I guess Frampton could have come alive here...

I heard she found God.

I had to go and find out for myself.

We fucked a lot when we knew each other. And honestly, I don’t remember having a conversation about God with her. Never. I mean, we said grace when we were at her mother’s house, but that’s pretty normal stuff. Even for Atheists or Agnostics. You kind of do what is expected of you in someone else’s house.

Which is why when I heard the rumors swirling about that she’d gone completely to Jesus’ side, it intrigued me.

I’ve dabbled in religion from time to time since the day my mother asked me at the ripe old age of nine years old “Randy, do you want to go to church anymore?”

Like most nine year olds, I said “No,” of course, and other than an occasional wedding or funeral – or sightseeing trip – hadn’t stepped in a church since.

I took some religion classes in college. I sat down one lonely night in a hotel and tried to read the Bible, not a page turner that one. And I’d prayed a few times, but mostly for silly things like the pain stopping in my teeth or kidneys, or maybe to win the lottery to pay off my student loans and credit cards. By the way, praying didn’t help any of those things.

So, God had been around me, just not part of me. I try to believe in God. I don’t think he’s a guy up in the clouds with a long white beard and a bunch of others with wings hovering about doing good things.

No, I think if God exists He’s a spark of light. An atom. A protein. Something like that. That’s why we’re all God, really. And if I didn’t think I’d be labeled “Douchebag” I’d probably be a Rastafarian. They seem to get it closer to right than most.

Anyway, I walked into the church, not knowing what to expect. It was one of those gigantic monstrosities you see on the side of the road. Huge buildings with parking lots so big you’d think that Peter Frampton, circa 1977, was playing there every night.

It smelled funny too. Not like old ladies and dust. That’s what I remember church smelling like.

Instead, this one was filled with the smells of coffee and cinnamon buns.

“How weird,” was the only thing that stuck in my head.

There were also kids. Everywhere. Now, when I was going to church, there sure weren’t any kids around. And when we were, we were in Sunday school. Being shown pop-up books about Noah’s ark or other calamadies.

These kids were running around being kids. It was strange to see. No suits and ties. Instead, mesh shorts and awful shirts from Wal-Mart that said “baseball” or “Daddy’s boy” or even fucking Betty Boop.

At once, I wanted to get out of there. But my curiosity got the best of me. As did her eyes. When I saw here smiling at me, I knew I was in trouble. Her eyes had a power over me. I’d like to think now, so many years removed, that they wouldn’t anymore. But, most likely, they do. A good reason as any to follow the path so many take – avoidance. So much easier to not be troubled by something if you just stay away from the source of the trouble.

She came up to me like she always did. Giggling, smiling and almost skipping. It had been that way the first time we met in a bar, back in the other times, and it was the same now. I could feel my legs weaken. She had that effect on me.

“You’re going to enjoy this,” she said as she handed me a flier and led me to a seat. A band was setting up on a giant stage in this cavernous place. I guess Frampton could have come alive here.

“Sit here,” she said.

I started to say something, I don’t remember what, but she was already skipping away.

A few minutes later, the audience was filled to capacity. I had an empty seat next to me, saved just in case. But she never came back.

I watched the band take the stage. A couple of songs later, I didn’t know the words, but everyone else seemed to, a man with glasses took the stage. He was bald, shaved bald, and muscular. He was trying very hard to look younger than he was – fashionable clothes and designer glasses. But he sounded like a preacher. You can take the look away, but not the feel.

His sermon was good. Not specific enough to really mean anything, but generic enough to touch everyone – including myself. He was good.

A few more songs sang and then the hat was passed around. Envelopes came with your program. I put mine in the basket like everyone else. But mine was empty, theirs were not.

Afterwards, she found me. Still skipping around with a big grin on her face.

“What did you think?” she asked.

“Interesting,” I replied.

She shrugged and wandered off again.

I thought I should leave. Never see her again. But, I came back. Two more times.

She got my hopes up.

All I got was let down.

Again.

This time didn’t hurt as much as the first. But it still hurt.

“You live and you learn, son,” my dad said to me the other day.

He doesn’t know the half of it, being married 48 years now. Of course, I don’t know the half of it either – never been married and all. Despite my best efforts.

So, I come home tonight, turn on some classic rock and pop the top off of a beer.

“Do. Do. You. Feeeeeeel like I do?”

Not really Pete. Not really

eyes.

“Why won’t you ever go to church with me?” she asked in her floral dress with her little kid all dolled up with a clip-on tie.
“I don’t believe in it all,” I replied groggily from under the beat up old comforter that I won’t throw away despite the stuffing all being at one end.
“You’re god is always a foot away from you,” she sighed then slammed the bedroom door behind her.
It took me a few minutes to realize she was talking about beer. And damn if she wasn’t right. I guess that’s why I loved her, despite the Jesus thing, as I’d come to refer to it. When we met, she didn’t talk about God. She didn’t go to church. Instead, she went to bars. Listened to offensive music. Got tattoos and drank an awful lot.
Now? She went to church. On Tuesdays for lessons. On Wednesdays for “Chicks Night.” On Saturday and Sundays for the big show. We weren’t together during the changeover. She’d dumped me for being too attached to my ex-girlfriend.
That sent me reeling. I drank more after that than I had in a while. But it only lasted a little while.
We met up again months later. She convinced me she was sorry, even though I knew better. I was her constant. She knew I’d take her back whenever she came calling. It wasn’t exactly desperation on my part, but it should has hell looked a lot like that to everyone I knew.
Her eyes just did it to me every single time. She knew this. She used it. God damn they were beautiful. Still the most beautiful eyes I’ve ever had the pleasure of looking into for a long period of time. They haunted me when we weren’t together. Which, I’m guessing will be forever soon.
The first time around, the sex was great. We fucked and fucked and fucked. I didn’t fuck like that when I was 20 years old. I can’t say as a teenager, because I never fucked anybody during those prime fucking years.
She brought something out of me that I guess was always there, but no one else had tapped into.
This time, however, she doesn’t believe in premarital sex. So, we don’t. Hell, she will only give me pecks on the cheek. It’s a strange sensation. Knowing this gorgeous woman is lying next to you in bed, a woman who you know fucks like a banshee, loves every little thing about it, yet you know it isn’t going to happen.
Just like me putting a ring on her finger isn’t going to happen. Which is why this is all doomed. Doomed to fail. Like all the rest of my relationships. Except this one is a known quantity. I or she just needs to make it happen. I’m betting on her doing it before me. She’s been engaged four times. She wants me to be No. 5. I wonder what she does with the rings? I’ve never asked. A sign of weakness, for sure.
She comes back in the room.
“I’m sorry,” she says.
I don’t say anything.
“For slamming the door, baby. You know I just get angry when we talk about your drinking.”
“I haven’t drank a single drop in three weeks. There’s nothing in the fridge. I don’t even think about it.”
“But you want to.”
“If I’m not thinking about it, how can I want to?”
“I just know you do. Just like you wish she was here instead of me.”
That just isn’t fair. It’s also not true. It was true. But the one thing I’m going to take out of this relationship is that she doesn’t matter anymore. And by she, I mean the redhead that stole the best years of my life. The one who left me cold. The one who changed the locks because she thought I’d do something stupid. Funny. I never even yelled at her during our relationship. I was scared to death of fighting. A scar from another failed dance. Avoiding conflict does as much damage, if not more, than actual conflict does.
Anyway, the eyes knew they could say anything to me. As long as they looked me deeply. A master manipulator this gal was. I knew it. She knew it. And that was the worst part. When she knows she has the power, she uses it. Keeping her guessing was the right thing to do. And it was us until four months in. Then I told her. And I remember the smile that came across her face. She had me.
Just like she has me now.
Until she’s done.

do you love me?

We’d been having problems for awhile now. Little things mostly. Silence at dinner. Short conversations when we had them. Not making plans.

So I asked one morning “Babe, are you OK?”

“Of course,” she said after a little bit too long of a pause and with a grin that looked more like a grimace. “Why?”

“Because something’s changed. Not saying it’s good or bad. Just that something is different than it was.”

We started dating almost three years ago. It happened one night, kind of by accident, but not really. I guess one of us had a motive.

“It just feels strange lately, babe,” I continued. “We just aren’t us lately.”

She’d been working long, hard hours at work. Me? I’d been trying to write a novel. And getting about as far as Jack Nicholson in “The Shining.” What little work I was getting paid for, was just enough to distract me from what I should have been doing.

“Let’s go get drunk tonight,” she said eagerly. “That’s how we met. That’s how we coped during the lean times. So, let’s do it!”

I smiled. She had that look in her eyes. The one that got me that first night we kissed. It’s a rarity to see that in someone’s eyes. And when you find it, you’ve got to grab hold of it and do everything you can so it doesn’t disappear. So far, every other time, it went away.

“You got it babe,” I said, kissing her on the cheek.

“That’s all I get?” she said coyly, pretending to sad.

That’s all the cue I needed. Soon, we were naked again and enjoying each other.

After a sweaty mess of a time, I laid there in bed watching her. I had the luxury of being able to do that, not having a real job. She was clumsy, dropping her bra when she was looking for a pair of underwear. Or simply forgetting something and having to run back into the room seconds later.

I smiled at this.

“What?” she asked.

“I love you, don’t every forget that.”

“Never will darlin’.”

I pulled up the covers to my chin. I’m glad I asked. In the past, I would have just ignored the signs. Let them grow. Let them become doubts. Needless doubts, but doubts. And when they sprout, they grow like vines. They choke out everything else. They spread to the other person. Before you know it, you’re alone, wondering what the fuck happened.

Don’t know when I realized that. I guess the last time. When she left without a word on a Saturday afternoon. Two hours before she said she was. Not even a note. Just gone. With all her stuff.

A little over a year later, after we’d reconnected a bit, she did it again. I saw it coming, however. Wasn’t killed by it. Just hurt. But if I’d just asked, I would have known at least a month earlier. Instead, I just watched.

The next girl didn’t have the eyes. I wasn’t consumed by her stare. It sucked. I wanted it to be there. But it wasn’t. It took me over a year to finally one night to drunkenly try something. We enjoyed a night. Then woke up the next day without much to say. I chocked it up to just being scared of being hurt. We were both gun shy by this point in our lives. Probably at a time when that should have been the furthest thought, but instead consumed us like 14 year old school kids.

One night, I asked her why she stayed with me.

“I like you,” she said.

“But you don’t love me, do you?”

Silence.

A little while later, I asked again.

“Do you love me?”

“I guess not.”

“Yeah, it’s just not there, is it?”

We stayed together for another year. But the end was inevitable.

One night in our favorite bar, I saw her. She had the most gorgeous eyes I’d seen in a long time. I couldn’t help but look at her in the mirror behind the bar.

“You should go talk to her,” my girlfriend said.

“What?” I said, shocked at this.

“You’ve been looking at her the entire time she’s been in here. She’s your type.”

“I can’t.”

“Why? Because of me?”

“No. … I’m scared.”

She looked at me and laughed. Then she bought another drink and a second one. Except it was a drink she’d never have -- a Singapore sling. She sent it to the other woman. From me.

I watched this happen. The other girl looked over at me, took the drink and held it up with a smile and a blown kiss.

By the end of the night, I had her number and her eyes in my head.

They’re still there. Thankfully. Because I don’t think I could do it without them.