I wish the radio worked.
It was the last thing I asked him to do before I left.
"Jim, could you take the other car in for me? It would mean a lot. The radio has been acting up, the power locks are on the fritz, and the brakes pads haven't been replaced since we went to Detroit to see your Great-Aunt a half-decade back."
It would have taken him an hour, maybe two, but he was busy.
"I'm busy, why can't you do it?"
"Because I'm at work Jim."
"Then do it tomorrow, no big."
"I'll be at work then too. You're home, it won't take long, and you promised that you would do it a month ago, can't you just..."
"What don't you understand about 'busy' Andrea?"
"What I don't understand is why you always seem to be busy when I ask you to keep your promises, Jim."
"I don't have time for this, I'm..."
Busy.
I think everyone has a super power, Jim's is the uncanny ability to be busy exactly when I need him.
Busy "closing the deal," busy making "the call," busy playing golf, busy with his friends, busy trolling social media for new places to rant about his theories on free market economics.
Too busy for little old me.
"Darling. Please, you don't have to do this."
Except for today. Not too busy today, are you Jim? Not too busy to send me text messages.
2.
We married young, too young.
I was eighteen, he was twenty.
They say that boys mature more slowly than girls, but Jim seemed to be the exception that proved the rule, at least to my love addled teenage brain.
Instead of getting drunk every night, or screwing everything with a skirt – Jim was going class, Jim was networking, Jim was spending time with me and only me.
He had his life together, he had plans, he was going to be one of those Internet Billionaires.
I know it sounds stupid now, but back then people like Jim were doing it all the time. It seemed like every other week, a 20-something with a computer and a bad haircut was trading in his dad's Aveo for a Porsche.
He was everything I wanted, mostly because he was pretty much me in a blonde wig and uglier underwear.
We fell in love because we both knew that there was no one else on campus who could keep up.
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry about everything. I was wrong. Please, please, please forgive me."
Another text from Jim, a little late to apologize, don't you think?
3.
It was two years into our marriage when I finally graduated.
I landed in Law School, Jim ended up at a startup.
We were embarrassingly happy for six more months.
Which was about the time it took Flowzers, a social network designed for people who spend too much time in their gardens, to go under. Some combination of lack of interest, and the $25,000 parties they threw every time they launched a new feature, took them down.
Jim was broken.
"Those stupid..."
"Darling..."
"No! I wasted my life on those idiots! You know what Carl sent me last week?"
"Whose Carl?"
"You know Carl, my 'friend' who works at that Hedge Fund downtown, Carl. You know what that bastard sent me?"
"I couldn't even guess, but don't you think you should calm down a little..."
"Carl sent me a selfie of the Maybach he bought. Brand new. They start $190,000. $190,000! We can barely pay off our student loans and that son of a...That...I dragged that prick through his Finance degree kicking and screaming, and now..."
"Jim, you're only twenty-three, you have time..."
"Do I?"
It didn't take long after that for Jim to become the busiest person in the world.
"Slow down...please."
Another text. Give it up Jim, it's too late.
4.
In hindsight, I don't think he wanted to make me miserable.
He's just selfish.
He's always been selfish.
Which was fine, because so am I.
The problem was that after Flowzers, and especially after I landed a job at one of those firms my Law School friends would have waterboarded their own Fathers to get an internship at, Jim's selfishness blossomed into something darker.
Up until then it had always been us against a world that wasn't worthy of our talents.
Now, it was him against me, and his weapon of choice was neglect.
He once spent a week locked in his office, working on some "project" or another. The only time he left was to yell at me for making too much noise when I came in from work, said that the "noise" was ruining his focus.
Said that all the "noise" I made in the hour or so between opening the door and passing out from exhaustion, was keeping him from completing his masterpiece.
While this particular bout of insanity only lasted a week, it was only one small skirmish in the Cold War that was our marriage.
"This is dangerous! Please Andrea, please stop!"
If there is anything more annoying than Jim giving me the cold shoulder, it was him repeating himself.
5.
I consider myself a pretty reasonable person.
I never yelled, I never screamed, even when Jim was being a world-class prig.
But the car, that was the last straw.
Jim knew that the car was falling apart.
He knew that not only did we have the money to fix it, but he had the time to take it in, yet he choose to spend months putting it off.
He promised me again and again that he would do it, promises that turned to lies and recriminations every time I brought it up.
"The car is fine Andrea!"
"It's not fine Jim, it's dangerous!"
"If it's so dangerous, why don't you take it in?"
"Because that's not my job Jim...Please, why are you doing this?"
"Doing what? Listen Andrea, I know you can't understand, but I'm busy trying to make a life for us."
I consider myself a pretty reasonable person.
That's why I left him his phone.
That's why I left one of his hands untied.
I would have even taken the tape off, if he could learn to shut up.
Why he hasn't called the police is beyond me – probably too busy with all the texts, but until he does, it's time for us to see just how long these brakes last.