The Two Towers.

(This is a true story)

"Somebody love me once but I cannot remember why..."
-Reel Big Fish

(I admit that this woulda been a great story for 9/11 but I really didn't think of it and I really had been focusing on the last story. This story is by no means untold by me. This story always comes up during "where were you during 9/11" stories. This story is directly related to 9/11 and my "goings ons/whereabouts". I also would tell this story when people ask if my wife always hated me. Anyways here's the story and I hope you like it...)

Before I get into the story at hand I need to tell you a back-story. I joined the Army after deciding that I had no other way to support my family. I wanted to provide them with EVERTHING and the window I was waiting on was closed on my fingers. I received the news that these people wouldn't hire me but would hire liars. At the time I was an Armed Courier and when I heard the news I got mad, well furious was a better word for it, and realizing that I did not want to be the guy who failed at providing for his family, I returned to the vault. There I turned in my money and my vehicle, then I drove straight to the recruiter. My pistol was privately owned so I still had it with me when I arrived. After a while I told the recruiters that I was armed and refused to stow it in my car. When they asked me too I said that I would just come back later and they asked if I had a badge and credentials, which I did, I showed them and they were cool with it. I kept my gun/Badge and the enlisted me. They told me that carrying a weapon there was prohibited but the sign was broken and awaiting replacement.

Fast forward to 9/11:

I was home from basic training. As a reward for doing well and qualifying top 16% , I was told that I would get to stay home two extra weeks on top of my leave to do recruiter duty. I worked at the very recruiting station I signed up at.

My wife and I were asleep that fateful morning. The phone rang super early and she answered it. Weapon X, was on the line spouting off about how a pilot crashed a plane into a tower. My wife asked her if we could talk about it later and hung up on her. Then she went back to sleep.

I don't remember when but the phone rang again. This time it was my Sergeant. She passed the phone to me and when I said hello they asked if I was ok, then they went on to tell me of the terror attacks. They told me to come to work now. I told them that I would shave and get into uniform and the said "No" just to come in as I was, they did not want me to look military. I said ok and hung up the phone.

By then my wife was freaking out. People and her family were calling the cell phone asking if we were ok and telling what they have heard about the attacks. They even told her that the terrorists may be targeting Soldiers and killing them .My parents were up watching the news when I walked out of my room to tell them.

By then I was already dressed, I still remember what I was wearing: A Green Day Shirt, big baggy stonewashed jeans and DC shoes, I was still a skateboarder then so I still dressed like one. Before I walked out of the room my wife asked me if I was going to take a gun with me. A few months before she had bought me a H+k USP .40 with a stainless steel slide. A very pretty,High performance handgun, I would eventually carry that gun for duty. I told her "no" I didn't need one, I just gotta check in and then they would let me go home.

So I walked out to my parents asking question and I had no answers. I told em I'd go to work and find out what was going on and let them know.

I turned around and yelled to my wife "I LOVE YOU!" as I turned the door knob to leave. I heard her say my name and I stopped in my tracks to turn around to face her. There was my beautiful wife walking around the corner, face wet and red because she was sobbing and in her hands was the pistol she bought me, resting in her palms in its leather scabbard. Tears in her eyes she raised the pistol to me and said in a low voice...

"please take it...I don't want anything to happen to you..."

and all I could do is stand there and stare at her. My beautiful wife, the woman I loved enough to marry, the woman I wanted to spend forever with, crying her eyes out because she thought I could die. She was crying her eyes out because I wasn't armed, She was sobbing her eyes out because she wanted me to take my weapon with me and at that point I remembered my duties as a husband. I knew I could get in trouble but she was more important.

"Yes..."

and I took the pistol from her and she threw her arms around me and cried.

When she was done crying I put the pistol on in front of her. Thank God my shirt was large, it covered up the gun quite nicely. I then proceeded to work and when I got there all I had to do was be briefed and given safety rules. I got nervous about the weapon so I said to my Sergeant this:

" Hey! do you remember that thing I had on me when I signed the line?"

"Yeah"

" Well, I got one now. My wife wanted me to take one."

he replied this:

"oh, you brought just one? you should see the station commander..."

and if on cue she walked in the room and asked what we were talking about.

" the young Private here has a gun on him."

she replied:

"Oh, just one?"

and she opened her warm up jacket and revealed no less than four handguns tucked in her waistband. All I could think was "Fucking band geek!"

I finally got to go home and me and my wife spent the day together. We went grocery shopping and I still had the gun on. I wore it the whole day...

When my wife left me the first things to go was that pistol. To this day I still feel bad about it. I really think that me letting the gun go was this story. She loved me soooo much that she cried for me to take it but then she could leave the way she did. She bought me the gun because she loved me, she told me so when she bought it and when she left I couldn't bear to look at it anymore so I sold it. Then I used the money as a down payment for an apartment for me and my son. With the remaining money I bought a tactical flashlight that I still have/carry to this day.

In the end the weapon that my wife brought to me in tears that day did do its job, She gave it to me to protect me and keep me safe. I carried it to protect her and my son, but in the end the pistol gave me and my son a start on a new life.

The Towers fell and lives were lost and lives were changed. My own disaster would happen a few years later when someone else convinced my beloved Shelly to leave me for their arms.

So I believe the answer to be "No", my wife didn't always hate me. 

-B

(Just like there are fates worse than death, there are even worse ways to lose people. But in this way its worse, you see what they have become or you feel the pain of not being part of their lives anymore. Either way all you can do is just sit there, watch and wish that you had thought to bring a coke and popcorn. I say it a million times and I will say it past I'm dead..." the person you love may not always be there.." who cares how and why they left because nothing will ever change the fact that YOU LOVED THEM, right or wrong, for better or for worse, YOU LOVED THEM, but be with them and love them, take the time and the love to build memories and keepsakes that will remind you that yes you loved them and maybe, just maybe they loved you too and all was well in the world and that will comfort you when they are no longer there. That's why I tell you these stories, not so I can wallow in self pity and drown in sorrow. I tell them because they remind me of a happier time, a time when I was whole. I can look into a pretty girls greenish/copper/hazel(whatever) eyes and remember the beauty of loving and being loved...that and they do sell single serving microwave popcorn that fits in your pocket for just such and emergency...luv ya, -B)

Tail of the Dog.

(This is a true story)

(This is one of two stories told by me at Sully's high class wedding. Actually I tell this story often but the wedding was the first time I ever Publically told it. People were on the edge of their seats waiting to hear what happened next. I battled with myself for a few years with whether or not I should publish this story and actually almost wrote it out while in Egypt. So here it is and I hope you like it and please tell your friends...)

For Sarah and her cat Zepplin, who passed on 9/11/2013...

So despite being the "awful" husband my X-wife would say I was,she would bring me baked goods. When we were married she used to bake for me all the time. I gained a lot of weight and there was plenty of me to love while I was married to her.

Well the incident in question happened fully after the transformation of my beautifull wife. Her hair was still short, she wore a lot of flannel and around her neck she wore the symbol of her new religion.

I myself stop short of naming her religion although I'm sure you all are smart enough to figure it out. The funniest part of the whole thing is that she didn't realize that she wore it so people knew what she was aligned with. She called once to tell me about her new spirituality and was taken aback by the fact that I already knew. I mean its not like I never saw her, My X-wife was always calling and always showing up at my work! to be honest, how could I NOT know? Anyways this religion is/was notorious for love spells and (this is cool) human sacrifice...spoiler dood...as well as other stuff. I myself never paid it much mind till one day.

It never hit me, the problems I could be having with my X and her new religion. Hell most people laughed it off. My mom would joke about her casting spells on me and finally turning me into a toad or whatnot. I personally thought a Voodoo type experience would be cool but it wasn't the right religion.

Well the reason for worry finally hit me like a Mack truck when one day out of the blue she showed up at my work with baked goods in hand. As she handed  me the Bread she looked at me with an odd look and then it hit me. I'm her X the she declared to be the "Darth Vader" of husbands and here she is giving me HOMEMADE baked goods, Yeah, I thought, this isn't going to go well.

So I took the bread, thanked her and started to walk off. She stopped me and asked why I wasn't eating it. I told her that I just ate but I was gonna get a coke and eat it in a few. That seemed to satisfy her and she left the shop. After watching her leave and waiting long enough to be sure she wasn't coming back I took the tinfoil wrapped bread and chucked it in the dumpster out back, feeling alive as if I just dodged a bullet.

Over the next few months that's how it went. She would bring goodies(yeah right!) and I would wait till she left to throw it in the dumpster. It was a pretty neat routine actually, very comical, like we had rehearsed.

Well one day she showed up and as I recall she had brought Zuchinni Bread. While we were married it was a weakness of mine. I would make her bake a loaf just for me and then I would devour it like a velociraptor, the carnage! I took it and made my usual excuse and before she release the loaf she said this...

" If you ask me this is the best loaf I have ever made...its DAMN good!"

and walked off with my son to go to her house. I waited till she was gone and the proceeded to the dumpster carrying the tinfoil package in front of me like it was an I.E.D when my boss Bill stopped me.

" Where are you going with that?"

He was standing near the back door with a cup of coffee in his hand.

" To throw this out."

As I answered I gave him the "Where have you been, oh and are you stupid" look.

"Why?"

"I never eat anything she brings."

" Why not?"

" Dood, she into -Deleted-! I wouldn't eat it!"

" Lemmie have it."

" What?! are you stupid?!"

"Just give it here!"

" Don't eat it!"

"I'm not gonna eat it!"

Finally he told me what he was gonna do with it. A really mean dog lived across the alley from the back door of the shop. I have been told it bit Bill once but he would feed it scraps anyway. The dog was not only a mean one but notorious for being able to get over the fence.

I conceded, gave bill one last warning and let him have the package. He took his coffee and with the loaf of bread under his arm walked out the back door and closed it after himself. The rest of the day went without incident.

That day was my "Friday" and I went home for one of my days off. When I came back to work Bill asked me if I had heard the news to which I replied no.

Bill said that he went outside with the bread and fed it to the dog and everything was fine. Then the next morning the little old people that owned it came and knocked on the back door. That's not too unusual for them to do as when the dog got out they would ask if we had seen it.

Only this time they didn't ask where the dog was, they asked if we knew who had killed it...

Seems that late the very night that the dog ate the bread someone had climbed the fence and shot the dog, killing it unnoticed and unheard by anyone...

After that I was even more firmly resolved to never eat anything my X-wife ever made for me...

-B