Tar Pits

She knew it was his day to lecture at Pepperdine, and she knew at this point in the morning he was almost to Malibu. She knew he had not noticed anything wrong in his wallet before she left.  He would have called. She knew the secret code to access his account spelled the word MAZDA. She knew how much she could withdrawal at one time. She knew it was enough.

All her knowledge of the lover she was standing in line to betray had thickened into tar the instant she found out she was pregnant. He was too old for her.  He was too sloppy, too helpless, too kind for her. He was hopelessly attached to be being a Film Studies professor. He was prone to random stupidity - stupidity that was usually inexplicable and damaged her somehow. He hated the neighbors even though he did not know them. His ass was extremely hairy. He'd been writing the same novel for a decade. He covered the television with a sheet when he wasn't watching it. He did not understand why she sometimes gardened at night.  And he never would. He ate too much fruit. He slept too soundly. He flushed while still peeing. He had apparently never been in a situation where he felt the need to whisper. His sense of humor was intermittent. The largeness of his hands had yet to stop startling her. He never felt shy.




She knew a baby bound them together forever. And she knew one day she would be capable of killing him.  So, she reasoned, if I take three hundred dollars from him now I will leave that possibility behind as well. She would leave it all behind. The clothes, the books, the car, his friends. By the time he left Malibu this afternoon she would be looking down on Provo, or Santa Fe, or St. Louis. Her best friend would be waiting for her when she got into JFK, then, sooner rather than later, she would head uptown to her mother's doctor and terminate her pregnancy. And they would be unbound.


The ATM flicked out 20 twenty dollar bills. She threw his bankcard into the trash along with the receipt and headed back across the park toward their apartment. Walking past the museum and the tar pits for the last time, she wondered who she was in the hellish mastodon family grotto; the desperate father, the wailing baby, or the dying mother. She decided, without pausing, she was none of them. And never would be.