Chapter 13: Happy Birthday

“She signed the papers,” Mark said.

Dexter said, “It’s about time.”

“I’ll file them this afternoon,” Mark said.

“I guess today is as good a day as any other,” Dexter said bitterly.

After exchanging good-byes, Dexter hung up the phone. There wasn’t much more to say. His marriage was over. All that was left was for it to become final. The assets had been divided. Maybe Dexter had lost some money on the deal, but he didn’t really care. She had the house, the kids, and the millions he had given her. He had his own money.

Dexter went into the kitchen and grabbed a glass. He picked up the bottle of scotch and went over to his recliner. He filled the glass half full with scotch. He took a sip from the glass, and it burned its way down his throat.

He sat back staring up at the ceiling thinking about the past, the present, and the future.

There had been a time when things had been so simple. Dexter loved Janet and Janet loved Dexter. They spent every free minute together celebrating their love in minor and major ways. Little touches of the hands, kisses stolen in passing, and hours in bed spent making love.

Janet wasn’t the best cook when they first married. Some of her early kitchen disasters had been the subjects of jokes for years.

Fried chicken served burnt on the outside and blood raw on the inside. His parents had tried to eat it without criticizing her, but he had opened his big mouth and complained. She had run from the table, embarrassed. It was only after a long time later, that they could laugh about the polite way in which everyone, including Janet, had avoided saying anything about the chicken while heaping praise on the applesauce, green beans, and cole slaw.

She had never figured out how to cook a roast to medium rare. Her roasts usually came out of the oven as shriveled blackened masses. It seemed to be difficult for her to understand that the roast had to come out of the oven before it started smoking. The joke was that the smoke alarm was not a kitchen timer.

With time, Janet’s cooking skills improved. She did master fried chicken, despite her inability to deal with roast beef. She had turned into a great cook, with her favorite dishes being lasagna, pork chops, and chili. She made an excellent chili.

Dexter often laughed at that joke that the way to a man’s heart was through his stomach, but there were times when that old cliché was true. Her absence of cooking skills had wormed its way into his heart. The time she had spent learning to cook, had made him feel special. Each time she prepared a new recipe, and nervously presented it to him, reinforced his feelings about his importance in her life. She was showing her love.

In the manner of women throughout history, Janet demonstrated her love in a much more intimate way by bearing two children – Will and Sarah. In Dexter’s mind, he’d had the perfect family.

Dexter grew up with his father serving as a role model for how a man should act as a husband and father. Dexter did all that was in his power to act like his father. He would come home from work, and play a little with the kids while Janet fixed dinner. After dinner, they would get on bicycles and pedal around the block. He wrestled with Will on the floor. He had little tea parties with Sarah. He was a real presence in his children’s lives.

Dexter looked down at the empty glass in his hand. He reached for the bottle of scotch to refill the glass, and then wondered why he was bothering with the glass. He took a swig out of the bottle.

“I fuckin’ had it all,” Dexter mumbled.

He thought his perfect little life would continue forever, but that wasn’t possible. The world in which his father had raised him, changed. Work hours became a little longer. He wasn’t home in time to play with the kids before dinner. After a while, he wasn’t home in time for dinner. Then he was working at home in the evenings. His weekends became consumed by work as well.

Dexter’s father had occasionally worked a little overtime. He called it earning vacation money. It wasn’t until much later that Dexter learned that his father’s overtime was exactly that – money for vacations. His father would work an occasional evening or Saturday. The money earned, at time and a half, went into a vacation account.

As a salaried person, Dexter couldn’t earn ‘a little extra money’ by working overtime. He put in the overtime – lots of it. It just didn’t contribute to his vacation.

Dexter took a slug out of the bottle of scotch.

He groaned out, “Nothin’! I got nothin’ for all the shit I swallowed.”

He had lost everything that he had dreamed of – family, a home, friends, and good times. He hadn’t had any good times in years. Maybe it was the absence of good times that he missed the most. The kinds of memories that would help him fill his days in the old folks’ home.

Ten years that were absent of good memories. He had a lot of memories of that time, but none of them gave him that much pleasure. He tried to focus on pleasant memories. Only two came to him: his visit to the casino where he’d had that incredible winning streak, and the subsequent visit to the whorehouse. Well, there had been the time spent at the cabin by the lake, but that time had been a false euphoria.

Dexter took a good long swig from the bottle. He swallowed, and then loudly belched, feeling the alcohol return on him. It left a bad taste in his mouth.

The trip to the whorehouse had not been easy. He had been nervous about asking for directions. He had thought a dozen times about turning around and returning to the hotel during the drive out. Just walking up to the gate had intimidated him. Then there had been the lineup. He had picked the oriental woman, not out of curiosity or real interest, but because she was the smallest woman there and the least threatening.

He took another swig of scotch.

“That was fuckin’,” Dexter slurred.

The time spent with the women at the bordello had been spent in raw sex. No feelings of tenderness on his part. There were no demands to be particularly gentle or giving. It had been all about him getting his enjoyment out of it.

Sex with Janet had been entirely different. It had never really been a case of one them taking sole pleasure in the act. It had always been a sharing of love between them. In a way, he wondered if that hadn’t been a part of the problem. Maybe he was a more selfish person than he had realized. Sometimes there had been times when he just wanted to get his rocks off without having to worry about Janet’s feelings. He had never let himself go like that, and wondered if that had been part of the problem.

In a way, the sex aspect of his marriage could have been described as reserved. Sure, there had been times when they had spent the whole day in bed, but the acts themselves were pretty tame. His father used to talk about respect and that marriage was built upon respecting and honoring each other. Dexter had interpreted that as meaning never asking his wife to do something that she might consider demeaning.

The bottle of scotch was nearing empty. The tears had started flowing down Dexter’s cheeks. He took another swig, emptying the bottle, and tossed it away.

He thought back on his visit with the whores. He had not been afraid to ask for what he wanted, since he wasn’t concerned about maintaining their dignity. The Hispanic girl had taken a load on her tits without batting an eyelash. He wondered if Janet’s lover had been unafraid to ask what he wanted of Janet. Sure, Janet denied having a lover, but Dexter didn’t believe her protests.

“Fuckin’ wife stealer,” Dexter said.

Outside of the one week with Amber, Dexter had been alone, yet it was more than just being alone. He had been isolated. Out of twenty four hours, he was around people for less than an hour. No one touched him. Most of the stores did not have people to interact with customers. Shopping had stopped being a social activity.