Job or death in Philadelphia

Divorce stands out among other things I don't like about marriage. After three failed marriages, I still can't accept that a man I taught to shower, brush teeth, wear clean clothes, and eat healthy would start hunting on different hunting grounds and abandon me. I married my first husband by mistake. I married my second husband for romance; and I married my third husband for money.

My dad, a military officer, and mom, a nurse, thought I could do so much better with my looks and brains. They gave me a great education; I graduated from the University of Pennsylvania at 4th and Walnut Street in Philadelphia, which was an Ivy League college. I majored in Business Administration. Years ago, my parents had dreamed of me working for Bear Stearns or Lehman Brothers, running some important department, getting my career together, and marrying some executive, with a couple million dollars yearly benefits package, and having a couple of beautiful kids in a mansion.

Instead, I married a guy I had met at the Mystery Book Club in the local Ink & Blood book store. Steve was short, with a triangular `chicken' chest and a round head. Add short-cropped hair, round glasses and a barn sweatshirt year-round, and you get the picture. He swept me off my feet, being an endless source of crime stories, real and fictional. He also educated me about gender relationships with my pregnancy as an unexpected complication. We got married a month before Iris invaded our lives and spent the following year arguing about which one of us should enter the Greater Philadelphia area workforce and start winning bread for the family. It was Steve who gave up and filed for divorce. Being single, he could stay in his parents' basement, have meals every day, and still keep up with reading every mystery novel ever published.

After Steve took off, and as a result of equitable distribution of marital property, I was left with our daughter Iris, and my first husband made away with the furniture and a 61-inch flat screen Scenium TV.

The local police department kicked my second husband out of our rental property after some amazing facts about his sex life surfaced.

I wasn't terribly surprised when my third husband walked out on me on a bright Monday morning. The night before we spent kissing in the dark; next morning, after a substantial breakfast, my husband finished his coffee, belched and said casually that he was leaving.

"Bye, sweetie," I said and rushed toward the door to see our daughter, Iris, on the bus.

"I mean, I'm leaving you."

I tripped over the carpet. The following day we spent arguing over divorce. It turned out that after four years of marriage; he went out to explore other options. He used the word `options' like it wasn't our marriage and our child we were talking about, but some alternative routes to get to his relatives in New Jersey.

Our divorce was completed with a settlement based on an equitable distribution relief principle. My husband evicted his stepdaughter and me from his house in the presence of two cops, and let us take only our personal belongings, like a pile of mystery novels and computer games. My husband's lawyer argued in court that the defendant, a.k.a. me, contributed little to the family budget because I did not hold any job other than being a housewife. I couldn't afford a lawyer, so I argued on my own behalf that it was our mutual decision for me to become a stay-at-home mom. Still, I had produced no income for the past four years, they argued, and was entitled only to child support. I lost my house, because it was my husband's; I lost my car, because it was my husband's as well. I kept some pieces of furniture, though. All antiques with mismatched drawers.

Struggling to survive in a sluggish economy, I took the first job available. I drove a cab, because I could keep my cab after hours. Besides, driving was one of my two favorite things to do. (The other was reading mystery novels.) I could drive anywhere, anytime, regardless of weather. When I wasn't behind the wheel, I would most likely be lying in bed with a new whodunit and a nice calorie-packed snack.

Six months later, I knew the streets of Philadelphia like my parents' backyard. We rented a place on 4th and Arch street, a quiet, sleepy neighborhood, where shootouts and police raids were usually over before three, and burglaries wouldn't start until nine in the morning. After moving here from a Huntingdon Valley mansion in the Philadelphia suburbs, we got burglarized twice. The first time, thieves took our TV, which I didn't miss; the second time, they took my quilt, which I did miss. In this neighborhood, a single white mother living without a boyfriend had `troubles' written all over her; that's why I carried a compact pink, rubber-coated, ten-pound gym weight in my purse.

This particular glorious October morning, I kicked my Ford to life and cruised slowly towards Market Street Station, looking for a client. A man in a business suit flagged me down, and soon I had several dollars stuck in the pocket of my purse. Two hours later, rush hour turned the city streets into something remarkably similar to an elementary school's hallways: the same chaotic traffic, the same noise, and the same intense knowledge of the priority of one's needs. It was time to get off the road and have the second daily cup of coffee. I pulled into a secret parking space between two rundown buildings off Spruce and 13th Street and went into a tiny Uncle Tad's coffee shop. They brewed very strong coffee and carried good ole American Tastykakes at a thousand calories apiece, but that was all I needed to wake up and start a bright new day.

The place was packed and, stepping inside, I held the door for yet another hungry fellow. Moving in lockstep between narrow shelves, I felt the guy's hot breath on my neck. He got so close that he poked me in my head with the tip of his baseball cap. After three divorces, a man's body in proximity could cause skin irritation, nausea and seizures. Inhaling and exhaling rhythmically, I filled my cup with coffee, got a heavy chocolate Tastykake, paid at the door, and got outside as fast as humanly possible.

I finished my snack and coffee, sitting on the cab hood. Food stinks up the car too much, and I like to keep it clean. I threw the paper bag into a trashcan and opened the car door, when suddenly I was pushed inside the cab with such force that my face met the steering wheel and salty blood filled my mouth. Somebody clenched my neck from behind and ripped my earrings off. They were 3.5-carat diamond earrings that my third hubby had given me as a wedding present and forgot to include in the list of marital property items. The earrings were worth more than the cab I drove, but for me they also had a sentimental value, like tiny particles of dust from my past comfortable, suburban life. I never expected that the process of separation from my earrings would cause me so much pain. Instinctively, I turned around and smashed my purse into the predator's face.

He grunted, pulled his knee off my back, and ran. I reached him ten feet away and hit him with my purse again. He fell to the ground. I stepped on his wrist, bent over and, with a victorious cry, pulled my earrings from his clenched fingers.

According to the Silver Cab Company policy, I couldn't leave a cab unattended at any time. Jumping up like a mountain goat, I ran back to the car and got inside when the police interceptor wheeled in, soundlessly but with blinking lights. Thinking solely about the Silver Cab Company policy and the prospect of losing my job, I kicked the engine to life and floored the gas pedal. My Ford jumped ahead, and as if in a bad dream, I noticed a guy standing in front of the car. I slammed on the brakes, but it was too late. My Crown Victoria hit a man with a thud, knocked him off his long feet, and moved on top of him. Moments later, the car door was flung open, and strong hands pulled me out and pressed me to the ground. I tasted not only blood in my mouth, but dust as well.

I spent the rest of the morning answering questions and signing papers. The sergeant detective, Chris McAfee, a middle-aged guy with a round, kind face, wanted to know if I had met my attacker before. I wasn't sure if the definition of the word `before' covered a five-minute time period and answered negatively.

"Look here," the sergeant sighed, handing a statement to me to read. "This guy claims he lost his memory after you hit him twice with the weights. He claims not to remember his name and his address. We sent his fingerprints out, but it might take days before we get result, if he is local."