Just as my hand touched the door handle, Doug walked around the end of the building.

"Hey Tom," he shouted, since there were several cars between us, "what are you doin' home?"

"Oh nothing," I replied, "I was sick earlier, but I'm okay now."

Puzzled, he asked, "So where ya off to?"

And not wanting to lie to my oldest and closest friend, I replied, "Oh, I just thought I'd go over and talk to Frank for a bit."

"Alright," he said as he walked toward me, "so why you takin' your gun?"

I quickly glanced down and wondered how he could have possibly seen it in my waistband from that far away. I looked up again and very calmly said, "I'm just gonna scare him a bit. I wanna see him pee his pants."

By now he was almost beside me and he just kept coming, no hesitation whatsoever.  I really didn't want to talk, I wanted to scare the daylights out of that insidious betrayer.  Now Doug was right beside me with his hands on the hood of my car.

"Welp, I ain't gonna try to stop you, but you and I both know you can fire that thing very quickly and very accurately.  You probably already have a round chambered and it's ready to fire, ain't it?"

Now, somewhat ashamed as well as confused, I turned toward him and answered, "Yeah, I do, but I'm only gonna scare him. Really."

Doug just shook his head and with a sadly serious look on his face, he said, "Tom, what's probably gonna happen is that Frank will say something stupid and before you know it, you'll have killed him. And I hate to say it, but if that happens, I ain't comin' to visit you in prison." My throat constricted and I couldn't swallow, much less speak, and Doug put his arm around me just as he had the day before. "C'mon, let's go back to your place and talk. Sandy and Mae will be back from the store with the kids any minute."

As that chapter in my life began to close, another began to open,
but that's another story for another time.