The Nineties

Some days, I wish things had ended differently.

Not every day. Most days I can manage fine. Most days I can get through without thinking about what happened.

But on some days, I remember, and I wonder how things would have been like if things hadn’t happened the way that they did. Wished I could have done something to stop it all.

You don’t have a clue what I’m on about, do you?

I’m going to have to explain at some point, but first, I suppose I should introduce myself. Not that my name matters, but I guess it might be nice to have a name. You’re going to be following my footsteps, so to speak, so you probably want a name.

Well, it’s Simon.

Now, you may be questioning whether or not you can trust me. Why give my real name? Well, if you don’t start trusting me now, you’re not going to trust me at all, and therefore it’s pointless you reading this in the first place. Because, lets face it, who else is going to tell you the story? Pete died a few years ago, and Angel’s in jail now. And as for Bobby… well, don’t even get me started on Bobby yet.

Okay, let me start from the top.

What I’m about to tell you happened a long time ago. Well, it was ten years ago, whether or not that’s a long time is open to debate. But it’s a long time for me; a long time to gain some perspective on things, time to figure out a thing or two.

One thing is this: I don’t know everything. Now, I’ve done my best to try and find out as much as I can on what happened and why, but there’s still a few gaps in my knowledge, so you’ll have to forgive me for that. I’ve done my best, and that’s all you’re gonna get.

If you ask me, it was all Bobby’s fault, but I’ll get back to that later.

So, back to the story. Ten years ago, it was the end of the nineties, and that’s where our story begins. Green Day fans were raving to Dookie, gothic clothing was becoming more popular, and Saving Private Ryan had just hit the movie theatres. It was a good time for me – my marriage was stable, my job was high paid, and I had another kid on the way.

Then a big thing happened to me. The first of the big things.

The first of these things was my wife’s affair. Now, this came as a big shock to me, as you might imagine. See, my wife and I had been married for around fifteen years or so, and I had always imagined her to be faithful. Sure, I might of doubted her a couple of times over the years, but I think that it had only been slight paranoia when I was out of town. Turned out
that I was right to be suspicious.

Well, this raised all sorts of questions. Why had been a good one. How long was another. Divorce was one that I think was on both our minds, but the main one for me was whether the kids were mine or not.

I eventually found out that the thing had been playing out for three years, more or less. She wouldn’t tell me who it was though, just kept repeating that I didn’t know the guy. The whole thing knocked me out of loop, and I decided that I needed a break. Not like a proper divorce or anything, but I needed some time on my own to think for a while, and a bit of personal space.

That’s really when things started to go wrong for me, though I didn’t know it at the time. All I knew was that the baby was due to be born in five months, and that I hoped things would have settled down by then. That I would have sorted everything out.

The second big thing that happened to me was when I was moving into the apartment that a friend of mine, Angel, had rented out for me. I hadn’t brought much with me; just a bag of clothes and a few personal items, and I was carrying them towards the lift when it happened: the mugging.

Now, this might not seem like a big deal to you – this was New York, muggings happen on a daily basis. Well, if you think that, you clearly have never been mugged by a tall, heavily built man with a gun.

The guy took my wallet and gave me a black eye before running off. I remained where I was for a few minutes, in shock, before managing to stagger inside the block of apartments. It was lucky that the place my friend lent me was on the ground floor, ‘cos I don’t think I could
of made it up the stairs.

I didn’t sleep well that night, let me tell you. I tossed and turned for God knows how many hours, before finally just dragging myself out of bed at three in the morning to get some coffee.

It was like that for about a month. No matter what I tried, I just couldn’t sleep. It didn’t matter if I jogged all day or cut down on the caffeine or meditated. Each night, the only thing I could think of was that goddamn bastard who had been screwing around with my wife.

I spent a lot of hours wondering if the two of them were still going at it while I was gone.
So, about a month and a half after I took a break from my home life, the third of the big things happened. I found out who my wife was cheating on me with.

Now, my friend Bobby and I have known each other since the beginning. We grew up together, went to high school and college together, hell we even slept together. (Though that was only once, years before I got married, and we were both extremely drunk). Point is,
we’re the best of friends. Or at least, we were the best of friends.

Apparently, his thing with my wife started at a weekend retreat I had organized for Christmas. Most of my friends had come, Bobby included. There was snow and a lot of beer, and the two of them ended up in the same bed. First, there had been guilt on both sides. But apparently that wasn’t enough to keep them away from each other.

A part of me had wanted to know every detail of this seedy business, but I was either too dumbfounded or too unwilling to ask, and my wife seemed in no great hurry to tell me. (I didn’t even want to talk to Bobby about it; as far as I was concerned, our friendship was
over).

I decided then that I didn’t want to see her ever again either. You may think cruel and cold-hearted, but see it from my perspective. Her cheating I could just about forgive, but with my best friend? How could I forgive that?

How the hell was I meant to trust her after that?

Then, a week after I left with my belongings and a promise to my boy that I would see him regularly, the fourth big thing happened.

The last of the big things.

This thing didn’t happen to me directly, but it affected me in more than any of the other things would.

My wife was out shopping in the week after I left. She was going down one of the escalators in the mall when she fell right the way down to the bottom.

Eye witnesses say she was pushed.

At that moment, I had lost nearly everything. My wife, my best friend, and now the unborn baby...

We had planned to name him Joey...

I lost a lot of hope in the weeks and months afterwards. It was a dark period for me, very dark indeed. To be honest I’m not sure that I ever fully recovered from it. I had to go to therapy for a while. Lost my job.

I still see my kid every few weeks. That keeps me going most of the time.

So, that’s my tale. I never said it would be a happy one, nor did I say it would be long. It’s all the facts I have concerning my life in the nineties. There’s other stuff that happened in that decade, true, but that year is the one that sticks out to me (and I am forced remember it for all the wrong reasons).

That’s how the nineties ended for me. Like I said, I just wished things had happened differently.