I Forgot To Tell You We Broke Up - [sneak peak]

JAY

  As I round the corner of my street, I notice the police car outside of my apartment.

Fuck! I think, as I begin to sprint. I hate running.

It’s December in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Where the ground is not being suffocated by snow, it’s drowning in disgusting slush. It is early evening, but the cold winter sun had set hours ago. The orange street lights give the black night an egregious, unnatural glow. My white Etnies splash through the soggy mess and I meet the officer at the front door of my triplex. As I look to the police car and notice another officer in the passenger seat, I secretly mock their inability to travel alone.

Pansies.

Standing outdoors in twenty degree weather wearing no coat, panting and sweating, I wonder if I look suspicious.

“Do you live here?” Cop Number One asks. He is young and could pass for handsome if he didn’t insist on dressing up like a little piggy.

“Yes,” I tell him. I glance down at the stoop and notice the blood cover, violently shredded Ramones poster at the officer’s feet. I snatch it up and turn to unlock the door to the house.

“Do you live upstairs?”

“Yes.”

“We received a phone call from your neighbors below about an altercation that took place here a few minutes ago.”

“Yeah, sorry about that. It’s over now.”

“So you were involved?”

“Yeah, but I’m fine.” I begin to head up the narrow flight of stairs.

“When a call is placed for domestic violence we’re obligated to do a walkthrough of the residence,” Cop One informed me.

Mother fucker! 

I continue up the stairs and the officer follows me. 

“Who’s blood is this?” The officer catches me off guard with the question. I look to the crimson spots on the wall where the officer is pointing. 

“It’s not mine,” I say quickly, as if this would somehow get me off the hook.

At the top of the stairs, I put the key into the door of my apartment and Monster begins to bark from behind it. I aggressively push open the door because it keeps getting caught on the shattered glass that litters the carpet behind it. The smell of cat piss and feces is overwhelming, as it has been for months. By the time I’m completely inside, Cop Number Two has joined his partner’s side.

I lead them into the living room. Monster is standing on the couch, with his mouth ajar, wagging his tail. I scoop the adorable schnauzer into my arms, prepared to use his cuteness as a defense mechanism.

It looks as if a heroine addicted, alcoholic, 1980’s hair band had a bad acid trip in here.

Wires from the sconces which Jay had attacked with his bare hands reached ominously out of the walls of the hallway and the living room. A wooden chair upon which the twelve inch television and Nintendo Wii previously occupied, now rested on its side and the electronics lay inches away from it on the floor. Shards of vinyl records that had been used as flying discs had exploded on impact as if laced with firecrackers. Some of the record shards were still embedded centimeters deep within the dark blue walls. The fried chicken and french fries which we were eating (and eventually began to argue about) had been thrown from its styrofoam container and were now scattered about the furniture and floor. Jay had been drinking Coca-Cola from a styrofoam cup before he flung it across the room and the corn syrupy residue seems to be dripping from everywhere. It is impossible to take a step in here without something crunching under your feet.

“What happened in here?” Cop Number Two pipes up. He seems just as young as Cop Number One, but more austere, or dickish, if you will. We’ll call him Cop Dick.

“My boyfriend and I got into a fight. He’s pissed off because I’m moving out.”

“Is he here now?” Cop One asks.

“No.”

“Is there anyone else here?”

“Nope.”

“Where did he go?” Cop Dick asks.

“I don’t know,” I lied.

“Where were you coming from when we got here?”

“I had to get my key back from him.”

Oh, dammit!

“But you don’t know where he is now?” Cop Dick interrogates. 

“Nope.” I cuddle the dog against my body. Monster is allegedly too big to be held, but I do it anyway. He’s the size of my entire torso and fits perfectly in my arms.

“What’s your boyfriend’s name?” Cop One whips out his miniature notebook and matching miniscule pencil.

“Ummm, I can’t tell you,” I tell him.

“Why… can’t you give us his name?” 

“We’re going to need a name if you want to press charges,” Cop Dick demands.

“I don’t want to press charges.” I calmly kiss my dog. “There’s no reason to. I’m fine, he’s gone, it’s fine. Isn’t that right, Monster? You’re okay, right baby?” The dog shows no signs of concern. Monster isn’t very dramatic. He’s a chill dog. I sit him on the ground and he creeps away to the bedroom. He’s done all he can here.

“What if your boyfriend calls the police and he wants to press charges against you?” asks a concerned Cop One.

“He’s in no position to call the police.”

The officers eyeball me.

“Why didn’t you call the police?” Cop One continues.

“I didn’t have any reason to. I didn’t need any help.”

“We’re going to do a walkthrough to make sure that his body isn’t still here,” Cop Dick exaggerates.

Really? His body? It’s at the Hell House bleeding from the head.

I wave my hand toward the other rooms. They enter the kitchen, the most well lit room in the house. Because it is on the ceiling, the kitchen light fixture is one that Jay failed to destroy. If there were ever an opportune time for Jay to pick a broom in his life, that would’ve been his cue.

In his futile attempt to push over the refrigerator Jay had only managed to rock it to a thirty-five degree angle. Enough to cause the glass vase, forgotten take out menus, and the white pizza box on which he had written me a letter, to fall onto the cat piss soaked, dog food littered, filthy linoleum floor.

The pizza box letter read:

Hey babe. Tryin’ to get to the Rancid concert. Johnny is asking $80.00 for the ride because he’s a fucking asshole. Sorry my handwriting sucks. ~ Jay  [His name was represented by his “tag”: an upside down and backwards question mark,the symbol for anarchy, and the number 4]

Jay’s love notes always requested money. And they rarely involved any love.

“Do you have any weapons in the home?” the officers snap me out of my wondering thoughts. They begin to search the cabinets and drawers of the kitchen and bureaus. I tell them no and they inform me that the switchblade found in my beauty chest was in fact, illegal.

“We’re going to have to confiscate this,” Cop Dicks says, predictably. I don’t care. I have another one in my purse.

“How much pot do you smoke? Do you smoke everyday?” These questions are prompted by the sight of five bowls and a bong, apportioned throughout the apartment and conveniently sat on tables within arm’s reach of a place to sit.

“Yes.”

“Do you have any here right now?”

“Nope.”

The officers are on their way out of my life with little to nothing to go on, when Cop Dick notices the Allen Blvd. street sign above my living room window.

“That’s a stolen street sign and it belongs to the City of Kalamazoo,” Cop Dick is pleased to enlighten me. “We’re going to have to take it with us.”

“No!”

“Or we can take you down to the station and charge you with a felony.”

“No, you don’t understand! That sign holds very significant sentimental value. Can’t you just pretend that you didn’t see it?!” A frog leaps into my throat and my tear ducts begin to warm up.

This isn’t happening. Don’t worry. There’s no way they're taking YOUR sign.

“Are you going to give me the sign or do you want to be arrested?”

I hate Cop Dick. I look at Cop One. I can tell he’s sympathetic and would let the sign slide. He was young once, probably yesterday.

“Let me think about it,” I say through clinched teeth.

“There’s nothing to think about-”

“Let me think!” I snap at him. I begin to cry. I am willing to go to jail if it means that I can keep the sign, but I have a feeling that that’s not the plan. The City of Kalamazoo is going to get its pilfered street sign back, regardless of any heroics I attempt at this time.

I take the sign from its post atop of the window pane and hug it close to my body as tears of frustration roll over my arms. This was all Jay’s fault. All he ever did was take and take, and now, these punks ass cops were letting him take my most valued possession.

I’d kept the sign clean, akin to the way I can only assume actresses polish their Academy Awards. A tear gently falls onto the capital letter A. I smear it across the rest of the letters: L L E N. I relinquish the sign to Cop Dick. 

The officers finally leave me be.

I was fine with the fighting. And I was happy to lose Jay. But now that my Allen Blvd. sign has been taken from me before thine eyes, I am fucking furious.

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