When someone you just met tries to sell you a handgun, then it’s time to think about what you’re about to do and why. On one hand, I had just met the guy; he had moved into the apartment next door to me. He seemed nice enough, at first, but that was my first impression, that he would be one of those people you liked just one time. Less than a week went by and his car was repossessed. Soon afterwards he offered to sell me his .38. Really cheap. At worst, I thought, I would have a gun and he wouldn’t. Think about that one for a few minutes.

 

During the next few months his life got sketchier and sketchier. His girlfriend, who was a great deal younger than he was and a little crazy, went shopping with a friend of mine, a sort of girl bonding thing. His girlfriend shoplifted a ton of jewelry from the store, effortlessly and cleanly, and so we knew it wasn’t her first time around the block. It was scary, in a very real way. Then he started loading up on roommates. He had a two bedroom place and at one time there was eleven people living there, each one of them a little stranger than the last. The young girlfriend left and was replaced by a harden woman about his own age, whose first act was to come up to my apartment and try to borrow five bucks from me. I handed it over instantly. I knew damn well I would never see it again, but how often do you get to get rid of someone that cheaply? She was a grim faced woman who rarely smiled, and cooked a huge meal once or twice a week, and charged the renters five bucks apiece for all they could eat. It was usually soup or spaghetti or something that she could water down, but she did make it smell good.

 

After a few months of the normal residents raging at the landlord about the lack of parking spots, he did an inspection and discovered the population of a small town living in one of his apartments. Everyone there got evicted. And it was about this time, I started dating a woman named JoAnne, who knew this guy very well. The first time she came over and he saw her it was like one of those movie moments where you hear dramatic music in the background.

 

I had no idea this guy was a wife beater until Jo told me, but then a lot of things he said suddenly gained clarity. This was a guy who was always right about everything and was a wealth of advice, unasked for and unwelcomed, on nearly every subject. I was running every day, and he smoked, which led him to tell me that he thought running was as bad for a body as smoking. Fortunately, I didn’t let smokers in my apartment and was more than willing to accept the idea I shouldn’t be in his. Anyway, JoAnne knew this guy.

 

Apparently, his now ex-wife was a nurse, and he didn’t like the idea that he was making fifteen grand a year and she was making twice that. Worse, she began to put money away in stocks and things like that, while he invested in beer. He became the local drunk, violent, and one night, he beat the hell out of his wife and both his kids. At the ER her friends took a lot of photos. Wife Beater was tossed out of his house, had to petition the court to see his kids, and was broke as hell to boot. She took him for a well deserved ride.

 

Wife Beater seemed to realize Jo would tell me the truth, and if he outright called her a liar I had a gun and he didn’t. But he tried to spin the story, saying his wife was the violent one, and she had set him up.  I had lived close enough to him to realize that he wasn’t just your average overdrinking liar. He was actually lower on the food chain than that. A lot lower. It wasn’t long before eviction became a reality, and I was pretty sure I would never see him again. That was in the late 1980’s.

 

Then back in about 2014, I saw him in Starbucks; I would go there to write and he would be there reading a newspaper and drinking coffee. I’m pretty sure I look a lot different now than I did back then. I’m thirty pounds heavier and I’m bald. But he has the same haircut and the same moustache. He never seemed to notice me, and honestly, I’m perfectly fine with it. I like to write on the laptop in Starbucks. It’s the energy of the place, the action going on, and the smell of coffee. I stopped going when they started a new rewards program that minimized my rewards, so once again, I lost sight of this guy.

 

Yesterday, my second day at the YMCA in a year or so, there he was. He looks a lot older than he did four years ago, and you have to wonder if he’s repeating the same mistakes he was making back in the 80’s. Once, I had a smoker tell me she knew of people who never smoked who still came down with lung cancer, and this is her excuse to keep smoking. I wonder if the wife beater still justifies behavior that, most certainly, in the end, will lead to destruction very much like smoking usually does.

 

We were both in the locker room at the same time, and I kept my back to him. I waited until he had left before I did, and when I did leave, he was just making his way towards the door. I stopped and hesitated, not wanting to see him outside of the entrance. He got into his car and looked back towards the building but he couldn’t see me. Maybe he does remember me. Maybe he thinks that if he makes friends with someone who knows him that will mitigate in some way who he once was, or still is.

 

I think that might be it, actually. If someone else can accept what he’s done then he can justify why he accepts it. He’s looking for some sort of support group, of one, to forget the past and move on, perhaps. Women are fools if they think they can change this sort of person, or if they think he’s going to change, as long as she keeps coming back for more. I have no reason to associate with him, ever. A man who will abuse his children won’t hesitate to use violence against anyone else, thinks I.

 

I’m keeping my distance.

 

Take Care,

Mike