Girls with Guns

This post comes to us from a small town girl, looking for love in all the wrong places. 

Many moons ago, I used to be a bartender in Southern California, a profession in which I thought I had seen it all. You see all types in a bar setting, from the rich and famous to the old and shameless. For the most part I had built up an immunity to drunks, players and the scandalous, or so I thought.

My small town girl background meant that I had lived a pretty sheltered life and as such, I never really had much experience with men. As a young girl raised in this small town, the pickings were pretty slim when it came to "eligible bachelors."  If you've heard of "beer goggles," then you can appreciate the mindset of having to date from a shallow pool of fish.  

I had seen "Paul" come into the bar occasionally and eventually I befriended him.  We first bonded because he claimed his ex wife said he was passive aggressive and an alcoholic.  At the time, I'd just been dumped by someone I thought loved me too.  Misery loves company, or so they say.  We use to share horror stories on how no one really understood either of us...I'm sure we've all been in a situation where a new "relationship" starts because two people seem bonded by the bad experiences of the previous relationship. 

He was a correctional officer at the local prison not far from where I lived. In MY town, having a Government job was akin to hitting the lottery.  He seemed sweet, honest, secure and was what I thought I needed: an older, wiser guy.

At first, it seemed like it was working out great. I had a steady beau and he spoiled me with presents. I'd never had that before and it was nice. He also liked my daughters and was more than accommodating when it came to taking us all out.

After time though, he became different. One night, I was out at the bar at which I worked, just hanging out and having a drink.  While chatting up one the regulars, Paul called me and I invited him to have a drink with me.  He agreed.  When he walked in the building, he ignored me completely.  Eventually, he plops down two seats away from me, which seemed odd, given that there was an empty seat right next to me.   I looked over at him and asked why didn't he sit next to me. He said "why don't you come sit over here?"

Paul had always been a Type A personality, bordering on issues with control.  One might chalk that up to ego, but I couldn't imagine how he'd have developed such a large ego given the nature of reality.  For starters, a prison guard in a tiny town hardly gives him Donald Trump status, but I suppose status is relative.  In this town, that was a big thing.  Again, this was a Podunk town...I used to muse that only two types of people live in this town: 50% of residents can't sell their houses and the other 50% are part of the Federal Witness Protection Program. The town was so small, that if a tornado came through, the damage would be in hundreds of dollars..we're talking small.

In his head, though, he was King of the Hill.

Over time, he grew more discourteous and disrespectful.  He'd often start arguments over something as simple as having a hard day, then would toss in for good measure statements like "I don't feel appreciated."

On one occasion, he called me repeatedly in the span of a few minutes. It was early in the morning and having come off a late shift, he knew I'd be sleeping.  If it were an emergency, I'd understand, but it turned out that he wanted me to run an errand for him that day.  Why a simple text wouldn't suffice is beyond me, but that was his style, or so I thought.  Deep in my heart, I knew this was toxic, but I convinced myself that deep down, he was a good man and certainly a bit above the local "talent."


Soon thereafter, I decided to join the Army to try and do something with my life outside of my hometown. I kept in touch with Paul, who would occasionally write me, as his letters initially seemed sincere and genuine. After time though, he admitted that he was staying with me simply because he couldn't find anything better. He also made comments about my physical appearance that were derogatory, so our communications quickly faded, but eventually resumed. I guess he eventually figured out that I was a pretty good catch and he had a change of heart.

After I finished Army bootcamp training, I went home to do "home town" recruiting.  One night, we were at his house and I decided to go to bed early, but Paul insisted that he wanted to hang out with his buddies. I was rather peeved because I was about to go to Texas for my new duty assignment and was shocked that he'd rather go do that than curl up with me...espcially since I had already been gone for four months.

Since it was clear that he wasn't ready to go home (we were hanging out at a local establishment),  I decided to have a glass of wine.  At one point, I needed to get something out of his truck.  Rummaging through the center console, I found condoms.  Since we didn't use condoms (we had been exclusive, or so I thought,) this was a giant red flag.  (It could also be the lyrics to any Travis Tritt song..."I found condoms in his truck, I didn't give a f#ck, I kicked him out of my house, cause this guy was a louse, doo wap, doo wah" ~ Craig)

We ended up in a huge argument and the next day I left to go to Texas. Soon after that, I deployed to Iraq. I thought more and more about our toxic relationship and decided right then and there to end it. I emailed him telling him it really was his toxic behavior that influenced me to join the Army and the condom evidence was pretty cut and dry. 

After a period of a few months, I came home on leave. By this time, Paul had knocked up some girl and they were cohabitating.  I ran into them at a local bar where, lo and behold, he was sitting a few seats over from his girlfriend, ignoring her and chatting up a female regular.  I borrowed a condom from my male friend and walked right past Paul to his lady.  He first seemed scared that I was coming over for a confrontation, but I was only interested in talking to his new girl.  Handing her the condom, I said "Here, this is for you," to which she replied "Oh honey, we don't need these anymore."  Without missing a beat, I replied "With Paul, you'll always need one of these."


I heard they broke up soon after my redeployment to Iraq.  I never saw either of them again.