The Domestic Despot was telling me about the phenomenon known as “gray divorce.”
Now, I have been pissed, mad, and frustrated numerous times in my thirty-eight years of knowing this woman, but I never once thought of the “D” word.
Truth be told, I never even thought of the “M” word.
Lightning bolt.
Seriously.
Never in ten million years did I ever think I would marry someone in this lifetime.
I was young, good-looking, talented, had a little money, had a lot of drugs, and was living in paradise.
But why, after being with someone through all the ups and downs that come when you place a wedding ring on someone’s finger, would you call it quits?
The hard part of working through a career and surviving the fastballs and curves life throws at you is behind you.
Now comes the gravy.
I couldn’t quit loving her if I tried. (a country song waiting to happen if ever there was one). When she leaves I can’t wait to miss her. (these lyrics are in).
In the five years of hedonism I refer to as the Vegas years, I saw a LOT of both marriages and divorces taking place.
The divorces all followed the same pattern: a couple from Anywhere, USA, like say Chicago, would blow into town, staying at the small Strip motels that still remained. She would usually get a job first to get easy and fast money in a low-level casino job like a change girl where she could still make a respectable C-note a day in tips. He sees the money the dealers are making in the casinos, so he goes to a quickie dealer school and in three or four months, he starts dealing cards at a little bar/casino with one or two Blackjack tables.
He deals for about six months when a “friend of a friend” gets him into a bigger casino.
By now, he’s already gone, and the marriage is, too.
They just don’t realize it yet.
She has had to flirt a little too much to get the best (read: most money) shifts. She might even have had to do something she really doesn’t think her husband would approve of, so the secrets start.
He’s actually OK with this, because he’s making bank, doing piles of cocaine, and dating more than one cocktail waitress at a time.
After getting off work at four, he will come home at six in the morning with a wad of Franklins, an eight-ball of Peruvian Blue Flake, and he will smell like one of the cocktail waitresses.
The immediate dash into the shower is the dead giveaway to the wife, still pretending to be sleeping.
Many times the woman doesn’t stay in town for an annulment or divorce, or whatever.
They are gone.
They blame Las Vegas, not their weak-ass husbands who never saw what a real 100 dollar-a-night prostitute looked like before they hit Sin City.
You know how a male dog does when you pull him off a bitch in heat?
Like that.
He doesn’t stop.
Stay well.
