Jackpot

The first time I moved to Las Vegas was just after the summer spent riding horses through Pike National Forest with the Girl Scouts. I was fresh, untainted. A co-worker said to me, with somewhat broken English, "Most people have a guard over their ... (points to his chest), and you, you have a window, a window that's flung open." I figured that was the best compliment I'd ever get, and it's held. I wanted everything... except for love, so love's what I got.

When I met him, I thought nothing of it. He smiled brightly at everyone, never a bad word fell from his mouth about anyone. He took three buses and a bike to get to Paris Casino, where he bussed tables and I was a waitor. It was my first Vegas job, his second. We opened the place. I loved it when he was assigned as my busboy, because I knew it would be an easy day; he'd run around smiling, running his butt off for you, for everyone. He was the best there was, if only by virtue of the fact that he cared to work so hard. He'd be assigned two waitors on each shift, but ended up running for everyone, because he'd come into life with jet packs attached to his ass I guess.  He could get more done in a few minutes than most people I've ever known.

We became friends instantly but I never considered him a love interest. I dated a few other guys from the restaurant before it struck me out of the blue that I was in lust. I didn't order love, wasn't looking for it; I'd already run from a guy who promised to propose. I knew early that I didn't want marriage until I was older. I was 23-- the thought of spending the next 60+ years with the same person was haunting, ridiculous. I couldn't figure out why anyone would want to give that a shot. Balance was a thing I knew I lacked, so I didn't want children either. I knew I had very little control over my own emotions, so why get anyone else involved?

We went out a few times, then suddenly we were at six months, then a few years had flown by and it wasn't that there was any decision made to be together; it was just that there was no reason not to. He moved in with me and a boxer puppy who was basically a hot mess. He established himself as the alpha and suddenly our household made perfect sense. The dog was smitten and I was too. He was the first man I'd ever met who was unshakeable. My faith in his unyielding joy of life grew to the point where I trusted him with my life.

He knew how to soothe my rough edges which included multiple anxiety attacks and breakdowns, some fits of anger. In the middle of losing my temper, he was still unimpressed, unaffected. He'd look at me and say, "Why don't you write a letter to your congressman?!!" The thought of it, of the congressman receiving my letter about my stupid problems, was enough to take me right out of it. Every frustration I had ended in laughter at the stupidity of what I was pissed about.

I was certain he must be the most level person I'd ever known. I found him sobbing one day and was taken aback. There just weren't hot emotions ever at work here. I'd never seen anything but unbelievable balance, balance in the face of any problem. Today is the anniversary, he said, of the day I killed my best friend. He died in my arms. -- They were sixteen, a bunch of boys with cars and beer. They'd decided to race and he'd had an accident. He held his best friend in his arms as his friend took his last breath.  I now fully understood why he was so unfettered at "normal people problems." I had this feeling like somehow that incredible pain had made him incredibly beautiful. And tough. Balanced and kind.  Unafraid to express his feelings.

We worked the same shifts until our days off were changed. The first day he arrived home after the schedule change, he blew in, slammed the door as hard as he could slam it. I wondered if this would be the first time I witnessed him hold anger. I ran to the door, and he was standing there, smiling brightly, and says, "I need KISSES. RIGHT NOW!" From then on, me and the dumb dog waited for him each time he'd come home. We laughed and played, loved bravely like two dumb kids who'd never been hurt by it. We'd be doing any random thing and he'd grab me and hold me and say, "I loooooove you more than the earth, and the moon and the stars."

It all went on like that, goofy, googly eyed young love. We'd see each other across a room and we were in it alone. I held him through the days leading up to and after the anniversary of his best friend's birthday and his best friend's death. He held me through the rest of the year. There was a comfort in it I'd never imagined. THIS is why people stay all those years.

But the Irish curse came round for us. He and his cousins were drinkers; their dad, his uncle, had just earned his 18 year chip in AA. He still went, every week. Sometimes more. The boys, it seemed, were headed there. And Vegas is no place to tempt alcohol. It's too easy. It's available at every hour of every day. The partying went on. And on. I was a little put out by it at first, as I wasn't much of a drinker, never had been. It would take me 8 more years until I fell pray to alcohol.

That beautiful pain, that exquisite beauty that made him kind, got reshaped by a pint glass. Suddenly the man of balance was given to anger. Given to frustration. I'd sleep through most of the wild parties at our home. Then my cousin asked to stay a night. They were driving through and needed a bed. I'd warned my love for a week that there would just be one night they couldn't party at our place. So 3am rolled around and loud voices screaming from the living room. I begged his cousins to take him somewhere. Or just leave. Whatever. Stop screaming. His frustration with me finally took shape. He cornered me in our room and wouldn't let me go. He'd do what he wanted, when he wanted, thank you very much.

I begged him to let me go, let me leave the room. The vertical stripes I'd painted on the walls were suddenly bars in my own home. There was just no way to come back from it for me; someone I'd trusted so greatly had broken it, irrevocably. I knew that what layed before us was only going to be a heightened extension of this night.

He'd had rings hidden in the closet. I'd bought a white dress.

The house was sold, he took the dumb dog. I held on to the memory of loving more than the earth and the moon and the stars for far too long. I wanted it back so badly, that young, brave love. The complete trust in another person. Being called darling. Having my friends tell me that whenever we weren't together he was glowingly speaking of how much he loved me.

I understand how people get into abusive relationships. Because it begins, sometimes, as incredible love. And the pain that makes us beautiful can be reshaped into something awful, terrifying.

He came over one last time before I moved to Connecticut to go to grad school. He pointed at the dress hung in the closet and said, "I just wanted to see you in it, once." I put it on and came out. When I saw his face turn to tears we both sat together hugging and bawling. I never had a "real" wedding. But I didn't miss the part where the groom sees the bride for the first time. It was awful. And beautiful. Emotional and heartbreaking.

I've spent years rolling that memory over, afraid to let it go. But it's time now. Here. I thought about all of this all the way here. How it was time to put it to rest. To walk away from thinking about the loss of that love. I loved you, boy from Niagara Falls, more than the earth and the moon and the stars. But it's time to take my tattered self and get on with it. I'm just an old chunk of coal, but I'm going to be a diamond someday.

I opened the map for Cumberland Falls, and there's a picture of the falls there. Underneath, the caption, "Niagara of the south." It's finally time, after all these years, to give it its place, smile at its memory and no longer look for young love.