Biding my time

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, I was doing what I could to avoid being at the apartment as much as possible. I tried to be there for the baby, but Kelz and everyone else there made me feel like self-preservation was more important. The only thing I could do was stop caring.

One of the other neighbors (who I haven't mentioned before, AND hadn't had any contact with before or after) came up to me and told me he looked in the front door when it was open and saw Kelz sleeping on the bed in the living room while Sasd was next to her and wide awake. I told him there wasn't anything I could really do about that. He said he was going to report us to Child Protective Services. I told him to go ahead and do that. I think he was shocked that I called his bluff. As far as I know, he never called them.

Really, I think he was concerned about the criminal element that had been introduced and saw Kelz as the catalyst. In my head, I referred to her as an "attractive nuisance." It seemed like no matter where she was, there was going to be lots of trouble nearby. While she didn't always initiate it, she did appear to enjoy stirring the pot.

I mentioned once before how I had left for work in the middle of the night when a situation had arisen with Wod. This was a stunt I would pull a couple more times. Once, after I came back from work, Kelz asked me where I went. I told her I was at work. "No! You spent the night with someone. Who were you with?" "No one. I was at work." "You're lying! You were with Thoz, weren't you?" "She and I are just friends. I wasn't with her." "TELL ME THE TRUTH!" "THAT IS THE TRUTH!" "I don't believe you!"

I went on about my day. For some reason, I had to leave the house that evening and came back late. When I got home, I found this letter on the bed in the living room:

I had done all I could. I slept in the living room. It didn't really bother me.

The next day, I called Baz at the drug store in Hillcrest where she worked. I called because a singer-songwriter I liked a lot worked with her before she moved back home to Chicago. She was supposed to be visiting and I wanted to ask Baz if she knew when she was going to be in town. As it happened, that singer-songwriter happened to be at the store that very moment. I briefly talked to her. She knew about my original situation with Kelz, but didn't know about the baby, so I quickly caught her up, including the fact that I was going to abandon Kelz and Sasd. We probably weren't on the phone more than two minutes.

Right after I got off the phone with the singer-songwriter, I called Thoz, who used to attend her performances with me. I told her, "Hey, guess who I just talked to? [singer-songwriter]!" Thoz replied, "Hey, guess who just threatened me?" "Uh, [singer-songwriter]?" "NO! KELZ!" I thought she was joking around. She wasn't, and she was VERY upset.

I had kept Thoz abreast of the situation surrounding my abandoning Kelz and Sasd. Since I last saw Thoz, she had moved out of her grandmother's house and into an apartment with two roommates. One of her roommates had a pickup truck and Thoz helped arrange for me to borrow that truck for my move.

Kelz would call up and leave the threatening messages on the answering machine at the apartment. Thoz knew she wasn't serious, but Kelz freaked out her roommates. Once, Kelz called twice in a row and left messages. The phone rang a third time. Thoz' roommate (the one with the pickup) said, "I'll take care of this," and picked up the phone. She offered a VERY gruff "HELLO?" But it was someone else calling.

And I guess that Kelz felt really bad about sleeping around on me. But I also guess that she wanted to justify it, so the best way would be to get me to confess to cheating on her, even if it wasn't true. I didn't give in because I knew I hadn't been unfaithful.

I came home and Kelz was no longer angry at me. She said she had discussed the situation with Krud and he "explained" why it was that men needed to have girlfriends on the side. He said it had nothing to do with me not loving her, it was just something men had to do. She said she wasn't going to get mad about it any more and I could go ahead and sleep with whomever I wanted. This really wasn't a solution, but if it stopped her from being mad at me and threatening Thoz, I could live with it.

I just knew I wasn't going to have to live with it much longer.