OLD MARY and the madness of crowds

Michael Dal Hornsby

(09/24-1500 words)

I was spitting out my foul FCFF when I found an old-fashioned copy of the Times, and the words I read changed everything. Now I feel like the misunderstood protagonist in an old B movie, some quirky old broad who everyone thought was crazy until she proved them wrong at the last minute. I’ve seen this movie before, where the hero has an epiphany right at the start, and for once I’m feeling like the star of my own story.

I mean, just eating in a Fried Chips Factory Farm makes me a fish out of water, a classic situation in movie plot-type terms. I didn’t say that right, but it’s hard to explain a symbolic prop popping up out of nowhere just for an old lady like me. Is it some invisible spiritual consciousness sneaking around to help certain people and not others? Is that what this all means? Was that an exposition?

I’ve read books about old movies, which are my favorite. I mostly love them because they’re old, and when I say old, I mean old. Like only black and white. They are the better universe I love to escape in, because they are so far behind this particular point in time, at least in a culture-type way, if that makes sense. I know I’m not saying it right. 

Anyway, like I mentioned, I'm old. But not just old in an age way, though I’m totally ancient by any reasonable measure. I’m also old-fashioned, at least sometimes, like when it comes to the modern world turning a blind eye to violent, controlling men being unfaithful to their wives without them being able to do anything about it. 

It is not okay. I think those men deserve to be stoned to death, the same way that the original version of the Bible and that Muslim one commanded. Those guys had the right idea.

My so-called friend Sara said that I would go “medieval on their ass” when I told her. I laughed. That’s a line from a movie. I like that movie but it isn’t old. Instead of being grounded in a traditional home with a hard-working man and his loving wife, it was all swear words, fake blood, and cursing, like most movies that aren’t old. I’m not saying it’s a bad movie, I’m just saying it isn’t old. That, and it had nothing to do with the sanctity of marriage, something I believe in all the way to my core, though I’ve only been married for a year.

I was already a fossil of 29 when I said yes to Ron, and I wasn’t the first to say it. There were eight before me. Eight more women said yes to Ron. No one believes me when I tell them, but Ron really does know how to turn on the charm when he wants something. He knows what he’s doing. It’s why I’m number nine with eight before me.

I hope you’re not the judgmental type, I don’t usually bring that up. I’m pretty ashamed of myself, to tell you the truth. It didn’t help when my former friend Sara said it was my fault, that I was stupid for being afraid to be alone. But even though I was crying hard I told Sara I’m not stupid, just old. She had part of it right though. I am always afraid.

It was fear that brought me to Fried Chip Factory Farm in the first place. I always hated this place from their television advertisements alone, the ones where they turn up your volume to seduce you into eating their trash by way of slow-motion chips with bright yellow cheese sauces flying behind them. I don’t want to remember all those grating FCFF ads, but I’ve been force-fed so I do. 

Ron says that bullcrap doesn’t work on him. He says that it never has and it never will. In fact, Ron says, it doesn’t work on anyone but idiots. I’m his favorite example of this being the absolute truth. Sometimes he tells me about it over and over but I say nothing. Like I said, I’m always afraid and I’m especially scared of Ron. My own husband. But even though I’m old and scared doesn’t mean there’s nothing I can do.

The FCFF gives way to the ugly inner ring of this mid-level soccer stadium and I’m rushing through it with my head down. I hate being inside this screaming donut and all the plastic cups of liquid bread they sell. But I’m on a mission. Ron is cheating on me with another woman and they’re here. She doesn’t deserve it. No one deserves Ron.

The moment I sit with binoculars I find him immediately. Ron's sitting all the way down by the field next to her, a woman with short brown hair like mine. This might surprise you, but I’m glad I came here to watch all this, and I can’t help but wonder how drunk he is. 

Ron always wants more beer and always has to pee, and for once it’s working to my advantage. Lately, he’s been bragging about how he’s figured out a way to avoid the long lines in the men’s room. Because who would be stupid enough to stand in line, only to start pissing next to other men for god’s sake, especially when you could have yourself a little privacy. Then Ron told me every detail about his secret toilet.

I’ve been waiting and waiting for the game to pause and now it finally has, the mascot is out there doing the cabbage patch if that’s what that is. So I get to my feet when Ron does, and when he starts waddling to the nearest exit, I hurry down the steps to follow. When I get to the bottom I glimpse Ron sneaking into a gap between the arched tunnel of the stadium and the back door of the Falafel Carnival. I pause for a last look at Ron and he doesn’t see me at all.

Falafel Carnival is another place I avoid but I’m headed there anyway, and as it happens it’s where Ron’s ex brother-in-law Joey works. Joey’s the brother of Ron’s third wife Sophie—the one who killed herself when they were married—and Ron always described Joey as a total psycho. I didn’t mention it at the time, but I’d met Joey before. It was on what might have been the worst of my many bad dates, and for once Ron was right about something.

Joey was an awful mix of terrifying and dull, he would go on and on about his job at Falafel Carnival, about how good he was at pushing carts around, like I said, boring. But then he would blurt out of nowhere how happy it would make him to kill certain people, and that he could get rid of their dead bodies any time he wanted.

Joey really freaks me out but I’m inside Falafel Carnival anyway, hoping to blend in with all the others who came in here for a refreshing scoop of twice rehydrated MSG chickpeas. But before I can even get in line, Joey comes out from the back, and when our eyes meet he smiles with a predator’s satisfaction. I nod and leave. I hope I never see Joey again. I’m pretty sure I won’t.

When I leave the stadium my latest cuts and bruises don’t hurt as much as they did, and by the time I get to the first cab I’m almost a new woman. I wouldn’t say I feel young again, I’m really old, but at least now I’m old and buoyant. After I tell the cabbie where to go, I turn to the magical words in my foldable newspaper and literally say the headline out loud, “Who Gets To Kill In Self Defense,” and get lucky when the driver ignores me.

The article starts with another wife's experience, about how she was dragged through broken glass and poop, about how certain husbands like mine punch really hard where the bruises won’t show, it talks about being cheated on, humiliated, about all the wives knowing at some point their husbands would literally kill them. It said no one even knows how many women are in prison for the crime of survival and saving their own lives, for daring to dig in and fight back. 

When I found this paper I finally knew for sure that there were no laws protecting people like me, despite every man I know acting like stand-your-ground laws are the only ones that matter, often while reciting hypothetical scenarios starring themselves as the hero of whichever situation they end up killing the “bad guy” in.

As the cab leaves I don’t need to imagine whatever gruesome thing Joey is doing to Ron back there. I don’t even want to. I only want to imagine new horizons in black and white with credits rolling over this moment of my happy ending.

© Michael Dal Hornsby 2024. No permission for use by LLM or other AI learning systems.