Pancakes Taste Like Poverty: And Other Post-Divorce Revelations (2 page)

We didn't have to follow his mom's rules or dodge
his dad. We didn't have that constant unwelcome guest feeling. We
could do whatever we wanted.
I should have been relieved that my
kids were adjusting so well but honestly, it stung. This could have
been my kids all along. I'd kept them from feeling like this. Because
I
wanted to make it work with their father. I was so
caught up in trying to make peace and do what's right that I didn't
even notice the effect all of the dysfunction had on my kids. They
were the way they were because life had always been the way it was.
And life with him was unpredictable, mad, unstable, highly sensitive,
fragile, precarious, dizzying, obligatory...
And my kids had
developed coping strategies or no strategies at all. And I thought it
was just “who they were.” But it wasn't...
In “doing
what's right” I'd actively taken place in the breaking of my
children. And here I was, in my absolute darkest and most lacking and
I was seeing them for the first time
ever
.

But they'd seen me. They'd seen him and his
family and all of it.
I hadn't protected them from anything. I'd
exposed them to far too much by doing “what's right.”
But
the apartment was the end of that and the beginning of putting us
first.
For lunch that day we had pizza. We ate it on the floor
near the piss-mattress in the living room and huddled watching DVDs
on my laptop. Then we unpacked what little we had and giggled and
checked in with the family.

His sisters came by gifting us our first set of
much needed and much appreciated groceries.
As night fell, we
realized we didn't have lamps for any of the rooms with the only
light coming from the bathroom.
That's an easy fix. We can get
lamps.
I was just so happy to cuddle and hold my new children.
Their energy fed me.
But alas it was time for dinner so we
decided to reheat the leftover pizza in the oven. But when I went to
retrieve the piping hot pizza to deliver it to my bright, delighted
children who were high on the novelty of the new space I realized I
had no oven mitts.
And I had no towels.
I had no rubber
gloves.
I had no paper towels.
I had no tongs.
I had no
forks.
I had no foil.
I had absolutely no method of
retrieving the pizza from the oven.
It was at that moment I
realized:
Jessica,
You're fucked.

D-Day

The process of the
actual divorce was easy - too easy I would later find out. Since I
had no money it was cheap to file. Since we had no things there was
nothing to split.

I literally printed the divorce off the county
clerk's website and filled it out myself. I decided on a reasonable
amount for child support and mapped out visitation.
Neither was
an issue.
He had since been kicked out of his parents' house and
was living with a roommate somewhere across town. Since his living
situation was less conducive to overnight stays he would come spend
the weekends at the apartment with us.

It seems strange but I had no anger toward him.
There was nothing to fight about. So we could get on co-parenting and
just being teammates without all the messy business of loving each
other or being faithful or sober.
He could spend his week being
as drunk and promiscuous as he pleased. I didn't know. It wasn't my
business anymore and I didn't care.

He came on Friday night with some cash for us and
cooked dinner and snuggled the kids and threw them around like dads
do and it worked.
In a bizarre and only-in-a-TV-movie way when
our court date for the official divorce was assigned it was identical
to that of
h
is parents who had since
split also.

When D-day arrived neither of us bothered to get
very dressed. He wore jeans and flip flops. My wardrobe consisted of
jeans and two or three shirts so I had no choice but to wear them.
We arrived early to be met a few minutes later by his parents –
separately – each with a friend for moral support. With sad
eyes they gave us “understanding” hugs and pats while we,
in our flip-flops, giggled and chit-chatted.
Finally we were
called in to the room with half a dozen other non-contested,
quick-divorce couples. They were called up one by one to swear the
marriage was irreparable, sign the papers and leave.
My husband,
being named after his father and
his
father and
his
father, was called up with me. We swore and signed –
eagerly.
The judge, confused, called up his father with the same
name.

“Wait a second,” he halted us,
“you're getting divorced today and your parents are getting
divorced today?”
We nodded.
“You can't make that
up. What a tragic day.”
But it wasn't a tragic day for us.
For me, it was one of the best days. It was maybe the first authentic
thing I'd ever done. And
he
was free. Not of his
responsibility but of the role of husband. He was not ready and he
knew it. And I was tired. We'd tried for ten years. It didn't feel
like a failure.
We waited outside the courtroom to say goodbye
to his parents.
“What are you guys doing now?” His
father asked.
“We're going to go eat pancakes at the IHOP
where we met,” my ex answered cheerfully.
And with that we
high-fived (literally) and skipped (literally) down the hallway to
our new uncertain future.
I wish I could say everything has
been as smooth and amicable as the day we got divorced. But, for what
it's worth, it was a shockingly pleasant day.

Spencer and Maya

Spencer and Maya are
the two jackasses who live in the downstairs apartment.
Spencer
is
twenty-two
. He is one of those guys
who is simultaneously hot and repulsive. Like he's hot, no doubt. He
looks like Josh Hartnett (hot) but if Hartnett had been raised in a
really dodgy trailer park and had been in and out of prison on
various drug charges (repulsive).
His uniform is a white tank top
and baggy sweatpants with his boxers showing. He almost always has a
cellphone in one hand a cigarette in the other. He sits on the third
from bottom step, talking loudly either to women or his friends to
whom he complains about the aforementioned women being “jealous
bitches who love drama.”

While he does this, he spits his smoker-phlegm
onto the bottom step leaving a slippery sheen of gray-yellow mucus
for
myself and Other Single Mom next door
to hop over every time we go up and down the stairs because it is
that
slippery. When
we're lucky
,
it rains and washes the phlegm away, leaving the bottom stair
splatter-bleached by whatever strange chemical composition Spencer's
phlegm
possesses. The
step now
resembles
a concrete version of acid wash.
Despite being gross, he is
dangerously aware of how narrow and gray the gross/hot delineation is
and he lives right in the middle of it.

After
his louder fights with his live-in girlfriend, when I have my
eyebrows fixed and I am ready to confront him, he leans in close and
smoothly apologizes with the most charismatic husky whisper.
And I remember that one day I might need his help moving
furniture
(
or
he could, like, punch me in the face
)
and
I wave him off with a lackluster finger-wag and return to minding my
business.

As for his girlfriend
,
Maya,
she is
nineteen.
She looks like a black Snookie when Snookie was doing the hair bump
and leopard print
,
only Maya's hair bump
is made of that plastic-looking weave that looks like Barbie hair.
She wears big hoop earrings and
her vapid
nature comes through when she speaks. You know, like
she
speaks in gravelly whisper-giggle with plenty of upspeak thrown in,
just in case you thought there was promise for a decent
conversation.
I know she works somewhere, so I assume she pays
most of the bills. She tends to keep to herself until it's time for a
throwdown.

Almost weekly, Maya confronts Spencer about the
other girls he is talking to, or his drug use, or the abortion he
talked her into which we know about because Spencer talks about it
loudly on the phone at midnight to whomever. Almost weekly, Spencer
reacts by getting loud. Maya throws things. She runs outside,
threatening to get in the car and leave, but never does. She gets on
the phone with people telling them to come get her for real this
time, that she'll text them when she's packed, that there is no going
back. Spencer gets on
his
phone and sits on the step smoking
and complaining about how crazy she is, taking breaks to spit, take a
drag from his ever-present cigarette or yell at her about how crazy
she is.
I usually stay out of it because I want to be neither
ally nor enemy to either of these kids.

Other Single Mom, however, is ten years older
than me and clearly gives
fewer
fucks.
She steps outside and threatens to call the police.
I can hear
through my bedroom window, because this weekly ordeal is just a few
feet from it, as Spencer sex-whispers his usual apologies and tries
to gather support from Other Single Mom by explaining, literally, the
entire nature of their fight and their drama.

Other Single Mom takes the bait, just as I always
do.
Or maybe she calculates, as I do, that Spencer looks like the
kind of guy who knows people who don't mind breaking and entering and
assault and just wags her finger and shushes them and goes back to
bed.
At this point, Spencer sex-whispers black Snookie into
cooperation and the two go back inside to talk it out. A few hours
later I am treated to the sounds of loud, rough makeup sex.
They
are my ex-husband and I ten years ago. Exactly. And so I both pity
them and hate them.

I'm the One For Me

Well, I will be, soon.

See, one of my dearest friends bestowed a nugget
of wisdom upon me about a year back:

BE
the man you want to date.

About a year ago, I was working at a hotel as a
concierge. There was a guy there who I was very attracted to, and
being "separated" I figured a little workplace fling was
fair game.

We were teetering right on the edge of
Friendship, about to dive right into More Than Friendship when I
gushed to my friend, The One Who Usually Has Relationship Issues.

"Girl, he is amazing," I swooned
,
"
We laugh all time. He likes astrophysics just like me.
And he is tall. And has a degree and
…
"

"Jessica. You don't have time for this."

Um...excuse me?

At that point was thinking I needed to find a new
friend. I had indulged This Particular Friend through every one of
her giddy crushes and relationship roller coasters since we were
fifteen and now she can't return the favor? I retorted.

"But girl, I haven't slept with him or
anything. Do you hear me? I am attracted to him and I have
not
had
sex
with him. For me, that's kind of big deal!"

"I can't even believe you. You are going on
about wanting to date this guy. You need to date yourself! Get
dressed up for YOU. Get sexy for YOU. Find out what turns YOU on, not
HIM! You have never, ever, ever just ...just been...just you."

WHAAAAAAAAAAAAT!?!?!?

Am I being schooled by
The-One-Who-Usually-Has-Relationship-Issues?

Is this some sort of 5th dimension alternate
Universe?

She was right.

Holy shit, she was completely right.

I had never been just me. At least not since I
got boobs.

Ever since I was
twelve
or
thirteen
I always had a boyfriend.
And later, when I started having sex I always had a guy I was having
sex with who I referred to as my boyfriend.

Then I married the aforementioned guy.

I was barely separated from my husband and I was
already trying to latch myself onto another poor fool. What was wrong
with me?

What
was
wrong with me? Why
didn't
I just date myself?

I spent a few days rolling it around in my head.

Why
Didn't
I Date Myself?

Well, I think the first problem is I would NEVER
date someone like me!

Oops.

But seriously...
I sat down and started
listing the must-haves for the next man I decide to let into my
world.

He must be fit and attractive. He must be
educated, or ambitious or both. He must be stylish. He must be
creatively talented.

Hmm....

I am none of the above.

How exactly did I think I was going to land this
fit, sexy, stylish, ambitious creative man when we would, clearly,
have nothing in common?

And then another revelation.

I can just
be
the man I want to date. Why,
in the name of All That Is Holy, am I expecting some dream man to
come complete me? My lazy ass don't got that much time! Why the hell
not just do it myself??

I took over
ten
years of French and can't hold a conversation in French.
Unacceptable. I was the Student Director of my school's show choir
and the SGA Vice President of Fine Arts. I can read music. But I
can't play guitar or piano. Unacceptable.

You can only fall back on the old "my Dad
wasn't around" schtick for so long before you just look like a
lazy-ass whiner.

I had become a lazy-ass whiner, waiting for Mr.
Awesome to swoop in and teach me all the things Daddy didn't.

Unacceptable.

I finished my list of everything I wanted in a
man. Then next to it, I made a list of how I could develop those
traits in myself. Then, in a third column, I added some oddball
traits just for me: