Today, I’d like to regale you with a story about Ashe. For those who are new to my brand of madness, Ashe is/was ex-husband #2, God rest his soul. Sadly, he died in 2005 at the age of 37 from a heart attack. His widow told me he’d been eating a pound of bacon/day when he died. Yeah, I know, right? Ewwww…the mere thought makes me nauseous. Regardless, we were always good friends, and I shed many tears at his passing.
For the 411 on Ashe, check out this previous post: http://tenaciousbitch.com/2012/02/21/blog-51-ashe-the-obnoxious/ …
AND/or for a rather shocking incident regarding Ashe, check out: http://tenaciousbitch.com/2012/04/23/ashe-the-sex-god/ …
ANYWHO, back to the matter at hand… Ashe and I started dating in ’89, and he came to visit me in Brooklyn* over July 4th weekend that year, not long after I graduated from college.
“I really don’t like this place,” Ashe said.
We were gingerly trekking along the broken sidewalk on Marcy Avenue toward my loft apartment just over the George Washington Bridge. We’d just been to dinner at an Irish pub in Midtown.
“This is your first night here!” I said, smiling.
Ashe shrugged.
“I love it here.” I said, glancing at Tim, who was two at the time. He was tired, so he quietly limped along without his usual nonstop chatter.
It was around 8:30. The sun was starting to droop below the horizon. Sweat drooled down the side of my face from the caldron of heat engulfing the city.
“What’s wrong with New York?”
Ashe grimaced, “Too much crime, and it’s just…oppressive, too many people.”
“Um, yeah, like L.A. has no crime and a sparse population.”
Ashe REALLY wanted to move to Los Angeles after college, the following September, and he’d already been offered an internship with Metal Blade Records.
“Yeah, but everyone’s not crammed onto one tiny, island. I feel like I’m suffocating,” he replied.
“It’s just the 90-degree temperatures.”
“No, it’s not. I don’t get what you see in this concrete graveyard.”
I laughed. “Graveyard?”
“Yeah, I feel like I’m dying. Everything here is so old.”
I shook my head, grinning at his seemingly bizarre description of my beloved town. “We both grew up in West Virginia. Do you really have to ask me WHY I like it here? Good Lord, I was waiting tables back home praying I’d get a teaching job for $15,000 a year, and now I work at a bank on Wall Street making 23 grand a year! And the sky’s the limit, ya know?”
“Yeah, I know, but how do you stand pushing through throngs of people all day?”
I shrugged “Doesn’t bother me.”
I didn’t know where our relationship was going since we’d lived no less than 1,000 miles apart the whole time we’d been dating. I’d never been to L.A., so who’s to say I wouldn’t like it better, should I choose to follow him.
Either way, I didn’t feel like debating the whole East Coast/West Coast thing right then, not knowing if our relationship would survive until he finished school, so I changed the subject….
We were both dead asleep in my twin bed while Tim slept on a mattress on the floor on the other side of the room. Yeah, that was so comfortable, considering Ashe was 6′ 4″ tall and weighed somewhere north of 250 pounds. I could barely roll over without tumbling into the floor.
Around 2:00 that morning, Ashe woke me up screaming, “You fucking bitch! How could you do that to me?”
“What the hell’re you talking about?” I asked, rather flabbergasted, my sleepy eyes rolling around in my head.
“You cheated on me!”
“What the fuck’re talking about? I did not! Even if I wanted to go out with someone else, I have no one to watch Tim. Why the fuck would you think that?”
“Well, I dreamed it, so it must be true.”
“What?” I snapped, laughing. “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. I’ve had dreams where I can fly and others about being swallowed by a tidal wave. Obviously, I can’t fly, and I’ve yet to be crushed by a tsunami, so why in the hell would you think I cheated on you just because of a dream?”
“Well, there must be some truth to it, or why would my subconscious conjure up that idea?”
“Because you’re paranoid.”
“I’ve dreamed that you meet some guy, some skinny blonde guy and you bring him back here and screw him, and I walk in on you THREE different times.”
“Really? The same dream?”
“The same one, and he’s like a lawyer or some bullshit.”
“Yeah, okay, how’d you have the same dream in THIS apartment when you’ve never been here? Did you suddenly become clairvoyant and forget to mention it?”
“No, once it was my apartment in Florida, once it was on Pogue Street back home, and tonight it was here, THIS bed.”
“Like I said, paranoia. You’re AFRAID I’m gonna cheat, but I’m not that kind of person. I didn’t cheat on Joe with you when you asked me out the first time, remember? So, why would I cheat on you now?”
“I don’t know, but if you haven’t, you will.”
Famous last words. I was never unfaithful. And when I filed for divorce, Ashe had been living with Renee, his widow, for six months. Not that I cared. I often joke that I should’ve thanked Renee for taking him off my hands because he drove me bonkers…(her too, occasionally)…
So, there you have it…the delusional musings of a very GOOD man, who was sometimes a tad unbalanced…:)
Over and out from my STOP and SMELL the CRAZY life…
/KS
*For an interesting GIRL meets GUY story that happened in NYC, check out: http://tenaciousbitch.com/2012/01/05/blog-45-the-meetcute-gone-completely-awry/ ….
The Lunatics Lounge and Grill 