Blue Scratch

Back in the days when hormones were still playing poker with my personality, my boyfriend Dave and I broke up. Nothing wrong with Dave. Or me. We just never had anything to talk about. And not talking got kind of boring, too. Normally, as these things do happen, and no hearts were broken, you move on. However, in this instance, we were stuck facing each other every day in Louisville. And we had all the same friends. Except for one. David had this "friend", Patricia. Of course, her name has been changed. His has not. David and Patricia began to hang out all the time. I'd see them quietly conversing in hallways. I'd see them at the bar, I'd see them eating their joint-packed lunches. I'd see them getting into his car together. I'd see them getting out of his car together. After awhile, I began to get suspicious. One day, I finally cornered him in front of a bulletin board and asked him point blank," Are you fucking Patricia?" As the words speared out of my mouth, I began to notice how blue the paper was of the sole bulletin on the board. So bright it might burst. "No, I am not fucking Patricia!" I didn't believe him. I wasn't consumed with jealousy. It was more like hurt that they had so much to talk about. So I keyed his car.

This was a trick I had learned as a child, but never put to practice, from my mother. Someone stole her parking space at Sak's Fifth Avenue. Then the other driver, an entitled owner of a Cadillac Seville, walked over to my window and started yelling at my mom, who was honking her AMC Eagle at her. I felt so ashamed to be different again. I bet all the kids that lived in Grosse Pointe, and not Detroit, like myself, I bet their moms never fought in the parking lot of Sak's. Hell, they probably didn't even have to drive half an hour to Sak's to look at things they couldn't afford. They just walked to Jacobson's to get what they needed.

When my mother and lady ran out of breath, mom parked. As we walked towards the doors, she saw the beautiful Cadillac Seville that was in her spot. So she grabbed her tweezers out of her bag and scratched the driver's side door long and hard. I protested, being in the midst of a Catholic School upbringing, and she , as contained as she could, told me that what she was doing was okay. She didn't like the way the lady yelled over me, so this was okay.

Dave never would have found out about the scratch I made if it weren't for the accident. As fate would have it, a car hit him exactly where I dragged my I-bet-you-really-are-fucking-her key. When he told me that a car had hit him, and where. I didn't ask, "Are you alright?" Instead, I, enveloped in guilt, said, "Good, I keyed your car there. Now you can get it fixed!" Always looking on the bright side...

Every night when I get home, I leave a little scratch or stab along the corridor walls as I walk up the four flights of stairs to our apartment. By the time I put the key in the door, it's speckled with dusty dry wall. I've only started this habit in recent months. As if I'm mad at the building for housing my son's last breath? Or mad that I climb those stairs quietly alone. That something stole my space.

It's okay that I key the walls. Please. I'd hate this to mar any future coop applications. They're gutting the building in a few months, anyway. The "walls 'o' anger" will be no more. Tonight, I went alone to the Naked Angels reading series, and forced myself to quit holding up the wall and talk to strangers. And I did. We had really nice conversations. And when I came home I pulled out my keys- habit- and put them back in my pocket. Without a speck of dust.