With my hand out the window, the diamond on my wedding ring reflects the afternoon sunlight. I’m driving, and we’re on our way to the Grand Canyon. Traveling north just outside of Williams, Arizona my soon-to-be ex-husband and I have been arguing for the better part of the morning. Our marriage counselor encouraged us to take a road trip together and see if we can work out some of our problems. I agreed reluctantly because that’s what good Christians do, they stick it out no matter how unhappy they are. Zac, being the optimist, thinks we’ll still be together after this.
The argument started last night when I asked Zac not to get drunk. I wanted to stay in and get some sleep, but he insisted that the locals needed to hear the word of God. So we went to some shitty, hole-in-the-wall dive bar. And once he was drunk enough to babble incoherently on the virtues of faith, he handed me his phone and said, “Make sure you get this next part.” Anytime he does anything he deems worthy of praise he makes me record him. Then the next day he’ll upload it to social media with hashtags like #PreachingTheWord or #InstrumentOfGod or #TheyKnowNotWhatTheyDo. He wants the world (and God) to see how influential he considers himself to be.
#EyeRoll
While passing through Kansas City, Zac gave this man on the street a dollar and made the man do about twelve different takes just to make sure people online saw what’d he done. Meanwhile, I’m there recording the whole time waiting for him to get the perfect angle. Me, mouthing the words “I’m sorry” while Zac isn’t looking. #KillMeNow
Shortly after we started this stupid cross-country road trip, we had to stop at the grocery store. This old lady, real grandma looking, she couldn’t reach something off the top shelf. Zac offered to get it for her and when she went to thank him he snapped at her, “Not yet, lady. Wait until my wife records this.” The woman was so startled she had tears in eyes.
#JustLunaticHusbandThings
This week-long car ride, it’s supposed to make me love him. But how do you love someone you’ve never loved? I’ll wait it out. When we get to San Francisco, I’m calling my lawyer to finalize the divorce.
#
Growing up, religion was more of my parents’ thing. They believed it was important because their parents believed it was important. That, and I was conceived before marriage. And if you live in a small town in Middle America you better believe you’re marrying the woman you accidentally knocked up when you had sex with her against her wishes. This is how I came into the world.
But, even as a child, church seemed so superficial. At Sunday school, I got lectured on things like chastity, honoring thy father and mother, and homosexuality. I would sometimes argue with my dad about the futility of Sunday school. “In this house, you show love for God by going to church and Sunday school,” he’d say. I knew better than to argue with him too much, because I knew what he was capable of doing.
My dad would beat my mom but never touched me or my sisters. Me being the oldest, I did my best to protect my mom. I’d stand in front of her when he readied his arm to punch her face. He’d shout, “Get out of my way, Aubrey!” Then I’d move, walk back to my room and quietly sob with my sisters. Then the next day we’d get up and go to church and act like nothing ever happened. Like the good people of God we were.
When you live in a small town, everyone knows your dad is an asshole. Kids eventually stopped asking why Mom had a black eye or why she limped after the night Dad hit her with a baseball bat. At church people proverbially looked the other way. Even when Mom reached out to our pastor for help, he just suggested she pray about it. And she did. She prayed all the way to the emergency room and never came out of the coma. The year after she died I went off to college.
#
The sun was about forty-five minutes from setting, and we still needed to refuel. “We won’t even get to see the canyon,” Zac said.
“You shouldn’t have been trying to convert the world,” I said. He rolled his eyes and sunk into his seat even more.
“Just hurry, okay?” Zac pulled his Angels baseball cap over his face.
We pulled into a small gas station in Williams. Zac got out first and slammed the door just as I started to ask him if he wanted me to pay. The outside air smelled like the dusty shoebox of old letters I kept tucked away in the attic back home.
When I climbed out, Zac asked, “What’d you say?”
I mumbled, “Doesn’t matter.”
His eyes flashed. “What?”
Zac hated when I didn’t answer his questions in the way he wanted. Zac hated a lot of things about me. Our therapist called this one of his “personality quirks.”
“Did you want me to pay?” I threw my hands in the air.
He gave me a blank stare. When I realized he wasn’t going to say anything else, I walked into the gas station. There was no one inside. I peeked around the corner and saw a desk with papers on it. Hank Williams played on the radio sitting on top.
“Hello? Is anyone here?” Right then Zac walked in the door. “My husband and I just need some gas.”
Zac tapped on the bell near the register. A white cat with orange eyes jumped up from behind the counter. It rubbed itself along the back of the register as if it wanted someone to pet it. Zac reached his hand out to touch the cat but it hissed at him when got too close. “Fine, suit yourself, cat.”
I told Zac it didn’t look like anyone was here. He sneered,“You think, Aubrey?”
I glared at him, mentally counting down from ten to keep from snapping back. At count four I let out a full sigh.
“Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to—“
“Let’s just find some gas and get me a drink.
#
I met Zac when I was a sophomore. A group of mutual friends introduced us. One of the perks of going to a private Christian school was the unmitigated access to religious zealots. They constantly felt the need to remind me that I wasn’t anything if I didn’t have a man by my side. Most of them came to college already in a relationship or already engaged. As a nineteen-year-old from a small town in rural Kansas, I didn’t have anyone else to lean on. So when they said he was perfect for me, I just went along with it.
Zac and I started dating about two weeks after we met. Before we even kissed, he had reminded me often that he wanted to wait until marriage to have sex. But I didn’t care about any of that. Honestly, I was just glad someone was interested in me. It’s not like boys were knocking down the door for a chance to take me, Aubrey Mayfield, on a date.
After a few weeks of touring the heavy-petting zoo, though I guess he couldn’t take it anymore because he decided that God wouldn’t mind if we “exploited a loophole,” seeing as how there was nothing in the Bible about anal sex. The first time we did it, he pretty much tore me in half. Or at least it felt that way. I eventually grew accustomed to walking differently.
Even though I still hadn’t experienced much in the way of feelings for Zac, I couldn’t argue that we got along. Sure, he annoyed me most of the time, but he also put up with me. After all, he was tall, light-skinned with blue eyes and blonde hair. He got good grades and loved his family. Odds were I wouldn’t find anyone better. So I suggested that maybe we move in together, but he refused. He was worried that his parents would disown him for living in sin. As if we weren’t already.
Another perk of Christian college is being forced to go on international mission trips. This is where you go to someone’s country and talk to them about the virtues of Christianity. It’s like being a vacuum salesperson except you’re selling them something they can’t see, and you have to convince them that not only is it real, but without it, they’re incomplete. Naturally, Zac organized one where I could go with him. The destination was some remote part of South America. I guess at some point in our relationship I said it would be fun to go hike Machu Picchu but I don’t remember saying anything like that. I don’t even like to hike.
About two weeks before we were set to leave, Zac proposed to me in front of all the natives. They had no idea what they were clapping for when I said yes. Their feigned excitement was my feigned excitement. I was tired, angry, and I hadn’t slept in a bed in over two months. Part of me said yes only so I could stop being the center of everyone’s attention.
After college, Zac got a job in Brooklyn as a junior attorney. So we picked up and moved to NYC a few days after our “honeymoon.” Although I wouldn’t exactly call volunteering in the remote parts of Western Africa a honeymoon.
#Disgruntled
The first few months of living together were somewhat normal. We were just another married couple in their mid-20s trying to do our best. Then Zac wanted kids. I wasn’t wild about the idea, but I dutifully obliged to his advances. Zac said I had to because the Bible said I had to. When the fertility doctor said we were spinning our proverbial wheels, Zac drank. And drank. And drank. The doctor told us his sperm count was too low and even if I became pregnant, his sperm were also defective and the baby would be dead before the second trimester. His balls were just a decoration. We could ask to have another man impregnate me, but he refused to hear any of that. He heard the bottle, though.
I started fucking his best friend, Mark, because Zac gave up.
Zac would shut down any attempt at sex or anything remotely intimate. Then he’d go downstairs and drown himself in bourbon. I didn’t care what he did. But it was when he became preachy during one of his benders that I realized he had a problem. Crying, drops of insecurity fell from his unshaven face. He said, “Aubrey, God has a plan—it’s not for us to have children. We are his children and it’s our responsibility to convert as many people as we can.” I nodded, then I text messaged Mark. Zac didn’t even notice I left that night.
One time after work I came home to find Zac smearing paint all over our walls. He said, “Don’t worry, Aubrey, it’s washable.” I wanted our house clean, but he took it personal when I asked him to get his socks off the floor. “Don’t want your ‘perfect little life’ to crumble because I didn’t follow your ‘rules.’” He stumbled backward two steps then lifted a bottle of Jameson and placed it to his lips. After several gulps, he said, “God spoke to me, Aubrey. And He said we are His children. There's no need to have children because we are His children.”
I called a lawyer the next morning. I told Zac I wanted a divorce. But after arguing, I agreed to marriage counseling.
#
Zac was already hammered by the time we arrived at the Grand Canyon. I knew this because when he was drunk, he’d mumble things to himself. Mainly things I’m sure he didn’t want me to know. “She’s so needy. What about my feelings? It’s not as if I asked for a broken dick.” Then he’d gingerly sob until he passed out. Today I had to interrupt him. “Don’t you want to see the Grand Canyon, hun?” I slammed the car door loud enough to startle him.
He awkwardly got out but closed the door on his shirt and only realized this when he attempted to walk away from the car. None of this clued him in to how drunk he was. People were gathered here and there and were taking pictures and posting them to social media.
#ColorMeSurprised
“Hun... Honey. Do you see this?” Zac placed one foot in front of the other as if following some invisible dance pattern. He grabbed me by the shoulders and turned me around. “I love you, honey. It’s show time.” Without replying, I grabbed the phone out of my purse and set it to record.
Zac shouted, “Good people,” and climbed on top a large boulder. His words slurred like my father’s did right before he justified punching my mother in the mouth. He said, “Have you accepted Jesus,” stopping to hiccup, “into your heart?” He was hunched like an old man hobbled over his cane. People laughed. Some pointed at him. Zac cleared his throat and tried to stand up straight. “Good people of... where are we again, honey?”
I tried to stifle my chuckle from the audio of the recording.
“No... I mean, why aren’t you repenting? The sins of the Lamb of God have forgiven us of all our transgressions against him.” Zac hopped off the boulder, stumbling to regain his shaky balance. He planted his hands in the dirt to recover and then raised them the way a boxer does at the end of the fight he just won. No one bought it.
In a zig-zag fashion, Zac walked, tripped, and stumbled his way around the boulder to the edge of the canyon. People were pleading with him, “Hey man, let’s bring you over here.”
Zac snapped back, “Stay back, faggot! God loves you. Well, maybe.” He brushed his arm across his face to wipe the snot away. He turned to look at me, and I kept steady on the camera.
“Be calm, my brothers and sisters. I am here, here, to help you find love. Love for God. Jesus spoke to me last night, and He said, ‘Zac, just because your balls are broken,’ as in, I can’t have children, He said, ‘just because you’re not a man and your wife has been fucking your best friend...’” Zac turned to me and said, “I knew all along. But I don’t blame you.” He looked at the crowd again. “God said, ‘You still have a purpose on this planet. And it’s to bring people to the Word.’”
I stood there for a moment reflecting on what I was witnessing, my gaze fixed on the horizon. Without a sound, Zac fell over the edge of the canyon. People gasped and immediately rushed to look. One man brave enough to get up close to the edge and lean forward said Zac hit the cliff wall and was probably dead by the time he stopped falling. I hit the ‘Stop’ button on the phone and walked over to where the man was leaning.
When I looked down, I saw Zac’s body on an embankment. He was face up. A single white dove came from around the bend and landed near his feet. It glanced around, walked up to Zac’s splattered head and began pecking at it.
#SingleAgain
END
Saul, this is awesome. I mean this is really good and needs more love. Hit me up if you want some feedback!!:)