We went to the DuPage County Fair yesterday afternoon, a delightful melange of petting zoos, cotton candy and carnival rides which wouldn't normally cause someone to remember how she wishes she would've punched that one guy in the face. But, since neither I nor the circumstances surrounding the much-deserved, yet-undoled-out-face-punching are normal, it's hardly surprising that it would stir such emotions in me.
It all began that year I worked at the Sears Catalog Surplus Store -- 1987 to 1988, I believe. While I was but a lass of 18, I was still a high school graduate, which made me a woman of the world to the high school students who dominated the roster of sales associates. As such, they often came to me with tales of romantic woe. Most were the garden-variety tales of heartache, but one girl had serious issues.
She looked like a china doll or an angel, delicate and petite, with a cloud of curly blonde hair and deep blue eyes. Her boyfriend was not nearly good enough for her.
She was dating a football player, who imagined himself quite the star of the athletic field. No doubt he thought of himself thusly, when in reality he was thisly. I wish I could remember his name so I could hunt him down and deliver his 10-years-in-the-making face punching, but all I remember now is his first name: Bill.
"Angel" would arrive bedraggled and soggy to work, and when we'd ask why, she'd say, "Bill didn't want to get his jersey wet, so he had me pump the gas." We'd look at her with raised eyebrows. "I know," she'd say sheepishly. "But I really don't mind..."
Bill would show up to harrass her at work. Bill called all the shots in their dating life. Bill had an opinion on everything. Good Lord, I hated Bill. But if I knew what he did to her the previous summer, I would've taken a baseball bat from sporting goods, and...
One late fall evening between Thanksgiving and Christmas, Angel's coworker approached me and said that Angel needed me in the ladies' room. Grabbing a quarter from my purse, (you gals know why), I hastened into the restroom only to find Angel sitting on the sink, sobbing. She fell into my arms and choked out, "I had an abortion."
"Go home sick!" I said. "Gloria can cover for you..."
"No, not ... like now. In the summer." FUCKING BILL! I thought. But she wasn't finished.
Through clenched teeth she said, "I HATE Bill. I've hated him for months and months. I tell my friends I want to break up with him, and they all say, 'Why? You two have been together forever!' But they don't know what he did to me."
"After I had the abortion, I wanted to stay home and rest. I had cramps, and I was upset, and the doctor told me to take it easy. But Bill wanted to go to the DuPage County Fair, and he kept yelling at me ... and I couldn't tell anyone why I didn't want to go ... and so I walked around in the heat, and the dust, and I was so tired and miserable..."
She started crying again. I sat with her while she pulled herself together. I told her to call her parents to pick her up (of course, Bill drove her to and from work). She knew she was dumping Bill; she wanted someone to know why. I told her to tell her parents that she was scared of Bill and didn't want to see or even talk to him again. She didn't have to go into details.
Later that afternoon, Bill came to pick up his punching bag, but she wasn't there. Gloatingly, I told the imposing 5'4" terror that she had gone home sick. "Oh, didn't she tell you?" I asked with a wicked smile. He kicked the wall on the way out.
That was the last I ever saw of him, thank God.
