Unless his girlfriend looked like Sarah Jessica Parker, I’m pretty sure Tony had meant the enemy is nigh -- not “neigh” -- when he’d first referred to her. Calling her the warden, among other equally derogatory slights in the future, appeared to fit considering the things he’d share with me about their bond, and eventually I established my own trusty euphemism for the female he resided with: pseudo-wife.Tony was conscious of my aforementioned philosophy but, for some inexplicable reason -- maybe it’s just in a male’s nature -- he did what all cheating guys do: he fed me every stereotypical line about his main woman. She’s mean to me… she doesn’t “get” me… I’m only staying with her because… ad nauseum.
Seems over the last, oh, five or ten years, men have taken to including “she has a ‘history of violence’” when speaking about a disliked current or an ex.
Though it was entirely unnecessary, Tony spared me none of it. From her dictating the way he had to arrange the plasticware in the kitchen cabinets to her physically assaulting him, the stories from him about how horrible his existence was with her were endless.
I took it all with the proverbial grain of salt. Whether what he said about her was true or not simply had no bearing on us in my opinion.
I don’t believe he in a single instance used her actual name with me, but I found her first one out soon after we started seeing each other. She called him on a morning that he and I had hooked up in Crewe, Virginia. My state policeman and I were in his agency-supplied gold Expedition when his phone rang. A picture of an older blonde and the name Brenda were displayed on the screen when he pulled his cell out. He courteously excused himself, with chagrin, from the vehicle to talk to her. Naturally I used the time they spoke to nose around his SUV. Aside from other interesting junk throughout the Ford, I found the paperwork inside the glove compartment that showed the automobile was registered to the Virginia State Police. When Tony finally hopped back inside with me roughly ten minutes later, I commented on the black and white DMV card. I mentioned the Jefferson Area Drug Enforcement Task Force carried no such documentation in either their work Van or Beater.On a different day, Tony let me rifle through his billfold while we were sitting at a restaurant. I discovered his wallet contained a tiny photograph of pseudo-wife tucked inside a folded Post-It or something with a phone number scratched on it. I laughed to myself about the fellow carting around a snapshot of a chick he supposedly harbored animosity to.
If recollection serves, I inadvertently came across her surname while Google-mining for data on him.
I never once asked or nary implied Tony leave Ms. Priebe for me. I’d expressly stated to Tony more than a few times that I thought they’d be eternally inseparable. Honestly, I was quite content with that. What the hell would I do with him if they broke up? I didn’t want us to be exclusive; it’d take the excitement out of what we had. Although I never admitted to Tony I didn’t desire him as a boyfriend, I was absolutely straightforward about his not splitting up with her for the sole purpose of being with me. Regardless of his veraciousness concerning their ties, based on facts like their backgrounds, personalities, pastimes and disinclinations, to date I haven’t the least idea why they were, or remain, a couple.
