'MAMMA, I KNOW YOU WARNED ME.......'

      Don't Count Your Confessions Too Soon
                  (A FICTIONAL STORY)
Jacob (Jake) Stubbs had a unique ability to think and talk like the Stream of Consciousness play write----Eugene O'Neill.




 'What will she say.....I can't stand this.....it must be done soon or I'll go nuts......maybe jump in front of a big rig on the Interstate.....maybe I'll die before I have to tell her.....maybe she will die and I'm home free....you think like a mad man.....I must do it today..... and do it right....17 years of marriage demands the truth.....the truth can really hurt.'




Jake and Nancy seldom went to an upscale restaurant. He chose Oliver's because reservation were easy to get, he knew the maître dei,  and Nancy would be less likely to raise a stink when he confessed to her in a popular and crowded eating and drinking spot. 


Shortly after they were about half completed enjoying their soup, Jake swallowed hard, took a long drank of water, cleared his throat and looked at Nancy. Inside of Jake, the butterflies had long since been frightened away by the worse sakes he had ever experienced.


"This is the hardest thing I have ever had to do", said the trembling Jake.


Nancy reached over and grasped his right arm and gave it a couple of gentle strokes.


For a few speechless moments, their entire 17 years of marriage went through his mental central processing unit. From that first date, their courtship, a secret plan to run away and get married---which didn't happen, the honeymoon in Hawaii, their first rented home, the birth of each of their three children, the breast cancer scare, and even the biggest trout he ever caught on one of their vacations. He had to do it!


Nancy's heart was going at hyper speed and she feared the worst---he was having an affair.


She spoke, "I love you and promise to stand with you through thick and thin. Are you having an affair?"
 
"No, No it is nothing like that."


With great relief, she said, "Then, what is it?"


"OK, OK, I am hooked....I can't do this."


"Honey, please continue."


"I am hooked on.......I am afraid you will hate me"


"I will not...I love you too much."


"You will get very upset. And start crying"


"I am sure I will if you don't tell me."


"OK, here goes: I am hooked on ......I am hooked on Phonetics. There I said it!"


Nancy slumped back in her seat, spilling some of here now tepid onion soup on her new J.C. Penney sun-flower pattern dress.


Jake wet his napkin and applied it to her forehead.
A collection of customers and restaurant staff stood like a sentinel guard around them. Jake asked for the check, threw three $50 bill on the barely used table cloth and helped her to their car and made a fast retreat toward home. Neither spoke on the way home.




Nancy made a bee line to their upstairs bathroom. Jake brought in the mail, locked up and quietly went to comfort his pale and much distraught help meet.




Her clothes were neatly folded on her side of the bed. From inside the bathroom he could hear his shell-shocked wife of a decade and an half whispering to her mother. Jake heard this very faintly:




"Momma, may I come home for a few weeks?"




"I know, I know you said Jake was no good, a jerk, a phony  and a cherry bomb primed to go off."




"Mamma he said before God and Country at Oliver's, you know that upscale steak and lobster joint on 45th, that he was addicted"


"NO,NO his addiction is not drugs. No, not booze. Not Porn or anything like that." 


"What is his addiction? Mamma, Jake confessed he was hooked on Phonetics. Mamma, Mamma are you still there? Mamma is your phone acting up again? Mamma? Mamma you on?"


Jake quickly tip-toed out of the room. Waited about 30 seconds and walked back in with the biggest smile she had ever seen him wear.


Tonight, Jake did not wrestle with his un-confessed secret and how to break it to Nancy. Instead, he wondered how much GED classes for Nancy would cost.


"Love You .Good Night, Honey."


"Love You too!"


Maybe, they ought to enroll in GED as a pair. Tuition might be cheaper! Plus, he might get extra credit if he brought his Phonetics cards to class.


GLENN <><
JUST WEST OF YESTERDAY