Down The Rabbit Hole Of Love

I Did It Anyway

One morning, after a petty argument over not having money for name-brand laundry soap, Mickey suggested we meet his favorite cousin Rosey, a manager at a Pancake House in a nearby Suburb. He mentioned the possibility of her getting me a job making over a hundred dollars a shift in tips. I had seen pictures of Rosey on social media. At first, I was jealous of her. She was eccentric compared to me and highly confident. She was someone I consider to be a “Bad Bitch.” I was intimidated by her confidence. Mickey often made me feel beneath women like her. I didn’t always have my nails done; the newest thing in my closet was five years old, and I have never even tried to put on fake eyelashes. I had been sheltered for ten years, raising kids, and trying my hardest to be a good Christian mother and wife. Mickey called me his white girl. He would jokingly ask me if I had lived under a rock my whole life.

Meeting Rosey was enjoyable. I met her husband, Gino. He gave me a weird vibe, but I ignored it. Mickey and I showed up with a bottle of Jack that I had bought. At first, I was quiet and timid. I listened instead of talking. I had to feel the vibe. I wasn’t sure if I was going to like her because I wasn’t sure if she was going to like me. After a few shots, I was able to open up a bit. She wasn’t as intimidating as I had thought; in fact, we got along well. The more we drank, the more she talked.

Whenever Gino wasn’t in the room, she spoke about Smiley. She was unhappy with her husband and her life. She wanted excitement and passion. I completely understood. Smiley, just being released from prison, ignited her desire for him. I couldn’t blame her; Smiley was one of the sexiest men I had ever met, and Gino was not. Gino was a large man with dark features. He reminded me of a warlock. Rosey talked about her plans to meet Smiley and how she planned on cheating on Gino with him. I could only imagine what it would be like to have s*x with someone as sexy as Smiley. I was envious.

The guys left on an alcohol run. Rosey had the opportunity to express how she felt about her cousin Mickey, saying things about him that I already knew but refused to care about. She laughed when I told her Mickey told me he loved me. She said, “I love my cousin, but he will never change. You are no different from the rest of them.” I knew Mickey wasn’t in my life because he loved me. I knew in his eyes I was just a white girl who lived under a rock but gave him a place to stay and supported his (our) alcohol habit. I knew these things, but I did it anyway. The evening had been a success. Rosey promised me a job at the restaurant, and I left with a slight confidence boost.

When I walked in for the interview, I looked around at my soon-to-be co-workers and started getting anxious, every single one of them looked bitchy and stuck up. Like in most restaurants, you have your older Greek owner who would curse you out in front of the entire restaurant, customers, and all, for a petty mistake. You have the one older lady who reeks of cigarettes and thinks she runs the place because she’s worked there her entire life. There is the apparent group of bitches and s**t talkers, the ones who smile and pretend to be your friend just to talk s**t about you to all the others. You’ve got the perverted cooks and, finally, the quirky server, the one who makes jokes about everything and has a lot of crackhead energy. She is the one who runs a menu down your butt crack and yells credit card swipe or who unties your apron as you are walking by.

I was interviewed by an older woman who was stern and grumpy-looking. Although my anxiety was damn near crippling, I managed to appear confident and deserving of the job and was hired on the spot. I had forgotten how sufficient and fast I was as a server. It’s as though serving tables and waiting on people is in my blood. It comes naturally to me, and I’m great at it. Getting this job was exactly what I needed to start feeling like I was human again. Being in a relationship with Mickey helped me crawl out of my shell and be myself with confidence. I was discovering things about myself that I was afraid of before. I was becoming a new version of me.

I was hired for the evening shift again. Being a single parent and working in the evening was very trying. There wasn’t ever any structure, and I hated that. I barely saw my kids. They were in school all day while Mickey and I slept. By the time they got home from school, I was already on my way out the door heading to work. My kids were getting tired of my irresponsible behavior. Especially my oldest. We would come home every night, drunk and obnoxious, not caring that they had school or work the next day. Things were getting bad, and I didn’t even notice until Robert, my oldest, had to go outside in the middle of the night to park my car because Mickey and I were too drunk to do it. We kept hitting the cars we were trying to park in between. When my son came down, he was pissed. Yelling at us, calling me f*****g stupid. I laughed. But it wasn’t funny, especially to my kid, but we continued our bullshit anyway.

One morning shortly after that incident, my second son, Anthony, was having a bad morning. I was still drunk from the night before. I stumbled out of bed to see why he had not left for school yet. Honestly, I only remember bits and pieces of what happened that morning because, as I had mentioned, I was still drunk from the night before. I do remember Anthony and me arguing, and it escalated quickly. Mickey got out of bed and yelled at him to stop disrespecting me. This caused Anthony to go into rage mode. I remember smashing his phone with a hammer and him refusing to go to school, making me kick him out of the house. I had just lit a joint about twenty minutes after I forced him out, and the doorbell rang. It was the police; he called the cops on me! I needed to go to the school to sign him in.

I do not remember everything I said that morning to the counselors and teacher, but they called DCFS (Department of Child and Family Services) on me. I have had DCFS called on me quite a few times in the past, but all the cases were unfounded. I was never worried about the earlier calls because they were all made by vindictive and petty people trying to destroy the empire I once had. I never worried about those calls because I never abused or neglected my kids or our home. It was entertaining when the social workers would show up at my house and see how well-kept my life was. This time my life wasn’t nearly put together. This time DCFS was called on me by professionals. This time should have been my wake-up call. But it wasn’t. I knew I needed to go back to Gardo or get my life together. I knew I shouldn’t continue being with Mickey if I wanted any chance to better myself and make things better for my kids, but I stayed with him anyway.

That day was the day one of the avalanches. DCFS did come to investigate; the good news was that the case was unfounded. It was unfounded because of Anthony’s previous stay at Mercy Home (A therapeutic school for boys). He had an assigned Therapist and Psychologist. He was taking all his medication. Therefore, the social workers and counselors determined that this argument between Anthony and me was non-harmful. I was safe from the consequences of having my kids taken from me, but we were not safe from the disaster I was about to create.

I got promoted to the morning shift at the restaurant. I had mixed emotions about it. I was proud of being promoted and would be making a lot more money. The problem was that I would now have to wake up at the time I was used to going to sleep. This meant I was going to have to change my lifestyle. That also meant Mickey would need to make some changes too. At first, it was only working because I was still trying to live both lives and only getting about 6 hours of sleep a week. That did not last long. I started not going out with Mickey most nights because I was too exhausted. I allowed him to leave with my car, so he could get drunk, come back, and annoy the f**k out of me until I had to be at work at 5:45 am. That did not last long either.

It was St. Patrick’s Day; I had worked that morning but was off the next day, so I planned to meet Mickey after work and have some fun. It was 2:30 in the afternoon as I walked into my and Mickey’s favorite, corner hole-in-the-wall bar. He was already so drunk that he was slurring and being obnoxious. It didn’t bother me that he was that drunk; what bothered me was how much of an asshole he was to me. I was complaining about the stressful day I had just had, and he was mocking me. I had already had four or five shots of Jack, so I called him a little b***h in front of our friends. I got in my car and was going to leave him there, but he jumped into the passenger seat. I was drunk and mad, which was not a good combo. We started arguing again as I drove off. If I remember correctly, he pulled my hair, so I swerved the car and told him I was gonna kill us both. He grabbed my phone and threw it out the window of my moving vehicle. I slammed on my brakes and jumped out of the car to retrieve my phone from the middle of the street. He was screaming at me, calling me a psycho b***h. He was punching my windshield and kicking the side of my car. We were in the middle of a busy street in a congested area. People were yelling at us, blowing their horns because nobody could get around me. It was horrible. I got my broken phone from the middle of the street, hopped back in my car, and took off, leaving Mickey there to fend for himself. He must have seen the cops because he took off running.