Twenty Years since Number Two

Twenty years ago today, I met the woman I've since nicknamed "Number Two." Probably the most descriptive nickname I've given someone.

 

I would hope she's become a better person in 2 decades, instead of the mean little emotional tarball she was in 1996. I know she was miserable--bipolar, doc working on her meds, a Norplant stick in her arm, and her emotional baggage from too many bad relationships and parental abuse. She's about 90% blind, as well.

 

I got stuck in that mess for four and a half months. Happens pretty quickly, even when you're not trying to "save" someone like that. They can still pull you in, then pull you apart. She used the threat of suicide, overdoses, guilt, her disability, whatever she could to try to keep me around or just to get her way.

 

I helped her move into her own place, from an utterly shitty apartment to a 14x80 trailer with a "rent to own" plan on it. I did what I could to simplify her home life--I did all the cleaning, cooking, and whatever. She went to work with clean clothes and a daily bath. There were some good days...there were more bad ones. I learned how everything was my fault. I learned the many ways that I was WRONG:

--if I worked on my car, I wasn't spending time with her

--if I spent time with her, I wasn't taking time for myself

--if there was a problem with the car, I should have been maintaining it

--I caused her bad day at work

--she had a good day; this was my fault, too.

--If I was off from work, I was supposed to answer the phone when she called to check up on me.

--If I didn't answer immediately, I was probably cheating on her

--had to account for every waking moment not spent at work or near her

--yelled at me for 20 minutes for washing my car.

 

I had a part-time job at the time, but I was on the hunt for something better, because I had my own plans. I wanted my own place. It took almost 4 months for me to finally secure a full-time job. By that point, that trailer was a cage--and my part-time job was the lock on its door. I finally escaped--Free!--in late December and lever looked back. Like I said, I hope she got better--but there's no way I'm going to look her up to find out.

A Scumbag Gets His Due (well, some of it).

In the early days of this blog, I wrote about this former acquaintance of mine who has earned the nickname Scumbag several times over.

While looking through the Google's brain for other people I knew in Tallahassee back in the day, I went looking to see if Scumbag was still in trouble with the law.

Didn't expect the results I got, but I wasn't terribly surprised. He is a Scumbag, after all--the guy who sat and watched TV while his recently-exed fiancee' tried to kill herself with an overdose. The guy who squealed when he got busted by ATF when he tried to sell an illegally-assembled Uzi to undercover agents. The guy who caused a rollover crash on Appalachee Parkway in Tallahassee by changing lanes without looking or signalling; a car with several girls climbed the guardrail at the railroad overpass not far from the State Capitol building. He didn't bother to stop and check on them despite having bragged about being an EMT (he also said he'd been a Navy SEAL, fought in Iraq in 1991, got Gulf War Syndrome, was taught Japanese swordfighting by Musashi himself, and that he's a powerful warlock. Heh.).

He was convicted on the gun charge, went to prison for a few years in 1997, and appealed the decision all through the '00s, claiming his civil rights had been violated. Apparently there are some other interesting bits on his rap sheet...but his most recent criminal enterprise took the cake and burned the freaking bakery down.

He and his ex-girlfriend were arrested in June of 2012 for multiple instances of sexual assault upon a 14 year old girl.

He was charged with TWENTY-FIVE counts of sexual assault on a juvenile and another 25 for possession of porn. His ex got 5 counts of sexual assault on a minor.

Once I stopped gloating that his ass was arrested (yet again), I asked the Great Google (pbuh) whether Scumbag had gone to trial.

Why, yes. Yes, he had. In March of 2013 he and his ex were convicted. Scumbag got 15 years plus 36 months probation with 256 days' credit for the time he'd already spent in the box. Girlfriend was convicted on two lesser counts and got two 60-day terms and credit for 29 days' jail time.

Not nearly enough. There's nothing I despise more than someone who hurts a kid (and that's even taking Republicans into account).

I had my share of shitty adults as a kid--the stepfather who flailed me with his belt or threatened to take me out back and beat me with an axe handle.

There was one shitty teenager, though, who might have wired my rage button more than the abusive stepfather did.

In 1973, we moved four times, going from Pensacola to West Palm Beach to Loxley, Alabama to Mobile, Alabama. Prichard, actually, which lies close to the port, the Africatown Bridge, and a couple of miles north of downtown Mobile. I've spent hours in Google Earth scouring Eugene Avenue, trying to remember what our house looked like and where one of the neighborhood kids lived.

I wasn't quite 6 yet. Maybe that's why nothing looks familiar now. But I do remember the school yard fronting along the north side of Meaher Street, an easy walk north along Eugene. I remember a day when I was out exploring the neighborhood and stole a "Coca Cola" keyring dangling from the ignition of a parked school bus.

I remember the neighborhood kid and some friends playing with the new Evel Knievel Stunt Cycle in front of his house. I don't know how many times we played together after that first meeting, or what his name was, or even how long we lived in the neighborhood. Not very long, since we moved twice the next year.

I do remember the kid's older brother, who tried to molest me.


You might not want to read any further. It's not particularly graphic, what he did, but "trigger warnings" are a thing.


Everyone else was out of the house--parents at work, kid at summer school, according to Big Brother. All I've got is mental snapshots: I'll give you these opera glasses if you'll do something for me...him with his underwear down...mine down...a few awkward moments of him trying (and failing) to get me to blow him...I didn't know enough to be afraid or disturbed, didn't know what any of this was about...and then I was climbing a tree, playing with the shiny glasses. I didn't actively block it from my mind, but I can't remember giving it much further thought until I was in my 20s, when suddenly everything popped up again.

The neighborhood hasn't changed much, from what I can see in Google's Street View. Still tree-shaded, with kids playing in the quiet streets or sandy yards. The school's been rebuilt and faces the street where I stole the bus keys. I wonder whether that kid's brother molested anyone else, whether he ever got caught. I'd like to think some other kid's big brother grabbed him and went all Frank Castle on his ass.

I'd settle, though, for learning that Scumbag gets a few bales of shit beaten out of him while he's in prison. No rape and no stabbings, just a series of ass-whippings he's had coming to him for a long time.

Stupid Things To Avoid Doing.

Back in 1998, on the job at [undisclosed car repair shop, as a tire tech], I spent a little idle time with one of the other guys in the parking lot.

We had decided to see whether a shop rag could be used as a sling.

Neither of us had ever used a sling before.

I loaded a D-cell battery, whipped the rag around like I've seen in movies, and released one end at just the right moment in its arc...

...and the battery sailed off in a lovely curve. I'd been aiming straight down the middle of the side parking lot, hoping to land the battery in the big field out back. Damn thing pulled to the right.

Then we realized that its trajectory had it sailing beautifully toward a parked van. A customer's van. Shiny, with lots of shiny glass windows. Expensive, job-losing glass windows.

[sphincters tighten]

WHACK!! It hit the parking lot retaining wall about 18 inches from the van, rebounded, and skittered along the pavement at the foot of the wall.

Enough excitement for one day.

Characters: King Love

The first interesting person I encountered in Tallahassee was King Love. It was my third day in town and I'd stopped in at the Publix on North Monroe Street to cash a traveler's check. As I was walking toward the exit, I was passed by an older guy with a Santa Claus beard, regular street clothes, a red cape, and a crown.

From then until I left in 1999, he was part of the furniture of the city, usually holding court at North Monroe and Tennessee Streets, where he would hold up signs or props, howl and speak through a bullhorn. It's really too bad that I never paid much attention to him--no photos or video of my own. Aside from that short brush with His Highness in 1995, I was only close-up to him a couple more times, once during services at the Unitarian Universalist church, then a year or so later at a Hungry Howie's. Both times, he came in and disrupted things, scared people with His Kingly wrath, and amused me. But I never knew his name or his story until after I moved away.

Before he was King Love, Kamal Youssef, born in Cairo, Egypt, was a medical doctor in South Florida. His wife died, he broke, and the King was born.

Just a couple of months after I moved away from there, the King died of a heart attack (if I remember right) in 1999, about 2 months after I left.




I've got one of his bullhorns! He had a lifetime warranty with RadioShack. The one I got had a damaged power switch but was otherwise functional, so it ended up on a clearance/damaged table. I think it went for $20.00.

Amazingly, Number Two had never heard of The King, though she'd lived in Tallahassee all or most of her life. I thought _I_ was sheltered.

My coldest Winter.

As I sit in a nice, warm room, watching the thermometer drop into the 20's (F, not C), I'm reminded of the coldest bike ride I've ever taken.

But--as with most of my scribbles here, we need some back-story.

It was January, 1996. Tallahassee. About 5 months before, I'd moved to town and took up a room in an apartment. The main tenant--let's call him Roomie--seemed friendly enough, but I quickly learned that he had some sort of deal worked out with his landlord. The rent would stay low as long as Roomie didn't ask for many repairs--especially to the heating/air-conditioning unit.

The apartment was basically a cinder-block box. I was forbidden from opening windows or even the drapes, because Roomie didn't want people seeing (and 'liberating') his computer. The place was a freaking oven in August. In January, it became an icebox.

...And that's when my car died, leaving me to get around town on a 10-speed. I was working for a nationally-known inventory company at the time, and for any job site within 20 miles of town we were expected to drive ourselves. Fair enough.

On the Coldest Day, my team would be counting a clothing store in Governor's Square Mall, beginning at 6 a.m. I woke up at 4:30. Painfully cold. It was around 17F with a wind chill below 0F. Very quick shower. Long johns, work shirt, pants, sweater, heaviest coat, doubled gloves, and I'm on the road...pitch black outside, the sun still sleeping...uphill on Miccosukee Rd to Georgia St...right on Hillcrest, left on Alachua, still straining uphill (the apartment rests in a bowl--getting out is all uphill)...right on Magnolia, finally seeing some street lights, but feeling as though there's never been any heat in the world...south on Magnolia, left on Simpson and finally, the Mall...a cluster of cars near one entrance, lucky bastards with their heaters...a pair of Mall Cops, here, and my hands are hooks on the handlebars, my feet aren't answering the phone, and I have no ears anymore...dismounting is painful, walking more so as feet wake up and call me back, ranting abuse...walking into the Mall, pushing the bike, starting to feel other forgotten body parts...I find the store.

I was on that bike for about a month and a half before the car--a 1976 Impala wagon--got replaced by the '83 Citation. But I was never that cold again.