A Guy Story

I won't discuss these people in any kind of chronological order. It is just whoever I feel like discussing at the moment.

Today I want to talk about Roy (that is his real name). Roy is Champagne's and Bruzer's father. I said father and not dad, because he is so far from it. He saw them one time for about 10 minutes in all of 2007...and NONE of 2006! But, I'm getting ahead of myself, let me go back to the beginning.

I met him at the very beginning of 2002, we were introduced by a mutual friend. I was seeing someone else at the time, but I knew that relationship wasn't going anywhere (he was married....judge me if you want). I was getting very attached, and I needed to break free and get into something of my own, so I broke it off with the other guy to see Roy exclusively. He talked a good game and seemed very normal. Says he worked for himself doing "drywall, plastering, and painting" -- I can still hear him say it, he used to say it so much. He told me he owned three houses in East St. Louis that were rental properties. That seemed doable to me, cause to me that sounded believable. He wasn't lying like he was ballin' outta control, he even said he had a Ford Expedition. Totally believable right? Yeah, it was ALL LIES!

But, by the time I found out, the damage had been done. I never saw the Expedition, his mother was always driving it and he was driving her car! Cute huh? Then, get this: his crackhead brothers drove his truck to Springfield and hocked it to the crackman! Yet, he wasn't upset about it, nor did he try to get it back or file a report. When I pressed him about it, he said it was only "material things"!

Red Flag #1! Does anyone else know how men and their vehicles are? Plus later on down the road one day when his mother was getting out of our Ford Explorer (smaller than the Expedition), she complained it was 'too high off the ground'.

So we had a good date, and we slept together, and I was very careless, and Champagne was conceived. We had an argument one day about 2 weeks after we got together and split up, but he had to come by and give me some money I lent to him...and we decided to try again. Didn't know I was knocked up yet.

The pregnancy was a little complicated, lots of bleeding when there shouldn't have been any, bedrest a few times, migraines out of this world....and I subsequently lost my job at the phone company. They mistakenly expected me to choose them over me and my baby's health. What.ever! Oh yeah, sex was restricted for awhile too, and this asshole actually told me if there was a choice between sex and the baby he would choose sex!!

But you see, I had my own hangups since I was now pregnant with my third child by the third different guy. I never wanted to be that girl...EVER! So I was determined to make it work. I went thru sheer hell trying to make it work, so I would advise very few to take this path...it doesn't work! I experienced high levels of infidelity and just complete assinine behavior, all through my pregnancy. Even the day my water broke with Champagne, it was drama. I checked his pager messages while he outside talking to his brother and heard a message from some girl wanting to know what time he was coming so they could go to the movies...ON MY BIRTHDAY!! So I confronted him and didn't speak to him for hours, until I had to tell him my water broke shortly after midnight.

He was the type that would lie until you showed him proof...or so I thought. I actually stooped so low as to tape his telephone conversations just so I could catch him in a lie that he was actually cheating. I am not proud of that...and I truly consider that a low point in my life. But I had to know since he would never be man enough to admit if he had been caught. I had to listen to him and yet another chick going over directions to her house in St. Louis - while I was at the store. I knew him well enough to know that he would leave when I got back. He told me he was going to his friend Kenny's house -- as usual. He didn't get home to that morning, at which time I had all his stuff packed up in trash bags at the door. But, he convinced me that they hadn't slept together, so we went on. But don't worry, his behavior didn't get any better, I just got worse!

I got so depressed at times that I didn't even comb my hair for days, I would just brush it back into a bun. Mind you, I was getting my hair done every 2 weeks when we first met! Even after I had Kyla, there was still drama. He was absolutely nuts about her. We weren't sleeping together, he slept downstairs on the floor and, a lot of the time she slept with him. After she was a few months old, that is. Sex life was barely there, but every now and then I wanted some and he was semi-convenient. I say semi cause there were several nights when he didn't come home. Well, one of those times produced Bruzer.

After I realized I was pregnant by him again, I spiralled down out of control. I went to Wal-Mart and got a 2-pack test. Then went to McDonald's across the street and tried one out. When I got into my car and started driving, before I knew it I had pulled up to Planned Parenthood. Yet another moment I wasn't proud of...that I had actually contemplating killing my baby. But God has forgiven me, and so I have forgiven myself. Mostly.

The funniest part was that I was 16 weeks pregnant by the time I figured out I was! I had just recently bought a TotalGym and, though I was working out regularly, couldn't figure out why my stomach wasn't going down! This is my fourth child..and I didn't know how to tell I was pregnant??? Priceless! He denied it of course, even in the doctor's office (while the doctor was standing there). He kept saying it must have been the mailman's baby, then specifically referred to Alyssa's dad (ie, Can't Get Right) as the mailman he was referring to! Once again, while the doctor was standing there! I could have died of embarassment right then and there!

We lasted until 2004, though most of the time after Bruzer was born, we weren't together. I finally got the balls to kick him out not long after the baby was born. His other "babymomma" - whose child is exactly 3 months older than Champagne - began blowing up my house phone when she found out about the baby. Apparently he had been going back and forth between the two, yet souping her head up thinking it was just her. Imagine her surprise and anger! I had been in the hospital for a week prior to having Bruzer, and he was still 5 weeks early. She called the next day and apologized to me like a woman and then she explained herself and what he had been saying. I made it clear to her how things were between him and me, and if she really wanted him (for reasons I'll never know) she was welcome to him.

The last official thing I think we did together was went on our annual Six Flags trip with my family in the summer of 2004. Champagne stayed all night at his house one time, and I told him that Bruzer was not allowed to stay. You see, he never bonded with him the way he did his baby girl...and I didn't feel my baby would be safe there. But, I started getting a bad feeling in my gut and so Champagne wasn't allowed to spend the night again. He was around too many seedy characters. If that makes me wrong, so what, my babies safety is my first priority! He had 2 or 3 or his crackhead/alcoholic brothers living with him. Plus, there was the dike who looked like a 16 year old boy, whose name I found in St. Clair County's sex offender system! He knew where I lived though, and yet he never came to see them. Never called on birthdays or anything. What's even more sad is that Bruzer's birthday is the day after his (like Champagne's is the day after mine)! Still nothing!

So, to sum it all up here's how it ended up:
I ended up with a repossessed car on my credit report that I bought for him.
I ended up with a $1200 Sprint bill and lost service on a number I had for years, because I added a line for him to my account.
I ended up with a $600 additional charge on my phone bill (after he moved out) because he took a calling card that mailed to the house and ran it up. Phone company wouldn't do anything even though I had a police report, because I knew the person! So that was disconnected too!
I lost my beloved tool set that I had since I was 19. (I am sentimental, you know)
I ended up getting my first beloved Montana repossessed because he messed up the transmission in it. So I had to cram me and the kids into my mother's 4-door Sunbird.
In some ways, I have still not quite gotten back to the financial place I was in "BR" (Before Roy).

I lost myself in him, and everyone who loved me was truly concerned. They were all so relieved to see the old me coming back! But I wasn't the old me, I was newer and better! There was no way I could have gone through all that, and not came out stronger than before!! But, best of all, I ended up with two children that I wouldn't have traded a minute of his misery or financial troubles for...if it meant I would be without Champagne and Bruzer!!