The Marriage Mêlée

I am a passionista about a lotta things. Lately I am a passionista about writing on this blog. I hope this continues. I recently found a short story about the breakup of a marriage. I was inspired by a friend going through a divorce. I wrote this last year, hope you like it. Here goes:

This is who you are.

I’m an out-of-work overweight former bad B movie actress, infamous for “Planet of the Sexaholic Kittens,” now married to a late bloomer, philanthropist, and famous psychologist, Dr. Boyregard Swittle, who told me this morning that he’s leaving me for a Playboy Bunny (famous AND infamous) named Gigi (from France, barely speaks English, doesn’t need to) and that he wants all my things out by the end of the day.

Mind-boggling.

This is what you are.

A statistic in the dogma of feminist issues, items, org charts. A new blip in the roller coaster ride of DivorceLand.com, snuggled crusty knee-deep in the death-and-destruction-of-relationship universe. Voted off the Marry-Go-Round. Kicked off the Kaboodle. (And not allowed to take the Kit.) Decreed a has-been socialite, a once-thespian and soon-to-be ex-wife of a multi-millionaire – a genius/extraordinaire being whose saved thousands of lives emotionally with counseling. Yet another future divorcee; Prêt a Porter = Ready to Wear. Suddenly comatose at 8:01 am. Sordidly blinded by so-called “love.” Someone who stashed quick cash in the bank from B movies such as “Cat Man Do from Mars” while he went to medical school.

Implausible.

This is where you are.

Middle America. Suburbia = Hell, to be exact. My future ex-husband hired movers, who haul into our three-car garage driveway. Time Flies When You’re Having Fun reads the van’s name. I am: in the kitchen, with a butcher knife, seizing and slicing red pulsating meat while it dribbles on the floor. I am: in shock, on the phone with my best friend, Deirdre, who sympathizes with me. I am: in my fuzzy pink bathrobe, torn between calling the police and suicide (Death by Chocolate ice cream awaits me in the freezer). The movers thrust into my home unannounced and track muck and gore all over the hallway floor. I am: in my skivvies, underneath the fuzzy pink bathrobe; I reel backwards into this hellhole. I set down the bloody red meat-encrusted knife. I breathe deeply. This is sheer madness. This thwarts me (more than I was in “Dr. Peculiar’s Strange Purple-Twisted Pussycat”).

Unreal.

This is why.

The movers pull everything hysterically out of my closet into hard moving boxes, and then pummel everything into the van. This is all I can take. Not even my movie poster for “Kruelle de Da-Da-Da, All the Way Home” (which was indeed received very badly in the states, but critically acclaimed in Bangladesh). The Demon King rings to tell me that I have one hour to get out of the house because he’s bringing Playboy Bunny Bitch home. He’s not in love with me anymore. Never was.

Unbelievable.

This is when.

I steal his family heirloom! I bolt upstairs. The Demon King desires to find buried treasure at his ancestor’s home (Scotland). His family home is a castle, a moat, and a “famous treasure” (never found). In his closet, I twirl the combination on the hidden vault. The door springs open. I pull out the plastic baggy containing the ratty-looking Treasure Map. I rush away to hide forever. He will abandon everything to find me. It means more to him than anything, maybe even more than his newly minted toy, the Playboy Bunny. Something wicked stirs inside me; I feel alive. The wanderlust buried deep beneath my surface burbles and rises; I am ready to rumble and roll.

Ready? Set: go.

What’s happening now?

It’s raging chaos. I’m at Mattie Wilder’s party; Hortensia Petuneveille divvies up the drinks, mainly chocolate martinis for all the chocoholics, one Ethan Frome-look-alike with owl eyes dishes chocolate fudge in yawning-large black bowls (did I mention it’s a chocolate party?), and wild Cajun music fires the room. I groove into chocolate bliss, this extreme heaven.

I’m hiding from The Demon King. He’s no doubt on the prowl for me since I stole his family’s Treasure Map. It’s in my pocket and I’m not putting it down for a second, no matter where I go. I feel the effects of a chocolate coma; I’ve overdosed on the stuff.

How did I get here?

Ten minutes ago I scurried around in my house stashing my suitcase with jewelry and the Treasure Map while Clover Dangerfield (my nosy next door neighbor and pseudo-friend) pounded on my front door. I ignored her. She persisted by shrieking with her annoying whistle-stop-traffic sort of voice that actual loons from the 17th century have.

She told me that our favorite party animal neighbor was having a party where I could hide. She’d figured out that my husband and I had split. I’m sure the moving van
was a huge clue.

Her favorite hobbies: spying on neighbors and playing with new boy toys (the Fed-Ex Man, the Plumber, and last year the Landscape Architect before he moved to L.A. to pursue Californication Dreamin’).

She handed me a ticket to Mexico that she’d never used (still open, first class, one-way) and told me I could drink heavily at Mattie’s party while I decided what to do – besides, it was three doors down from my house and my husband would never think to look for me there, plus she told me she’d drive my get-away car to the airport for me. She made it sound so easy.

What is happening right now?

Mattie Wilder supplies me with chocolate Jell-O shots. I imbibe, getting trashed, having usurped the comatose-chocolate effect. I’m at that scantily clad point of no return, not only with the chocolate, but also with my life. I yearn to find hidden fortune in Scotland, but I have to think of a circuitous way to get there without The Demon King knowing.

As I mull this over in my chocolotta-raged-alcoholic-basin-brain, a man sidles up to me and slurs his words.

Don’t Trust Her.

Excuse Me? I say, but he dives into me, leans on me, and I flinch. A woman behind me screams: He’s dead! Suddenly, he falls over and a steel gray knife slices into his back! Blood gushes everywhere and squirts on my jacket.

People scream as I squirm away. I dash through the drunken chocolate party-animals and burst outside, leaving my luggage in the guestroom. I slide into my car quickly.

Clover darts behind me; she bursts with energetic guise, this time a fierce look in her golden cat’s eyes. Oh, she’s crafty! Suddenly I see her: a vixen, a real spy. She waves her arms but I pull the car in reverse and roll backwards.

I zigzag down the drive as gunshots fire!

I burrow down in my seat, and peel my car out of the neighborhood. Just as I pass my own house, The Demon King’s car lights flash. He screeches after me in his Hot Rod, a Blazing Red Jaguar XJR-15. I gun my Lexus; press hard on the gas, engine-cringing out of sight!

Metal-to-the-pedal! I never-crunched-hard-ravaging-madness this much!

I flee, I lunge, and I push away. I turn, spurn, burn, chomp, munch, gnaw, gore, hack, hurdle, spittle, tear, rasp, pant, charge, and grittle-gritch-gallop down the streets, fitfully looking in my rear view – and he’s right behind me!

It’s a crazy-race chase through this nightmare. It’s really madness, masqueraded by all these slow subtle years of marriage, of badlands of boredom. The humdrum elements swell and surge through my brain.

How can this be? This whimsical distress of a nightmare clogs my mind; I flash by all the capacious houses, green fledged trees, flourishing flowers, lavish gardens. My world’s impression: haphazardly a farce. Underneath the belly of this normalcy bouillon of my life blasts a balloon of a blaze, brimstone, fiery madness, and bizarre wilderness. All suddenly erupts!

What. The. Hell.

I decide quickly: lose The Demon King! I think quickly. What would he expect me to do now? I do the opposite!

He’s planned this! He’s plotted this moment, foraging all his spineless brain cells - but he has no idea how desperate and ferocious I am. He squelched my rising star, but now I’m free!

Highway 13 spurns ahead, a new unknown highway (totally unfinished, near the river, blocked-off). I plow ahead and hurdle over the precipice part of the highway. I glance back and he is still right there! My car careens. I splash down below into the depths of the wily river, as he follows in his car. Everything burbles, bends, beckons, billows beneath, in the heavy water. Blurp!

His weaknesses: bad night vision, and he never learned to swim.

What now, the Morning After?

A mid-morning poem engages me, post-war, and present bliss:

Bravado so rash,
Over his spine-tingly ass,
A champion among evil prevails today.
Cajole, callay, an-dah-lay!
Hey! Chocolate, ahoy! Hooray,
I won’t have to take any more,
Splash, dash, crash, and I win the war!