It’s Like Living With Animals.
Larry’s sudden brutal attack on Joe shocked me, momentarily, into paying attention to what was going on in my life. After all the brawls and skirmishes I’d seen in bars, and all the stupidity I’d seen at frat parties, I’d never seen anything quite as animalistic as my boyfriend beating the crap out of someone who put his arm around me.
Until I watched Joe walk out of the kitchen covered in his own blood, I didn’t know Larry was capable of that kind of violence. I’d heard people talk about bikers and their capacity for such things, but I’d never seen it with him – or any of his friends. Larry was nearly always calm.
I recalled the night when, in our very first teeny apartment, someone had knocked on the door at 3 a.m. Larry had leapt out of bed and grabbed a heavy chain in one fluid motion – wrapping it around his arm like a seasoned assassin before he opened the door. It terrified me. And then, after he opened the door for his buddy, I shrugged it off as a fluke. I never saw Larry prepare to attack again.
But after Joe, all I could think was: it’s like living with animals. I was stuck in the middle of an ancient ritual that affected all species. Males fight over females, sometimes to the death, and whichever male wins … gets the female.
Larry had quite clearly announced that his mission was to possess and protect me, because I was his female. Larry may as well have been a bear or a hippo or a duck. And my job – as I sat on the couch motionless – was to be the female bear-hippo-duck. My job was to wait and see who won.
As if Joe ever stood a chance.
I thought about The One – my dream man at college – who, during our very nice chat, immediately turned tail and ran when Larry appeared. I thought about the guys in the bars who had turned their backs on me when Larry returned from the restroom. I thought about the men with whom I’d had sex, without it mattering to me or them, when Larry was nearby. Those men could have been beaten, too. Or worse.
I realized for the first time that Larry might actually be dangerous. I’d never asked him if he was a murderer or even a convicted felon. And it was too late now. I belonged to him.
Larry and I – who talked about very little anyway – never discussed what happened with Joe. I didn’t imagine Larry as my knight on a white horse. Instead I suddenly felt like I was living with a bear. Or a hippo. Or a duck.
Larry’s killer-instinct pulverization put everything into perspective for me. I realized with astounding clarity: there was nothing, and would never be anything, beyond the surface simplicity I’d seen in my new lifestyle. Bikers lived like animals. I had willingly joined and the culture was not going to change for me. I was stuck in it, like a burr. Although I wanted substantially more for myself, I could see no alternative.
And without college to balance out my mentality, I became more and more lost in the void. I had no one with whom to share my deepest thoughts. I had no one to discuss anything intellectual. Nobody read books or watched TV. We didn’t go to movies or on hikes or try skydiving.
We rode motorcycles and drank beer. And that was going to be my whole life.