Nervous Inertia and Misdirected Rage

He waits in the car. The song on the radio barely audible. The time: 10:11pm.
He tries to fight the urge, his daily war.
The urge to get out and get her. To tell her that he loves her too much to let this carry on. To tell her that they’ll find a way. A better way. Better than this.

10:24pm.
The heat from the heater is starting to make him feel nauseous. It is becoming hard to breathe; the stifling dead air and the asphyxiation this situation causes him all melts into the grey plastic ashtray together with the cinder from his long burnt out cigarette. He lights another.

10:39pm.
He winds down the window to let the hyperthermia inducing cold wind rush inside, freezing his bones. He turns the radio up in the hopes that the sound will drown out the voices in his head; the murmurs, the shouts; the tone.
He sees a crazy man in a yellow shirt sweeping rubbish in the wind outside a 7-11 beneath a sign that promises “Fresh Fish”, talking loudly to himself as he continues this pointless task. People walk by and don’t even look his way. It’s amazing what humans can get used to.

He asks that question. The one he’s asked of himself about a thousand and one times in the last 12 months. Why?

They were happy. They had a future. A future that certainly did not involve a constant stream of bachelor parties and private shows; cash in hand and phone calls late, or early, depending on how you look at it.
A future that did not include other men, disease, abortion.

Gina was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. Her eyes, a windshield wiper detergent blue. A fake blue. Her hair; dirty blonde.
There was no one else for him and he knew it the moment he said it out loud.
And now he often wonders if he is paying some kind of karmic bill.

10:52pm.
Becoming impatient. Becoming aggravated. Nearly sane.

Billy sings Beautiful and the man thinks back to the moment he saw her face. The perfectly placed dimples on both her cheeks, the way her lips would pout in their stationary position. The way she looked when she thought no one was looking.

And now; every man who cares to can look at those artificial blues, that pout and the rest of her, anytime they want. Any way they want.

Gina decided she wanted them to move away. She wanted to start over, turn over a new tree.
But first; she, they, needed to obtain more medium of exchange; they needed to make enough legal tender. Gina took it upon herself to wear the pants.

Or; not wear them, as the case was.

She had even begun learning Chinese.
She was learning Chinese because the rich business men who usually wanted her services were Chinese. She was really starting to get into it.
Maybe enjoying it a little too much.

These are the thoughts this man is thinking, as he sits in the hot box car, waiting for the love of his life to finish with her private party for two.

11:09pm.
Almost over. He doesn’t think he can take it much longer.
It’s always like this, as soon as the hour reaches its end, he feels as if he’s about to explode.
Harsh jealousy, harsher insecurities.
Lost dreams and fading memories.

She feels the same.
She longs for the time way back when it was just her and him. Man and woman. Husband and wife.
She knows that sometimes things change irrparably. Some things shift and never find their place again.
She cries because she knows it's over.
Hopeless.
He doesn't know.
And they still try to prove something to a love they don't believe in any longer.

And later in the night as he lays on the bed watching comedy reruns, she stares at him, thinking of his funeral...What she would say, who would be there. Her eyes begin to water and she wills herself to stop the torture and asks; why, why, why does she think about these things all the time. She slides down and snuggles in the nape of his neck and wishes the mental preparation for the worst further and further away.