A Tale of Two Spouses

“And she's got brains enough for two, which is the exact quantity the girl who marries you will need.”

                                                                                                   -P.G. Wodehouse 

                                                                                                                  
More often than not Araba had found herself musing over the picture of her great aunt Margaret and her sixty-something year old Caucasian husband, Tony. If there was anything at all she had learned earlier from them, it was not to ever get married. But here she was five years down the road married to some bloke everyone called Eric the Barber or Drunken Eric for short, and she was very much unhappy about it.

Now don’t be hasty in judgment for Eric the Barber wasn’t at all bad from the start of their enterprise. Some four years earlier, Eric would’ve rushed over to get the door for a rather beautiful and noticeably underweight Araba. Oh how fabulous they both looked in their Sunday clothes. Eric in his checkered tweed jacket and maroon pantaloons with a hint of orange handkerchief overflowing his breast-pocket. Araba was less flamboyant in apparel but her clothes and dainty shoes always added up nonetheless. All Eric wore now however, were a pair of worn-out blue overalls turned grey from years without washing. He’d gained some pounds too and had taken to drinking as a full-time job. Araba had also undergone some transformations of her own. She too had gained a lot of weight and her hair was now a constant mess. She had fancied keeping it pretty for Eric. It didn’t matter now though. Even if she shaved it all off it still wouldn’t matter. Eric never noticed it anymore. He never noticed her.

Drunken Eric wasn’t all bad from the very start. Four years earlier he’d been the emotionally nurturing Homo erectus whose erect member kept Araba’s joy and excitement high up the vertical scale- no pun intended. Now with four children and a set of twins on the way, she couldn’t quite recall the last time they’d laid together as wife and drunk. Sure she tried to focus on the house but something about washing cucumbers and aubergines always brought her back to square one. She reckoned emptying a sack of nuts would do the trick but that didn’t help either. Araba was desperate. She had come across some very suggestive toys online and had bought a couple but didn’t enthuse about them no more since in her own words, ‘honey aint sweet like sugar’. Of course she’d had a few intimate moments with Eric. Just the other morning upon waking, Eric had stared keenly into her eyes. She’d mistaken his bland stare for a passion-ridden one and so she readied herself for a French kiss. The chap however just squeezed her left bosom, mumbled some mambo-jumbo and then went back to sleep for another hour. Darn him! She didn’t need some poncey kissing- She just wanted a good ploughing! She was glad he was in bed however since on most nights, he was just too drunk to make it up the front porch. It was so ironic because they had an inside pooch. Eric mostly slept on the porch.

Just the other day the Johnsons had called Araba to come and get Eric. The Johnsons were the shrewd couple who lived eight blocks down the road. Apparently Eric had interrupted their romantic anniversary dinner after he stomped into the living room and took a crap on their coffee table. In his defense, a drunk Eric claimed the house was a public rest room and he ridiculed the Johnsons for feasting in there. He kept on swatting flies only he could see. ‘Oh Eric’, Araba exclaimed as she struggled to get him out of the house. For a moment she stood fixated at what would surely have been an eventful dinner. There was a bottle Cristal in the ice-bucket and there were petals everywhere. Simon and Garfunkel played softly in the background. Four years earlier, she and Eric had eaten like this almost every day. Oh how wonderful it had been. They had always enjoyed some really good wine. His favorite was Merlot. He always loved a good wine and secretly tried to collect them. Now that explained a lot. ‘Oh Eric’ she sighed as she forced him into the car and drove off in embarrassment, amidst a thousand apologies to the Johnsons.

This particular car ride was the longest she’d ever driven. A lot of seemingly random thoughts about cucumbers and nuts crossed her mind but she managed to shrug them off. She thought about the events that had transpired at the Johnsons’. Clearly Eric was getting out of hand and she hadn’t the faintest clue as to how to tackle the problem. She was but a woman trying to be the man of her man and this was too much for her to bear. A tear rolled down her cheek. She hastily rubbed it off but winced as pain shot through her cheek. It still hurt from Eric’s slap from the previous night. She just couldn’t take this anymore. All Eric had been was a drunk, an abusive husband and probably homosexual. She was beginning to doubt his sexuality. A week ago whilst pruning the bougainvillea out in the front yard, she’d seen Eric’s mate, Kofi come drop him off. The two had kissed goodbye and Eric had spent five minutes watching him pull out of their driveway and speed off into the distance. Call her paranoid but she was sticking to her guns. Her husband was probably gay. She slowed down as she approached their house.

The sound of crunching gravel cut through the midnight air as she pulled up into the driveway. Whilst driving she had failed to notice Eric throw up in the truck and now she cursed him under her breath. She struggled to get him out of the truck and into the house. He weighed a ton and she could go as far as the living area so she dumped him on the sofa. She needed a drink- a very hot one. She poured herself a scotch and sat across the living room staring at her excuse for a husband. She stared long and hard and just like that, she’d come to a decision. She couldn’t take this anymore. In one gulp she finished the tumbler and went upstairs to wake the children up. Some fifteen minutes later, Araba together with her kids drove off in the middle of the night to Grandma’s. She couldn't help but think about poor Eric nonetheless but she’d just had enough. She couldn’t take it anymore.