An Sad Tale of Why I Moved to CA, Why I'm Here in Kiev

I apologize for those who have seen this story. I left MA for CA January 1, 1990.

This true, abject tale worthy of recounting.


I had lived with my dream girl for 5 tumultuous years. I loved her dearly, but I passed on marrying her for two reasons; I was broke. She had industrial level PMS.
After 10 consecutive nights of sleeping only with her, the love of my life, I stormed out.

Two days later I was on my knees begging, dying, please, but to no avail.. Worse than that, once she and I were vegetarians. We ate alike. Now she was dating a butcher. I checked him out at the super market. He wore a bloody smock. She must be on the big rebound.

During the next three months, from October through New Years,. I was beside myself. At night, I drank to oblivion. I hid in the freezing bushes with my binoculars hoping for a glimpse of her.…and maybe him? I was teetering on the brink. It was slip sliding away from me.

During the days, I interviewed for jobs, got hired and would quit my first working day. I couldn’t take it. I couldn’t last the whole day. I dismissed the problems I caused the person hiring me, as they paled next to mine. I think I reveled in the abuse I received from the poor business man. I was immune from anything good. I was oblivious to life.

Every day, I ran hard to negate the booze poison and to overcome the emotional pain with the sweat and the physical pain I needed. It’s a wonder I lived at all. I was traumatized and all efforts to survive were brutally and cruelly dashed.

And it kept getting worse...

The weather didn't help. As the summer died and the leaves turned and fell, I identified with the colder, desolate, and uninviting days.
The sunsets were achingly beautiful. The long horizontal clouds grey against the icy, pale blue sky. It was a time to be inside with someone you love not out here in the cold, alone. She's in there, warm, with the butcher.

Throughout the late fall and through to the holidays, the love of my life was involved with someone else. How could this be? I was tortured. The pain was unmanageable. It was physical pain. It was hard to stand erect. I was destroying my liver with alcohol. Beyond desperate, I went to a Brookline shrink. I had never been before. It felt good telling him about my misery over losing this woman. But however I never felt comfortable with him. I would never tell him my inner most thoughts and feelings. It felt abnormal in a sexual way.
I kept him away from the inner me. I think I read too much Freud.

After three visits, his diagnosis made sense: “You made this woman your whole life. A healthy person compartmentalizes their life; their job, their family, their hobbies, etc. . . . You had one big compartment and now it’s gone. You must find other interests.”
And then he leaned towards me, pointed to his forehead and said, “And whatever you do, don’t leave. Face this problem head on. .” He must have known I was considering escape therapy.

What to do? Then I remembered, a few years ago there was a lady bartender in Brockton who I had heard had a major crush on me. Reportedly, she wanted to make my life wonderful and exciting. She told my friends to tell me that she adored me and wanted to “eat me up“. This could be a new compartment.

I had never spoken to her, but I remember she was a tall blonde, attractive and sexy. I think she sang also. This was the answer; water to quench a dying man's thirst.
At first, I couldn’t find her. She hadn’t worked worked for years at the place I remembered. I searched for quite a while. Oh God, what if I never find her? I did some aggressive, desperate sleuthing. I never knew her last name and, oddly, I kept getting different versions of her name. I think she had one child. I searched high and low never knowing if I was on the right track.

I visited many places, each time I got all dressed up and full of anticipation. On my fifth try, I learned she was working worked at a restaurant in nearby Norwell.

I showed up there praying this was the right place. I entered and was told, “Yes, Kathy works here. She’s been with us for a year. But she just went on vacation. She’s not scheduled to return to work for 10 days.”

10 days… Would I last? Could I last? I kept taking job interviews, kept getting hired, kept resigning to the dismay of the bosses who hired me. I bathed in the acrimony I created. I kept taking job interviews, kept getting hired and kept quiting.

Eventually I settled on a telemarketing job selling the Boston Globe. This was what I needed; abuse. I worked 9-12 am and 6-9 pm. People would creatively curse me up and down, and encouraged the rejection. I loved the job. I was one messed up dude.
In the boiler room environment, I was the leading seller. I made rookie of the month but I was placed on probation because they considered me a bit over zealous…at times.
They told me, “This is not the car business.”
I spoke with a weak English accent and talked fast. In my mind I was doing “Life styles of the Rich and Famous”. In fact, my voice morphed into a strong Robin Leach sound alike:

“Good afternoon madam, I’m calling from the Boston Globe. Did you know that the Sunday paper has over $250 worth of coupons… for only a dollar. What’s that you say Madam? You used to have delivery, but they would throw it all over the place…even on the roof? Well, I can certainly understand why you cancelled.
Well, madam, I have good news for you. We have just hired a new delivery service and their a motto is…”We’ll stick it where you want it.”

This type of successful sales pitch tested the mettle of my immediate superior…a woman. Was I becoming a misogynist?

Finally, the big day arrived. It dawned a freezing, miserable, gloomy day. Ice on the spikes of the barren trees, pointing at the dreary sky. As I think back now, one of the tees was giving me the finger? Everything seemingly mirroring my life situation.
But I sensed the end of my odyssey. I was moving on, opening a new compartment..
In a self help book I read that anytime a thought of the haert breaker entered the brain, immediately shout, “NO!”
So with NO’s echoing off my walls, I dressed in the new clothes I‘d purchased to meet my new love..

I was nervous, still suffering my terrible withdrawal pains but hope was around the corner. I was like the junkie shuffling off to the methadone clinic, I drove to Norwell screaming, “NO!”
Long ago I had given up listening to the radio or at least to any songs with lyrics as that music inspired suicide.,
So I drove over listening to classical music. Curiously, I still remember thinking that the song on the radio must have been written by a madman with a nervous condition. The music was punctuated with frantic violins stridently blaring. It played like a sound track from a movie about insane people. It crossed my mind, "Was this maniacal music the score my desperate situation?"
Finally, I pulled into the parking lot. I found a lucky spot, (no 13’s involved), took a deep breath, said a little prayer and headed for the restaurant.

All of a sudden, a mini miracle occurred; I wasn’t hurting anymore. It must be that anticipation had trumped my pain. I was excited. The methadone had kicked in. It was like a shot of Novocain to the agonizing toothache. What a relief. I felt like a human. I was able to stand tall again. A new chapter in my life was about to begin.

It had been years since I had seen Kathy. I had never spoken to her. In truth I didn’t know her... but I needed her. I was ready to throw myself at her, be the best boyfriend, the best husband, whatever.
I was ready to reverse my double vasectomy and have love children with her. There was no limit to our future. I went in and asked the hostess if Kathy was working today. Yes, she was here. Oh happy days!!!

The hostess went to get her. I waited. I looked around and saw a girl across the room, her back to me. She was stunning with long legs, a terrific figure. Shallow person that I am, it flashed across my brain, “Wow! I wish I were meeting her.”
At that moment, the girl turned around and, thank you God, it was Kathy! She looked great, tall, slender, not as beautiful as my dream girl, nonetheless, a very sexy blonde and most importantly, she wanted me!

As she approached, she smiled and said, “Hello Richard. How are you?” Oh my God, she remembered me.
I said, “Hi, Kathy, you look great. I’m very attracted to you. I’m completely unattached. Could we go out to lunch or something? Did you know I play the piano?”
She said, “Oh Richard, I’m flattered.”
I was ebullient, elated. What old girlfriend? I’ll send her an invitation to our wedding.
Then she said, “But Richard, I just got married. In fact, I just got back from my honeymoon.” And with the saddest face which I’m sure, mirrored mine she added,
“I‘m so sorry, Richard.”

I staggered back to my car. there in Norwell behind the Ground Round. I felt sorry for me and I felt sorry for her who felt so sorry for me. I thought my timing stunk. Did she mean I had I just missed her by a few days? My life was shit.

In my car all the emotions that I had been dealing with for days poured out of me in a paroxysm of sobbing and snot, without a tissue. Was this what they call a good cry because it hurt terribly? There was nothing good about it at all. It hurt..
I was a fading, broken man under the miserable winter sky..
I felt I must be paying for some sins that I was unaware of, perhaps my previous life’s treatment of women.

Eventually, I patched part of my myself up and tried to press on.
This plan bombed. All right I had my advice. Stay and face the strain. Next case.
I'll call Laurie Ann, an old girlfrend. She was born with two vaginas!!!. We were together eight years.

And I called her. ...