A Common Pornography_ A Memoir - Kevin Sampsell [44]
A career in broadcasting meant you had to work your way up from smaller towns to bigger cities, so even though I didn’t like Spokane the first time around, I tried to see it as a stepping stone in my radio career. My brother Matt had finished college by this time and he was about to move to Columbus, Ohio, for a sportscaster job after being the sports anchorman in Kennewick for a couple of years. Later, he’d get jobs in Seattle and then Houston—that’s how a broadcasting career was supposed to go: small market, medium market, and then big markets. I was hired again at the AM country music station and began filling in sometimes on the FM Top 40 side of the building too. I worked at a record store most of the time though.
Just a couple of months after moving to Spokane, Erin found out that she was pregnant. Although our relationship was serious, we decided we were too young to have a baby. We solemnly arranged an abortion at a clinic on the other side of town. I drove her there but she didn’t want me to go inside. We sat in the car and, without saying a word, we both stared at the building and cried. One of her girlfriends was going to come back and pick her up and take care of her. She needed to be with another woman for that part, she said.
I sat in my car for a while after she went inside. I imagined the uncomfortable waiting room. I imagined everyone trying slyly to catch a glimpse of the other women there. I wondered if that helped each woman, to see the others and for a moment think that at least they weren’t alone. I wondered if there were any men sitting in there.
Later, Erin told me how it went. The nurse took her in and weighed her and measured her. They said she was two inches shorter than she is. Erin was unusually bothered about this and argued with the nurse about the two inches until the doctor came in. They got her into position and gave her something to knock her out. “And then I was having a really peaceful dream,” she said. “I was walking through a forest and I found a pool of water. I put my hands in the water and was making little waves, like a kid playing. I cupped my hands and lifted some out and watched it drip through my fingers.”
Broken
Something happened after that day. I had a sense that all the fun was gone. I was falling out of love and I didn’t know why. There was nobody else I was interested in. It was one of the few times I’d ever been monogamous, but I was losing interest.
One night, we were talking about something trivial—a TV show or a band or something—and the conversation suddenly changed. I told her that I thought we should break up. Erin looked at me in disbelief and realized I was serious. “I just don’t think we should be together anymore,” I said. I didn’t have a way to communicate my reasons. We didn’t speak much for the rest of the night. She asked me questions and all I could say was “I don’t know.” Neither of us left that night and we slept one last time in our bed. When we woke up, we had sex, knowing it was the last time.
I went to work and left her at home to make plans for herself. She called me before I got off work and told me that she had taken most of her stuff and had driven to Seattle. She was dropping out of school and staying with her dad. I went home and found a bunch of my clothes and things thrown around. I had a large collection of records and cassettes and it looked like she had thrown a bunch of them against the wall. I spent all night cleaning up.
I couldn’t figure out what I was doing after that. I missed Erin, but she was not coming back. I felt like a zombie but I had to put myself back together enough to find a new, cheaper place to live. I couldn’t stay in that apartment much longer. Andrew, a friend from the Tri-Cities who lived in Seattle, called me and told me that Erin and a couple of her friends had stayed in his apartment on New Year’s Eve. He said that Erin was with an old boyfriend and that he could hear them having sex while he was trying to sleep. I went out that night and found a sex shop with those