The Canadian Breakup

“Each day I lacerated myself thinking on her, but I didn't go back.”

― Neal Cassady, The First Third

                The breakup might be one of the greatest tragedies which exist.  Not to imply that it’s more traumatic than an actual death, but simply that it’s only traumatic to you.  There is no post-breakup potluck dinner, and your neighbors sure as hell don’t come over to offer their condolences.  Sure, your friends may offer kind statements like, “sorry dude, that sucks,” or “two tears in a bucket; fuck it,” but there is no real outpouring of support.  You’re on your own to sift through all the memories like some forensics detective, trying to find all the places you went wrong, what was your fault, what was her fault, and how much more hate and resentment you can drudge up in order to get yourself past it all.

                It typically starts with one massive fight, where the gloves come off and you’re both hell bent on dismantling each other mentally, rather than actually solving any problems.  For me, that’s when the bigger light bulb usually goes off in my head, and I realize that it’s time to part ways.  I mean, sure, a smaller light bulb usually pops up several times throughout the courtship like a yield sign, but like most people, I have the tendency to ignore it and hit the gas, escaping collision by the skin of my teeth. 

The impossibility of it all didn’t honestly occur to me until the next morning, after she had left for work.  Distraught and hopeless from the night before, I sat down to watch a History Channel special on The Third Reich in order to escape my depression.  I can’t say that watching the viciousness of mass genocide really did much to pick-up my spirits, but it did help me focus on something much more profound.  As I watched a worn clip of Hitler speaking in a city square, packed shoulder to shoulder with an uncountable number of his Nazi followers, I realized how deep my dislike for the person I considered my partner had become.  And not because Hitler’s awful and blinding hatred reminded me of what I never wanted to be, but because I actually liked him more than the person I had come to consider my significant other.

                Almost exactly a year prior, we had met in Korea by chance at a national park on holiday from the two different schools where we taught.  I was two months into the job, just getting my feet wet, and she had been there for six months, halfway through her work contract.  I can’t begin to tell you what it is about certain situations or moments, but at times you just get hit by a lightning bolt of spontaneity, and emotion trumps reason like a bluff in a poker game.  Maybe it was the loneliness of being away from home.  Or perhaps it was the adrenaline rush of taking wild card chances?  Whatever it was, I fell like an anvil in an old Warner Brother’s cartoon.  For the first time in my life, no questions were asked, no options were weighed, and my Venn diagram went straight into the trash can.  Her Canadian citizenship didn’t even perplex me, and without so much as a slight deliberation, I obligated myself to a committed relationship, resulting in a permanent move to the Canadian north after my tenure in Korea was complete and to start fresh in the city of Halifax, Nova Scotia.          

By mid-afternoon on the day of our breakup, my brain had gone completely into “shit mode,” taking “a glass is half-empty stance.” Reason had flown south for the winter, and I was stuck in that all-too-familiar low, as if looking up at some metaphorical referee who was slowly counting me down for the K.O.  As for focus, there was very little to speak of.  It had unknowingly shifted from fulfillment of the heart and settled itself on useless thought.  For me, it was the age-old debate on who was to blame for the slow demise of integrity, and so I filled my head with a handful of distorted rationalizations in a botched attempt to cover up my domesticated failures.    

To clear my head, I decided to shave my face, as if getting rid of unwanted facial hair would work like some metaphorical form of therapy.  Needless to say, it didn’t; it just served to make me look like a well-groomed manic depressive.  Heavy depression looms like an unidentified serial killer; the more you think on it, the bigger and scarier it all becomes.  Clearing the head works much better when it’s already been cleared a few times during the weeks prior to a major dilemma; this was something that I had not done in months, and which had mutated my brain into a vicious parallel of the A and E show “Hoarders.”  With no real hope of coping with my current situation, I grabbed my Ipod and hit the streets in the naïve hope that I could potentially walk off the pain.  I probably walked about three miles before I felt my nerves trying to kick back into normal, and then as I slowly let out a breath of relief, I remembered the engagement ring I had put a down payment on weeks before this whole debacle.

Weeks earlier the idea of marriage had been discussed, and in a blind effort to convince myself that the American dream was what I really wanted, I totally pushed my Canadian girlfriend into a commitment like some pot-smoking instigator in an afterschool special.  So, in a belligerent attempt to capture what the masses assumed was the American dream, I had my grandmother’s engagement ring shipped to me in Canada.  This would be it, that simple touch my life needed, one more worry I could put to bed.  I would not die cold and alone, and even though compatibility was a problem area, I didn’t really care, because like so many others, I clung tightly to the nonsensical notion that it’s better to be miserable and married than content and single. 

I had taken the ring to a jeweler down the street from our tiny apartment, and he worked me a deal to extract all of the diamonds from the original band and create a new one made from white gold.  It had been around three weeks since I had dropped it off, and I prayed to God that the jeweler had not done any substantial work on it yet.  Having to get the ring back was bad enough, but having to fork over another grand for an engagement ring that would never be utilized was an even worse nightmare.  I crashed through the doors just as they were about to close up shop.  The Asian man behind the counter just stared at me nonchalantly, as if my urgency and panic was something he was all too familiar with.

“Hi,” I mouthed, breathing heavily.  “I’m sorry to do this to you, but I brought a ring….”

“I remember you,” he said, cutting me off.  “You need it back?”

“Yes,” I answered.

“I’ll go get it.  I haven’t started it just yet, only taken the diamonds out of it.”

He went in the back as I rested my hands on the jewel case in front of me, slowly catching my breath.  Within seconds he returned with two Ziplock bags, one that held all of the diamonds, and the other that held the bulky golden band.  He placed the two bags side by side on the clear glass case, opened up the register, and swiftly refunded all of my deposit.

“Thank you,” I said.

“Not a problem.  I hope it all works out.”  I didn’t say anything to this, just nodded slowly and pushed my way through the creaking glass door and into the cold and brutal wind outside.

When I returned home, I knew I only had a couple of hours to pack all of my stuff before she returned home from work.  I wanted to keep it simple, short, and direct so that I could start my grieving/recovery process as soon as possible.  Packing in the midst of feelings of shame and emptiness is like a meditation practice that doesn’t catch up to you until months later when you’re reassessing life experiences and trying to turn pain into poetry for short stories like this one.  It’s a gauntlet of silent madness that stings with every piece of clothing and article you shove into that worn-out suitcase.

When I finished, I placed all five bags at the top of the stairs as if to serve as some fucked-up memento, symbolizing the good times, now washed away with the speed of loneliness.  In reality it was just a failed attempt to get back what I knew was gone and get her to look at me in some sort of hopeful way, one last time.  Jesus, how do people get so desperate?  I’m not sure I would ever know, and I’m not sure I would want to discard desperation because that would just incite fear.  If I had to choose between desperation and fear, I would go with desperation every time, that way I would only suffer for a few months until everything went numb.  With fear, you may look cooler initially, but you’ll spend the rest of your life carrying around the “what-if curse.” Relationships are a tail-tucking experience, and if you’re not willing to lose all, then regret can haunt you till your dying day.

All I could do now was sit and wait until she came home, so I found a spot on the giant futon in the living room, stared blankly at the wall, and allowed the demons in my brain to toss my balance into the bowels of hell.  A little after nine, I heard the rattle of keys and the deadbolt clicking open.  I could hear the wooden steps creaking as she slowly made her way up, and then the silence that came when she saw the bags sitting at the top.  Even slower than before, she resumed her way up the stairs and finally stood in the doorway, silently locking eyes with me as I sat motionless on the futon.  With the simple hesitation of a child who has just hit his head and is contemplating what just happened, she began to cry.  I could only sit and stare, dry-eyed and empty of the energy to say something meaningful.  The large empty doorway seemed to work like a really subtle picture frame, adding so much to the picture that it would remain in the subconscious until I started to really analyze it all later on. 

I don’t remember talking too much, and if we did, then I can’t fully remember all that was said.  It’s funny how breakups work like that—where in the end, every sad or empty look almost tattoos itself to the back of your brain, but the words all seem to drift away like tiny blades of grass in a fast-moving stream.  As I was about to get up, I saw her move her hand slightly toward me, but when I turned to face her, she quickly pulled away and placed it in her lap, clutching a tissue like some 1940’s widow who has just received news that her husband was killed in war.

“Can you call me a cab?” I asked.  She gave a quick nod and then disappeared into the kitchen.  I just stood in the middle of the living room, staring at the walls and furniture that used to be ours but would soon be only hers in a house that I would never enter again.  I can’t say the simplicity of this thought didn’t pull me further down the rabbit hole into a black tunnel that I would now blindly trek through, waiting for any sign of light on the other end.

When she returned, she was carrying the phone book and sat it down on the coffee table so she could dial the number of one of the random cab companies in the area.  As she began to dial, I quickly stopped her; I guess I had one last bout of energy left.

“I just want you to know…,” I said, “…if you want me to stay, then I will.”  All she could do was stare at me while processing exactly what to reply and before I knew it, I was hit with the shotgun blast of two tiny syllables.

“We’re gone,” she softly replied.  It was these delicately selected words that caused me to really look deep into her eyes, something I realized I had failed to do since the blowout the previous night.  What I saw was…nothing, plain and simple, and like a Righteous Brothers song, I knew she had lost “that lovin' feeling.”

“Go ahead,” I said as I walked to the stairs to start carrying my bags down.

In the few minutes that it took for the cabbie to reach the house, we did nothing but sit in silence and wait for that muffled car horn, which when it arrived, hit with the force of a bluesy guitar riff.

“That’s my ride,” I said.  I got up and made my way down the stairs as she slowly followed behind me.  When I opened the door, the cabbie was making his way up the steps, and the roar of the wind was hitting the trees with an unbridled rage; a heavy storm was moving in like the presence of an unwelcome guest.

“Hey,” the cabbie started before focusing his eyes on the tear-stained face standing behind me.  “I got this,” he said picking up the last of the bags.  “You guys do what you have to, and I’ll be waiting on you.”

This was the end; over a year in the making and that worn velvet curtain was about to swing shut.  I stared up at her from the bottom of the doorway steps like some ancient religious shrine.  She started to cry again, and like a cue from a director, the wind picked up almost in unison.

“We’ve had a good run,” I stated.  I turned to go to the cab, but then quickly stopped myself after the first step.  I turned to face her, and she mopped more teardrops out of her eyes.

“I love you,” I said and stood motionless giving her a moment to respond.  She said nothing, and I climbed inside the beat-up cab and closed the door.

The cab ride through the old Halifax neighborhoods was quiet except for the wind that violently beat the windows and caused the cab to rock from side to side.

“You guys been busy tonight,” I asked the cabbie.

“Naw, not really,” he replied.

“Just broke up with my girlfriend.”

“That’s tough bro…. It’s a tough one.”

I just sort of nodded and stared out the windows once again, my mind swimming with a million good times that I would only get back in memory.  From the corner of my eye, I saw the cabbie go for the console that served as an armrest in the middle of the front seat.  From inside he pulled out a CD, popped open the case, and slid a disc into the player.

“Got just what you need, dude,” he exclaimed.

I sat for a moment before the tune started, and as it did, he cranked the volume to the max.  Jay-Z’s “I Got 99 Problems but a Bitch Ain’t One” flowed into my ears like a cup of scalding coffee, and I cringed without actually contorting my face. 

“If you’re having girl problems, I feel bad for you, son; I got 99 problems but a bitch ain’t one.”  After a while I was able to tune out the loud bass that caused the car to shake more than the wind blowing outside.  I simply locked eyes on all the shops and houses that moved past with the blink of an eye,  all of them hard to make out in the darkness, but which would present themselves much more clearly when the sun rose at dawn and I was far away.