The First Meeting

It all began three years ago. I was tending bar in a small town on the border of Great Neck, NY. I was very thin and depressed and just going through the motions of life when I started working there. I had never worked in a town where I didn't know people but this time I was starting with a clean slate.
The first customer I got close with was a man named Joe Benson. He was in his early sixties but was well preserved.He was funny and kind and if you really looked at him you could see this remarkable sadness in his eyes. He was a veteran drinker and bartender himself and on some nights it was just he and I for hours telling stories and cracking jokes. He worked one day a week in an Irish pub in Manhattan. He told war stories and jokes and kept me company and very quickly he became my friend.
It was a Friday afternoon in March when his son walked in. He didn't resemble Joe but I knew who he was right away. He was a bit disheveled in work clothes. I saw dirt under his fingernails and his eyes were a little blood shot. He had a construction smell about him and was way too shy for my taste. When he asked for Joe I pounced on him with my friendliness.
"Are you the spawn of Benson!?" I asked.
He looked bewildered and tongue tied.
"huh?" he said, "Uh yeah, did he come in yet ?". He looked down and seemed
socially inept. I kept throwing my charm at him and was getting no response.
" He hasn't been in yet" I toned it down a bit and started to feel like an idiot.
"Ok, thanks" he said and then forced a small smile and was gone.
When Joe got there about a half hour later I was embarrassed. "Look" I said.
"Your son was in here looking for you earlier and I think I scared the hell out of him". Joe laughed and slapped his hand to his forehead. "whaddya mean?" still giggling he looked amused. " He came by the house and I saw him, he's fine".
I didn't know it at the time but Brian was all over his Dad after meeting me and asked him question upon question until Joe finally caught on what his interest was. " FORGET IT" Joe told him, " She is with a crazy Marine and he will kill you". This was a friend of mine that developed a deranged crush on me. He was a Marine when he was younger and had been staying with me until he got in his feet again. He was very possessive and was getting to scare me more and more and behind my back he had been telling all of the customers that he was my boyfriend. I didn't know how bad it was with Carl at the time but it didn't matter much to me. I was single and was handling it and it felt nice to have someone around all the time. It wasn't fair to him but it was what I needed then. He was 16 years older than me and it was never going to develop into anything as far as I was concerned but he wouldn't give up.
Apparently Brian didn't care about Carl, aka 'The Marine' or anything his father warned him of and without me knowing, decided that I was the person that would change his life forever. Later, he told me that when he first laid eyes on me he had been awe-struck. He thought that I was beautiful and had this strange epiphany that his life was about to be altered dramatically. Me, I was clueless. I figured he was a real drip and didn't find me amusing. I forgot all about him until he showed up again the next Friday.
It was later this time. I would say about 9pm. He was dressed all in black and had some brand of drugstore cologne on. His hair was combed and he cleaned up pretty well. He made like he was meeting Joe but I knew by the look on Joe's face that he had no idea that his son was coming there that night.
Brian spent the first hour with his back to me scrolling through the jukebox to stall his approach. I was quite naive about the whole situation.
I was not the type to assume anything therefore his intentions were not
apparent to me. I always had trouble seeing when someone was interested in me because I did not see myself as a beautiful girl. I had a friendly quality and a way of making people very comfortable around me so it didn't surprise me when Brian showed up again alone. I should have seen it, any other girl would have, but not me. For all I knew he really was there to hang out with his Dad and I didn't give it much thought beyond that.
We talked about music for hours. He was "stuck in the 80's" - I teased him profusely and we laughed and talked and in the process opened up the can of worms that would be my life for the next three years. All the while Carl was in the foreground, growing more and more worried and jealous. A ticking time bomb that had yet to explode. He was very nice to Brian at first. After all, this was Joe's son and he wanted to treat him well. When Carl saw the look in Brian's eyes while he watched me his blood began to boil and slowly the friendliness turned to sarcasm and out-right lies. He pulled Brian aside and asked him to have a cigarette outside. Once out there, Carl blurted out
" I'm the boyfriend". Brian was taken aback. I had just told him I wasn't with anyone and here was this guy claiming that he was my better half. Brian ignored the comment and later told me what was said. This is where the story starts to get ugly. This is where all the trouble begins.