Pushing open the door to the realtors’ waiting area only served to remind me of the abortion clinic visit only six months before – even more vividly: it was probably the lighting. All of these offices have the same type of lights:
“Are you sure we're in the right place, Gerald?”
“We're in the right place, Ryndra. I’m sorry about the mistake I made. Lets just -- ”
I stared at him with as much anger as I could muster without also throwing up on the floor:
“That wasn’t a simple mistake, G. It really wasn’t. With all of the babies you’ve helped bake and then kill in various women, how do you not know the difference between a place that convinces women to keep their children versus an abortion clinic?”
When he stared at me blankly with those fake tears, that I had found him to be famous for, and no words, I added a hypothetical “I’ll wait!”
“Listen… Listen…” he whispered fiercely into my ear, “You need to calm the fuck down. You need to calm down right now! Look at me; I am here. I am trying to help. I didn’t abandon you, but here the fuck you are embarrassing me. S-T-O_P.”
I whipped my head around, so that I could face him and he could see that he would just have to get over being embarrassed in this moment. Considering this moment was after all - all his fucking fault and here he was acting like he was doing me a favor by sticking around to help me figure out my next steps... I guess all of those young boys in his project building had his fifty-year-old ass all the way fucked up about exactly whom should be grateful to whom.
Clearly he needed a reminder, and all my chill had evaporated since I had found out that I was pregnant despite the condoms, because he was… poking holes in the condoms and drugging me so that I would sleep - unaware - while he adeptly brought himself to orgasm using my vagina like it was fake.
I saw him stiffening, so it was only right for me to give him what he certainly had coming:
“Oh… ok, so you're embarrassed? Are you more embarrassed or less embarrassed than I was when I had the emergency room doctor inform me that what I thought was a flare was actually my body’s natural reaction to a pregnancy?”
Not giving him a chance to answer, but walking away from him so that he was forced to follow me lest I raise my voice and embarrass him further in listing his transgressions for all of the other ‘baby killers’ in the clinic to hear, I asked another question.
“Are you more or less embarrassed than I was, when I found out that, even though you were feeding me, financing me and eventually fucking me in your mother’s home, you had a girlfriend who believed that you and she were on the road to wedlock? Are you more or less embarrassed than I was when you allowed her to strong arm me mentally into leaving - the place that I considered home for 6 months - in the dead of winter? Are you more or less embarrassed than when I had to tell my pretty loyal boyfriend that I was disloyal; that I had cheated with a man who was a liar, cheater and unable to offer more than problematic penis and a space in his bed, in his mother’s home - in government housing? What’s more embarrassing, Gerald, being yelled at or stepping over piss - pooling in a smelly elevator - to ride a dick that’s attached to someone who doesn’t know the difference between a “right to life?” advocacy group and an abortion clinic? Someone whom I have to front the money to for the damn abortion?”
I had to excuse myself to the restroom at that moment, just to breath and take it all in - because it was all true. I couldn’t believe I had allowed myself to get caught up in this situation with him.
I wretched and ran to the toilet before I ending up throwing up in the sink-as I did that very morning. “I hope he cleaned it up,” I thought to myself before getting it together and bucking up for my procedure…
I had to listen to a lot of his “talk-to-talk” the night before:
“Maybe the trip to the wrong place was a sign from GOD… you know.”
I pulled my shower curtain back to stare in his eyes, when I asked, “A sign? Pray tell, a sign from whom? You really think God would bless me with a baby from you,” I asked innocently with wide eyes that held a raging fire.”
“Yes, I think - ”
I cut him off before he could answer my rhetorical question, men are so stupid sometimes:
“No… GOD would never do that. He would never do that! She would certainly never do that. Why would anything that was in charge of life, anything that could think about the possibility of a life? The potential of a life? Give you a baby to hold and mold. You the damn near fifty-year-old woman-beater who lives with his mother and has nothing to offer a woman, much less a see except a smile full of teeth, hiding a mouth full, a lung full, and loins full of lies? Why should you be responsible for a young person? You want someone else to hit? Are you tired of hitting on me?”
I closed the curtain. Let him talk to that.
“Its been a while since I hit you, Ryn. A long while… and you know it. You know I am sorry. I never would have… You know I'm sorry…”
“Since when is yesterday such a long time ago…You hit me yesterday, G - ”
This time he cut me off:
“No! I pushed you, and you… you fell against the fire escape window lock. That’s what happened. No one hit you! I fuckin' pushed you! That’s something different and…”
SHUT UP! I screamed, grabbing my towel and wrapping it around me. I had been in the shower long enough for my skin to have turned red. I really didn’t want to be naked around him anymore, and I had hoped that my yelling would make him leave the bathroom to me…
It didn’t, so I came out of the shower and began lotion-ing up, but when I was grabbing my toothbrush, I thought to just say what I really wanted to say:
“If you had kept your hands to yourself we wouldn’t have to parse the difference between pushing and hitting. And I was pregnant when you pushed me! There will be no babies from me, not for you. As a smart person, possibly the smartest motherfucker you have ever known, why would I make that decision? Why would I tie myself and my family to someone who can’t even grasp the basics of keeping his FUCKING HANDS TO HIS FUCKING SELF?!”
I watched him stand in the mirror behind me, head down - probably fake sulking - in his way.
I brushed my teeth purposely, waiting for him to lift his head. I wanted his eyes to meet mine when I finished my statement. I refused to let this bounce off his bald head. I wanted him to fucking feel what I was going to say next. When he lifted his head I was ready:
“And I am not giving birth to any babies for you to teach that men don’t have to keep their hands to themselves…”
Then I took off this simple but elegant Swarvorski bracelet he purchased for me a few months earlier . It was really nice. Simple , but gold and it had those Swarvorski crystals in it ; something all my white suburban friends valued like diamonds. I got so many compliments on it and it really suited me-for a time anyway.
He knew I liked it. I wore it all the time .It was funny , because when I initially put it on , I wore it to give Chimeze the fever. It didn't mean anything to me, but it symbolized his losing me to Gerald and he was, but I was also losing myself, more every second that I kept it on. Now I took it off to give Gerald the fits and reclaim myself-for me. Also, i reasoned . 'the abortion clinic doesn't want me wearing jewelry during the procedure.'
I fingered it gently, and placed it in the soapdish, at first, for an easy retrieval , but then -after thinking for a moment- I tossed it in the toilet and flushed -before leaving the bathroom.
That was the last thing I had said to him before I went to sleep to sounds of his sobs. “They were probably fake,” I thought then and again now. I only felt bad about making one man cry, and that was because even though no one is perfect - I didn’t believe Chimeze had deserved all the pain that had brought the tears about… Gerald however, he could drown in his tears… twice!
***
I walked out of the bathroom, past him. He was waiting outside the bathroom. “For what,” I thought. Then I turned to ask him,
“You thought I needed help wiping my ass?”
Without missing a beat, as if he had anticipated my curt statement, before it left my mouth:
“No, I just thought you might need someone to hold your hair back, so you wouldn’t get vomit in it – like it did this morning.”
Because the girl who is going to have her first abortion needs humbling. In any event, I was happy he reminded me just who he was, as I was dangerously close to punking out and having the baby.
Though it would seem to be an oxymoron, I had started to think that I could pretty much guilt Gerald into behaving himself - in ways that would prove impossible with other men. For a millisecond, I thought that if he just motivated a bit, I could sprinkle a bit of emotional manipulation on him, every so often, and probably never have to deal with his hand problem, his lying problem or his cheating problem again.
His not so gentle retort reminded me why - not so much.
I looked at him for a second . I wanted to give him one final glance before I made the decision to kill his baby - as that was exactly what was happening. The life inside me wasn’t part mine, I didn’t actively decide for it to be here. He made that decision all on his own.
“Ms. Wright?!...”
I looked up to see a lady in pink scrubs, reading from what appeared to be a clipboard, and looking around the room.
I raised my hand and when I walked over she pointed a gloved finger at my purse and shopping bag - containing a pair of new underwear - indicating I couldn’t bring my bags with me. I hurried over to where I had been seated and placed my baggage on Gerald’s lap so I could get on with the business of getting rid of his…
MOOD
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