Chapter Seven

You choke down all your anger
Forget your only son
You pray to statues when you sober up for fun
Your anger don't impress me
The world slapped in your face
It always rains like hell on the losers’ day of the race
Broadway Is Dark Tonight
Goo-Goo Dolls

September 29th

When Daniel woke up early the next afternoon with his pounding and his throat on fire he found a note from his daughter informing him that she thought he was the world’s biggest asshole and that she’d moved out and had to live with Nick and Annie.

World’s biggest asshole? What the hell was that about? Daniel thought as he stood in the kitchen staring at her note and reading it over and over, his ailing mind trying to take it in.

“I did not.” Daniel said in an unbelieving voice.

Daniel sat down hard at the kitchen table. He did. Yes he did slap Colleen and call her a whore. He almost raped some stripper named Kerry in the back of her SUV last night. “What the fuck is wrong with me?” Well one thing that was wrong with him was all the booze he was imbibing. Daniel got right and went to the refrigerator, he dumped and beer and wine down the sink and put the bottles in the recyclable bin. He went to the liquor cabinet and did the same thing until there wasn’t so much as a bottle of NyQuil or cooking sherry left in the house. “No more of that.” Reaching out for the phone but not knowing exactly what to say he dialed Colleen’s cell phone and was sent straight to voice mail. “Hi, Cole, it’s..it’s me..Dad. I’m so sorry about last night honey. I was drunk that’s my only excuse and it’s not a very good one. I never should have said that to you and I never should have hit you. I’m so sorry, pumpkin. I don’t think you’re a whore I never did, I don’t know why I said that. I love you.” Daniel hung up the phone. “Oh God, what the hell is wrong with me?”

Daniel had an appointment with Dr. Willie at four o’clock and that was a damn good thing. He jumped into a shower and forced himself to eat a tuna sandwich before driving off to make his appointment.

In Dr. Willie’s office Daniel sat and sweated through giving an account of last nights’ events. He waited for Dr. Willie to give his expert opinion, the one he was being paid for but he never seemed to do that, not in so many words any how.

“I slapped my daughter, I called her a whore and I slapped her.” Daniel admitted with his head hung low. “I can’t believe it did that.” Looking at the floor and shaking his head he added; “I was drunk.”

“That’s what you think, that your daughter’s a whore? Why, because she’s pregnant? I thought you were happy about that, Daniel.”

“Me too,” he drew his hands over his face, “I mean, I am. The timing sucks but, “his eyes lit up, “a baby, might be nice.” Daniel smiled a little. “I don’t think she’s a whore, she got stuck in a bad situation and she’s trying to make the best of it. I admire her for that.”

“You should,” Dr. Willie agreed with a smile. “What happened before you struck Colleen, Daniel? What were you doing before that?”

Oh, well, now that was a hard question to answer. At least the cops hadn’t called or shown up at his door or anything like that. Davy had good advice when it came to getting out of bad situations. “I went to a strip club….” That was how he began the sordid details of how he’d spent last evening leading up to climbing into the back of Kerrys’ SVU.

“Why do you think you wanted to hurt that woman, Daniel?” Dr. Willie asked. “What was her name?” He added as though it really were an after thought.

“Kerry,” Daniel stammered. Why did he want to hurt her? The words stuck in his throat because he couldn’t believe what he was going to say but it had to come out. “I thought, just for a minute, I thought…she was Calla.”

“And you want to hurt your wife.” More statement than question.

“No,” Daniel whispered, “I don’t.” He shook his head and searched his mind for the words and the will to keep making his throat work. “I think that’s what stopped me.” Somewhere in the craziness last night Davy asked him if he hoped Hartley was treating Calla the way he was treating Kerry. In the moment he was too drunk and too spun up to answer the question. But here in the shrinks office things were a little clearer. Most of all he hoped he wasn’t taking advantage of her and that he wasn’t using her or hurting her. “Wherever she is, in my heart, I hope she’s happy and that he’s treating her well.” There he said. It was out in the open.

“Are you afraid he isn’t treating her well, Daniel?”

Daniel licked his lips and nodded his head. “Yeah.” He told Dr. Willie about the returned letters and unanswered e-mail and the fact that he couldn’t get through to her via the telephone.

Dr. Willie didn’t say anything to his suspicions but he turned the conversation in another direction. “Have you done anymore thinking about your time on the planet, Daniel?”

“What about it?” Daniel said angrily. “Why do we keep coming back to that? I’m trying to tell you….”

“So you haven’t thought about those women at all? What about Antoinette, have you seen her again?”

“Yeah.”

“Did you have sex with her?”

“Yeah.”

“Did you want to hurt her?”

“No.”

“Why do you suppose that is?”

“I don’t know…’cause she was cheap and easy and ready to just put out?”

“Hum.” Dr. Willie intoned. “So was Kerry, wasn’t she?”

“No,” he said sharply. “She wasn’t cheap.”

“What does Kerry look like, Daniel? Describe her to me.”

“I dunno, she’s…about this tall,” he held his hand about five feet above the ground, “small build, long red hair…that’s why I thought she was Calla.”

“So why didn’t you just have sex with her, with Kerry, since she was, as you put it, ready?”

“She wasn’t ready.” Daniel said in a pissy voice.

“Why not?”

“Because I didn’t get her ready.” Where was this going? He didn’t want to sit here and talk about his sex life.

“That turned you on?”

“Yea…No…I dunno,” Daniel grumbled. “She wanted it, all right? She was married and she wanted it.”

“Married?” Dr. Willie intoned in an inquisitive voice. “You didn’t mention that before.”

“Didn’t I? Whatever. It’s not important.” Daniel tossed it off and then saw the look in Willies’ eyes. “Yeah you’re thinking she looked like Calla and she was married like Calla and so I thought I’d just take it out on her…but I didn’t. I stopped and got the hell out of there. Hell I fucked Antoinette harder than Kerry.” Daniel groused. “And she just begged for more.”

“Why?”

“Why? Cause she’s cheap and easy, that’s why.” Daniel said angrily. “Antoinette’s been around.”

“And Kerry? She’s a stripper isn’t she?”

“Yeah,” Daniels voice got a little softer. “She’s trained in ballet, that’s what she said anyway. She’s young, a lot younger than Antoinette or Calla. Kerry might be a stripper but she wasn’t, you know, cheap and easy.” No, his lessened bank account could attest to the fact that she wasn’t cheap. From the way she looked at him last night he didn’t think she was easy either just in the wrong place at the wrong time. She almost got caught in the cross fire.

“Do you think Calla is cheap and easy?”

Daniel’s face stiffened. He didn’t like that question at all. “Don’t talk like that about my wife.”

“Why not? She was a sex slave when you met, wasn’t she? Certainly she’s had her share of men and then some. Doesn’t that make her a whore?”

“No.” Daniel said through tight lips.

“So you don’t think your wife’s a slut.”

“No!” Daniel stood up. “None of that was Callas’ fault, she didn’t want those men!”

“But you’re angry with her, aren’t you, Daniel?” Dr. Willie’s gaze followed him and noticed the clock, their time was almost up but Dr. Willie wasn’t willing to let that stand in the way at this particular moment.

“Of course I’m angry with Calla! She ran away with that son of a bitch!”

“And that’s Callas’ fault?”

“Yes!”

“You had nothing to do with it?”

“Wha….no, of course I didn’t! She left me!”

“Have you done anymore thinking about the women on the planet, Daniel?”

“What? What is it with you and THAT? I’m pouring my heart out here and all you wanna talk about is those cheap sluts I fucked months ago!” Daniel stopped and listened to his own words ringing inside his head and the knowing glint in Dr. Willie’s eyes. The one that kept saying….

C’mon, Danny.

“They didn’t mean anything to me.” His eyes started searching the room but for what he didn’t know. “They’ll never be my wife. Not one of them.” Daniel who’d stood up so quickly sat down just as fast. It hit him like a tone of bricks dropped from God Himself. All of those dark haired, dark skinned, dark eyed women he screwed in Bacchus’ kingdom and the one beside him right now, they would never measure up to his wife. No matter what they did and even if they had eternity to do it in. They’d never compare to Calla and they would never replace her in his life, his heart or his bed. No one would ever love him the way she did. No woman would ever make him feel that whole again.

He did love her, more than he ever thought possible. That was why none of them looked like her because he wouldn’t do those things to his wife. Bacchus’ wine and his women were sweet and they made him horny and he’d taken full advantage of that, he admitted it. He never would have done anything like that without the wine. And even with it he’d never do anything that nasty, cheap and superficial with Calla. No, he never ever wanted their love making to be like that. Neither did she. That was why none of those women, including Medea, Psyche and Antoinette, looked like Calla.

“I don’t love Sha’re anymore,” he whispered, “I haven’t since I met Calla.” A weight which had been crushing his body and soul since he returned from Ares’ cave suddenly took flight and lifted away from him. “I love my wife. I want my wife back.” Oh well maybe he was a little late there. He’d gone to the lawyer, maybe the papers hadn’t been sent off yet.

“Yeah, I’d have to agree with you there, Daniel.” Dr. Willie smiled that big Santa Claus grin at him.

“I’m not angry with her,” he muttered and then let out a little snicker. “I’m not angry with her…I’m angry with me. Aren’t I, doc?” Daniel laughed again. “I pushed her away, didn’t I? So why should I be surprised when she went?”

“How did you do that, Daniel?”

“It was my fault, wasn’t it, doc? I drank the wine no one made me do that. I knew there was something wrong with it.” Dr. Willie nodded his head but didn’t say anything. “I had sex with all those women, no one made me do that either. I hurt my wife and then I didn’t have the guts to admit to it. I’m angry with myself.” That was the core Davy not got to. Who or whatever it was that started the whole thing in Davy’s head it didn’t matter because in the end Davy was angry with himself and he just couldn’t admit it. It didn’t matter how much Davy drank or how many women he took advantage of or how many young lives he ended the anger just grew and it was never sated. That was what David had been trying to save Daniel from in the back of Kerry’s SUV. Himself.

“So IF she called you again and IF she said something, what would you say to her?”

This time Daniel didn’t stop to think about it. “Come home, that’s what I’d say to her. Come home.”

“Why do you want her to come home?”

“Because I love her. I don’t care what it takes. I don’t care about Ares or Hartley or any of that shit, I just want her to come home. I just hope she still wants me back. I hope it’s not too late.”

“I gotta go.” Daniel stood up and put his hand on the door knob. “See you Friday?”

“I’ll be here.” Dr. Willie assured him with a warm smile and watched him walk out the door.

End of Chapter Seven
Tarnished Heroes: Broadway is Dark Tonight--Daniel's Story
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Chapter Eight