Part I ~ Part II ~ Part III ~ Part IV ~ Part V ~ Part VI ~ Part VII ~ Part VIII ~ Part IX ~ Part X ~ Part XI ~ Part XII

The Kris Story, Part XIII
or...Control
6.19.8

There have been times when I have seriously considered the possibility that the world around me is nothing more than an elaborate reality TV show. It would certainly explain many of the events that have taken place in my life, some of which have been far too conveniently timed to be mere happenstance. The dramatic nature of those events is also suspect, varying from soaring highs to devastating lows on a regular, cyclical basis. With nothing to compare it to, it's obviously difficult to know for sure if my life is really that much different than anyone else's. Those who know me best, though, have confirmed on occasion that the things I go through do indeed seem a bit weird sometimes. In any case, this was one of those moments when I might have found myself laughing and looking for hidden cameras had I not been so distraught.

Since Kris had again taken my car to work that evening, I began calling various friends. I was only hoping to find someone who was willing to drive me around town in an effort to find Kris or my car. What I found was even better. When I called Melanie, I asked her if she could help me find my fiancée. Instead of the surprised line of questioning I had expected, she nonchalantly informed me, "Oh, she's at Steve's house."

"What?" I asked, stunned by the fact that Melanie could possibly know where Kris was. It didn't make any sense, whatsoever...Melanie hadn't even met Steve. She too was confused by my uninformed response.

Evidently, Melanie had been leaving a friend's apartment just in time to notice my car parked near hers. There she saw Kris...and of course, Steve. She greeted them, chatting for awhile before they went inside. During this brief conversation Kris had apparently claimed that I knew exactly where she was and that I was alright with it.

This obviously wasn't true, so Melanie agreed to pick me up and show me which apartment they were in. I grabbed my spare set of car keys and waited for my ride to arrive. The whole time I just wanted to vomit. This sick feeling would unfortunately last all night.

When we got there I discovered that Melanie had been absolutely correct. There was my car, a beat up '99 Elantra with the giant "STUDENT DRIVER" decal I had jokingly applied to its back window. I asked which apartment it was and Melanie led me to an upstairs front door with a red "No Soliciting" sign on it. We stood at the door as I confirmed one last time that she was absolutely sure that this was the house. She replied in the affirmative and I knocked on the door.

No answer came.

We went around the back and found the corresponding bedroom window. There was a light on inside so we headed back for another round of knocking. Again...nothing.

It went on like this for hours. Melanie kept begging me to just go home, but I refused to leave. Eventually, she had to go, which left me alone in my crusade. Between each door knocking session I returned to my car for another half hour or so of waiting.

On one such trip back to the car, though, I noticed that something was different. The bedroom window (with slightly opened vertical blinds which I had occasionally tried to spot movement through) was no longer being illuminated from inside. Someone had turned the light off, which meant that someone was definitely inside.

Furious, I stormed around the building and began beating on the door as hard as I possibly could. I banged on that door for probably 10 minutes straight. When my knuckles started to turn red, I began using the sides of both of my fists. Were it not for a pissed off neighbor appearing in the doorway next to his, I'm sure I would have continued until someone answered.

Hours later I decided to look through Kris' wallet, which she had left in the car. Inside, I discovered a small piece of receipt paper with Steve's full name, phone number and birth date written on it. I assume that she had used the birth information to create birth charts and horoscopes on astro.com...something she had picked up from my close friend, Newguy. The phone number would prove useful to me.

I went to the nearest gas station, put two quarters into a payphone and dialed the number. A sleepy voice answered, "Hello?"

"Is this Steve?"

"Yeah. Who's this?"

"Steve Duncan, born on November 14th, 1976?"

"Who is this?"

"Let me talk to Kris."

"I don't know anyone named Kris."

"You don't know Kris Barnes?"

"Well...I know her, but she isn't here."

"Do you live on Buckley and Arizona?"

"Man, what are you talking about? I'm going back to sleep." Click. I put in 2 more quarters and dialed again. This time there was no answer, so I went back to his parking lot to contemplate what to do next. After another hour or so I saw the junkyard dog himself, walking toward me. "What's up, bro?"

I glared at him in silence for a moment before getting right to the point. "Is Kris up there?"

"Yeah," he admitted, "I want to send her down but she's scared you're gonna hurt her."

"What the fuck are you talking about?" I asked. Having never committed a violent act in my life (let alone against a woman), I was disgusted by any such accusation coming from this piece of shit. I didn't even believe that he was telling the truth about her having said such a thing.

He noticed my irritation at the question. "Look, you're sitting here outside my house and I just spent the last hour hearing about how controlling you are. I need you to promise me that you're not gonna do anything to her."

Now I was both angry and hurt. Meanwhile, I had this guy lecturing me as if I were the abusive one in the relationship. "I'm not gonna do anything to her, asshole. Just send her down."

He started walking back to the building, muttering loudly to himself, "Asshole? Call me an asshole? I should kick your ass you little bitch..."

A few minutes later, Kris finally appeared. She got in the car and we drove away in silence. For a good 10 minutes I just drove in circles, getting lost in neighborhoods and in my music. Finally, when I felt I had collected my thoughts enough, I began to yell.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" I began. I went over my long night outside, telling her about the sick feeling that she had once again forced me to endure. I tried to get some clue as to what she had been thinking, but she initially shut down and refused to talk like usual.

Eventually, she began to answer some questions, beginning with the events of the previous night. She told me that "nothing had happened" and that she had again simply fallen asleep drunk on his couch. When confronted about how she had slept through the absolute racket I had made, she responded only that she must have been passed out cold. This was conceivable enough that I gave her the benefit of the doubt, but was realistically unlikely.

Next, I asked her about the things Steve had told me. Had she really been up there talking about what a horrible person I was? "How could you say something like that about me?"

"Because you are controlling!" she retorted. "You don't let me see my friends! You don't let me listen to my music! You don't let me watch my movies!"

None of these things were true, of course. Sure, there were a few CDs which she had listened to enough times to ruin them for me. I could no longer stand to hear Antichrist Superstar, Smash, Dookie, or Rage Against The Machine (all decent albums...in moderation, at least). I also complained about the God-awful horror movies she always wanted to watch. I never told her that she couldn't partake in these things, though. I had simply made it known that I didn't enjoy them. Like the money situation, though, she had never mentioned that she considered this to be a problem, so I questioned how it could have been the sole result of a controlling nature on my part.

As for hanging out with friends? I had never once told her that she couldn't hang out with anyone. I mentioned all of the people we regularly saw, but she denied that they actually counted. "That's just it! All of our friend's are your friends. They just hang out with me because of you."

Hindsight shows that she was correct, though I didn't know it at the time. We had both met O'Malley and Toni at the O-Section, a huge party I had thrown in 1999. We had met Newguy at the first AVD. We had met many of our friends while crashing a party together one night. A vast majority of the people we knew had met us both on the exact same nights, and I had certainly never stopped her from seeing any of them.

If she felt that those people didn't matter, though, all that remained were her various co-workers and random people throughout the years. As history had proven, she had never given me much choice in the matter when it came to hanging out with them anyway. She then went on to claim that the reason she never called to ask me if she could hang out with these people was because I always sounded so sad when she did so. She suggested that this was simply a passive-aggressive form of control. "Did it ever occur to you that I was sad because you never used to invite me?" I asked her.

In the end, most of her arguments didn't hold up to any of my logical counterpoints. She also admitted that she knew I would never actually hurt her; she had only said that to him because she didn't want to come down and face me.

She did, however, mention one thing that I was able to see her side on. She claimed that I wasn't affectionate enough to her outside of my occasional futile attempts to get her in the mood. This was very likely true.

When all was said and done, I conceded with a compromise as always. I told her that I would make an effort to be more affectionate, and also to avoid any accidental controlling behavior. What I asked of her was just as simple. I wanted her to make her opinions and desires known in the future, instead of letting herself secretly resent me over nothing. I also told her that she could never, ever stay out all night again. I also needed her to call me each and every time she wanted to hang out with people after work. She was my fiancée, for Christ's sake! I deserved that much courtesy, after all.

"OK," she agreed.