Ten Twenty Ten. Stephen Polando
her down in the parking lot and that’s why she was crying and that’s how she actually had come to be so bruised that day. Considering I knew nothing about any of this, I can’t sit here and confirm or deny this account.
But the situation has haunted me for over a decade, just the uncertainty of it and the fact there was such an accusation. I can honestly say there are times I really fucking hated Tiffany when I was drunk. Times that I do remember – and hitting or pushing her was never a thought that crossed my mind. I can also say that the river is pretty well policed, and a dude pushing a girl down in the parking lot certainly wouldn’t go unnoticed. In fact, it would probably end up with me in handcuffs. Lastly, and make no mistake I’ve saved this last bullet for exactly this moment, Tiffany’s single biggest flaw was that she was a pathological liar. She used to tell people ridiculous things like she grew up in London, or that she beat cancer as a child. Honestly, she confessed that both those were lies to me over the course of our relationship, at times when it would best benefit her to do so. She would also embellish things into stories that involved me that had not actually happened, just expecting me to go along with it. It was bizarre. Shortly after this incident we finally broke up for good.
At the end of the day, I should never have put myself in such a position. To my knowledge, nobody saw it happen. I honestly don’t trust her word against mine. I know that she punched me in the face shortly after that, though. I didn’t swing back; I just put my hands up to avoid getting a combo to the chin. I highly doubt I ever pushed her down in the parking lot that day. I am not naive to the fact that my words paint me as an overwhelming good guy, and make her a villain, in all but this one incident. I was not perfect. I was young and stupid, too. I certainly handled situations poorly and got jealous and probably said some mean shit at times. I just believe in my heart that I was and am still a good person and she was not that. I have no other ex-girlfriends I would say that about. Tiffany will not be the last girl I talk about in this book. However, she will be only one I don’t have a lot of nice things to say about. She earned that. In the same way all of the other girls I have loved earned the praise they will receive. That’s how life works. If you treat people well, they speak fondly of you. If you treat them like shit, they don’t really go out of their way to defend you or your actions. It’s not that complicated. It is what it is.
After we broke up Tiffany moved to California. She happened to live in a town with a family friend of mine. She dated his friend and when they broke up, she claimed to everyone around her that he had been physical with her as well. My friend says there was no way that happened. I obviously could relate. I don’t know where Tiffany is in the world, but I would bet all that I have that she is still doing a lot of the same shit, and she is still the victim of each and every situation that doesn’t go her way.
The real problem for me going forward wasn’t Tiffany, though. It was me. I had encountered two major life events in the last couple years. Both of them had resulted in the same type of reaction from me. I drank a lot more.
In the summer of 2008 I moved back home to live with my mom after Tiffany and I broke up. It was the best possible place for me to get my life back on track, or so I thought. What I remember most about this time is just talking with my mom nightly, while also having a few drinks, and watching the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing together. The house had been rebuilt after the fire. It was beautiful, and new, and different. I loved it; unfortunately, my mom was about to lose it in a short sale. So, if memory serves me correctly, we only spent about six weeks living together. We had great conversations. We were honest about a lot and she was my best friend after the breakup. She would enable my alcohol problem, too. She would give me money to get us drinks, and I would always get more for myself then I led on. Plus, the house always had plenty in it, in case I ran out.
I have always cherished those six weeks with my mom. Never underestimate a parent’s ability to help pick you up when you are feeling most down. I feel very fortunate that both my parents have stepped up to the plate for me at times in this way. My mom loves the Olympics. Especially the gymnastics in the Summer Games. These Summer Games had the incredible eight gold medals from swimmer Michael Phelps, but more incredible was watching the 4x100 relay when the American men made the incredible comeback against the French after the French had talked some shit. One thing that makes the Olympics so special is the way it brings the country together. So often sports get unnecessarily patriotic, but in the Olympics it’s all warranted. We stayed up until midnight every night just watching. We would sit outside and have drinks and talk. I would smoke cigarettes; we were both very conscious that they were watered down at the end.
No matter what has been going on in my life, my mom has always made sure I knew I was loved beyond the known limits of what love is. I have never not been certain that this woman loves me and my brother more than everything else in the world combined. As a parent, I think that’s how you hope your kids feel. I will be a better parent in life because of how my mom loved me.
When I lived with my mom, I was working at The Vine, the same place Tiffany, Katelyn, and Eamon had once worked together. I was cooking for about $8 an hour because of my pizza experience. It was a massive pay cut from the tips I made in pizza delivery or the $15 an hour I had made at Albertsons. I would end up getting an apartment with a guy from Craigslist named Ian. That ended up working out exactly how you would expect.
I would also make a little cash helping Ian run some errands. Ian was from Iowa and had lived in Los Angeles before hitting the jackpot on a roommate search on Craigslist with me. He was in the first wave of hipsters to ever exist. He was always at the apartment, and he was pretty messy, to be honest. I’m not really one to talk any shit about Ian, though. He was consistently put into awful situations by me.
But for the moment it was great, because it ended up fully furnished with all my mom’s nice shit, since she was going to live with a friend. The real problem, though, was that I was now a person that had a legitimate drinking problem – and I was working at a bar. That’s not that uncommon, I don’t think. For me, however, it was like going swimming in the Bermuda Triangle without a life jacket. It was like a treasure chest of temptation when you got off work every day.
I could always find a way to do some side work for a waitress for some free drinks. Not to mention, at the time I worked there, they were doing dollar “you-call-its” three times a week. Not long into my employment, I blacked out and ended staying the night on the floor of an apartment of some guy I barely knew from many years earlier. Another night, I was left on the patio in winter and the bartender had turned a picnic table over to cover me.
I kept showing up and doing my job well. I just always went too far after work. I had also stolen Tiffany’s best friend, who lived very close to The Vine. So I would stay at her place a lot, and she also cooked at The Vine. Her name was Megan and she was from Peach Tree City, Georgia. Megan became my best friend, and my biggest drinking buddy over the next year and a half. We shared a disdain for Tiffany at this point, and we liked a lot of the same places. Megan was a lesbian, so we also both liked chicks. Although after Tiffany, I only slept with one person until my next relationship several years later. It was a casual thing with a girl who often came to The Vine. It was short-lived and irrelevant to the story except that I learned I’m just not a casual-sex person. I’m 100-percent relationship material, which is why when I was not that person, I made no attempts at being in one.
In actuality, alcohol was my relationship for the next two years. There is really no other way to put it. I put most of my energy into making sure I could drink each night. I used people, I stole change, and I even asked people to buy me drinks. A person too shy to ask girls for their phone number had no problem asking people for a drink. My brother was also now living in a party house of his own in Tempe, in the same area as Megan and The Vine. He had three girl roommates. All hot ASU students. They had a lot of parties. I never missed one and I always got too fucked up. Many nights after drinking, I would just jump the fence to his backyard and sleep on a couch outside his room. His house always had alcohol. I had not only escalated my consumption but also my willingness to do shitty things.
I had learned that alcohol is kept in the same general area of everybody’s house. In the freezer, in a bar, in a cabinet, on top of the fridge, etc. So when I found moments alone, I would drink some. Almost everywhere I went. If you went to the bathroom, I opened