His initials spell NAVY

How about a short story called, "Whatever happened to him?" That's what I wonder about the exes who don't appear on Facebook and can't be found anywhere. This one today was someone I dated for a few months while I was working at DePaul Law School in Chicago. He was a law student--handsome,with a shaved head and bright blue eyes. Freckles, and a raspy voice. When his hair started to grow in, it was this strange blond/gray color. He had been a philosophy major in college and there was some mystery surrounding his dad--I think his dad died when N. was eight or ten, and then he also claimed to have survived cancer in college though was never specific about what kind of cancer that was. I do not think it was testicular, if memory serves.

He lived in a garden apartment with very little furniture, possibly an unfriendly cat, and had books stacked up in towers against the walls. He would alternate between being super weird and mean (verbally threatening and saying things like, I could strangle you right now) to being normal and funny, as if that other part of him was a joke. He liked to take baths rather than showers, and he wore almost the same thing every day--a white t-shirt and corduroy pants. When he first kissed me, he had come over to my apartment to make dinner and brought his own colander. He would only kiss me if I laid down on the sofa with my eyes closed. He fluttered above me and I stayed still, and then he kissed me lightly, a series of kisses. That was odd, and yet I kept seeing him because he seemed smart and interesting and possibly just pretending to be violent.  Also, I was lonely.

And then one day I stopped seeing him--I can't remember why--perhaps he did something to my cats or threatened to do something to my cats, as it is only in observing someone mistreating another creature that I can acknowledge his dysfunction, but I stopped seeing him. He then made me a mixed tape and I took it home to listen to it and it was opera, what sounded like music from The Omen. I wrote about him in a story called "The Last Dead Boyfriend," but that didn't exorcise him from my brain. I  must have dreamed about him last night; otherwise, I don't know why I would be thinking about him. Perhaps he is a lawyer, practicing happily in Shebogan. Or perhaps he is dead from a suicide. That was the thing about him. He could go either way.

Addendum: I found him alive after only minimal cyber-stalking. He was being interviewed on NPR Chicago for his work. I recognized his voice. It's very distinct. It made me think of another possible short story idea or poem that someone should write that starts with "I should've broken up with him when..." And then you list all of the moments in relationships when you knew it wasn't going to work, but didn't leave. Like, "I should've broken up with him when he told me he would cut my hair if I fell asleep."