Looking Backward in Darkness. Kathryn Ptacek

      Now what was I saying before I got sidetracked?

      Oh, yeah, the male/female thing.

      Everything is just so...polar, isn’t it? Black...white...leftist...rightist...innie or outie...navels, that is.

      We’re all divided into two groups, no matter what. Rich or poor. Black or white. Left or right. Liberal or conservative. Strong or weak. Girl or boy.

      Is that what everything in life comes down to? A girl thing? A boy thing?

      East is east, and west is west, and never the twain shall meet?

      The strong and the weak...I know that’s how you thought about us. You were strong. I was weak.

      And thinking that, why did you marry me?

      Everything I did or said or thought—everything that was the essence of me—you seemed to despise or at the very least disapprove of and want to change.

      And they say women are always trying to remake their men. Ha! I think you saw in me what I could be, or at least what I could be in your eyes. You know, sweetie, you really should have waited longer for what you really wanted and not settled on me.

      What the hell did I know about these things? I was practically a kid when I met you. I just thought some great guy had fallen for me.

      But I see that we were never very compatible, not even from the beginning.

      I liked country, you liked jazz, and neither one of us was willing to listen to the other’s musical choices. God knows I tried, but whenever I asked questions about some jazz piece, you always made fun of me in that condescending way you have. Had.

      Oh, you didn’t know you were condescending? Please. It’s your number one personality feature. Or maybe your bossiness is. Oh, wait. In a man “bossiness” becomes “assertiveness.” That’s right. It’s only bossiness when it comes to a woman. That’s another one of the weird boy/girl things.

      Oops. Sorry. I shouldn’t have burped. That’s another thing women don’t do, my mother always said. But the word she used was “belched.” “Burp” to her was so vulgar. Vulgar. Honestly, I can’t even begin to think of things in terms like that. Vulgar. Ladylike.

      I shouldn’t try to laugh and swallow my drink at the same time. Now I’ve dribbled soda down my front. That’s certainly “unladylike.” It’s so dark on the material...looks almost like blood, doesn’t it?

      Guess I shouldn’t bring that up, huh?

      You didn’t like my friends much, either. But you got rid of them fast enough—you were rude to them, or came on to them and embarrassed us all, and after a while my girlfriends stopped coming by, quit calling, and effectively you had me all to yourself. You always thought I was a hick. Maybe I was, but I didn’t see anything wrong with it. I don’t see that all your so-called worldly ways and expensive education got you very far. Some ambition in there would have helped, I reckon.

      You laughed at me when I said I wanted to go to college. What did I need a degree for, you wanted to know, when all I’d ever be was a housewife? When I took community college classes, you made fun of me, and asked me if I was taking underwater basket weaving. You even visited a few of the classes in an attempt to ridicule me. The professor asked if I would drop out, because you were disturbing the other students.

      Every time I tried to better myself, you knocked me down—figuratively-speaking, of course. I’ll say this, Randy, you never laid a hand on me. I would have left you the minute you had. Or at least that’s what I hope I would have. Plenty of women leave their men when the hitting begins. Too many don’t, though.

      But you didn’t have to hit me with your hand. You hit me in other ways. Mentally, psychically, emotionally. The bruises were inside.

      So, you despised me and my likes, and when I tried to change, you despised me all the more. You wanted to mold me, mold me into what, I don’t know.

      I may have been young when we married, but I wasn’t mindless. That’s what you needed. Some mindless little bimbo or groupie type who would have hung on every word you spoke, who would willingly have done anything and everything for you.

      You knew from the beginning I wouldn’t.

      And maybe that’s what intrigued you, maybe that’s what made you want me all the more. Kind of like a rider who sees a wild horse he’s got to tame.

      You tried to tame me, you really did. Or rather—break my spirit. It almost worked. Almost.

      You despised me because you despised yourself. You were a no-talent, barely-get-by type of guy with zilch ambition. Only you had everyone fooled with your good looks and your charm. Those qualities can go a long way, but not everyone is fooled by them.

      And the older you got, the more you realized that—just how empty you were, and how full I was. Empty...full...there’s another one of those little contrasts.

      And so it wasn’t bad enough that you were a total bastard toward me. You decided to turn the kids against me. Every chance you could you ridiculed me in front of them, you told them how dumb I was, how stupid, how this or that, and all the time you were talking about yourself.

      Of course, kids listen to their dads, and after a while, they began to see me the same way. No matter what I did, they thought I was dumb.

      I almost walked out then. But I wanted to give our marriage a chance, I wanted to give the kids—and you—a chance.

      I should have left, Randy, should have cut my losses then.

      Then the kids could have seen just what sort of a “hero” you were. I’d like to have seen you try to fix their lunches, and do their laundry and make dinner for them after you’d been at work all day. But I forget...you wouldn’t have done that...you would have found some housekeeper right away, or you would have gone around, looking like such a sad sack, “betrayed” by his wife—and before long you’d had some other little girl-woman taking care of you. Your kind never does without for very long.

      God, I’m tired. I’ve been cleaning the house from top to bottom. I’ve been going room by room, and it’s amazing how much you can get done if you really put your mind to it. Of course, there’s just me now in it, no one else to track mud through the just waxed kitchen floor, no one to spill soda or fruit juice on the carpet, no one to leave toothpaste gobs in the bathroom sink. I mean, I know I’m a little messy now and then, but I swear, hon, that I think you used to do it on purpose. I would just get something clean, and you’d go and drip something gooey on it, and I’d have to scrub it again. I know you got a big kick out of it—sometimes, even with my head down as I scrubbed, I could see you out of the corner of my eye, and you’d be grinning this big old grin. Yeah, that was a big kick for you. Really got your rocks off on it, didn’t you? Just another way to keep me under your thumb. Of course, the times I decided not to clean, not to sweep up after you and the kids, the place became a real pigsty, and I got worried for their health. Not yours, mind you, but theirs.

      Not that it matters any more. Nothing much matters any more, I guess.

      Except that I have a very clean house.

      And I can sleep in as late as I want in the morning. No one demanding to know where their lunch is or their schoolbooks, didn’t I iron a shirt, why didn’t I do that, just as if the three of you couldn’t do a lick of work yourselves. I guess it was just easier to sit in front of the tube and have good ol’ Mom run your errands and wait on you like I was your maid.

      That’s pretty much a pattern in my family, so I shouldn’t have been surprised. My mother waited on my father hand and foot, and even though he’d be sitting closer to something, he’d ask her to get it for him. And she’d do it. Her mother did it for my grandfather, too. I hated that when I was going up; I hated my father for using my mom like some work animal, and I hated her for going along with it. Never once did he thank her, or say, sit down, Bess, you’re tired, I’ll get my beer, I’ll make myself a sandwich, hey, do you