Hittting him where it hurt

I'm not sure whether the suspicion that Number Two was gay had ever crossed my mind or whether it was entirely planted by my new boyfriend, Conspiracy Theory. But once the suspicion took hold, a lot of things about my relationship with Number Two made sense.

Him calling me an "Eveready" in a sulky tone because I wanted to have sex and he didn't. Him sodomizing me. Even him going to jail.

The idea that being a chronic minor offender meant you were a gay definitely came from Conspiracy Theory. He claimed that all the "don't drop the soap" horror stories didn't apply all that much to the real penitentiary where the real inmates were. He claimed it was the local city jails where the real gay action took place. That guys who were gay but too chickensh*t to come out of the closet would find ways to get arrested so that they could hump the other in-the-closet short-timers.

It sounded plausible. Because I knew that Number Two was a revolving-door offender.

When he was arrested, he instructed me to call an aunt and uncle and ask them to bail him out. They refused to help him "this time" in a tone that suggested that "this time" was maybe the third or fourth or 10th time.

So now I believed Number Two was gay.

And that's what I threw in his face, the day I confronted him, fully enraged, over the fact that he still owed me money, had stolen my tools and had put a ding on my credit report.

The argument started over the money, but as it escalated, I threw it in his face that I was just someone he could "f*ck up the butt." Every time I mentioned his predilection for sodomy, he flinched. So I kept saying it. Loudly. With the intent to hurt him.

(For his part, he retaliated against me in a way uniquely common to black New Haveners confronting black Yalies: he kicked me out of the race, declaring that I "wasn't really black.")

By the end of my tirade, he was in tears. And I was riding high on a cloud of vindictive rage. I'd hurt him. Not as much as he hurt me, but it felt GOOD.

I saw him around occasionally after that. There was an exchange by the mall, where he gave me some of my owed money and also demanded that I return a tacky, chipped ring he had given me off his own finger. I flung it onto the sidewalk with all my might, against the advice of Abusive Psychic, who counseled me, "Anita, you're crazy. You never, ever give back jewelry."

Then there was the time I was walking past his tiny apartment, and he introduced me to a short, cute brother with pretty eyes as his "roommate." Roommate? His studio apartment was the size of a matchbox. The mattress on the floor took up the whole room. If they were roommates, they were sharing a bed.

And then there was the last time I saw him, a few years later, after I had graduated and moved to South Carolina to live with my mother. I was driving in the backwoods, in some godforsaken small town, with no idea of where I was or why I was there. I turned into a little gas station or convenience store to make a U-turn, and heard a voice say, "Oh no."

I looked up, directly into his horrified face. He was from South Carolina, and apparently had moved back home. I was the last person he expected or wanted to see.

I didn't even speak or acknowledge his presence. I just turned my car around and drove away.

And that concludes the Number Two diaries.

(Number Two Diaries Part 8 of 8: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 | Lessons Learned Parts 1-3: 1 2 3)