Michael Heffernan The Way You Do You caught me at a bad time, when things were weird,
and bound to get weirder with you around.
What you call love can make me really crazy.
My ex did that, only a different way.
He would come home to have sex at lunchtime,
no matter what was going on with me.
The kids could be frying cats in the track-light sockets,
after turning the broken bulbs into kitty food,
in case they couldn't kill them some other way;
or crucifying a neighbor-kid in the backyard,
or using the custom-built tree-house as a gallows
for each other; or I could be doing laundry,
and he'd walk in and lead me to the bedroom.
Then he'd have lunch and go back to his patients.
We'd do it at night too, and in the morning.
He even wanted it once when I was sick.
I had the flu. He said it was his right.
He screwed around on me, eventually,
and told me so. He seemed to think I'd like it.
He got his jollies watching me come apart
with stuff he even brought to bed with us.
He thought it got me off. Maybe it did.
There's quite a lot here I'm not telling you.
Maybe you get it, which is what your look
is trying to tell me now, but I don't think so.
You're very good at making me think so.
Lately I've noticed how your look has changed.
You're too intense for me. I could be crazy,
but this is something you refuse to see.
Of course I'm pissed at you, and I don't know why.
You're not as funny as you used to be.
Sometimes I think you're crazier than I am.
You might remember that time I told you
I went to Bob May's Chevy dealership
and said I wanted him to sleep with me.
We had been good friends for twelve years by then.
People would notice us at gatherings.
My husband caught us at a party once
at our house. Bob had gone to find his coat
in the bedroom. I came up from behind
to run my hand inside his shorts. My husband
walked in to use the bathroom. There I was
with my fist around Bob's cock, and his one arm
in one sleeve and the other sleeve hanging loose
next to my elbow like he's grabbing my ass,
and my husband says, "Whatever you're doing,
you two look really friendly. Go ahead
and use the bed after I'm done, why don't you."
I went back to the party, and Bob left.
Later, after I caught my husband screwing
that teacher from the high school, and I filed,
I waited a couple months with him still around
sleeping on the sofa. He wouldn't leave.
I went to Bob May's Chevy dealership.
I walked right into his office in the back.
I told him I was feeling vulnerable.
I needed to feel like a woman once again.
I said I wanted us to go to bed.
It shouldn't matter any more than that,
since we were friends. He took me up on it.
We went on over to his place and fucked,
an hour before I had to pick my kids up.
We did that every afternoon for a month,
mostly at his house, once or twice at mine,
after the kids were gone. I'd be doing laundry
to wash the sheets from Bob when my husband came,
in case he tried to do me like before.
One night he got in bed with me, just to sleep.
He couldn't get good sleep on the sofa.
I let him stretch beside me. Around that time,
Bob went to the Islands. After he came back,
he changed his phone and got a private number.
He told some people that he hated me.
A friend from Garden Club was shot in bed
by someone who hated her enough to kill her.
A neighbor found her sidewise on her pillow
with tissue and bone where her head used to be.
Half of her face was left, like a mask of skin.
She seemed to be laughing in a funny dream.
Whoever it was had taken a revolver
and shot her through the French doors from the terrace
of her big house by the Lake when she was alone.
That could have been me. Sometimes I wake up
in the middle of the night and I hear laughter,
but it isn't mine. It could be Bob May laughing
after he puts a bullet in my mouth
from the gun I'm eating in the dream he laughs in.
I hated Bob May too, when he took up
with another woman and let me find out.
He said I was still sleeping with my husband,
after I got the settlement I wanted
and the new house he paid for. The truth is
I loved my husband, but I couldn't stand
to have him put his hands on me after a while.
He kept on wanting me. He begged for me.
He said it was just sport-fucking with the others,
but with me it was like worship at the temple.
There wasn't any way I'd fall for that.
Eventually all I wanted was Bob May
and a nice life, along with all the stuff
my husband had agreed to give to me.
I wanted what I knew belonged to me
that women like me get from men like them.
I wanted the peace of mind that comes about
when a woman finds her own place in her skin.
I couldn't tell how many parts of me
caught fire to feel the pang of who I am.
My husband wasn't going to find out
what I'd been doing, or I'd lose it all.
And he would take my kids, which would have killed me.
I really loved Bob May. I love you too.
I love you, but I'm not in love with you.
And that's a problem I can't fix right now.
This isn't about you. It's about me.
And what it is is crazy, weird, and sad.
Bob made me laugh. You used to make me laugh.
We both stopped laughing a long time ago.
You used to make me laugh when we made love.
One night, you threw my arms over the bed
with one leg on your shoulder, one of your legs
around my other leg, the way you do.
I started coming with you, and you screamed.
Then I began to scream; we both were screaming.
It was so funny that I started laughing.
Next thing I knew I kicked the floor lamp over,
and down it crashed. There was glass everywhere.
I said, "Oh shit," and I apologized,
right then, and kept on coming, hard, and then
we both were laughing like we couldn't stop.
You said it was fun to fuck and break things.
I said so too. Now all we do is break things.
Everyone's broken. I know I've broken you.
You'd break me if you could, but I won't let you.