Prettyboy

1: Prologue

Part I of II: 

You Can Get Away With a Poem Without Words

A wise person told me once, in order to completely liberate yourself from the burden of your own memories, your problems, you need to take it from the beginning. So, here I am, taking it from the beginning.

To whom it may concern, this is the story of how I caused the downfall of my own life.

When this is done, then God may inflict the world's pain on me and I will not remonstrate in the slightest.

***

After the events that took place on the night of my second wedding—abysmal, just like the first one—I wouldn't have believed it even if you paid me that my mother would attend my third wedding. She was convinced I was the only 31-year-old with three engagements on his record and taunted me restlessly about it. But I demand I be given the benefit of the doubt here because of what I endured with that woman. I can say with candor that my mother went on a shopping spree to find what she'll wear on my next wedding, before I had even spoken of my intentions to propose to my latest girlfriend. She was jinxing it before I had even had the time to make it official. Tell you what, it wouldn't come as a surprise to me, had she called me the day after I had announced to her my engagement with Lana to say,'Son, do you think I should wear plain gold or plain silver at the next one? I just learned that silver and gold is said to bring great misfortune. Good gracious me! But I did that on all of your past weddings!'

To be brutally honest now, I sort of knew when my past marriages were on their deathbeds. I possessed that gift of foreshadowing; it was just that I was always just a bit too late. I knew before it happened that things would go downhill but I only pointed it out to myself just as they started to roll down.

My first wife's name was Ettie; Ettie Schroeder. Part-German and singularly beautiful, with blonde hair and the piquant contrast of dark eyes. I'd met her on my stepfather's 47th birthday get-together, as her father was my stepfather's boss. To say that my marriage with Ettie had been a happy one would be a tasteless joke. Ettie, never mind the looks, was overall a bitch, to put it simply. Of course, from both sides, the marriage was of convenience. I'd been twenty years old at the time and reckless enough to think she could love me when she had Mr. Pretty-green-eyes. I mean, he did have gorgeous eyes, but I was by all means not content with what I found out. I hadn't tested her too much; we'd known each other for two months, and we decided to get married. Needless to say, her resistance to infidelity didn't last long; she soon ended up knocked up with a baby that I sure knew was not mine because, for one, we hadn't even had sex before. 

Fast-forward to eight years and many crushed relationships later, staggering in and out of my gloomy apartment in New York, I'd thought I'd found the woman of my life one night in the haze of a drunken hour. Betty was her name. From the first day we started dating, I began paying close attention to my whereabouts, regulated my drinking, and tried not to repeat my past-mistakes with Ettie. For Lord, I'll never learn. 

Then came our wedding. Our momentary marriage was laying, dying, as we drank champagne and listened to toasts to our eternal love. On that ailing night, you see, an ungainly twenty-year-old Frank came across some light-pink slips buried deep in his soon-to-be wife's purse, folded so many times, it was excessively suspicious. I swear the woman had folded them twenty times, way over the top, so much that he, as a skeptical soon-to-be husband, dared and unfolded them. And before my very eyes were revealed, the wedding invitations with Betty's name on it and another fellow's that I was certainly not acquainted with. Obviously, it was written by someone with excellent penmanship. At the very start, I remembered I read, 'With love, Betty and Matthias invite you to celebrate their union at...'