Not Exactly A Shotgun Wedding

When I left Veronica, I boarded with a guy I knew and his wife for a while. It didn’t last long as his stepdaughter, or someone, needed a place to stay quite urgently, so I was asked to leave. As luck would have it, Molly and her family walked back into my life at just that time.

I ran into Molly’s son downtown and he mentioned that his mother’s stepfather owned a building on Minue Terrace in Marysville and that one of the tenants, a woman who had some intellectual disabilities might be looking for a roommate. I talked to Molly about it and she confirmed it was the case. I met with the woman, her name was Helen, and eventually we agreed to share the three-bedroom duplex.

It was an awesome place, near the walking trails, and my roommate, Helen, was cool. I never really liked having roommates, but I honestly can’t complain about her. We managed to coexist quite peacefully and respectfully. I can honestly say she was the best roommate I had up to that point, and since. I was enjoying getting out into nature, biking, hiking, fishing, etc. when I wasn’t working. I was single and really, enjoying doing my own thing quite a bit. It was a good time in my life for the most part, so of course I had to ruin it.

I got it into my head that I needed to be in a relationship, that I was lonely, so I decided to try my hand at online dating. It seemed to be the way people were meeting each other, so I made a profile on a couple of the free dating sites.

I went on several dates. Actually, I went on lots of dates. Never anything terribly serious and nothing that ever worked out. There was the woman from Dieppe who claimed she was happily married except for the fact that her husband refused to do "certain things" in the bedroom. Well, I did. Once. I never saw her again. I guess she got what she came for.

And there was the woman with the crazy overprotective brother. She was a bit older than me, and quite cute. Her brother was involved in some sort of business recruiting people to push credit cards on shoppers at the mall. You remember, those people who offer you a free gift if you’ll just fill out an application. Well, he tried to recruit me, and I declined, repeatedly until he finally said, “If you’re going to sleep with my sister, you have to have a decent job, so take the job.” Yeah, that wasn’t going to work. So, I asked Helen to tell that woman I wasn’t home if she called. She agreed. Helen was always good that way.

When I wasn’t online dating, I was meeting women at the call centre I worked at. Let’s just say I had a highly active social life during this time.

Then I met Annie. She was a nurse in the northern part of the province. We began chatting and seemed to get along well.

She decided to drive down to meet me. In person, she was pretty much as advertised, a rare thing in the online dating world. She didn’t lie about her looks or her weight. She was boyish and chubby with short hair and glasses. We grabbed something to eat, drove around a bit and she ended up staying the night. We decided to see each other again and soon we were officially dating.

At the time, I took the fact that we were both the same sign, Cancer, as a good omen and perhaps an indication that this was the one relationship that would work out. So, when she suggested we get married after about a month of dating, I figured why not. I accepted without hesitation, or any thought whatsoever.

But as soon as the word “yes” was out of my mouth, I felt that feeling again, the mix of panic and impending doom. I pushed it aside, chastising myself for being so silly. It was time, I told myself, to finally grow up, to settle down, be a real family man. I was over thirty. It was time to be an adult. Adults get married.

Annie proudly took me to meet her parents. She was living with them at the time. They seemed nice enough. They were a close-knit family. That appealed to me in a strange way, never having had one myself. It was a sort of sick, covetous fascination with how the other half lived.

They fascinated me. I liked them. I liked the fact that they, unlike my parents, seemed to love and care about the offspring they produced. But it was also weird, off-putting in an indescribable way that I pushed away as my inability to understand what caring families were supposed to be like.

We set a date for the wedding and decided to move in together. We rented an apartment.

I still remember the drive from Fredericton. I loaded my belongings, meager as they were into her car and we pulled out of the driveway. As soon as the car was in motion, there it was again, that sinking feeling of nervous dread. As usual, I pushed it aside.

The apartment was okay. Basic, but nice enough. I got a job at a call centre in Chatham and Annie set to work planning the wedding. It was to be a large Catholic affair. I’m not Catholic and I don’t like large crowds, but it seemed important to her, so I went with the flow. Weddings are important to women. I even went to the marriage lessons the church mandated. I invited my family. Mom and Gerry didn’t come, but my sister and father did. Dad was pleased that I was settling down.

The morning of the wedding, that feeling cropped up again. It had nagged me on and off the entire engagement and this time, it was back with a vengeance. Panic, dread, doom. I didn’t know whether to run screaming or to curl up in a ball and cry.

“I’ve really gone and done it now," I thought to myself. I painted myself into a corner with no way out.

Plans were made. Annie’s parents had spent a ton of money on this thing. People had travelled and bought gifts. Another self-deprecating pep talk, stop being a child, it’s just wedding day jitters, buck up, buddy, you made a commitment, you need to stick to it. So, I did. I put on the monkey suit, put myself on display and made promises to Annie and to some deity that I knew I didn’t want to make. Good thing I don’t believe in religion.

We bought a huge old house down the street from her parents and settled in. I soon found myself very unhappy. Surprise, surprise.

I didn’t like the area we lived in and as it turned out, being part of a close-knit family wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. Her parents were always in our business and it quickly became apparent that my task in the family was to shut up, blend in and do what I was told. Sounds a lot like the army. We know how that went. Who I was or how I felt didn’t seem to matter one little bit.

I was "the husband." A male appendage to my wife. I'd gone through with the big party in front of everyone she knew. I'd been paraded around. My use ended there. I’ll give you a couple of examples.

Annie loved to travel. She always took an annual trip to Cuba with her family and friends. She made it crystal clear that I, her husband, was cordially uninvited. Granted, I wasn’t keen on going.

I was glad to have the week to myself, but you get where I’m going. Who does that? Even though I didn't want to go, the idea that my own wife banished me from the trip and being neither family nor friend stung a bit.

She also once told me she didn’t want to have children with me because they’d likely be messed up like me. She claimed I was somehow mentally deficient or disordered. That was hurtful and utterly ridiculous.

The next example is a little more sinister.

I took a job at a gas station, after the call centre closed. It was the same type of boring job I was used to. Eight hours of mindless crap for which I was paid a pittance.

One night, I was working by myself and a couple of young guys walked in, one tall and athletic, the other short and slim. they both wore dark jeans and hoodies.

The tall one pointed a shot gun at me and the smaller one whipped himself around the counter, knife in hand near my throat and ordered me to give him the money in the till.

Terror filled every bit of my soul, a bone chilling terror that I’ve never known before and hope to never know again. I was certain I was going to die, right there, in that awful little store in that awful little town.

I was way bigger than the little guy, but I didn't fight. I did as I was told and put the money on the counter. I always thought that if that kind of thing happened, I'd be the guy to fight back. But no, auto-pilot or self-preservation kicked in. I guess I wasn't prepared to die for a few hundred dollars.

The little guy grabbed it and ordered me to sit on the floor. The bigger guy still had the gun on me. I sat down and closed my eyes tight, certain this was how it was going to end. If I was going to die, I didn’t have to watch it happen. I remember the helplessness to this day.

There’s no worse feeling than knowing that another person has the power to decide whether you live or die and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it. it changes you. It changes you in that very moment right in the core of your being. Everything you once thought or believed flies out the window and is replaced with something primal, dark and ugly.

Then they ran off. I sat for a bit. Then, I opened my eyes, and called the police. Well, I didn’t really call them, we had a panic button under the counter that was connected to the police station. I pressed the button and the police came. I wasn’t visibly shaking but it shook something inside of me, I can tell you that. Both guys were quickly apprehended and held to account for armed robbery.

My boss gave me a bit of time off to recover, a couple weeks. At the end of those two weeks, she asked if I was coming back, I said no. I just couldn’t. The very idea of setting foot in that place, let alone working there again paralyzed me in a way I had no words for. All I knew is I couldn't set foot in the store again. It wasn't just mental. It was physical. I couldn't buy things there. I couldn't get gas there. I physically couldn't go near the place.

Annie and her family were not pleased with my reluctance to return to the job. They pressured me to “get back on the horse,” so to speak. They didn’t seem to understand what my problem was. I suppose I expected a nurse would be a little more sympathetic and understanding of trauma.

I threw myself into my painting to distract myself. And to be honest, it didn’t work all that well.

I complained constantly. I ranted, I raved, on and on. I’m sure the poor woman had no idea what my problem was because my problem was everything.

Some complaints, like her reckless spending, and absolute indifference to me or my needs, were legitimate, others maybe not as much. Apparently, the idea that I may have had PTSD never occurred to anyone, least of all me.

Eventually, Annie tired of my sullen complaining and moved to her parents’ place, leaving me alone in the big house. She told me that if I wasn’t happy, we shouldn’t be together. That suited me just fine.

We decided to divorce after a couple of years of wedded un-bliss. I made my way back to Fredericton with nothing but my personal belongings, a crappy wooden table, and an air mattress.

I had next to nothing, but I finally had my freedom.