Forgotten Birthday

One year, when I was married to Becky Bradway, she completely forgot my birthday. That very day she forgot to pick me up from work. I remember, walking south on South Fifth street, I got to South Grand Avenue, on my way to our house on Bryn Mawr, at least fifteen more blocks, and she came driving up and said we should go out to dinner, as it was my birthday. Of course we ended up going to a mexican restaurant on the east side that was new. Becky was a mexican food freak. Not my thing, but she was one of those people it was easier to do what she wanted then to deal with the weirdness of her not getting her way.

As a matter of fact, she was better at giving off a hostile vibe then anyone I'd ever met. I conjecture that it was because when she was a child, being abused both by her father and her mother, if she said anything they actually used soap in her mouth and basically hurt her. So she got really good at just giving off the fuck you vibe. Her grasp of that darkness was pretty much complete. I undertstand, of course, why she was like that, what had happened to her as a child. When we had separated and she was living down the street under Laura Giese and her husband, she would come for dinner every night. Why not? I cooked it and cleaned it. I paid for it. She did this for nearly the whole year she lived down the street before she engineered moving to Bloomington to go to ISU to get her doctorate. Of course that was right after she promised me, signed a paper, that she would never move Paige out of town. Anyway, I used to say to her, hearing all that was going on in her head about her family and about working for Rape World (which is what she called ICASA, the Illinois Coalition Against Sexual Assault) that she could turn out to be a serial murderer and if people knew what she had been through they would understand.

But that business about breaking her promise was par for the course for my relationship with Becky. She basically broke every promise she ever made to me. And we were together for fourteen years, first fuck to last. To be precise though, I lived with Pat the first year and a half, though I was sleeping with Becky, and Pat knew it. I spent that year looking for work, after having lived off of Pat for six and a half years. Mind you, I was the housewife in that relationship. Well, that and the fuck toy.

So I am always of two minds about Becky Bradway. I have enormous sympathy for her. I lived with her family for several years in the early 1980s, and they were definitely so screwed up you could pretty much taste it. But I had no idea how truly cruel they had been. So, I feel bad for what happened to that little girl.

But I also despise her for how she treated me. Mind you, I am grateful I am no longer with her. And I am very glad she found a decent man, Doug, to be there for her. She will always be a serious user, and she will suck up all the resources that are around her if you let her. I was a very co-dependent guy when I was with her. I did not resist any of that. My mother made me into the one in my family who gave in to the younger kids and to my sisters. Basically I learned to do what other people wanted to keep the peace.

This personality trait serves me well now. The woman I live with these days is also very much a giver. I've really never been with anyone who seemed to take my feelings into consideration as much as Kimberly does.

I still remember walking down that street, in late June. I must've been 42 or 43 that day. It was depressing.

Thanks to the Lady Arianrhod for helping me live through that time. She sent me the possibility of a true priestess to be with, and sure enough. I can practically see the curved moon tattoo upon her brow. Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley.