The week had been a whirlwind of emotion.  Coming down off the high of a spectacular Warfare, things got real again in a hurry.  Before Friday had become Saturday, Lauren was gone.  First came the pain and the heartache.  Then the quiet disbelief.  After that came the manic rage and the subsequent deconstruction of her Jeep Wrangler.  All of it, in record time.  Then I had to figure out how I was supposed to tell a 13 year old boy that literally chose her to be his mother, that the woman he picked had abandoned him.

Abandoned us.

I can forgive a lot of things.  That isn’t one of them.  You’re done and want out?  Fine.  Go.  But YOU tell your son you’re leaving.  YOU tell him why.  YOU explain to him why it has to be.  Instead, she saddled me with the task of having to break his heart and she can burn all the way in Hell for that.  I don’t care what’s going through her mind or that she didn’t want to confront me about leaving.  She should have told him.

By Saturday afternoon, I decided I was gonna go blow off some steam in Vegas.  It’s cliche as hell, but it’s a cliche for a reason.  I wasn’t going alone.  My old friend, my buddy, my pal Ricky Rodriguez would go with me.  By very late Saturday night, he and I were plastered drunk wandering around the Strip.  We didn’t get a chance to hang out much anymore.  He was busy, I was busy and plus we just travel in different circles these days.  Nevertheless, I loved Ricky like a brother.  I know I say that about a few guys, but it’s never a lie.

---

Ricky and I had landed in Las Vegas at around midnight local time.  Truth be told, we were already plastered drunk and high as hell.  Once we disembarked, we wandered around the Strip for a while, stopping into different casinos primarily to grab more booze.  Within a few minutes, we were off again on our little adventure.

”Let’s go over there,” I said to Ricky.

”That’s a construction site,” he advised.  ”Could be dangerous.”

”I know, that’s kinda the point.”

I was fully into self destruction mode.  Even drunk and stoned, I knew that was the case.  I also didn’t really care.  Las Vegas was a place where I could just let it all go and what will be, will be.  Que sera sera, as ALIAS was so fond of saying.  My heart was broken, there’s no sense denying that.  In a lot of ways maybe I did deserve it.  I was not a good husband our first year.  But if the situation were reversed, I’d have told her I was leaving in person.  I’d have given her a chance to speak.  I’d have told her that despite how much I loved her, that I needed to do this for me.  Most of all, I’d have explained to our son why this had to happen.  He would’ve hated me for a while.  Instead, she left with a simple note.  As if everything we had endured meant absolutely nothing to her.  As if her son didn’t deserve to hear it from her own mouth.

---

As fate would have it, he blamed me anyway.

”What the hell did you do!?” he shrieked.

”I didn’t do anything this time!  I swear to God Frank!” I told him.

Naturally, he did not believe me.  I don’t know when it happened, but there came a time that when we’d be having adult conversation, I’d only call him Frank, not Frankie.  Sometimes Francis, but mostly Frank.  He yelled and screamed at me when I told him about his mom.  When that kid is angry or hurt, he can cut a god damn promo.  He says hurtful things that are lined with truth whether they have any bearing on the current situation or not.  Several minutes of uncomfortable silence followed.

”I’m going to Vegas with Uncle Ricky for a couple days,” I said as he looked at me with the meanest mug I’d ever seen on him.  ”Pack your shit.”

”What do you mean?” he asked angrily with a confused look.

”When I get back, we’re not fuckin’ staying here.”

”Where are we going?”

”Back to Manhattan,” I told him.  ”I'm not staying in this fucking house.”

---

On this construction site in the dead of night, we came across a large crane.  Attached to it was a rather large wrecking ball resting in the dirt.

”Hello Lauren,” I said as I leaned against the destructive device.  ”Glad you could make it.”

”Um Thad?”

”I wanted to tell you what you meant to me before you pissed it all away.”

Fuck.  I'm not a huge drinker.  At parties and socially, sure.  But I don't even remember the last time I had been drunk.  Now, I was absolutely wasted.

”Not real,” I echoed words from her letter.  ”We were as real as it got.”

”Thad, man…”

”I wasn't perfect,” I admitted. ”But I loved you as much as any man could love a woman.  I know I hurt you.  I know I made a lot of selfish choices.  But I've been trying hard to fix that…”

”You do know that that's not actually Lauren, right?”

”Of course I know that,” I replied before returning my attention to the Lauren-Ball.

”Okayjustcheckin’,” Ricky stated.

”I tried to get you to talk,” I said to the wrecking ball.  ”I tried to be there for you, to be patient, to be there when you were ready to confide in me, because no one knows what it's like to put down a family member quite like I do.”

While I continued to lean against the wrecking ball, I stared into the sky for a few moments with my arms folded in front of me.  There was so much I wanted to say to her.  I was caught somewhere on this weird spectrum between hurt, anger, and just flat out missing her.

”You okay?”

”Sure,” I lied.

Fact is, I don't know if I'll ever be okay again.  I tried so many different ways to show her how much I love her.  From buying her things she only ever dreamt of as a little girl, to giving her the one thing she couldn't give herself- children. Many times, we danced beneath the moonlight without a song to guide us through the motions.  So much more.

On paper, no, maybe we weren't a match.  We came from different worlds.  Her, from the slums of Chicago's South Side.  Me, from the proverbial ivory tower.  As much as certain people like to make a big deal about my money, I don’t judge those that didn’t grow up the way I did.  The way I look at it, is I try to treat people the way I want to be treated.  I try to befriend everyone.  I don’t care how many zeroes are in your bank accounts, why do you care how many are in mine?

I was a selfish man during our marriage, and I know I was.  I made a lot of mistakes that I've felt guilty for. And I should feel guilty.  But there's nothing I wouldn't do to take that all back.  Not because she left, but because she never deserved to go through that in the first place.  She deserved a better man than I was to her in the beginning.  Over the last year since I entered treatment for my addiction, I tried hard to be a better man, to be what she deserved.  Maybe it just wasn't soon enough.

Perhaps, this is justice served.

”Hey,” Ricky called out from the cab of the crane.  ”There's keys in it.”

”Really?” I asked.  To which he nodded.  ”Then fire it up!  I know you know how to do that.”

Leaning off of the wrecking ball, I started to climb up the crane to join Ricky.

”I do,” he agreed.  ”I really do.”

He turned the key and the crane rumbled to life as I made my way inside the cab.

”See that wall?” I pointed out to Ricky while he messed with the controls to figure out what lever operated what function.  ”Let’s put a huge hole in it.”

Ricky looked at me for a second as if he didn't hear me right. Saying nothing, I only nodded to signal my seriousness.  Soon after, the ball lifted from the dirt and the machine lurched forward toward a block wall at least 30 feet high.  The first strike was light.  It broke a few blocks and some mortar that held it all together, but the wrecking ball largely just kind of bounced off.  On the second attempt, Ricky kicked the crane into a higher gear and sent the ball smashing through the wall.

”That's so satisfying,” I said as I watched the wall fall apart and crumble in the dirt.  Ricky killed its engine and we started to make our way out of the heavy equipment.

”You know?” he said as we started walking back toward the Strip.  ”I think that was a new wall.”

”How unfortunate,” I sighed.

As we walked back toward the Strip, I’m not sure if I had the words or the wherewithal to really convey what I felt.  Lauren and I had been through so much, especially early on.  We came out of it.  We were good.  So good in fact that we had our actual wedding ceremony around a year ago.  Thinking about the wedding caused me to drag my fingers along my forearm tattoo of our little girl's name.  She and I were happy again.  We were close again.  I don’t know.  Maybe it was too little, too late.  Maybe the things I put her through were too much to truly overcome.  Maybe the love we shared… just wasn’t enough anymore.

Even still… to sneak out and leave without uttering a single word?

Coward.





That doesn’t even sound like her.