mcgrew's Journal: -- Battery, Jail, and Robbery

"I'm gonna beat that cunt's ass!"

I was startled. Charlie never uses the word "cunt". Like most women, she hates that word.

She'd said her boyfriend had thrown her out, and I'd reluctantly agreed to let her crash on my couch over the weekend until she could move into her new place, a room KY was renting. I'd gotten up to go to church that morning, and she'd not wanted to go along. "I ain't ready to repent," she said. "I ain't been in church for thirty years!" Which meant she'd not gone since she was about ten. No problem; I'd have my church buddy Tammy to keep me company. When I got home, Charlie had polished off my last forty ounce bottle of beer, so we went to the bar. After a couple of beers, her phone rang and she went outside to answer it. I chatted with KY while she was outside.

KY smiled at her outburst. "What cunt's that?" he asked.

"My stepdad's girlfriend, that no good rotten bitch! Pops found out where she is and he's taking me to beat her fucking ass!"

This should have raised alarms with me, since Pops was the "ex" boyfriend, a guy maybe ten years older than me. A while later she left. A couple more beers and I did, too, to eat and take the car home before I was drunk, planning on walking back up to the bar. She called as I was walking out the door. "I'm headed up to Felbers", I told her. "You're going to have to drive back." I drove on up to the bar, and after three beers she showed up.

"What happened to you?" someone asked her. "Don't worry, she got a lot worse than I did. You ought to see that goddamned bitch's face!"

I drank another three before we headed home, armed with a couple more forty ouncers. I rolled a joint and put the "Our Cops is On" episode of My Name Is Earl on. The pot makes funny things funnier, and we were laughing our asses off. The scene came on where Patty the Daytime Hooker has her hand in a soda machine and tells the cop "don't worry, I ain't stealin' soda, I'm coolin' off my hand for a client that's into dead people!"

Something about that struck me as extremely funny and I howled with laughter, looked at Charlie -- and she punched me in the face. "You bastard!" she screamed, and tried to kick me in the balls. Luckily she missed; my thigh hurt for days.

Then she started breaking my stuff, and I ran out to the porch and called 911. When they got there, she'd smashed a beer mug on the TV screen, and I was lucky the TV didn't break. It must be made of that Gorilla Glass.

Charlie told the cops I'd beaten her, and they took me to jail. I asssumed they'd taken her, too, since she'd blacked my eye. They hadn't, and I'd forgotten about the fight she'd been in earlier in the day.

When I got out the next day, with no charges filed at all, I walked the three miles home, dead cell phone in my pocket, and discovered that both of my computers, a bunch of tapes and DVDs, my garage door opener, my phone charger, and some other things were missing.

I drove up to work, and saw my boss walking. I parked and walked up to him. "Wow," he said, "what happened to you?"

I told him the sad tale, and since it was half an hour to quitting time anyway, took a vacation day for that day and got my spare phone charger from my office and went home to start cleaning up the mess she'd made. I plugged the phone in and called the cops to report the theft.

The cop gave me a hard time, telling me I was stupid. I agreed with him; I sure felt stupid. "Look," he said, "don't ever let anybody into your house! My own cousin wanted to stay a week with me and I wouldn't let her!"

I still hadn't put two and two together, until I went up to Felbers and saw KY, who reminded me of Charlie's earlier fight. It all clicked -- she'd had the heist planned all along. A few other things clicked, too; She'd always hated thieves and hookers, and it turned out that she was a thief, and probably a prostitute as well, especially considering her reaction to my laughter at Patty the Daytime Hooker.

I called Tammy, or tried to, because I needed to talk to someone about forgiveness. I was having a hell of a time forgoving Charlie; she'd beaten me, slandered me, jailed me, and robbed me. But I just got voicemail; it seemed as if either God wasn't with me, or I was having to suffer for some other reason. How could I possibly hope to understand the motives of a being smart enough to create an entire universe? But perhaps it was because I hadn't really gotten the forgoveness thing. Apparently I hadn't, because I was pissed. I'd have liked to see her skinned alive and salted.

Not a Christian attitude, is it? But perfectly human.

Tammy called the next day, and I told her the sad tale. She called daily, worrying about me. She was there Friday night, and stayed until the next day. I was just about to roll a joint when she saw two police cars outside -- with Charlie. She'd come to get her junk out of the garage.

I was worried, because Tammy was livid at what Charlie had done and was determined to do violence to her.

Charlie claimed she didn't have the garage remote or the house key she'd stolen. "well," Tammy said, "I guess you can't get your stuff, because there's no garage door opener." Charlie came up with the opener and house key, having just lied to the cops, who noticed it.

After Charlie and the cops left, Tammy told me that she loved me, and wanted me to bring my laundry to church, and she'd tale it home with her and wash it. The scent of pheromones was in the air, and I think I was on the verge of being seduced.

Then her phone rang; it was Tami, whose calls I'd been ignoring. Tammy's mood changed quickly, and started accusing me of being in love with Tami. It went on all afternoon, and by nightfall she stomped out of the house and went... who knows where she went? I'd put enough gas in her car for her to get home.

The next day she wasn't at church, and left a nasty voicemail on my phone.

Then George dropped by. "I've got a voicemail from Charlie I want you to hear, she said I shouldn't come and visit you." It was her, accusing me of smashing a beer mug into her face. I told him the sad story.

"You're not the first one she's done that to. There's a guy on 13th street that had the same thing happen; she picked a fight with him, he beat her ass and she stole his stuff when the guy was in jail."

Then it hit me -- she'd tried to victimise me once before, a couple of years ago when she actually had been living with me. She'd clocked me three times, but I hadn't struck back, thwarting her evil plans. So this time she made sure she got in a real fight first.

"I'm scared as hell," he said. "I won't let her in my house, not even my car. I haven't since I heard about the guy on thirteenth street."

I'm about to give up on women entirely before I become a mysogonist. Or maybe I'll take Kathy D. to church next week...

Or...

[Captain Splendid]

...you could just stop being such a goddamned easy lay.

And don't give me that excuse that you're male. It's the 21st century: keep up!

Social circles.

[Securityemo]

Maybe it's just me being abhuman, but how does someone respectable knowingly wind up associating with people like this? Do you do missonary/welfare work?

Re:

[mcgrew]

Do you do missonary/welfare work?

I try to help people who are less fortunate than me. As to missionary, no. I'm not out to convert anyone to my religion.