I Had To Let Go

Psycho said, "You have to call me when you get out of work today. "

I reached for my phone at 5:01.

"Well, it is so nice to hear your voice finally."

"You too, especially after all this talk about making out in your jet. "

"You sound even hotter than you look on your Myspace pic, by the way."

"Focus, Josh."

"Uh.. Yeah.. By the way.. My boss launched a campaign today.”

“Operation get Josh Dent fired."

"Wait. What?""

"I gotta pick up my kid now. But, I wanted to let you know."

“Be careful.”

"Hold on…"

"Sorry. We'll chat more tomorrow."

After Psycho dropped the call, I shook up my protein shake, and headed for the gym. I thought through
my workout and into the night about our conversation.

“Man. That voice sounded so sweet.”

“I can’t wait to meet her.”

“I wanted to talk longer.”

What an enigma.

I thought nothing about getting fired.

The next morning, I couldn't wait to check my Instant Messenger on my work computer. I hoped to
see a big happy, “Good Morning:) “

I saw nothing but emails from disgruntled students wanting their Financial Aid refund check;
even though I was their academic counselor.  I told myself not to feel any disappointment about a
lack of messages from Psycho, since she could have been just avoiding me since Operation Get Josh
Dent fired was in progress.

I started to hammer the phones not much longer after I put my headset on.

"Hi , Alma. "

"My name is Josh Dent.  I will be your Academic Counselor with University of Phoenix. "

" You better put those toys away! "

"Sorry,Sir. My kids.. "

"I understand. Well, I have some information that will be helpful for you as you study here at UOP.
Is now an ok time to talk?"

"Ok."

I hit the mute button , and turned to my cube mate.

"God Damn it. The Chicago office enrolls the worst students. "

I released the mute button.

"Ok? Great. "

"As I am sure your enrollment counselor, Latoya, at our school in Chicago told you, our program is
100 percent online. So, we require you to have a working computer, with MS Office installed.
Can you tell me how you plan on attending our classes? "

" Oh… I just a have a PlayStation. "

I almost broke my finger I hit the mute button so hard, as if hitting it harder was going to tune out
the noise any better.

"And this enrollment team’s manager says I am the problem?"

"Please! Put me out of my misery and fire me!"

More phone conversations with degenerates fueled my insanity the rest of the day. They were
supposed to be asking me questions about their academic programs. Mostly, they asked about
their financial aid checks. Most of the time, I had my headset locking me to my phone, and my
eyes on the ceiling. This was because I was throwing a medicine ball in the air as they talked.
This practice of volleyball setting was the only thing that kept me sane while talking on the phone
for eight hours a day.  

This was the longest day Psycho and I had gone without some kind of chat about our fantasy of
flying around the world, while making out on our imaginary private jet

5:01 couldn't have taken any longer. I reached in my pocket again. I had to call Psycho to get an
update on Operation Get Josh Dent Fired.

"I missed talking to you today."

"How did you get sweeter overnight?"

"Yeah. By the way, Steve really wants you gone!"

"He’s doing me a favor. “

“One of the girls on you guys' team tried to enroll a student using a PlayStation as a computer today.  
I had to put a stop to it. "

"Oh. No wonder he was even more pissed off than usual today."

"By the way, when are we going to make that trip to Las Vegas we have been talking about?"

"Soon. I promise. Let me talk to my dad tonight, and see if he will watch Lily. "

"Looking forward to touching you for the first time. "

"Awwwe. Me too. "

"Bye , for now. "

Three months later, I stood in the waiting room of the Tropicana Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas  
A pack of stripper dwarfs couldn't have got my attention. I only cared about seeing her, for the first time.

Her blue eyes looked up at my brown eyes. She put her luggage down. She ran into my arms,
 while still managing to tiptoe across the smokey carpet

Three minutes of making out finally stopped, only because we needed to go upstairs.

"Are you ready?"

"I almost came when my thigh brushed against someone on the plane."

"Oh. This is gonna be good."

We left our mark on every square inch of the hotel room in the Tropicana for three nights. I am still
surprised to this day that nobody reported a murder with all the noise going on. On the third night,
she cried extensively during one of our love-making sessions. Then, she handed me a letter as we laid
there.

"Here this is so stupid.I'm such a retard."
"No, it's sweet."

As I read the letter, she talked about how she thought she could never love again, but she was still glad
she had met me.

I knew that this was a damaged woman. But, I still somehow thought that it would all work out.

A year and a half later, I felt like life in the desert with a pack of wild coyotes would have been
more stable. The girl and the kid had moved from Chicago to be with me. Sometimes, I came home
to the sweetest woman in the world. Dinner was served, and a side of hugs and kisses for dessert.
I took the kid out to play volleyball, baseball, and any other game I could think of.  Other days, I
came home to a woman locked in the shower having violent flashbacks from the night she conceived
the child. Her child’s father allegedly raped her when she got pregnant. For an extra slice of crazy,
the kid was also sometimes kicking and screaming on the kitchen floor, doing what I called
a Dirt Angel. Picture a snow angel on top of a dusty desert kitchen floor.

Over the next year, I grew close with one, and grew apart from the other. The problem was I grew
close with the one that didn't make the decisions. I combed her dolls' hair. I sat in the
McDonald's bathroom with her as she sang songs while she pooped. Meanwhile, the taller one and
I started to despise each other, especially after she had a miscarriage, and I decided I
didn't want to try again.

In the time we grew apart, Mom decided to take advantage of the little one’s growing acceptance
of me. She started to brace me for her date with her new coworker. She called him Gay Rich.

“Honey. I really need to get out of the house once in a while too, without Lily. “

“Sure, I understand.”

“I would like to spend some time with Gay Rich. You think you could watch Lily?”

“Sure, any time.”

So, I volunteered to babysit Dirt Angel while she went out with Gay Rich. Let her be a person again.
It started out with a couple of quick and casual dinner outings. She was gone for maybe an hour or
so after Dirt Angel already went to bed anyway. Of course, Psycho didn’t stop there, and she got
greedy. The encounters stretched into a few hours, and eventually culminated one night in me calling
her about ten times at two in the morning to let her know Dirt Angel was having a violent asthma
attack and I really needed her help in handling the situation.

Psycho further developed her social life just a few short weeks after her overnight stay with Gay
Rich. She started spending a lot of time chatting on FB messenger at night with her new coworker,
an African American pastor named Steven.  I mention his skin color, and his religion, only because
she was Atheist, and came from a family of devout racists. One Friday night, we went to the
Art Walk all together, Psycho, Gay Rich, Pastor Steven, Dirt Angel,& Myself. The only thing
bizarre I noticed about the situation was that she spent an extra long time giving both of them a
hug when the night was over.

The next day, I spent the morning avoiding Psycho & Dirt Angel. Psycho & I had already gone
to the point where if we were alone together for more than just a few minutes that it would definitely
lead to an argument. I dodged them by frantically pulling weeds outside the house in the 105
degree heat until noon when they finally went out for a bit. I actually even recruited a friend of
mine to help me pull the weeds, and avoid the nut jobs. She came outside to tell me that her and
Dirt Angel were leaving  to go hang out with Gay Rich for a bit. She gave me a kiss, even though
she already hated me by this point.

The Mommy Daughter date with Gay Rich was supposed to be just an hour or so. My friend asked me
a few times if I thought it was funny that she wasn’t back yet. I didn’t think anything of it.
He eventually planted a seed in my head that even though he says he is gay, it is still possible that
he might go both ways. I laughed it off.

Only a few more weeks went by, until Psycho called me one night from about 100 yards away from
the house. We had planned on going out to celebrate St. Patty’s Day that night. We even had a
babysitter lined up.  I saw it as one last attempt for the two of us to have a good night out, and
maybe rekindle some of that Las Vegas Magic.

“Hey.”

“Where are you?”

“Down the street.”

I walked outside and started pacing up and down the fence line of my house. I looked over the
fence expecting to see some Psycho with a sniper gun pointing at me.

“What in the world are you doing, Morgan?”

“I’ve been crying a lot.”
"Ok. But, you could have at least called me and told me you needed some time. I thought
we were going out tonight."

“Can you let me go?”

I put the phone down.

“Thank God. This is definitely her, and not me.”

I came back on the phone..

“Yeah, I can do that.”

“Wait, why did you do that so quickly?”

“Well, if that’s what you want. "
Then we might as well end it. I can’t force you to stay.”

“Wait, I don’t understand.”

“Oh Jesus Christ. Are you coming home?”

I never saw her that night. I still to this day have no idea where she stayed that night.  About a
week later, she was still living in my house. We tried to keep things amicable while she looked for
a new place. Then, one day she told me something.

“Hey, what are you up to this weekend?”

“Me. I’m just playing some volleyball. What about you guys?”

“Oh. Well.l I have a date with Steven.”

I couldn’t even stay in the same room any longer. I wanted to punch her in the face. I wanted to vomit
right on the floor. I didn't know what I wanted to do.
I called all the people close to me to get advice. The opinion was unanimous. Give her 24 hours to
get her shit, and get out of YOUR house.

So, I came back home the next day.

“Hey. You supposedly loved me. And, you’re dating someone a week after we broke up, while you are living in my house.
You guys gotta go! I will go to a friend’s house this weekend. That should be enough time to get
your stuff out of here.”

“Ok.”

She left without too much drama. She trashed the house a bit. She also planted some of her
journal pages around the house for me to read. Of course, they all ready how madly in
love she was with me.

A few more months went by and I got a message from someone saying I should read something. It was
Morgan’s engagement page. It gave a detailed account about how her and Steven basically started
seeing each other on the nights I was entertaining her kid.

Breakups are always difficult. But, this one was especially difficult for me. I thought about how I could be
so desperate and stupid to trust a complete stranger with a long list of red flags. What brought me to
this point in my life? I read a lot of self-help books after that. I went to self-help conferences. I started
doing Yoga. It all kind of worked itself out eventually.

A few years later, I listened a little closer to the lyrics of one of my favorite Grateful Dead songs.

You told me Goodbye

How was I to know

Didn’t mean Goodbye

You meant

Please..

Don’t let me go.

I remembered when we broke up that a few friends had suspected that she wanted me to put up
one fight to keep her. That was the only reason that she would have told me about the guy that she
had already started seeing. But, to me, cheating is such a vile act . I knew she would do it again.
Sure enough, she was divorced, and already remarried within five years of our breakup.