I thought, Hell’s bells. Thought, Why didn’t we do this before?

We rushed on over there, to a darkened apartment, and stumbled in, pulling our clothes off and kissing in the living room. She couldn’t wait for the bed, had to get down on the couch. She was moaning, and stuffing a pillow into her mouth, and that’s where we were when a vehicle pulled in up front, shining lights in through the picture window, all the way through the curtains. She started making some frantic motions but I thought it was just the heat of passion. Then the lights went off. They don’t have adequate parking in those places sometimes anyway, but the car door slammed so hard I thought something about it, and the next thing I knew the front door was opening and the light was on in the living room and there we were, with a big maniac with a lug wrench coming toward the couch. I jumped up and threw a pillow in his face, and he knocked the stuffing out of the couch where my leg had been. She screamed while he was calling me 900 motherfuckers, and I saw he was fixing to kill me. My dick was waving around in front of me just briefly. I didn’t mess around with any diplomacy, I picked up a kitchen chair and hit him in the face with it, and the way the blood flew was awful. I called her about 900 different kinds of bitch before I got my clothes on and got out of there, but I did get out of there, hoping like hell he wasn’t dead.

I didn’t know what to do after that, whether to go fishing or just say no to everything. I wanted to run off. I even figured out how long I could live in another town with the money in my checking account. But he didn’t know me, and I didn’t know him. Of course he’d seen my face, some of it anyway. He’d be trying his best to hurt me real bad for sure if he could. Somebody busted my face with a kitchen chair, I’d be looking to return the favor.

So I stayed home. Didn’t go out and hit any bars. I hung around the house and watched TV, drank coffee on the couch. Helped the kids with their homework. Played Daddy. I came in before her a couple of times and started supper and put clothes in to wash. Mopped the kitchen floor. Dusted the furniture. She got to glowing, and things were great between us in bed. But I wanted that other one again because it was different and it was dangerous now, and so the peace and tranquility only lasted about a week, nine days tops.