Denny

In 1984 Salt Lake was the big city to me. I had migrated down from southeast Idaho, Blackfoot to be exact. I just finished employment with a sheltered workshop/make-believe independent living center. The end of a four-year contract and in the end the boss elected not to renew my contract, the same as being fired. It's a chicken shit way at executive director does not have to bear responsibility for authority out of the cold cruel world.

I moved to Salt Lake County because that is where my kids were. The the first X had moved down to Zion a couple years before. And I was going to see my kids once a month. I was going to drive down but of course that never happened, life, weather and finances got in the way. I figured if I were going to have any kind of relationship with my kids are going to have to come down to Salt Lake. So in fact Terry, my chicken shit boss, did me an invaluable service. I doubt without Terry's vocational encouragement I would never have made the move. Not that relocating for the kids did me any good the mother picked up and moved the month I moved into the valley for Huntington and the gypsum mines. I realized then I couldn't follow them. I would just have to wait for the kids to make their own decisions for me to be back in their lives.

Denise was my second X. Denise or Denny was the bookkeeper at the small private nonprofit I was hired at. The first six months I didn't even know her because she just had a child who was out on family leave. For whatever reason we were drawn to each other when she did return in the fall. We fell hard for each other, we broke the rules, so many rules and ended up together. Like all stories of tragedy the beginnings are exciting, full of hope and promise. However, the intensity of infatuation can never be sustained for the long run. Familiarity breeds disgust or something like that. I've never dealt with severe bipolar disability and Denny had it bad. She self medicated in the most illegal sort of way which cost way beyond our means which led Denny to embezzle from our company and others it was grim. Needless to say things did not last. She vanished and perhaps that's best for everyone all around.

Once again I am on my own, twisting in the wind, but I was basically making ends meet. Am so fortunate my executive director did not fire me. We did however avoid each other for a year which is very difficult to do in a small office which has staff meetings weekly but we got by, I got by and I went forward. I was still pushing a manual chair at the time. I found a monstrously large automobile I named Thor which cost me $500, I drove for six months before I got Thor licensed. My paychecks were garnished and I gave up my bank account for lack of trust in anything. I did not know people lived this way.

I loved Denny, she dumped me. Denny found someone else on the inside which is okay I'm glad she found someone to love and some of who could love her with the intensity that she needed. Denny gave me excited about levels I did not know existed. Had we not broken up we would've been married almost 30 years at this point. But some things are just not to be.