Part I
I don’t get to say her name; that’s the rule, right? You don’t get to use real names. So, let’s call her “Patchouli.” Not that she smells like patchouli, she doesn’t, and frankly, she doesn’t have dreadlocks or wear tie-dyes, but when I talk to her it reminds me of the way the smell of patchouli makes me feel. I know to most people patchouli smells like a dirty hippy, but for me, it’s a comforting smell. Like bare feet on the cool tile, white bed sheets on a windy line, and early Beatles. She’s that feeling. She’s Patchouli.
I pick up the phone, kick my feet up on my desk, and call her. “What’cha up to? Want to go for coffee?”
“Ah…you wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
“Are you watching a bear ride a tricycle, because that always amazes me? How do they get their little paws on those peddles?” I lean the phone on my shoulder and move my hands in circles. I hear a faint laugh on the other end of the phone and imagine the half-smile that goes with it. It’s interrupted by a BANGING in the background. “What’s that?”
“Yeah…um, that would be my ex-boyfriend.” I wait for her to explain. Her tone goes casual as if to imply she’s told this story before. “He had a job interview. He asked me to come with him to the mall to go shopping for interview clothes. He showed me a shirt, I told him I didn’t think he needed to buy it; that he had nicer shirts at home. That somehow got interpreted to mean I thought he had a bad taste in clothes, which…sort of setting him off.”
“What do you mean by ‘set him off?’”
“You know, ‘set him off.’ Like the typical, abusive, girl… hitting… thing… archetype.” I pull my feet off the desk and sit up in my chair.
“Heroes and villains are archetypes, guys who hit girls are just being cliché.” I lean down to put on my shoes.
She continues, “Yeah, well, at any rate, so now I’m in the bathroom.”
“T-Mobile?”
“Verizon.”
“Wow, my cell phone hardly ever works in the house, much less in the bathroom. So, did you check the cell phone coverage in the bathroom in anticipation of this moment, or was it serendipity?” There’s another loud BANG in the distance as I lace up my shoes. Momentarily distracted, she pulls focus back to our conversation.
“Yeah, so he’s been banging for over an hour.” I grab my keys and head out.
“I’m on my way-”
“-No, don’t do that! He’s not…good.” The engine hums and I start driving.
“How old is this guy?”
“Does his Dad makeover or under $100,000 a year?”
“Over, way over…”
“And is his car worth over or under $30,000?”
“Over.” I turn left out of my complex.
“So let me get this straight. You want me to be worried about a rich kid, nineteen years old, whose daddy bought him his car, who hits 110-pound girls and refuses to take his medication.”
“How’d you know he doesn’t take his medication?” Stuck at a red light, I’m better able to give the conversation my attention.
“Because there is always some medication some rich suburban kid refuses to take. Because he’s not a person, because he’s a cliché. Archetypes I steer clear of, but I’ll kick a cliché’s ass all day long. Pack a bag, I’m on my way.” The light turns green.
When I get to Patchouli’s apartment complex my heart beats fast. My eyes dart across the area faster than they should. It’s the rush before a fight. I turn the corner to see her apartment, but he’s not there. Gone fishing maybe. Up to the stairs I knock on her door, glancing around all the time. The peephole goes dark for a moment, then unlocks and opens. The smell of home billows out and hits me. Then I see her, backpack in hand, silver bracelets on her wrist; just as I remember. Worried, she looks past me to the surrounding area. After a scan of the area, she focuses on me.
“He quit banging a few minutes ago. I don’t know where he went.”
“Do you want me to stay here, or do you want to come with me?”
“I want to go.”
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Part II
We pull into a Cold Stone Creamery. “What are we doing?” she asks. I turn the car off, turn, and face her.
“Well,” I say in exaggerated words, “In my family, we have very few hard and fast rules, but one of them is this, ‘When you call a friend, only to find that friend has locked herself in her bathroom to hide from her abusive ex-boyfriend, and you come over to get her from her apartment, afterward, you MUST go for ice cream.’”
Patchouli gives the smile I imagined on the other side of the phone. She tilts her head down and then turns one of the silver bracelets on her wrist inhabit. She looks back up to me, glean in her eye. “That’s the rule, is it?”
“It’s a seldom-used rule, practically forgotten. I wouldn’t be surprised if your family had the same rule.” I reach for the keys and threaten to start the car. “Now if you want somebody else to come and pick you up from your apartment, I’m happy to take you back and you can call someone else. But if I’m the one picking you up, you’ve got to follow my family rules.” A wide smile gives way as a tear forms at the corner of her eye. She quickly wipes it away.
“Then I guess I’ll have to eat ice cream…”
Ice cream in hand, sitting outside, the conversation continues. A cool breeze blows the shade umbrellas and they rattle around the center hole in the table.
“So,” I say, purposefully talking with too much ice cream in my mouth for comic effect, “I have questions.” Patchouli turns her spoon upside down, licks the ice cream off it, and tilts her head.
“Questions?”
“Yes. You see, you’re the first person I’ve ever known in an abusive relationship that I know well enough to ask questions to. So it's not that I want to pry, but I’m wildly curious to learn about something I totally don’t understand.”
She points her spoon at me in better spirits, “So I’m a science experiment?”
“No, you’re not a science experiment, you’re source material to a slice of America I never get to interact with, like people without a college diploma, or everyone I walk by at the State Fair with bad teeth.”
“I’m flattered…” She takes another bite of ice cream. “Okay, shoot.”
“How’d you meet at Cliché?”
“Mutual friend at a party.”
“And did he seem aggressive, or mean, or off-center when you met him? Did something seem not quite right or did he seem totally normal?”
“Totally normal.”
“Do you know if his Dad ever hit his Mom?
“He never said, but I get the impression yes.”
“And how long until you two slept together?”
She takes the ice cream out of her mouth in mock offense, “None of your business!”
“Okay, well tell me this. When you all were…intimate, was he aggressive, deviant, passive, or well balanced? Was he into anything that would generally be considered inappropriate sexual behavior in Iowa?” A family at the next table glances at us then gets up and leaves. Patchouli sets down her ice cream gives an idle turn on a bracelet, and looks away.
“He was…yeah…um, he liked it when I…um, on him. Wanted that all the time. I mean ALL the time, but refused to return the favor, so to speak. As for if he was into anything Iowa would disapprove of…I wouldn’t really know as he’s the only guy I’ve ever been with, so I don’t really know what ‘normal’ is.”
“Whoa, he was your first?”
She looks back to me, “And only…”
I hold up my hands in mock surprise. “Okay, for future reference, that’s leadoff to the answer, not the addendum. You lead with he was my first, then you go into his love of oral sex.”
“I’ll keep that in mind for future reference.”
“And so, what was the triggering event for you leaving him because these things never just happen on some random Thursday. Did you get sent to the hospital, an epiphany when you were in church, another guy that boosted your self-esteem, a teacher, a hallmark card, did he kick the family dog….dear lord tell me it had something to do with a bear on a tricycle…”
“What is it with you and bears on tricycles?”
“They impress me! How do you train a bear to get on a tricycle? To think this is normal bear behavior? That’s what I want to know. Who is the person that first explains to the bear, ‘No, no, no, this, this is how to bear life is really supposed to be? This is normal. And quit dodging the question, what made you dump him?”
A long pause, her hand goes back to her silver bracelets, and she looks away. The air seems to go stale. “Actually, he broke up with me…”
“Oh.”
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Part III
We spend the next two days together; doing nothing really. We talked about Cliché when she felt like talking, but mostly we goofed off. Watched a movie. Had lunch. Took a walk in the garden at a friend’s house. Fed their chickens and played with a rabbit. Walked in a park and ate pizza. It’s amazing how easily two days of nothing can pass.
Through all this, the phone calls and text messages from Cliché kept coming. Six before she woke up. Another fifteen before lunch. And so it goes. She’d let me listen to them sometimes; she called it my “State Fair Research Project.” The mood swings were the most interesting part. In an hour the messages would go from “I hate you, you vile whore!” to “I miss you, I love you, why won’t you talk to me?” My personal favorite was, “Call me, I’m worried. I just want to know you’re safe.” And then, after two days, the calls stopped. Later that night we went back to her apartment.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to sleep on the couch?”
“No, go home, you’ve done too much already!”
“I’m happy to stay until morning. I can just as easily do homework here as I can at home.”
“Go home!” she yells, as she leans her shoulder and it’s accompanying 110 pounds on me to push me to the door.
I keep talking, pretending not to notice the featherweight. “Okay, I’m going home. My cell phone will be by my bed. Call me if you need me to come back.” I stop at the door and turn around to face her. Standing at the door, everything again goes still.
“Thank you,” Patchouli says.
“Nah, think nothing of it.”
She leans in. I lean in response and our foreheads touch. “No,” she repeats, “Thank you…” We rub noses, then slowly separate.
“Are you kidding me? All-day, every day, I make choices and I don’t know if they’re the right ones and I don’t know if they’re the wrong ones. It’s all perspective; it’s all shades of grey. Rarely, practically never, do I get the opportunity to do the RIGHT thing. Hell, I hardly know what the right thing to do even is. Genocide. Stop genocide. That’s it. That’s pretty much the only thing I know for sure is the right thing to do. But really, when am I ever going to get the chance to stop genocide? Practically never. Thursday, maybe, Thursday…” She smiles and I continue
“This is probably the only time in the last few years where I’ve had the clear opportunity to do something right. And you gave me that opportunity. And for that, frankly, I’m grateful. There will always be more homework to do, but there are few chances to do the right thing. I do, however, have a request. Consider it payment for services rendered…”
“Oh God, what’s that!?
“I want you to block his cell phone number.”
“…okay.”
“You don’t need the stress of hearing his mood swings. If he wants to be crazy and abusive, let him be crazy and abusive via e-mail. Promise me you’ll block his cell phone number.”
“I promise.”
“Promise me again.”
“I promise you again. I will block his cell phone number tomorrow.”
“Promise me a third time; this is important.”
“I promise you a third time.” I take a long moment to look her in the eyes.
“Okay, then we’re even…”
11 pm and out the door I go, but not home. I cross the apartment complex to some stairs with a vantage point of her front door, just in case Cliché decides to turn up. I must have fallen asleep on the stairs around 1 am. At 4 am the cold wakes me up. Sore back, I grab my bag and drive home.
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Part IV
The following afternoon I pick up the phone and call. Patchouli answers.
“Hello.”
“Just calling to make sure you’re okay.”
“I’m okay.”
“Did you call the cell phone company to block his number?” There is a long pause and my patience suddenly goes short.
“Yeah, about that…”
“You didn’t block his cell phone number?”
“He e-mailed me this morning and he’s a lot calmer now…”
“You e-mailed him back?!”
“Only to keep him from killing himself. He said he was going to kill himself.”
“I’m going to go with, ‘No great loss.’ And so now you aren’t going to block his number?” Another long pause.
“No.”
“You know you promised three times, right? You know this is the only thing I asked of you, right?”
“I know. And I know from your perspective you think blocking his number is the right thing to do, but I’m not going to cut someone out of your life just because they are sick. I’m not going to get back together with him and I’m not going to talk to him. But it’s not right to abandon someone. It’s not right from MY perspective to do that to a person.”
My face goes flush. Long-time passes where I don’t know what to say. Finally, I mutter something and hang up the phone.
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Part V
Days pass. Having had time to “process,” I call again. She picks up the phone. I start the conversation right where it left off.
“Here’s the thing. You promised. You gave me your word. It wasn’t an idle promise. It wasn’t an ‘I promise to bring back some milk’ promise. It was an important promise, a promise you made three times, and you broke it.”
“I know, but I can’t keep it.”
“Then you shouldn’t have promised! Okay, let’s backtrack. Realistically, there is only one reason to take phone calls from someone who hits you. You take their calls because you are hoping they’ll stop hitting you so you can get back together with them. That’s it, that’s the only reason, regardless of what you say. But guys who hit girls always hit girls. It’s like when someone stops smoking. You’re always a smoker, you just didn’t smoke today.” She starts to respond, but I interrupt her. “However…although I don’t agree with your choice, I can understand it. Paradigm shifts are hard to do. I get that.”
“But,” I continue, “the breakdown in my head is this if a girl who goes back to her abusive ex-boyfriend is an acquaintance, and they keep going back to their abusive ex-boyfriend, then you cut them loose so they don’t bring your own life down. But if they’re a friend, an actual real friend, you support them, time and time again, even when you know they’re making the wrong choices. Because that’s what friends do.”
“But, and here’s my problem, friends keep their word. For big things, they keep their word. And if they don’t keep their word, then they’re not a friend. So, this is what I’m stumbling with. By not blocking his number, you, in one action, went from being a friend to being an acquaintance because you broke a promise, AND from being a person who was getting over an abusive ex-boyfriend to a person who is going to have continued abuse that I have to cut loose. So, you’ve managed to do two things in one action and that’s…that’s hard for me to take in.” There is a long silence before I continue.
“And…I just want to be sure…I want you to be sure, this is really what you want to do. And that you are…aware, of what you are doing?” Another long pause before she quietly answers.
“I can’t block his number.” I nod my head in acceptance.
“Okay, fair enough,” and I hang up the phone.
The following day a silver bracelet shows up on my front door. I e-mail to say thank you but get no response. I e-mail a few more times over the next few months in a vague effort to be social for some purpose I don’t truly understand. I’ve never gotten a response. Fair enough bear…fair enough.
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