“We’re moving”, my mom says, “to that town where your Dad goes in a car to work with other men”. “Are there tennis courts”, I ask? I don’t know, was the answer to all queries.
Well, there were tennis courts in that little mining town at the end of the road—as well as safe streets to bike on, lakes, rivers, bush trails, even caves, to explore with friends galore, no strife except for the strikes, one lasting more than a year. That town was Disneyland, Christmas, the last day of school and a little bit of a miracle for that unsure boy.
While public school was bearable, somehow high school was so enjoyable I stayed longer than most, then off to a Mining College because I had no better idea of what to do. After graduating, I did secure a mining job, not wearing the white hardhat of even a junior boss, but with a shovel in my hand. But, about 6 months later, in the Mine’s bathroom garbage, was a Globe and Mail, Business Section, Careers. There was a job that fit my courses and I applied and very soon I had a job in the Plant Engineering department of a big company making most of the country’s beer and other bottles, no shovel required, just a small drop in pay. The Universe smiled upon me again, I did feel lucky, later even more so.
That’s where I came from.
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I’ll call her Zona, a name that riffs nicely with Ms. Atwood’s Character Zenia in her novel, The Robber Bride. Long before I read that book, I referred to Zona as a thief, she took all she could see. While millions know that Ms. Atwood could not write a bad word, a lot less people know I don’t lie, including those from Dartmouth, who have so said. Please remember this when I write about things not usually discussed.
From Dartmouth, Zona came to the Big Smoke with a Professional Designation, a horrible secret, more of a taste for alcohol than most, a heart with no doors, without goodwill for any other person and a plan or a need to latch onto some man’s life to escape her own. She came on a hunting trip–to Toronto.
The secret is that Zona’s mother killed her dad, called a mariticide. Due to Post Partum reasons, the mother was eventually found not guilty and the new baby, Zona and her older Sister reunited in their house.
This event was never in the news. The father was a Royal Bank employee, perhaps the bank wanting to supress this for commercial/reputational reasons, which would require the co-operation of police, maybe media, the justice system, etc. Couldn’t happen today I bet, too many eyes.
Zona and her Sister were quite different. The Sister was good in school, ate more calories than she expended, not athletic. Zona got all the looks in her family, she would live the life of an angry teenage delinquent, smoking and drinking early and often. Tension at home would have been high and often too. While Zona looked athletic, she didn’t mention any sports she liked to play. A random summer job showed promise in accounting, so Zona buckled down enough to get the letters behind her name which would become the route for her seeking of aggrandizement and attention like all Narcissists do and in exactly the same way as that obvious Malignant Narcissist, Trump. Zona would not disagree with having a large ego, she was loudly proud.
After three jobs in manufacturing, a Bank hires me because of my factory background, having no idea about accounting, credit and other such things. But I tried hard and learned enough, just fast enough, to survive.
Several years later, the Universe puts me in a tall building with responsibility for a Corporate Loan Portfolio along with a very fancy title, which chuffed and astonished my father, among others. It seems us Dyslexics are very good at learning from the ether, can see connections and probabilities more clearly than the book learners, many of which I hired in my time, and most couldn’t think outside a spreadsheet, can see the numbers but not their meaning.
It was my second Recession in Canada; all Banks had a raft of loans to be restructured. I needed a Receiver for a well-known hotel which was performing well, but its owner was in default of lots of large real estate loans all over Canada and elsewhere.
So, I hire Zona’s boss, a partner in a medium sized accounting firm, for the plum assignment, and he brings Zona to a meeting as the Manager on site. The meeting lasted about an hour, Zona had never seen me before—that night I would learn she phoned her mom in Dartmouth and told her she met the man she was going to marry!
The Universe just threw me a rare curve ball, that smacked into my brain. I was about to get fucked, and not in the good way.
First, let me tell you about Frank, of Burlington. Frank was hunted by Zona in a Bachelor Auction, she paid a princely sum on her credit card for this good-looking guy who, in short order, sent her packing and she was not happy about it and she had to come up with Plan B, which was me, being in the wrong place, wrong time.
In the Psychological Literature, you will learn that in relationships, Narcissists (Trump, Johnson, Putin, Hitler, Amber Heard, Musk) behave in a very well understood and defined ways. The first stage of their predation is called Lovebombing, and most certainly that is what Zona did to me, full bore, after me like a bitch, as Trump was heard to say on the bus.
We were involved in a challenging endeavour, Zona good at and fully engaged in her job, lots of issues, spent time together and eventually nature takes over. Before that though, the attention, compliments, words of respect and attraction I received from Zona felt good but also smacked of desperation, as I look back. This girl sure seems to have good taste in men, she didn’t say anything untrue, I am funny, fun, smart and a good driver, etc., etc. The best kind of lie has a sliver of truth to hang on to, it is said. I believed her Big Lie(s).
Zona made it clear that she wanted marriage, not a shack up, couldn’t do that to her mother, she said. At this exact time my mother was soon to pass peacefully from Cancer, I was shortly to be an only child orphan, all good pickings for the psychopathic, the Literature says. I am 15 years older than Zona, I said I’m too old, she says no, you have more energy than me, etc.
With the pressures at work, funerals and such, Zona seemed like a good thing, the Universe looking after me still, she was nervous and a bit awkward, she was young, but there was something about her I couldn’t put my finger on.
To the faint odour of Roast Beef at the Old Mill, we were married, with Zona shedding the first fake tear and fake sob of our disastrous and, I now conclude, calculated pairing. She even changed her name to that of my father’s, which I said was unnecessary and I wouldn’t do it. This was perhaps the last vestige of the fraud and lies that is Lovebombing.
After the wedding night, it was off to a not so inexpensive Caribbean Island where Zona got a very bad sunburn on the first day, no touching allowed. A sexless and, for me, a confusing honeymoon and back to our rented downtown condo.
We are now at the second stage of the Narcissistic Relationship Trajectory, the conversion from Lovebombing to Hatebombing, which happened in the blink of an eye, in the firing of a neuron, as sudden as a knife though undefended flesh. This conversion, in that moment, puts the Big Lie to Zona’s Lovebombing and words of partnership once said vociferously and often. Now, I see her plan for me was designed solely to enhance her resume, to be part of her life story to employers, the only people in the world who matter to Zona, and to obtain financial and social stability, perhaps to distance herself from the circumstances of her past. I think I paid off the credit card debt that bought Frank. All in all, with Bloor Street wedding rings, a Caribbean honeymoon, pieces of furniture and the like, I’m out about the cost of a 3 Series BMW, at the time.
Zona’s usual behaviours changed. Zona the night owl would go to bed early, even on weekends, compliments and positivity were exchanged for a level of argumentativeness that can only be described uber bitchy, a harsh word I never use but is perfect and necessary here. The Literature says the avoidance of any intimacy is part of the second stage, as is the general and constant disagreeableness.
I found myself in a state of confusion, what is going on? Perhaps waiting forty sexless and negative days after returning home was too long, I sat Zona down and probably not so calmly asked her why there has been no sex since our wedding night, why are you such a downer, why did you change basically overnight????? Her answer was –silence. Just looked at me, expressionless green eyes. Mute. Got up and left the room. The Literature says she would either go ballistic, like Trump always does, or remain silent. The psychopathic and narcissistic are well understood and therefore quite predictable. There is a gendered difference in the way psychopaths tend to behave, the males more aggressive verbally and physically, the females more cunning and sadistic, considered worse in the Literature.
Who Is Zona? 