“It wasn’t breaking and entering, because she had the keys,” this is what T.J. told herself she would tell the Cops when they came to arrest her.
There was a good chance that she would be arrested too. She used her set of keys that her boyfriend gave her, but they broke up ten years ago. So, he probably doesn’t really want her to enter his apartment without some sort of notification.
Still, T.J. could not resist. She nervously opened the door, despite the fact that she called a whole bunch of times over to his apartment, (which was the same number) and she drove by his auto Junkstore which was no longer there.
Hmm. She couldn’t imagine giving up the Junkstore. That was different. She wondered if he just moved, or if he had a different business.
Still, what if he got lucky and some chick was in the apratment while she rooted around. T.J. ran different stories in her mind. One, was that she would tell the young woman, that she was Sidney’s wife. He did allude to them being right for each other and that was in fact the beginning of the end for her running away from him.
T.J. was in. She put the chain on the door, then took it off, she put it back on, then took it off again. She didn’t know exactly what she was doing. She kept running through her mind whether it was better for the chain to be on or off. If it were on, another girlfriend who was coming home, wouldn’t be able to catch T.J. there. T.J. would be able to run down the fire escape.
That would be good. If however Sidney came home and the chain was on the door, Sidney would bust down the door and take out his little gun.
He was a brutal tough man, but not to T.J., ever.
T.J. felt sick to her stomach. Why did she leave Sidney. She made excuses; he always came home covered in grease, from working on all the cars he worked on, and all the cars he stripped for parts. Herman was like a character who walked out of a Bruce Springsteen song.
T.J. felt a cramp in her stomach and she went to the bathroom in search of a tampon. When she found one, she was disappointed. It didn’t mean that Herman currently had a girlfriend but he did at least in the immediate present. She knew that he would move on from her, but I guess there was a part of her that wanted him to be destroyed, even after 10 years.
She knew that was a sick thought. She was tired of her sick thoughts. That’s why she was breaking into Sidney’s apartment. All she needed was some proof that he once loved her, and she was going to beg him to let her back into his life.
Fur came into the bathroom and meowed.
“Fur, how are you baby cakes? How’s my little kitten?”
Fur was now an old cat. T.J. tried picking her up, but the cat was having none of that. She ran off and hid somewhere. The cat running off made her feel bad. She knew that was silly. Still…
She walked into her old bedroom. The room looked a lot bigger. I guess he got rid of all her stuff. Still, it was cleaner, neater. There were no clothes laying around, no day old Chinese Food containers, no automobile parts anywhere to be seen. Once when they were dating, she came home to find an engine on the Dining room table.
T.J. went to the kitchen and made herself an icewater. She took a sip and walked over to the window. The world was in front of her eyes. She could see the Unisphere from his window. Sidney, always loved being able to see the Unisphere and Shea Stadium from his apartment building.
Sidney and his pick-up truck. They would cruise the streets of Flushing looking for car parts and abandoned cars. That’s how they got Fur.
Sidney stopped at an abandoned car to strip it for something or other when they found a bunch of kittens crying without their mother. A couple were already dead. They brought the remaining three kittens home and fed them milk with eyedroppers. Only Fur lived… and still lived.
T.J. looked for the cat again. She had a moment of feeling bad, like she had abandoned the cat by not taking it with her when she ran away.
She walked over to the corner of the living room and there was Marvin. Marvin was the name of Sidney’s sledgehammer. He named it after a childhood friend who died when he was a kid. She didn’t know the story. She felt bad again. Certainly, if they stayed together, she would know the secrets of Marvin the sledgehammer.
Secrets, that’s how the problems started. She told Sidney secrets, and he payed attention. Previous to Sidney, she had been with boyfriends who she told her secrets too, but they were only interested in getting laid, or were high when she told them and they didn’t remember. Sidney remembered her secrets, and he would tell her his. Fuck, she was in a real relationship and it freaked her out. Why couldn’t he be like every other blue collar guy. He had to actually be sensitive and listen to her. She didn’t know how to deal with that.
So, she fucked Sidney’s best friend Baby Dave. Fuck it was worse than that. T.J. got drunk on Bell Boulevard in O’Sullivans and then brought Baby Dave to her mom’s house and fucked him there. But it was worse than that. She handcuffed him to the bedpost… but it was worse than that. She freaked out after she fucked him and ran back to Sidney’s, the only problem was, she forgot to uncuff Baby Dave… but it was worse than that. It would have been one thing if T.J.’s mom found Baby Dave passed out and handcuffed to her bed, but all of T.J.’s brothers and friends came home from the bars to drink some more and found Baby Dave. The neighborhood knew, and the phones were jammed for two days.
When the phone rang at seven a.m. and Sidney picked up the phone. T.J. remembered about Baby Dave and ran out of the apartment, never to return to the neighborhood…
“Why, why, why,” she said aloud. She picked up Marvin the Sledgehammer and waved it around the apartment.
She did not hear Sidney walk into the apartment, but when she saw him, she got scared and the sledgehammer went flying out of her hands and she almost killed Sidney. It went flying into the wall by his head and made a great big hole.
“Holy shit,” Sidney said examining his head to make sure it was still on his shoulders.
“Sorry,” T.J. said, and tried to get by him and out the door. He scooped her up and stopped her.
“Why don’t you stay for a minute. You can help me patch that hole in the wall.”
“O.K. I didn’t come here to steal anything. I came here to, to… I don’t know why I came here.”
“To apologize maybe?”
T.J. broke down crying…
By the time the ice melted in T.J.’s water glass, both T.J. and Sidney were sitting quietly on the couch.
“You wanna get an ice cream?” Sidney asked.
“What about the wall?”
“Oh, you’ll be fixing it.”
“Eat the ice cream upside down on the monkey bars?” T.J. asked wiping tears from her face.
“They got rid of the monkey bars, the see-saws and the and the Carousel.”
“Fuck, how’s a kid supposed to be a kid?”
“Honestly, I’m not sure I’d be able to hang upside down and eat an ice cream anymore. We’re not 21 anymore. “
“I gotta take a quick shower. Can I trust you to be here when I get out?”
“I won’t leave,” T.J. said.
“Are you in love?” T.J. asked
“Yes, ” said Sidney heading to the bathroom.
Sidney put on the radio and an old song that T.J. and Sidney came on. It was Peter Gabriel’s Solsbury Hill.
“I always liked that song,”T.J. said.
“It always made you cry. It reminded you of secrets.”
T.J. almost bolted for the door. Instead she headed into the bedroom, in search of something that would remind her of some love she had ten years ago.
Nothing, nothing. Not a photo of her anywhere.
Peter Gabriel haunted the room with his song:
So I went from day to day
Oh, my life was in a rut
‘Til I thought of what I’d say
Which connection I should cut
I was feeling part of the scenery
I’d walk right out of the machinery
My heart going boom-boom-boom
Hey, he said, grab your things I’ve come to take you home
Eh, back home
She knew that Sidney would be out of the shower soon. She went over to his desk which was the same. Most everything was the same except for anything that was about her. Her stuff used to dominate the room
He did have a new typewriter, which surprised her because he loved that old Remington he had.
She went to the closet and there was his typewriter covered up. She opened up the case and there it was. The last letter she wrote to Sidney, the morning she came home drunk after fucking his best friend.
To my sweetie,
I love you like chocolate ice cream.
You are my indulgence, and my favorite
Trooly Ooley
T.J.
P.S. Your eggrolls are outstanding
Sidney said,”I’m right behind you, don’t throw anything in my direction.” He started to get dressed.
T.J said crying,”You kept the note.”
“I’ve kept that note like an albatross around my neck… I didn’t care that you fucked Baby Dave. I mean I was mad, but you didn’t have to leave town. Nobody knew what happened to you. That was painful. Everybody had a laugh at your expense, and my expense and Baby Dave’s expense, but nobody really cares about stupid shit like that. Sure they will talk forever, but people are always doing stupid shit. It blew over when Misses Hodgkins fucked the newspaper boy a few months later. What we had was something unusual. It doesn’t happen in every relationship. We were going to really have something important.”
“I know, that’s why I really screwed Baby Dave.”
“Don’t you think I know that. Fuck, I know your secrets. I knew that you leaving me stranded and alone was a possibility. I just didn’t think you wouldn’t tell anyone anything about where you were going and what you were doing. Shit, you were just a stupid kid who did something stupid. Nobody fucking really cared. I’m still even friends with Baby Dave… it took a while.”
“I am so sorry.”
Sidney wiped a tear from his eye.
Peter Gabriel’s song was finishing up:
Today I don’t need a replacement
I’ll tell them what the smile on my face meant
My heart going boom-boom-boom
Hey, I said, you can keep my things They’ve come to take me home
“Come on T.J. let me buy you an ice cream. We’ll eat on the bench like adults.”
“Fuck we’re adults.”
They looked at the hole in the wall. Sidney said,”you’re fixing that by yourself.”
T.J. asked taking out her keys to lock up,” So, you gave up the Junkyard and the cars. What do you do now.”
“I run a demolition business.”
“You knock down walls?!”
“Entire buildings… Can I please have my keys back to the apartment.”
T.J. begrudgingly handed him the keys.
He turned out the light and out they went.
