Mercury Poisoning Part 2

             

                    Can you call a mulligan in life? I wanted to right about now. But I'm nothing if not predictable and on

I continue with my liberal sexual activities and, here's a shock, I find myself pregnant again at nineteen. At least

this time I could pick the culprit out of a line up. He was a guy I had been "dating", if you will, in the loosest sense

of the word, of course. By "dating" I mean we've spent the last few years seeing each other off and on, in turns 

dramatically breaking up and making up, just riding that crazy roller coaster that is dysfunctional love. He had

short dark hair, brown eyes, a big moustache and a nice big mouth, literally as well as figuratively. Oh, and after

I get my mitts on him with some wax, two eyebrows instead of just the one he was born with. He was of Slavic

descent, what can I say? But damned if I don't fall hard for the hairy bastard. He was even more emotionally

fucked up than me, no mean feat there, and well on his way towards a life of drug and alcohol addiction. He

was unemployed, smoking lots of weed, lived at home with his mom and had just totaled a rockin' Camaro his

dad recently purchased for him. But to my utter amazement and to his credit, I might add, he actually proposed!

How charming is that? I mean, it was 1991- you didn't have to get married just because you knocked a bitch up!

I couldn't believe it. I kind of expected him to flee the state after I gave him the news. But no, he is genuinely,

sweetly excited about the prospect of fatherhood and steps up to the plate and he gets a not-too-bad factory job

and the next thing I know we're getting hitched at city hall. I look back at pictures of us from that day and the

expression that comes to mind is "deer in headlights". We have a little reception at his mother's house later that

evening and he proceeds to get rip-roaring drunk and I'm pregnant and tired and it's all really overwhelming,

so I leave him to party with his friends and find a quiet room to rest in and try to come to grips with the fact

that I am married. Married! Wild.



                This relationship was volatile at best. Filled with drama, most of it the really stupid kind, some my

doing, some his, but one incident sticks out in my mind all these years later. It's a hot summer night in June

and I'm almost due, so we've been married about six months now, and we're both kind of on edge about the

baby coming and money and all the usual day to day stresses of life. He'd been out partying and he comes

home really agitated and he's acting kind of weird and I don't realize it yet, but he's clearly under the influence

of something more than the usual beer and weed combination this time. It starts out innocently enough. We

walk to the corner store because he's out of smokes, I think, and on the way home he accuses me of being

"too friendly" with the guy behind the counter. I'm like, "Come on! I'm nine months pregnant! I'm a house!

Are you serious?". It seemed so ridiculous but he's getter madder by the minute while I'm just getting more

annoyed, so I go take a bath to try and get away from him, and for some reason after I'm done I end up in

our kitchen in just a pair of panties, probably because it was just so hot, and I can see this so clearly to this

very day: the panties are black with little red flowers on them and my belly is huge and my breasts are so

swollen and I look and feel just like a big old cow, and I'm standing at the sink and the lights are off and next

thing I know, he's looking at me with these crazy eyes that are all pupil, no iris, and he's coming at me with

a knife. Just a steak knife, not a butcher knife or anything, but still, this man is not thinking straight and he

has a knife. It is so surreal and freaky and I am frantically trying to keep him at bay. Lucky thing I come

from a long line of sturdy Irish peasant stock because I'm able to fight him off, this lunatic I call my husband,

and instead of calling the police I do one better and call his mother, God rest her soul, because this is a man

who fears the wrath of his mother, and she and his brother arrive in minutes that seem like hours at the time,

and fighting ensues and then he's tackled and it looks like an episode of "Cops", and my head is spinning,

and then the two of them manage to drag him out of the house and I am left standing there all alone in the

dark kitchen, dazed. At first I think my water has broken; my panties are warm and wet and I feel a puddle

of liquid at my feet. Then it dawns on me. This is a mess, at least, that I can clean up so I proceed to change

into clean undies and mop the floor. He comes back the next day, sorry for "flipping out", and I tell him I am

sorry if I was "too friendly", and we carry on.

   

                Soon afterward I am the proud but increasingly depressed and overwhelmed mom to a little Yankee

Doodle Dandy baby-born on the 4th of July. She has my pretty auburn hair but that precious little face is a

straight- up carbon copy of her dad: a full mouth and dark expressive eyes that always tend to look a tad worried,

complete with a furrowed little brow. She is a colicky little thing and it seems like we spend a lot of time crying

together. I'm finding it difficult to just function while my husband works all day and hangs out at bars afterward

and who knows what other shenanigans he may be up to? To be honest, at this point I don't have the energy to

much care, and I am such a mess sometimes that in a way, I don't blame him for wanting to get away from me.

Hell, I wanted to get away from me.