A Learning Experience

My Super Ex-Boyfriend

          When I was 17, I got my first part-time job at Burger King in New Castle.  This is probably the worst place an innocent little teenager could get her first job.  It seemed like that everyone who worked there had some kind of criminal record.  And I met my first serious boyfriend while working at this job. 
         I worked the evening shift at Burger King, so did Phil.  I didn’t know much about all the bad things that happened on night shift, so I was a pretty naïve target for this older man.  One day I was working the front cash register and the front window, while Phil was working in the grill area, which was where he usually worked.  The managers at B.K. tried to keep the older men back in the grill area and the young girls out in front.  As I was bagging an order I hear this guy make a hissing sound in my direction.  I look to the back to see who was trying to get my attention.
         “Hey.  I’m Phil.  You’re Lacy, right?”
         “Yeah.”
         “How old are you, Lacy?” he asked.
         “Seventeen,” I said wondering why this guy wanted to know how old I was. 
         “That’s a damn shame.”

         That was the first time Phil and I had a conversation.  I admit now that I liked the attention I was receiving from this older guy, but it wasn’t the greatest conversation.  Looking back on it now, it was a little creepy.  He also seemed a little dense.  He had more sense rattling around in his pockets than he did his brain. 
         One day while in the B.K. dining room, Sara was making it painfully obvious that I showed some interest in Phil.  She started whispering in a very loud tone, “You like who? Why don’t you go talk to him.”  At this point, I knew he had to have heard us talking about him.  My cheeks had to have been as red as cherries.  I was so embarrassed, the last thing I would have thought to happen happened. 
         Phil walked around the dining room nonchalantly pretending to wipe off tables.  He sauntered up to our table with a weary gait and stopped right in front of us. 
          “What are you doing tomorrow, Lacy?” 
         “I don’t know.  I have to work from 4 to 7, but besides that I’m not doing anything.”
         “Do you wanna hang out then?”
         “Yeah.  That would be fun.”
         We decided to meet up after I got off work.  I was really nervous because I heard some bad gossip about Phil. My friend and manager, Kylie, told me that he had got arrested a couple of weeks before for public intoxication.  Another manager, who was probably about 40, and liked to flirt with the young girls, told me that Phil slept with this really nasty girl. I didn’t know what to think about this guy.
         We met up at Burger King.  I found out that he didn’t have a car because he couldn’t afford the payments at that point in time.  So I had to drive, wherever we decided to go. 
         “What do you want to do?  Are you hungry?  We can go get something that isn’t Burger King,” he asked?
         “I actually ate on my break.”
         “You want to go to the park?  It’s a really nice day out.  We can take a walk.”
         I thought this was a really sweet idea.  A walk in the park would be a nice situation in which to get to know each other.  And it was a perfect day for a walk in the park.  It was the middle of May, so it was warm enough that I didn’t need a jacket and cool enough to where I wouldn’t get too hot. 
         The leaves were swaying with the blow of the wind.  The sun was reflecting off the calm and placid pond.  Little kids were yelling and running away from their mothers, trying to get in one more slide before going home for the day.  We walked at a slow and leisurely pace, just to enjoy trying to get to know each other.  He asked me so many question about myself, I almost felt like I was being interrogated.  When I tried to ask him something about himself, he would redirect the conversation back to me. 
         We talked about our likes and dislikes.  I explained that I always had a soft spot in my heart for musicians.  I was in marching band at the time.  He tried to impress me by saying that he played the guitar.  This, of course, impressed me. 
         As the sun started lose its last rays of light he said, “Some people from work are all getting together.  You wanna meet up with them?”
         “Sure.  I have to be back home kind of early.  Got school tomorrow.”
         Over at Greg’s house, a couple of my managers were there.  They were just hanging out and drinking some beer.   
         “What do you think of Phil here?” Greg asked while he was in the kitchen.
         “I’m not sure yet. He’s seems nice enough,” I said. 
         “Is somebody talking about me?  Hope you’re saying nice things,” he said with a flash of a charming smile.  “I’m going to go in the kitchen to do somethingYou should probably stay in here.”
         Everybody went into the kitchen except for my manager, Monty.  “You better be careful, Lacy.  You might not know exactly what you’re getting yourself into.  I don’t do that kinda stuff that they’re doing in there.  Just some occasional pot.”
         I didn’t understand what he was talking about.  If he wasn’t doing pot then what was he doing.  What was I getting myself into?  I didn’t know anything about this guy. 
         He came back from the kitchen in a very excited mood.  He wouldn’t stop talking, he was telling me how much he liked me.  I didn’t know what to think of this guy. 
         “It’s getting late.  I have to go home.  I had a nice time.”  He got up to walk me out to my car.  He didn’t try to kiss me, which I thought was gentlemanly.  I kept making up reasons to make him look good to overshadow the bad things that happened that night. 

         When I met Phil, I was a virgin.  He took my virginity three months into our relationship two months before my eighteenth birthday.  After that point in our relationship, I was blinded by my love for him.  Phil always told me that he wanted me to be the last person he ever slept with.  I know now that he was sleeping with someone else during our relationship. 
          Not all of the times we spent together were all bad.  Phil lived with his grandparents, Bob and Verne, they basically became like my second family.  Bob was a jolly man with a round belly and a huge head he liked to wear sweat pants and t-shirts.  He was almost like Santa Clause, except without the beard.  Verne was a short woman with a sunny disposition.  We enjoyed watching cooking shows, while I watched her sew intricate patterns in her quilts.  Her ham and beans were the best I ever tasted and to my enjoyment she had taught Phil a thing or two in the kitchen. 
         My eighteenth birthday was my first attempt at breaking up with Phil.  I had wanted to break up with Phil for a while.  He quit his job at Burger King without finding a new one, so if I ever wanted to go out I had to pay for it.  Our fights would escalate to the point where I was scared to be around him.  He never physically hurt me, but there was a lot of emotional damage.
         On the night of my birthday, I picked Phil up from his house and I was determined to break up with him.  We were sitting in my car it was a dreary day.  Rain pelted my car in sheets. 
         “I don’t want to see you anymore.”
         “Why? Are you fucking someone else?”
“What kind of question is that?  Of course not.  I’m just not happy anymore.  This is one-sided relationship.  I do everything for you and I don’t get anything in return.” 
Phil continued to belittle me and accuse me of cheating on him for the next half hour.  Then he started to play the guilt factor on me.
         “I don’t have anything left.  You’re breaking up with me.  I have no job.  My dad is a coke addict, who I can’t count on.  I don’t have anything.  I might as well kill myself.” 
         I’ll admit right now that I fell for this tactic.  He looked so pathetic sitting in my passenger sheet.  His face wet from tears streaming down his face and his eyes bloodshot from his sobbing.  He was in a very vulnerable state and I caved.
         “Don’t say things like that.  Everything’s going to be all right.  I take it back.  I don’t want to break up with you.  I love you.”
         His face started to light up instantly.  The twinkle in his eyes returned and so did his smile.  “I love you too.”
         “But things have to change.  You have to start trusting me.  And you really need to look for a job.  I’m seventeen and I’m more responsible than you.” 

         I continued to date Phil over the next two years.  Most of the time, I was happy, but he was always a constant disappointment as a boyfriend.  I was always hearing rumors about him.  People told me that he cheated on me.  Little sums of money were always missing from my bank account.  My friend’s boyfriend told me that he saw Phil shooting up in the Burger King bathroom.  By the time I realized that all these things were true I was in it so deep that I didn’t know how to end it.  He was very intimidating and frightening.  He told me that if I leaved him he would kill himself or me. 

One day while I was at work, which was now at McDonald’s; Phil came to visit me on my break.  He got into my car to wait for me until it was time for my break.  After my shift was over, I noticed my glove box was open, which was where I usually keep my purse.  I closed it, not thinking to check my purse.  I drove one of co-workers home from work.  After I dropped him off, I went to the gas station and that’s when I noticed my debit card was missing.  I instantly thought it could have been my co-worker because I let him go warm up my car before I left Mcdonalds.  The next day I called my bank and all the money had been withdrew while I had been at work, which meant it couldn’t have been my co-worker. 
         The next time I went to work, Phil came in to see me.  I couldn’t take this stuff from him anymore.  I believed I deserved better than this.  He walked up to the counter wearing a smile, but he was about to leave without one.  I directed him over to the side so no customers would hear the words I was about to say.  “You need to leave. I know it was you that stole my card. And I know this isn’t the first time it has happened.  Get the fuck out and don’t come back to see me.” 
         He walked away with a sad look on his face and I never saw him again, except from at a distance.