Know Thyself

I guess my wife and I have separated for the time being, though to imply separation in the traditional sense would be absurd. I’m a trucker for God’s sake. I’m separated from my family twelve days out of fourteen. But before I see them again six weeks will have passed. It’s looking like the first weekend in June before I’ll be back in Delaware unless I’m routed there with a load of freight. Which is unlikely.

I informed Jessica of my plan to spend my home time in North Carolina this weekend. I even invited her to bring the kids and join me. But she says she “needs a break,” whatever that means. (We’re taking a “break” eighty-seven percent of the time.) She wanted me to come home and spend time with the kids by myself, but I know my limitations in some ways. I know I’d be no good to them as a father right now because I’m absorbed in my own anguish. I can’t even think.

Of greater concern is that I’ve had two events in my life–-both in the past four years or so–-where I completely lost control of my temper when Jessica wouldn't let an issue rest.

Heh. Saying I lost my temper is an understatement that borders on comedy. I became the clash of two fronts. I bit my lip and clenched my fists, trying to suppress a boiling point. But I couldn’t.

I destroyed our bedroom during the first event. I mean I fucked it over good, left gaping fist-holes in the walls, spilled the bookshelf, overturned the bed, threw lamps and vacuum and DVDs and family pictures until I was too tired to go on and collapsed in a shaking heap on top of the shattered mess, crying and bleeding quietly for a long time before I managed to call a friend and asked him to come over and keep me from killing myself.

The second event was worse because it was, plainly stated, a crime: I smashed out the windshield of my wife’s car. (I’m paying for the car, but nevertheless.) She was in it at the time. I didn’t actually hit her but it could’ve happened. And if I had I’d probably have killed her and would be sitting in prison in Smyrna, Delaware, trying to fend off a horny cellmate.

No one else in my life has managed to get such an interesting reaction out of me. Sometimes I'm just a straight bitch.

I remind myself of Posey in the movie “The Dirty Dozen,” where these thieves and murderers and rapists serving life sentences are pulled out of military prisons and told they can join a crack special forces outfit. The pro is, if they survive and accomplish the mission they’re being trained for, they’ll be pardoned for their previous crimes. The con is it’s a suicide mission and it’s doubtful any of them'll live through it. Posey’s the largest, strongest guy in the group. He’s sedate, soft-spoken, mannerly, and just a really nice dude with an easy-going boyish charm.

But he hates being pushed. When someone physically pushes him, he gets murderous. He’ll warn them for awhile: “Stop pushing me...I don’t like being pushed I tell you...don’t, please...stop doing that.” But if they don’t quit, out comes a Ka-bar. Or he puts a fist into their nasal cavity, driving a wedge of skull up into their brains.

Posey had a problem with rage, and I understand it. Unhinged, unchanneled, unholy anger. It's blinding. You stand outside yourself, shocked, watching yourself do things you can’t believe, things you never thought possible. But you can’t stop yourself from doing them–-you’re all impulse and reflex. It’s like living a nightmare. And once rationality returns you think, “My God...I cannot believe what just happened.” Push me enough after I’ve warned you to stop and you can wear me down. Eventually I’ll crack. That’s what I’ve learned about myself.

And that’s why I’m avoiding going home this weekend. Because I don’t trust her not to push, and I don’t trust myself not to work the room over again. I saw those kinds of scenes between my parents all the time as a kid. I don’t want my children to see us arguing and me playing the fool. One of my personal quests is to find a way to keep this shit from embedding itself in the next generation of Hobbses.

Coming to know yourself--in a real sense removed from vague, quasi-religious, humanistic hippy spew--is the most harsh and depressing thing that can happen to a person. Don’t try to know yourself. You don’t want to know yourself. You don’t want to discover the things you’re capable of in the proper environment, when the right buttons are pushed. Oh, you think you’re not capable of them because you’re American or you’re a Christian or you’re a Republican or Democrat. You're just too good and enlightened and brilliant. But human history disagrees. Violently.

People never change. Someone left a comment in my now-defunct journal on another site. It’s a common phrase you hear all the time, the creed of the milk-toast masses. It's also a lie straight from hell: “You deserve better.”

No I don’t. No I fucking don’t. And neither do you. We deserve worse, much worse. The only truly good news I’ve heard in this life is that God doesn’t give us what we deserve.