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32 -- Baby can you fix my car?

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  I got up early the next day to keep my promise, feeding and medicating my uncle before driving over to Peggy’s mother’s house where again I found Peggy longing on a beach chair, drink in one hand, cigarette smoldering between the fingers of her other hand. “You look exhausted,” she said, glancing at me over the top of her sunglasses. “That’s because I am.” “Maybe you should go home and get some sleep.” “What about your car?” “It’ll have to wait.” “I thought you had to dance tonight.” “I do.” “How will you get there?” “I can arrange a ride.” “With Tom?” “Maybe,” she said, hiding her eyes again behind the glasses again. “What does it matter with who?” “I suppose it doesn’t,” I mumbled, then made my way back home in a daze of weariness and worry, unable to sort through the web of emotions I was feeling, strands attached to different things inside me. Was I jealous? Or scared? Was I in a panic to get out from under this? I already felt as if I was drowning and
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31 -- Dinner at my place

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    For the second time in a week, the hospital beat Peggy in waking me up, telling me I needed to pick up my uncle. So, when Peggy did call finally shortly before noon, I told her I would not come to fix her car until later. I could not read her reaction when she said, “Okay,” then hung up. The trip west to Graystone was among one of the most familiar of my life, and one deeply drenched in family history. It was almost a religious experience, part of some fundamental ritual and sacrifice I was destined from birth to make. My uncle had been committed there several times during the 1980s, following in the footsteps of my mother, who had been committed numerous times when I was a young child, and her grandfather had died there. The trip only made my mood worse, and added to my confusion, mixing up how I felt about one thing with how I felt about another. The madness I’d seen in my uncle and mother was somehow connected to the madness I saw in Peggy – with me, somehow, servi
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30 – the Candy Man Can

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      The hospital’s call woke me so early, I thought it was Peggy when I answered. Such calls were usually bad news and this proved to be the case this time as well. The voice on the other end of the telephone told me they intended to release my uncle and the end of the week and I should come there to collect him. Although I had kept the apartment next door to mine for this purpose, his return added complexity to my life I didn’t need. I was his caretaker, the person who had to feed him, clean his clothes, take him to doctors and I resented every bit of it. No sooner had I hung up the phone, Maryann showed up at my door. She wanted to make love; I put her off. She didn’t seem to understand why. I wasn’t engaged the way she was, and it didn’t matter if I was going out with somebody else, she said. Eventually, I got her to leave. But her words and attitude lingered in my apartment even after she was gone. Too much of what she’d said echoed sentiments I had heard comi
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29 - Melting

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    At that time, moving from her living room to her bedroom, the whole situation was still largely a mystery to me, and it wasn’t until that phone call three decades later did the final pieces of this human tragedy fall into place. How Robert, the love of her life, completely betrayed her, leaving her with an emptiness inside she could not fill, and how much hope she had held out to live a normal life, to become someone’s bride, and mother someone’s children. I didn’t know the truth about Robert until I talked to the Hackensack firefighter, who had hoped to replace Robert in her life. Although Peggy was a popular girl in high school – when she actually attended that is – Robert stood tall among all the other boys who craved her affections. He was the great love in Peggy’s life, and despite her worldliness, Robert remained an icon of love, a high school sweetheart she so adored she could not let him out of her sight, going everywhere he did, being with him always, one of thos
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28 – sometimes boys get lucky

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      By the time I got back from the deli, she had already settled into the living room, her cat, Jessie, patrolling the back of the couch like a border guard. The bottle of valium had moved from the kitchen table along with the ingredients for her drinks to the coffee table. The TV was already on. I settled beside her, feeling the day’s revelations fading, her valium affecting me even thought I hadn’t ingested any, my limbs growing heavy, my weary minding easing into a pleasant numbness I hadn’t felt for a long, long time.   I could feel her calm breathing as she pressed into my side and felt myself reacting to her even thought she made none of her usual sexual innuendos. This was the way it was supposed to be with boyfriend/girlfriend, I thought, keeping secret the pack of condoms, I had purchased at the deli along with the turkey clubs. I still feared to set her off and didn’t want to lose this moment in m hunger to get something more. The TV reeled off programing I d
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27 missing the point

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  When I opened my eyes the next day, the silent sunlight told me how late it was, a glance at the clock only confirmed the startling news, and for a moment, I couldn’t tell if this was good or bad. What did no early morning phone call mean? Was I in or out of favor and would she ever call me again? I should have been happy being out from under something I knew was becoming out of control but doubt gnawed at me and with this being my day off, I didn't even have the prospect of work to distract me. Then against all reason, I went over there Peggy's car was in the lot. Her music blasted in the stairwell so loud I had to bang with bold fists well she turned it down and yanked open the door what the fuck do you want she exploded the moment she saw me? My mouth hung open for so long she had time to pace the kitchen twice cigarette smoldering between her fingers of her one hand while the other hand clutched her ice rattling drink. I thought I stuttered that we mig
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