i get more divorced by 9 a.m. than most people do all day

I keep four journals. Three brown cahiers and one black leather with graphed pages, the three cahiers are titled in black sharpie, lower case, hand printed, “beautiful things,” “things i have dreamed,” and “things i must heal.” The black journal bears no title. Following are my journal entries in one of my cahiers from last night and this morning. They could have gone into any of the journals:

June 17, 2008

Tomorrow morning at 8 AM I will go into room 218 of the Bexar County Courthouse, the red building with the green roof, and a judge will tell me that I am no longer legally bound to Courtney. When my lawyer informed me today that this would be taking place, I went and got a pack of smokes. Now I am sitting with a glass of wine.

What is it to be at an end.

They say it is also to be at a beginning.

Perhaps this is so, but if I am truthful, I only see many false starts and nothing that I might say of it, “this begins here.”

I cannot bring myself to miss her. Perhaps I am simply tired of doing so.


June 18, 2008

I parked my car by the Cadillac Lofts. There is some personal significance for me in this, a place with a good deal of attachment regarding a life that I can not any longer access. And I walked to the courthouse. I waited in the gallery to be summoned before the judge. Between 8:15 and 8:30, it is all uncontested matters. I heard a familiar name, and looked at the woman busily whispering to her client and shuffling papers, and hurrying out into the hall to consult with a colleague, and it was Alison. I have not seen her in somewhere close to thirteen years, and I did not say hello. She looks exactly the same, perhaps a little older, certainly much more a lawyer than a high school student. Strange that I suddenly did not feel alone. Though in truth I was.

The judge had hair that had once been deep black, and is now peppered with course grey strands. She did not look at me. I would not have been able to tell her from a clerk at the post office, or the property tax bureau. I was sworn in. The lawyer asked several yes-or-no questions. I answered with something of a frog in my throat. Not nerves precisely, just discomfort. “I am granting your divorce,” she said, and that was that. Courtney was not around to hear about this. If she cared about such things, that was some time ago. As papers were passed back and forth between the lawyer and the judge, I couldn’t help but chuckle under my breath. You have no business here. This is not yours to decide. Except that I grant it. I grant you the right to grant my divorce. Silly. Papers shuffling and now I am a different man. Sign here. What is your social. What is her birthday. Etcetera.

I passed Alison again in the hall. Our eyes met briefly and she did not recognize me. I made no motion toward her. I entered the elevator and was done with it all, walking out the front of the courthouse and then later past the library, my car was waiting for me. It looked different, almost concerned. If I had had a dog, that dog would have been the one to seem concerned, and it would have been no less ridiculous. The beetle, the way-back machine, my object friend. And when I was at home, close to nine o-clock, sitting on my porch, I pretended to the actress that I was relieved and happy.

I am neither.