DISSONANCE

The first time we met was on the dance floor. February 1982. I had just moved to town, and a mutual friend kept telling me I had to meet this man. 6’8”, brainy, dark hair, blue eyes. My type to the T. We saw one another and immediately met in the embrace of a two-step. That night, deep in passion, he asked me to marry him. Wary, wisely, I declined.




So began five years of off-again, on-again love. We quickly saw the barriers that would never work long-term, while simultaneously discovering the depth of love that would keep drawing us together. Eventually I moved 1,800 miles away. Still we stayed in touch for eight years with phone calls on birthdays and just because. Even after he married.

Recognizing his struggles with alcoholism, I convinced the people closest to him, many I’d never met, to hold an intervention. He stopped drinking and turned his life around. They bought land and he became a gentlemen rancher, continuing his legal practice part time.

In 1995, I called to wish him a happy birthday, and we discovered we would be in New York City during the same week. We decided to meet for dinner. I chose my clothing carefully, down to the ugly granny panties. He was married, and I didn’t want to bring that Karma into my life. Besides, I had just started seeing someone and had no desire to uproot that relationship with a lie.

We agreed to meet downstairs at his hotel, near the building where I was attending a conference. I arrived at 6:00pm on the dot and called his room from the lobby. He said he was running late and rather than standing around the lobby, why didn’t I just come up. Reluctantly, I agreed. He opened his room door and immediately enveloped me in his arms. He was wearing only a robe. He began kissing me. Trying as I did to extricate myself from his grasp, I couldn’t. Soon I was on the bed with him on top of me and his hands pulling off my underwear. I decided to just stop fighting, get it over with. We would talk afterward. When he was through, he got up and reached for a tumbler beside the bed. It wasn’t water. He was drunk.

The phone beside the bed rang. He answered. After a moment he turned to me and said he had a last minute meeting and couldn’t have dinner with me. Stunned into silence, I quickly dressed, rushed out of his room, and took a cab back to my hotel. Like many women raped by men they love, I stood in the shower for at least an hour trying to scrub the anger and shame from my body. I should have known better. I should have never gone up to his room. I should have known he was drinking again. I should have should have should have. Scheduled to fly home the next day, I nonetheless packed my bags and took a cab to the airport, boarding the first plane that would take me home.

We spoke one more time, a week later, when I ended all contact with him. Twelve years later, drunk and angry, he killed himself. Rage and pity will forever be entangled in my memory of him.