Evil Goes On Down the Road Being Evil

Of my seven loves, two were evil: Dale and another person whose name shall remain sealed in a letter-size Manila envelope that is hidden under the basement staircase, third step up. Evil doesn't like to be exposed; evil has a huge ego; evil gets even; if something happens to me, look for the envelope;  Evil did it.

Evil Doer

Evil doers are very, very bad. A person who connives to
exploit others for their own self-serving agendas. Evil doer's

motive is to do harm to others without feeling remorse. They

are cunning and manipulative and scheming and immoral and 

dishonest and disloyal and betrayers and liars and cheaters

and they don't wash their hands after they go to the bathroom.

                                                                             --Mikidikipedia

I had no clue these two men were evil when I was dating them. It wasn't until Hindsight tapped me on the ankle years later, looked up at me and said, "Remember Dale? Evil. Remember the other guy? Evil." It's not as if I didn't have the flashing neon lights warning me of danger. They were there; I just ignored them. I wanted to believe what I wanted to believe and I didn't want to believe the truth. I wanted to stick my head in the sand and pretend I wasn't being lied to; I wasn't being cheated on; I wasn't being betrayed.

Of my seven loves, four cheated on me, but two of the cheaters were not evil. They were good men who had done bad things. Both were seduced by women who were masters at the art of seduction. It wasn't their fault; they were weak and their penises said, "Let's do it and if we get caught, we'll ask for forgiveness later." And that's exactly what they did, and I did give forgiveness. But then my Hindsight tapped me on the ankle, looked up at me and said, "If he's cheated on you once, he'll cheat on again." But I ignored Hindsight and stuck my head in the sand and pretended I hadn't been cheated on; I hadn't been betrayed. 

The problem with cheating and betraying is the victim of those acts, although they may have forgiven, never forgets. I couldn't forget and sometimes Hindsight would wake me up in the middle of the night to remind me of the high probability of my love cheating on me again. And when that happened, I had to get out of bed, put my sleeping five-year-old son in the backseat of my car, drive over to my love's house, park in the neighbor's yard, tip-toe up to the house and peek inside the window with the light on. I had to do all this because of Hindsight's insomnia and overall distrust of this evil man I was dating: Dale.

Dale was sitting at the kitchen table, and across from him was an attractive, voluptuous brunette. Ah ha! Cheating. Hindsight's prediction was correct. But I'm getting ahead of the story, so let me go back to the beginning, shall we?

Dale was the man I began dating after my marriage to the cowboy ended in divorce. He fit the specs: handsome, smart, manly man, had a job, but he didn't have a sense of humor. What he did have was the hook: he wasn't interested in me. Bingo. His aloofness was a challenge. 

Dale owned an auto repair business and my car was in constant need of repair. It took several trips to the auto shop before he made eye contact with me, but he wasn't impressed. Bingo. His disinterest meant I would just have to work harder to get him to notice. Knowing that he was a pilot, on one of my visits I mentioned that I too had my pilot's license. His head popped up. Whaaaat? It was as if he was seeing me for the first time. Here we have a girl who can fly an airplane. Isn't that interesting? Ummm. Let me learn more about her. And thus began our dating relationship. In the beginning we had a mutual interest: flying. We had something to talk about. 

Dale was the controlling type. I didn't mind because I was attracted to a manly man who led rather than followed. He became a strong father figure and that I also didn't mind because I had always imagined my father, had I known him, would have been like Dale: handsome, smart, manly man, leader.  Then he said we were exclusive. Okay with me, I said. He told me to tell the people at the bank we were getting married. Well, what he really said was, "We're getting married and you can take that to the bank." He said he liked it when I wore my hair in pigtails, so to please him, I wore pigtails. He said I looked like a ten-year-old girl: little, petite and innocent. 

At a Christmas party that Dale sponsored for his employees, a mechanic's wife took me aside to tell me Dale was bad news. "He likes very young girls," she said, and then she said that I was just one of many women he had dated in all the years she had known him. When she told me this, I let her words wash over me as if she were talking to a third person in the room. "She's different," I felt like saying as the other person speaking up for me. "They weren't keepers; she is." But that would have been weird (me talking in the third person) so I just smiled and thanked her for the warning. Then I stuck my head in the sand believing what I wanted to believe and ignoring the truth. But then one day the truth smacked me in the face and I took notice.

I've told this story before. Possibly you remember it. I was cleaning Dale's house when a stack of envelopes fell from the top of the refrigerator. A picture slipped out of one of the envelopes; an arrow pointed to one of three women standing together and smiling. "This is me," was written on the picture. I read the letter enclosed and there was no question that "This is me" was replying to a personal ad. All of the other letters had pictures of women enclosed with notes about wanting to get to know this successful, physically fit, attractive, pilot better.

The letters answered my curiosity about why Dale's phone was always off the hook when I visited his house. "I don't want our time together to be interrupted by people calling me," he had said and I believed him. Another oddity was the open suitcase in his spare bedroom that held all of his toiletries: toothbrush, underarm deodorant, aftershave, shampoo, and an extra set of blue jeans and a T-shirt. Once I read the letters from the women all over Indiana who he was visiting, I got it. Finally, I got it. So now there was only two things for me to do: break up with Dale and have a little fun while I'm at it.

Some of the women had mentioned the magazine where they had read Dale's personal ad. Before the Internet, before Google, there was the library. I went downtown to Central Library to search through weeks of personal ads in the magazine, and I found his ad. He was looking for a young voluptuous brunette; I was a skinny blonde. I copied his ad, took it to work and enlarged it up to an 8 x 10. Then I taped his personal ad looking for a big-boobed brown hair girl to my refrigerator.

On our last date (he didn't know it was our last date), while he was driving me home, I asked him if he had ever posted a personal ad in a magazine. He said he didn't even know what a personal ad was and asked me to explain it. "Ya know, it's when you say nice stuff about yourself and then list the kind of woman you're looking for." He said he had never done that. When we got to my house, he said he was thirsty so I directed him to the kitchen where the refrigerator and his personal ad were. He was in the kitchen for the longest time before returning to  the living room where I was waiting. His face was flushed and he was without words. Busted! He knew where the door was and he let himself out. Evil gone! Bye, Bye now. Adios. Ciao. So long sucker.

Years later I heard that Dale was accused of taking inappropriate liberties with a ten year-old girl, and that's all I'm gonna say about that. Remember the Manila envelope under the staircase? Evil gets even. And so evil goes on down the road being evil and cunning and manipulative and scheming and immoral and dishonest and disloyal and betraying and lying and cheating.