Left in your throat

I’m going to leave my wife tomorrow. I am—I left the wedding band (gold with twisting engravings that I always despised) on the drainboard and went downtown to think things through. Tomorrow is the day; it is going to be a Tuesday.

I stepped into my SUV that she requested would be great when we have kids and I drove downtown to ponder over a dark espresso while watching a double-tall skim waitress smiling from the counter, extra sugar, and I decided that tomorrow will be the day. I lingered longer in the coffee joint to order a delicate crescent bun with thick jam from an adolescent boy with bad teeth. Double-tall no longer to be seen. I was no longer hungry.

There is a quaint little bookshop next door that sells foreign magazines and the porn’s in the top room, you have to walk up a little staircase to get to it, they make you work for your sex—it’s ironic in a way. My favorite’s the Indian porn. It’s all gems and jewels and chastity. Makes you wonder where the good old days went. On this day, I bought one issue, the girl on the cover was the color of burnt cream, smoky caramel to be eaten with a fork and eight glasses of milk just to wash sway that sappy sting she left in your throat, hope to God she feels the same.

Andrea is as pale as an English bride, a wilted spring flower in early fall. Andrea picked my wedding band, my car, my job, and my clothes, and on Tuesday, Andrea will be picking up the pieces, because I’m leaving her boring ass tomorrow.

Did we marry for love or money? I hardly remember; I think I was fully hammered at the time of the reception, but I can’t possibly claim the same for the “courtship”. It’s not my style to fall about in a drunken stupor for the world to see; honestly, won’t these kids ever learn you’ve got to keep face in public? All I know now is that Andrea is sabotaging my life, my hobbies, and my true self. She is a sweltering, sick mess.

Artists have the worst luck. Four years of art school for a degree, no positions, mass bullshit. Everyone wants to know you but never wants to pay you. You’re their bitch for dinners, open houses and drinks, but when it comes down to your trade, they couldn’t care less. My charcoals are just now attracting Scott’s attention, and now Andrea is telling me that if we’re going to have kids I’d better “wise up” and pick a new career, because this one doesn’t pay for her prescription drugs. Jesus. When we met in art school, she seemed like a real somebody, and she was a great model to sketch. Good figure, big thighs. Shows you first impressions aren’t worth anything. She was just too good to be true.

Suffocation is the best way to describe what she does to me. When I hear her voice, I am confronted by a tone-deaf buzz that drones on and on. A man can’t live like this.

I’m leaving her tomorrow.