October 19, 2009

Yesterday I popped into the grocery store and as I hustled up aisle 6 to get some tuna, I spotted H. Now, H is a dude I dated for a minute more than 10 years ago, who I hoped I’d never see again – you’ll understand why in a minute.

I met H one day during my lunch hour, when he started chatting me up as we waited in line to order Chinese food. He was tall, dark and lovely so I played nice, and we ended up hitting it off. So, when H called me a few weeks after we’d started hanging out to invite me over to his place to watch movies I jumped at the chance.

When I arrived at his place that night, H had a huge bowl of popcorn ready and waiting for me in his living room.

‘What are we watching?’ I asked, as I plopped down on the sofa.

‘Whatever, you’d like,’ he said, placing two stacks of videos down on the coffee table in front of me.

As I rifled through the piles of VHS tapes to find one I liked, I heard the sound of glass being broken outside. My heart just about stopped because the only car in H’s driveway was my MOTHER’s.

‘Did you hear that?’ I asked, shooting up off the couch towards his front window.

I pulled back the curtains and saw two women, laughing raucously as they knocked what remained of the glass out of the window on the driver’s side of the car. I gasped and turned to look at H, who was already at the front door, shouting at the women outside. It was clear from the content of his verbal assault (which I won’t share here) that he knew at least one of them – very well.

As I walked towards the door to get a better view of the action outside, a stream of clear liquid hit H’s face.

H slammed the door shut. ‘Oh my God! She threw something on me. What the fuck is it?’ He wiped his face and then smelt his palm. ‘It tastes like salt. Fuck, what is it!’

‘Hurry. Go wash it off,’ I said, praying that it wasn’t something that could hurt him.

H headed for the bathroom and when I went to back to the window, the driveway was empty. H’s phone began to ring, but when his answering machine kicked in the caller hung up. The phone rang again moments later and a shirtless H came barrelling out of the bathroom.

‘Hello,’ he snarled into the receiver. He listened for a moment and then slammed the phone down. ‘That bitch threw stale piss on me. I can’t believe this shit. She threw cold piss in my face. Fuck!’ H stormed back into the bathroom and I heard him start the shower.

When he came back into the living room, clad only in a towel I asked the obvious question. ‘H, who was that woman and what the hell was all that about?’

‘It’s a long story,’ he muttered, taking a seat on his couch.

I glared at him.

‘Okay. I’ll tell you everything, but can you come and sit down Skye?’

‘No, I’m good right here,’ I said, turning my back to him to look out the window. ‘Just start talking.’

H sighed and then began to tell me all about Ms. J, the 38 year old (FYI: H was only 27 and I was a mere 22) ‘piss chucker’ and the larger of the two women I’d seen outside. After he admitted that he’d dated her on and off for a long while, he assured me (repeatedly) that he’d told her they were done weeks ago, but she wasn’t trying to hear it. According to H, Ms. J and her friends were all crazy (hence the sidekick who gleefully helped her to smash the car window) and he’d been trying to get rid of her for months.

‘She doesn’t want me to see anyone else. She’s trying to scare you away.’ H sighed. ‘I hope you won’t let her do that.’

I turned to look him in the eye. ‘Why didn’t you tell me you had a stalker?’

‘I didn’t know she was capable of shit like this. Please tell me you won’t stop seeing me because of this.’

Right. Do I look stupid to you dude? ‘Look, I’m going to go. I’ll talk to you later,’ H didn’t try to stop me when I picked up my coat and walked out the door.

Needless to say that was the end of me and H. Outside of the brief court appearance I had to make to testify against Ms J, who was charged with assault for chucking a two litre jug of cold piss in his face, I didn’t see or speak to H for years. But as the luck would have it he and I were destined to meet again, in a grocery aisle, surrounded by neatly stacked rows canned soup and vegetables.

‘You still not speaking to me, Skye?’ H blurted, his eyes locked on mine.

Shit. I remained silent and backed away from him.

‘You not going to answer me?’ he asked, walking towards me.

I kept backing up so I could maintain the distance between us and said, ‘To this day I still have nightmares about jugs of cold piss being splashed in people’s faces, so–’

H burst out laughing and I took the opportunity to make my escape from aisle 6.

Once I was safely inside my car I started to feel a little silly. Shouldn’t I be over what happened all those years ago? A few of my friends say no – some things can never be forgotten, much less forgiven. Others have told me to grow up, because ‘the shit happened years ago.’

Readers I’m torn. Should I make a run for it if I see H again (a likely prospect as he ended in my local grocery store) or should I politely acknowledge the man who took a load of cold, stale piss in the face because he dared to date me?

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