One of the Times
my Boyfriend Almost Killed Me
by Deborah
Cherry Mosch
When my
husband Steve and I were dating back in college,
there were plenty of signs that pointed to his
needing to find another girlfriend. This is just
one of them, and it happened within the time it
takes for a traffic light to change.
I was doing my
laundry at the local Lemon Tree Laundromat on a
rainy Sunday afternoon, when out of the corner of
my eye I thought I saw Steve’s bright yellow
Volkswagen Rabbit waiting at the red light right
out in front of the building. I squinted through
the drips of rain on the huge plate glass that
fronted the building and saw it was he, so I
waved at him. It was a little wave at first, a
subtle wave so as not to disturb the other
launderers or bring too much attention to myself.
He didn’t
seem to notice, so I waved a few more times, each
time with more animation. Soon I was actually
hopping up and down while waving and I knew I was
committed: I either had to get his attention to
prove there was a person outside of the
Laundromat that knew I was not insane, or I would
have to find somewhere else to do my laundry.
It was a race
against time since the light might turn green at
any moment. Thinking quickly, I ran outside in
the rain, waving wildly all the time. Since I was
wearing worn flip-flops my footing was dubious. I
was within reach of the Rabbit when my feet
slipped from under me and I slid completely
under his car.
My heart
pounding, I managed to shimmy back and reach the
bottom of his door with my fingertips. I dragged
my body out from under enough to work my arms up
the side of his door, my fingers just barely
reaching his window.
I started
frantically tapping on his window with my dirty
wet digits. The light must surely be turning
green, and one would think that I would be
panicking because I was about to be killed, but
instead my thoughts went immediately to the
headline in the local paper: Clownish,
ridiculously moronic college student run over by
unsuspecting boyfriend/murderer.
Miraculously
Steve saw my desperate fingers tapping on his
window. I can only imagine what he thought when
he saw that. Had the circumstances been reversed,
I would have peed my pants, fainted and driven
into the other cars in traffic. Headline: Incontinent
escaped mental patient hallucinates
boyfriend’s fingers tapping outside her car
window while at red light, drives across traffic,
causes pile-up.
And he married
me anyway.
|
