Songs from the DARK Jukebox

Selection: A-1 – “The Weakness in Me”

I’m not the sort of person who falls quickly in and out of love. That is true, which only makes it worse now I’m torn between two lovers. I’ve always considered myself a faithful companion. Oh, crap that makes me sound like the family dog. The way Jonathan has been treating me lately the family lab would get more affection. It’s been almost a month since we’ve had “relations” as he calls it. I used to call it making love. Before I fell in love with him, it was fucking and when I was a free agent, I was a manwhore. Anyone anywhere anytime anyhow.

Don’t judge me. That’s just how it was. When I’m with someone, I’m WITH someone. The sad thing is that I want to stay with Jonathon but this might be his way of telling me that it’s done. I’m not the sharpest pencil in the box. Not all of us can graduate from Yale and be hot shot corporate lawyers. I was lucky enough to get my ass through high school and get through mixology at community college. I got my bartender’s license and I’m good at it. That’s how I met Jonathon. It’s Jonathon, not John and definitely not Johnny. I called him Johnny in the middle of night and that was one major coitus interruptus session. His words, not mine.

It’s been four years since we met at that hoity toity wine bar that catered to the mover and shakers of the corporate world. I had that gig during the afternoons and early evenings during the week and the hot hopping gay dance bar Friday and Saturday. I rested on Sunday as the good lord intended. I noticed him right away. I hate to call it that, but my gaydar went off when I served him and his clients. Something about a man in a three piece suit just radiated confidence and power. Dark brown hair cut in a short manageable style. He groomed his eyebrows, I knew because I worked hard at keeping my unibrow lifted and separated. His eyes were grey blue. In direct sunlight, they are blue. In shadow, grey. In passion a soft dove grey. In anger, flashing blue lightning. His jaw line was strong without being massive and overall the features just melded together to make a hell-luscious face.

I just like looking at the corporate players. Most of them had redeeming qualities even if they weren’t eye candy. It’s a gift being able to find something worthy in everyone. I think that’s what made me a popular bartender. I had no intention of dating any of them. As I said, I’m not the sharpest pencil in the box and aside from a fabulous one night fuck, I wouldn’t be anything else to them. The tips were great here. You don’t crap where you graze.

I noticed when Jonathon began sitting in my area. He always ordered the same thing. Whiskey and tonic. No girlish concoction for him. When it was busy and I had to stay behind the bar, he moved to the leather stools. I would see his eyes on me. I think he forgot about the wall length mirror. He was checking me out and apparently he liked what he saw. He never came onto me. Never tried to make meaningless conversation. “Whiskey and tonic.” That was the extent of what he said to me.

“The Disco Ball” was going through one of those peaks when all the straights thought it was cool to be seen mingling with the wrong side of the tracks. The music was pumping. The dancers were hot and sweat and HAWT. I was busy and the tips were good. The wine bar had a strict dress code, which basically was a tux. I got to take off the jacket because I was mixing, but if I had fill in to serve, I was penguin central. Here, I got to wear my hottie clothes. On night like this, I put on cargo shorts with a four inch wide web belt. I had a silver chain hanging off the front disappearing into my pocket. I had on a black microfiber tee with a silver imprint of a disco ball that clung were it should. I just pulled my long blond hair back into a pony and I was ready for work and a little action after hours.

I just remember turning around that Saturday night to get the next drink order when I saw that face. Mr corporate attorney was gone. He had on a white tank and a chunky silver necklace. He flicked a finger at me and waved me over. He had gelled the crap out of his hair. It was spiky and defied gravity. I preferred the business style over this. I had to lean in over the bar to hear him.

“I’m Jonathon!”

I knew that. “What can I get you?”

“Catherine Aloysius, I want you to come home with me tonight.” His gaze was scarily predatorial. I straightened abruptly and looked at him. I didn’t think he knew my name. I didn’t want anyone to know the moniker I was saddled with. It was almost like that song, boy named Sue. I had my ass kicked hard in grade school because I had a girly name. It wasn’t until I got fighting lessons from Dad’s friends that the bullying stopped. If it came down to fists, you ended it quick and hard by any means necessary.

Mom came from money. Dad came from the greenhouse. It was lust at first sight and the bloom of passion made both of them stupid. They ran off to live on love. It was all fine and dandy until the temperature dipped below 10 degrees Celsius. Lovers arms weren’t as warm as central heating and a mink stole. I was the little side effect of her attempt at living on love.

I was Mom’s punishment for running off with the hired help. The Matron Thackery decreed that the baby would named after herself and her deceased husband. In that order. Catherine Aloysius Thackery. CAT for short. I guess I was in the Thackery mansion until I was about five then Mom was sold off to marry someone for controlling stock options in some company. The new husband didn’t want her little blond bastard in tow. If I had her black hair, I probably could have passed for her side of the family as it was, I was the spitting image of the gardener. That’s when I moved from the big house to the small one in the back corner to live with my dad. The Thackery’s paid him to keep me. Dad would laugh every time a cheque came in.

“I have wanted to take you in since the day you were born. There is no happiness in that house.”

I had more love in the two bedroom house than the fifty rooms of the main house.

“Cat. My name is Cat.”

“I want you to be my own kitty-Cat. Come home with me.”

I went in intending to be a one night stand and I never left.

Four years. I’d been with him for four years. I’ve met his parents. I didn’t impress them. Honestly, unless whoever he brought home had breasts and a working womb they were not going to be impressed. Dad thought he was a snob. I took that with a grain of salt because of Mom fucking him over. We’ve loved. We’ve lost. We’ve fought. He bought a condo and but a ring on my finger even though it wasn’t legal in this province. We knew each other inside and out. Lately when we were arguing, Jonathan went for the throat. It was nasty and vicious. My whoring ways were always thrown back in my face and my lack of parentage. Half the time, I just stood there and took it until he grabbed his jacket and stormed out.

I took it because he was rubbing my face in my ignorance. I had to go and google up half the insults. There are times ignorance is bliss. I was a bartender. It suited me. I didn’t want to own my own bar. I didn’t have the math skills or the inclination for all that responsibility. I was happy were I was. I didn’t want to be upwardly mobile. He thought I was lazy. I was realistic with my expectations.

I can almost pinpoint when things started to get volatile. His firm had a company picnic. Over the course of the years I had met some of his colleagues at the wine bar but I was never introduced as Jonathon’s significant other. It really wasn’t the time or place – his words, not mine. I came to the picnic with him as his official date and that’s were everything hit the fan. He came out to the company. Since that day, he hasn’t been the shining up and comer any more. He’s been getting the boring cases. I was not corporate husband material. I couldn’t help him advance his career unless he was going to be hosting a hell of a lot of drinking parties. Jonathan just held onto me and ranted and railed against his manager as his frustration grew.

It came to a head at the beginning of the month. I could take his insults. I quit trying to figure out what they meant. He really wasn’t venting at me. But that time. I took a calming breath. That time, he came home late, well past three reeking of booze but the worst was lipstick smeared on his cheek and staining his collar. He stank of some floozies perfume. I looked down at my hand and ran my fingers over the back of my knuckles. He had been itching for a fight.

I was a whore. I spread my ass for anyone who looked at me twice. I couldn’t be trusted because a bastard like me didn’t have any family values and wouldn’t know loyalty if it came up and bit me in the testicles. I couldn’t take my eyes off the lipstick on his face.

I hit him. No, I beat him. I beat the living crap out of him and kicked him until he shut the fuck up. Then I left him laying there in his five hundred dollar suit. I was a little dim, but I wasn’t stupid. He cheated on me and was trying to play the guilt he feeling about doing it with some dime store hooker slut into anger against me.

Of course, I’d looked at other me. It’s just like looking at a used car. Wondering how it would ride, but not taking it for a test drive. I had morals. I took off my ring, which I valued much more than he did, and walked home. Twenty-six miles. I got to Dad’s door just as the sun was coming up. He took one look at my face and my bloodied knuckles and drew me into his arms.

“He hurt you, Cat?”

“He cheated.”

“You fucked him up.”

“He’ll probably press charges. I’ll be going to jail.”

“While your Mother and Grandmother might pretend that you don’t exist, there is no way in hell they will allow the Thackery name to be dragged through the papers.”

The rally of the Thackery clan was unnecessary. Jonathan called before noon. “I deserved that, Cat. Just next time, make sure I can hide the bruises under my clothes. I had to call in sick today.”

I said nothing. What could I say? Trust is a fragile thing and he took a sledge hammer to it. I had given him everything I had. In the beginning it was good. We had troubles but we had faced them together. Jonathan had pulled away. He had turned to someone else.

“Why are you calling me, Jonathan?”

“I was drunk and stupid last night. I can’t remember exactly what I did but I must have deserved this. Kitty-Cat, you forgot your ring here.”

“No I didn’t. I left it there.”

“Cat...”

“This isn’t working anymore, Jon. I was wrong to use you as a punching bag. When will the cops be here? I’ll wait out at the front gates so I don’t embarrass....”

“..I’m not pressing charges.”

“Thank you, Jon.”

“That’s not my name. You know that.”

“I love you, JON. I just might love you for the rest of my life, but I’ve lost all respect for you. I don’t think you’ve ever respected me. I know what I am capable of. I’m a pretty face and a good fuck. I’m not smart. I can’t play chess. I don’t like your classical music. Your friends talk over my head...”

“If that was bothering you, you should have said something.”

“I was hoping that you would notice and do something about it but you never did.”

“Don’t do this, Cat. I love you.”

Dad came from the kitchen with a Ziploc filled with ice. He wrapped a tea towel around it and then held it against my swollen knuckles. “Love’s not enough. I thought it was. I guess the apple doesn’t fall from the tree.”

“What the hell does that mean?”

“I’ll clear out of stuff later today.”

“Catherine Aloysius!”

“You fucked around on me, Jon.”

“I can’t remember! I don’t think I did. I love you. Even if I did do some slut, it doesn’t mean that I don’t love you. Cat...”

I hung up on him and turned off the cell. Dad looked up at me. “I didn’t know that you knew. I sure as hell wasn’t going to tell you.”

I took control of the ice back and sat down at the kitchen table. “That Mom is a slut?”

“A sexaholic. Not a slut. She still is your Mother after all.” Dad set a coffee mug down in front of me.

“Does this get better? This hurt?” I flexed my hand feeling the pain from the whaling I gave Jon.

“No...you just learn to live with it. You might have your mother’s last name but you’re an Artemis through and through. We are a one love man. I can’t live with her, but I can’t break free. Why the hell do you think you have a blond sister in that marriage of hers? I resist her for as long as I can but she always knows when I’m at my weakest and she calls. I come a running. You think I like being the other man?”

We sat in silence across the kitchen table from each other. I was his carbon copy. We were so much like it was scary. So this meant that I would never be free from Jonathan.

I found a lover. A lover, not a love. Hector is a nice man. He treats me good. Better than I deserve. He respects me. But when the cell rings...I turn into someone I don’t like. I feel guilty and tormented. My old love has me bound by the heart and I end up in the condo. I lie to go to Jonathan. I am making a fool out of Hector. I lay in Hector’s arms and think of what I am doing to him but my resolve weakens when Jonathan whispers to me on the phone. I can’t trust him but I need to hold him. I need to see him. In my sane moments, I know that I can’t link my life to his anymore, no matter how charming and elegant he is to me, but when the time is right the cell rings and just like Dad, I come a running. I can’t live with him. I can’t let him go.

...this is just the weakness in me.


-30-

"The Weakness in Me" by Melissa Etheridge