“I’m leaving my wife.”

“Mark, you’re gay and don’t have a wife,” Luke said.

“But I should!” I exclaimed. “So I can divorce her! Do you remember what I said when we graduated highschool?”

“I remember what I said after.”

“I said I would get married so I could get divorced.”

“And I said that you’re crazy.”

“But Luke!” I grabbed his shoulder and brought his face to mine, staring him dead in the eyes. “The furs! The shades! Tell me that being a divorced man rocking those isn’t everyone’s dream!”

“It isn’t everyone’s dream.”

I shoved him away. “Blah! What do you know, simple straight man?”

“I know you’re still crazy.”

“Ok, so maybe you know a little. But, you don’t know…” I flipped open my laptop. “My grand plan.”

“Do I want to know your grand plan?”

I pushed him onto the couch beside me. “Of course you do. Basically, I signed up for like forty online dating websites--because you know, they’re teeming with desperate women to get married.”

“I feel like this is some kind of like domestic entrapment.”

“Relax, I’m just getting a woman to marry me so I can divorce her as soon as possible.”

“Definitely feels like entrapment.”

I turned to him. “Do you know what entrapment is?”

“Not really.

I slammed my computer closed. “Welp, I’m off.”

“To get a venue?” Luke choked.

I laughed. “Don’t be ridiculous. I booked one last week. June 2nd, save the date. But no, I’m off to buy some snazzy ass fur and shades so I can walk into divorce court looking like the star I am.”

Already wearing my new shades, I dropped the rest of my furs on the cashier’s counter at the thrift store. “I’ll take all of these please.” I tapped my lenses. “And these.”

The cashier smirked at me. “What’s the special occasion,” he asked.

“I’m getting divorced.”

His smile dropped. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine, I never really loved her anyway. Also.” I pulled out an invitation from my pocket. “I need more guests for the wedding since it’s short notice. June 2nd, save the date.”

He stared blankly at the invitation. “You’re preparing to get divorced… to a woman you haven’t even married yet?”

“Don’t forget, I haven’t met her yet either.”

“Can I ask one question?”

“You just did.”

“Can I ask three questions?”

“Shoot.”

“Why?”

I wrapped one of the furs around me. “Why else? To be a hot divorced gay man rocking shades and furs.”

The cashier leaned over the counter. “What about a hot gay man rocking shades and furs in a loving relationship?”

“Huh?”

He smiled. “Instead of getting married, how about you go on a date with me? You can wear your furs during it.”

“I don’t know man, ‘divorced’ has a nice ring to it. Really completes the look.”

The cashier held out of a slip of paper. “What if I bribe you with this coupon?”

“How much is it for?”

“Fifty percent.”

“Deal. So when’s the date?”

“I’m thinking… June 2nd.”

He had driven a couple miles and passed two signs for the interstate, lit and smoked one cigarette, been parked and stayed in the car for some time until somebody knocked on his window to make sure he wasn't seeking suicide, and had stood in line at the gas station pointing at a pack of Columbus Cigarettes--the clerk asking if there was anything else when he finally said out loud for all there to bear witness, what he'd been telling himself for four years he'd never do, could never do. A thought buried way down in his heart, the valves of which he'd never opened, a heart bound by sin and recklessness and divorced totally from commitment and sacrifice and decency that he finally decided to seek. He'd spoken the line ghostly, "I'm leaving my wife."

The clerk stuttered. A lady standing behind him wearing a Jeff Gordon shirt and holding a six-pack of Old Chattanooga beer slid down her star-shaped sunglasses to the tip of her nose and glanced upon him.

A Merle Haggard song had just started and was coming through the speakers.

"I'm sorry to hear that," the clerk finally said. And he rang up the cigarettes. "It'll be six dollars and seventy-seven cents."

The bell rang when he left and the doors parted like a prison cell opening. The chorus of Merle Haggard flew through the speakers as it were the chorus from angels.

When he got back in the truck he fiddled on the knob until he found the right station. Singing along and packing the new case of cigarettes against his palm. Rolling down the driver-side window--turning his wrist and his shoulder to do so.

He turned onto the highway and hammered down upon the pedal with the sole of his foot.

Singing with the conviction of having just sprouted wings. "I turned 21 in prison doing life without parole. No one could steer me right but momma tried."

He'd married her right out of high school and they’d married because she was with child. She lost the soul that had made home of her womb but his own mother didn't believe that to be true. And his mother would get drunk, then wouldn't mind telling him.

"She is a witch. I'm telling you right now. She ain't no good. She's a liar. You'll give and give and give but she ain't satisfied lest she gets your soul. She will work your heart til it is shattered."

"What's that they say," his father would hiss. "Takes a bitch to see a witch," laughing hog-like without any joining company.

He watched them with the terror of an acid trip turned wrong, as though he'd seen down a hallway of mirrors, himself, and the ultimate fate of himself.

"I can't breathe," he whispered.

When asked at the wedding if he'd take her lawfully--in sickness and in health, there were the buzzing of flies coming for his blood and he smacked one on his neck and said finally, "Well. I reckon I do anyway."

Not long after that she did bear forth a child into the world but it was not his. This was no mystery--plain as day. It hurt him, but he loved the child anyway, through pain and suffering.

This he was thinking about at near one hundred miles an hour.

He always figured he was doing what was good, what was decent. He decided he’d never done anybody any good staying miserable.

There was a sensation rattling and crawling through his body and snaking up his spine and it rang from his hands shaking and sweating on the steering wheel.

He'd left his wife and abandoned a child too. His heart had become begotten of a strange baptism and full of total boundlessness.

The beat of the highway straddled through his feet and the sun thrummed against the tin of his heart. He listened to the soft moan of his engine.

He knew he was coming to someplace he'd not known, ever considered seeing. Ever considered had existed. It scared him, made him sweat. Between his ears hummed tribal dances celebrating the west: war, the buffalo, the maps uncharted and the red heat of the sun seeping into and reflecting against his soul. His eyes peered down the spotted white lines. The dark gravel rumbling below. He exhaled and the cigarette smoke steamed out his nostrils, his mouth. Rising there from his tongue like heat off a river.

The valley itself echoed the roar of his motor, the shadow of his soul skating top the concrete, his soul searching, screaming for whatever it was which lay ahead.

She waited for him. "He's been gone a long time, ain't he?" The child asked.

"He just went for a pack of smokes. He'll come back." The sun painted red dripped down across the horizon. "He always come back."

They waited together while the stars danced top the highway.

I’m leaving my wife.

The kids, too.

It gets harder each time.

Divorce? No, no. Not in the least. Everything I do is for them.

The contract has me gone for another three months. I live in fear that each will be the last. It’s greuling, especially now that Janie’s getting older. You know she didn’t even recognize me the last time I came back? Took three weeks for her to realize that I’m her daddy.

It’s dangerous work, but it pays the bills. I just hope that one day, they appreciate it and think about how I gave everything I could instead of thinking about the empty chair at the dinner table. All the missed concerts, birthdays...baseball games, award ceremonies.

I do it for them. All of it.

I´m leaving my wife

I´m leaving her all alone

In that dark bed of rock and dirt

With no one to talk to

And no one to answer

I know she´s down there

Even though I can´t see her

Down beneath the freshly piled soil

That will soon bloom flowers

Like the ones in her hands

And although I know

I will never see her again

I know I will come back everyday

Just to see her name

That’s carved in stone

I´m leaving my wife

But only for a little while

Since she knows

That I´ll be back tomorrow

I'm not kidding. He really said it, with a whisper, on the low, real sly.

"I'm leaving my wife." He thought I was in the shower and couldn't hear.

No kidding. Who was he talking to?

Who do you think? The woman I paid to seduce him. Time to celebrate. The asshole took the bait.

Received my copy of the divorce papers this afternoon. The moment I pulled the paperwork from the envelope and stared to make sure that it was official, I sighed the biggest sigh of relief. The drama was finally over.

Two years! I thought that it would never come; this divorce. Manipulations, talking up some dude I never met, all the subliminal messages about how ex-wife deserved a break, getting her to vacation with the very person that would help her to break our wedding vows.

I still remember thinking as I walked away, “I’m leaning my wife today.”

We didn't arrive here together, and we won’t leave together. I just have to accept it. We've had some great times and three great kids. Two major moves. A string of unlucky cats we named after something in Las Vegas. There was Jackpot. He started it all. Good cat. He did his own thing, and then got run over by the UPS driver. But that was before the kids. Sam never was a very sensitive child, but she was too young to even say kitty.

Carly, our second--child that is--acted tough when Casino was put to sleep. Leukemia, who the hell even figured out that cats get leukemia? Casino's death spawned a conflict between my wife and me that we never could resolve. Arguing over whether to put Casino to sleep or let him live out his days revealed a deep and irreconcilable difference between us.

Aces High, or Aces usually, lived the longest. She had a black smudge on her chest that we all pretended looked like a spade so we could justify the name. The kids were in high school when Aces just didn't return home. Tapping into that deep division, my wife and I had a huge argument over that.

"You know, we could just keep the damn cats inside the house!" she shouted on our way out of the Sams Club parking lot. We'd been nibbling around it as we picked up paper towels, vitamins and a garden hose.

"Cats gotta be free!" I offered.

Her eyes widened and lips narrowed, "You always got to joke things away don't you? If I'd known you were an expert at avoiding difficult things, then I would have never married you."

The green arrow came on, and I turned slowly toward our house, "No doubt that's true."

She glared out the window the rest of the way home. She didn't mention my episodic unemployment, Sam's addiction, or how much we should help her widowed mother...I didn't know what to say.

I hate that the kids have to be here today. I almost adopted a cat, but only Jason is still at home, three more semesters of college left. Besides the only names I could think of at the shelter were Stage IV, Malignant, Metastatic.

Sam's shitty boyfriend is here wearing black khakis and a white shirt he bought last night at Wal-Mart. Carly, I can't even look at her. She has no ability to protect herself from pain. Sam's head is swiveling around as if he's expecting someone to come pick him up.

I'm leaving my wife today, and I want to out of here before they start filling in her grave.

"I found your letter a couple days ago. It’s funny how you still want to love and hug up on me. What you don’t know is that I know? I’m glad I found your letter. Now I know just what to do. This will make it so much easier for me to say, I beat you to the punch. I will be leaving right after lunch and when this letter finds you. The house will be empty, clean, and everything gone. Arrivederci! Whatever. I guess you mad. I found your letter. I’m just doing the same thing. You told me in your letter. “Dear Barbara, I’m leaving my wife.”

"What's what you said, isn't it?" Monica screamed.

Mascara was running down her cheeks. Donovan tried to talk softly to keep Rachel from looking. She was inconsolable though, pulling away from his touch so as to protect her pregnant stomach and her two children from contact. Her young daughter watched as Donovan turned Monica around, softly talking in her ear.

"Why are you?"

"You said you loved me."

"I didn't say that. Well, I mean, I was--" he looked at the kids. "This is inappropriate, don't you think?"

"It wasn't inappropriate when you were sleeping with your client, was it, Mr. Ray? Then I was just a misguided little girl you could cum in and leave. Well, guess what? She's yours!"

"I'll give you whatever money you need but--"

"Money? You think this is about money?" Monica's words were all slurring together.

"Monica, you're panicking," he said softly.

Monica could feel the sands of time running through her fingers. Another failure. Another baby by someone that didn't care. Another person that used her like a glory hole. Another baby that was gonna suffer because of it. Time was running and twirling and standing still. She looked at her kids. Her son was crying, and her daughter was hugging him. She didn't even feel their little hands leave hers. Little hands. That's what they scream at the abortion clinic. They look with those piercing eyes. Little eyes that opened and closed after 8 weeks. Her daughter had fingernails.

"No! Let me go!" Monica screamed.

A woman had appeared in teh doorway. She was frail, like Monica, with long blonde hair and a worried expression. Monica smiled at her.

"Did he tell you who I am? Do you know anything about me?" she laughed though tears were streaming down her face. "Did he tell you about Sophie?"

The woman's worried expression became pained. She touched her frail stomach, then looked as a blonde little boy raced past her with his sister.

"He broke you to. Unfortunately for you, you're stuck. That ring is a noose."

Donovan noticed his wife and tried to do damage control. He ran to her but she slammed the door and locked it. Then he went after Monica.

"That won't help you?"

"I don't need help, doc. Anyone that says they'll save you is a liar, right?"

"Are you drunk? Are you drunk while you're carrying our child?"

"She's only yours if she's in danger," Monica giggled. "Keith was just like you. A dad because he had to be. There was no love. I'm unlovable and I know that now, but my kids aren't something you can fuck over."

"I'm not fucking her over but I need time to figure things out."

"Fuck you. It's been five months. Hell, seven since you started screwing me. You know what you were doing. You knew she'd exist. But don't worry. My kids will never need to know anyone that treats them like you treated me. And that poor woman. You can see she loves you."

"Shut up, Monica."

"You're gonna hit me?" Monica laughed. "Outside in broad daylight in front of my kids?"

"Please, just go. Do you need money for the bus?"

"Fuck you."

Monica picked up her son and grabbed her daughter's hand and walked away from the porch with her head held high despite the tears running down her cheeks. Halfway to the bus stop, her daughter spoke up.

"It's gonna be okay, Mommy. Sophie will have us."

"I know sweetheart."

"Aren't we enough?"

Monica smiled at her daughter and kissed her forehead. "Of course we are, darling."