Nothing Everything

It is New Year’s Eve so we dressed up to go out dancing, my best friend Mary and I, and headed out to some bar out in the country we’d never been to before, but we—M&M was how we were known (“we’re not plain, we’re nuts” we’d tell most everyone we met)—were always up for an adventure, especially when dancing and cowboys were involved. Dark was the night but the roads were good, and we arrived at the bar with the dance floor up the stairs, and a tin ceiling above it, at least that’s what I remember, along with the music thumping thumping, boots stomping stomping, and people swirl swirling across the floor, and soon we were swirling, too, from dancing, and from having more than one drink, even though we weren’t fond of drinking because we had enough fun on our own, and the drinks led to standing in line in the ladies room then swaying my way to a stall to pee, then realizing the zipper on the jeans I was wearing, the jeans were actually Mary’s not mine because we shared out clothes like best friends do, was broken, the bottom off track, off-track like my night soon would be.

With Mary’s help and a sucked in gut (Mary was skinnier than I) I finally got zipped up again and headed out to dance floor where cowboys, or any good looking men, weren’t plentiful but, there was a man I thought I knew (because of his Wranglers and hat and mustache) and he danced with me, oh he could cut a rug, impressive for the older man I thought he was, but then realized he wasn’t the man I thought, in more ways than one, yet we were having fun so when midnight rolled around we kissed like people do at midnight when they ring in the new year, and then the chain of events I do not remember, I wish I could remember, I don’t want to remember, but somehow, this man I thought was another man, one that I could trust, said he’d drive me home. Where was Mary? Mary my best friend? Did she drive that night? I know I didn’t have a car so she must have driven us out into the country to that bar we’d never been to so we could dance with cowboys because we loved to dance back then in our early 20s, back when we were horse-crazy young women but naive as little girls, stupid, even, or so it seems because I remember the man telling my neighbor, the racetrack cowboy, whose name was Rob, that he was going to give me a ride home, and how Rob looked at me as if to ask “Is this okay?” and I don’t remember what happened but what I do remember is that it was like permission was asked and I, stupid me, how could I have been so dumb? thought that things would be fine so I said, yes, I’ll get a ride home with him and see you all tomorrow.

To a car we went but it was not to the cowboy’s car but his housemate’s, a man I knew and never liked, and that man, his girlfriend, and the cowboy I thought I knew headed off into the night but not, not to my apartment—”We’re going back to my house to get my truck,” he said, “then I’ll give you a ride home”—and I, looking out the window from the back seat in the dark with snow covered fields thinking, “I want to be with Mary,” and wanting to stop holding my breath, holding my breath because I didn’t know where we were going and I was afraid of having the zipper on my borrowed jeans go off track again and expose me for being too fat and too dumb, too fat and too dumb because I got myself in this situation, this situation that had us, finally, arriving at a house near a water tower that said “Prior Lake” where we went inside because he said he wanted one more drink before he took me home, so we stood awkwardly in the kitchen and the three of them had a drink, and I don’t remember if I did or not—that would have been even stupider, now, wouldn’t it, if I had a drink—and then the roommate and his girlfriend went off to bed, no help at all, even the girl—what kind of girl did they think I was? It was pretty obvious, wasn’t it? Dumb or easy, neither good options when you find yourself alone in a kitchen with a cowboy you thought you knew but don’t, who will not give you a ride home. “Let’s go to bed,” he said, or maybe he said he was too tired to drive and “come with me” and for some reason, I followed him down the stairs to his bedroom, what options did I have? and then I barely moved because I did not like him and I was scared, scared, afraid the zipper on my jeans would go off track and I would be embarrassed because, without Mary, I wouldn’t be able to fix them again so there I was, there we were, in his room, dark, and I try to forget, to forget but what I do remember is that I lay there as still as I could as he tried, tried to kiss me, tried to do more, but I wouldn’t give in—”What’s wrong with you?” he said when I wouldn’t give in, “You know you want it.” No, I don’t want it, I wish I said, but didn’t, so “What’s wrong with you?” again. Nothing Everything, I wanted to cry out, to cry, to kick or scream or run but where could I go, I didn’t even know where I was so I resisted, resisted, until he got tired and, thank god he was drunk, passed out until there was the steady rise and fall of his breath, and then, and then, slowly, stealthily, I was sneaking out of the room, going upstairs, finding a friend in the dog who came to my side, and then, trying to find out where I was so I could leave, but how, when Mary was gone and I didn’t have a car? But there was mail, mail on the counter with an address and a phone so I called Rob who answered, sleepily because it was 4 a.m. and I said, I need a ride home, and “where are you?” he asked and I gave him the address, no gps to help us back then, so I said the house is by a water tower and I hugged the dog then went outside in the cold of winter to wait, wait for Rob to come but then, then, the man woke up and found me, “I’ll give you a ride home,” he said, “No, no, I’m getting a ride” I said, and more happened, but I don’t remember what, except that finally he gave up and went back inside, so outside I waited and finally, finally, the red truck and Rob pulled up, and I climbed in and he asked me, “Do you want to go to the police?” and I didn’t understand because why would I go to the police to tell them that I was stupid but then I realized Rob wondered, wondered, what the man had done and it hit me, hit me then, what could have happened, and my body crumpled in the front seat of the truck where I curled up like a child and cried and cried and cried while Rob, my friend, drove me home.

Photo by pawel szvmanski on Unsplash