#56 A Good Thing Gone Bad
February 26, 1977. We’ve only just begun. White lace and promises. Stars in our eyes, love in our hearts. The world was our oyster. I wasn’t even old enough to drink at my own reception, so when my dad and step-mom #1 got into a slightly drunken spat about the parents/bride/groom dance, I asked my brother to get me a drink from the bar. Never much of a heavy drinker anyway (see drunken sot at reception reference above), I didn’t know what to ask for. He brought me back a very stiff 7 and 7. Wow. On an empty stomach, whiskey, even one with a can of 7-up waved over it, can really knock you on your ass. But I remained a lady, always a bit of a stretch for me as I was raised with four brothers. I didn’t say, “Sit your ass down, bitch who screwed my father at the motel where my mother caught you, this ain’t about you”, even though I wanted to. No, I just sat there while my eldest sibling, my sister who married when I was 5, tried to mediate between two drunks intent on continuing their fight from the night before. At a wedding reception. My wedding reception. The one I hadn’t wanted because I feared this very thing. I had wanted to go to Vegas and find some little chapel; not the cheesy kind they are so well known for, but a little chapel looking thing, like a small church in the country somewhere. But that isn’t the good thing gone bad. Although it should have been the omen. On the honeymoon we drove through three blizzards on the way to the Denver. Funny thing, it hadn’t snowed all winter until then. That was probably an omen, too. I don’t know what to say about the car breaking down on the way back between Baker and Barstowe. That wasn’t good, either. No, the good thing gone bad was the good Christian family boy I married, in a church ceremony, in front of God and everybody, who promised to love and cherish me, the one who did meth for a year and a half before confessing it to me “after he quit” because he felt I had the right to know. He had wanted a stay at home wife, I only had a part-time job, the kids were small, I was pissed, but he begged me to forgive him and let him prove himself to me. OK. Turn the other cheek. Forgive and forget. Until he starts drinking. And Smoking pot. Gets a 502. Then get a fucking job, get two of them, build a life for you and the kids, tell him he is running out of time to get himself together. Watch him party with “friends” who understand him better than his wife or kids. Watch the other woman pull him away, let him go. Fuck him. And her, too. Get a life, work out your depression, get a divorce, watch your father die, lose your second job, all within 6 months. Gets another 502. I go to college, have a fantastic relationship with the now grown kids, and make new friends. Think about dating again. He is sorry, still professing love…don’t want any of that. Tainted love. Gone bad. His loss.