Throwing Out The Garbage

Throwing Out The Garbage

I could not believe this was happening, that he would do this again. What was I going to do now? I had issued the open-ended ultimatum without any conscious idea of what it would mean to complete it. "Don't ever do that again," I said, and left it at that. I never finished it with "or else," never said what I'd be forced to do, but this was because I hadn't even thought that far ahead. I so believed he would never do it again that I hadn't even contemplated what I would do if he did. This was a real moment of truth and I had to bring substance to what had been a vague and empty threat. I had to take Action. Everybody has their limits, he was fond of saying, and Manny had just taken me to mine.

I thought back to two nights ago, when I couldn't focus on any more equations and I waited on the porch, smoking cigarettes until Manny came home at 1 a.m. He came bouncing up the stairs and seemed nearly to stop in his tracks when he saw me sitting there.

"What're you doing out here?" he asked me.

"What do you think," I answered, "waiting for you." He grinned, put his arm around me and we went inside. In retrospect I seem so stupid, to not have paid attention to my own intuition. In retrospect all the signs were there and it seems like the entire universe was trying to tell me, but the truth is, I had no clue.

We were miles away from being the perfect couple, and I don't know if we were ever truly in love, but we had fun together and were good friends. He was a tough guy who'd had a hard life and he was young and didn't quite know what his place in the world was. I, on the other hand, was finally finding direction and focus in my life, yet I understood Manny's restlessness and made a point of allowing him space. But we both knew what the boundaries were; while it was a relationship based on mutual respect rather than passionate love, we were still boyfriend and girlfriend and fidelity was understood.

I had been consumed with my studies, trying to force knowledge into my brain that didn't belong there, like a square peg in a round hole. This was before I realized that I was infinitely more suited to literary analysis and critique than calculus and chemistry. But I fancied myself an engineer and discovered that if I worked hard enough I could, indeed, literally force this knowledge into my head. Trouble was it took every bit of my attention, which I suppose, made it easier to give Manny his space. He was not the focal point of my thoughts and didn't demand to be.

Then last night I waited up for him again, and he didn't come home at all. The whole night, I still didn't get it. Manny had never done anything like this before. He might show up late, but he had never not come home at all. I couldn't sleep and was frantic with genuine worry that something had happened, that he'd gotten into some kind of trouble. At about six o'clock in the morning I called what few phone numbers I had for his friends who might know something of him, but nobody had any information for me. At nine, after not sleeping the entire night, I called in sick at work, telling them Manny was missing. At eleven my boss called me and screamed, "I don't care what's gong on! You leave your personal problems at home and come to work!" When Manny finally showed up at two in the afternoon, he started yelling at me: how dare I check up on him, embarrassing him? But I wasn't gong to hear this and instead I started in on him: how dare he put me in the humiliating position of having to call people at all hours looking for him? I was wired from worry and lack of sleep, I was already in trouble at work; I didn't want to argue with Manny. We sat on the bed and talked.

I didn't even push him for an explanation of his whereabouts. He told me he was hanging out and I chose to let it slide and focus the discussion on the lack of respect he showed by staying out all night without calling. I asked him point-blank: did he even want to be in this relationship?

He answered with a question: "I'm here, ain't I?"

"You weren't here last night, were you?" I cried.

"But I am now," he said. I was far from satisfied, but I was too exhausted to continue. He was home, he was safe, it was all right for now.

That was when I ended the discussion with the ominous yet empty "Don't ever do that again."

I slept the rest of the afternoon, waking up at seven that evening to find him gone. At about two a.m. I realized I was in exactly the same position as the night before and that Manny was not coming home. I was shocked and dumbfounded, but not frantic with worry as the night before. What was I going to do know, I wondered, knowing I had to answer my own question and complete my ultimatum. I busied myself with math problems until I could force myself to sleep. I had to be at work early the next morning; I could not miss work again.

I wanted to allow Manny as much time as I could to somehow redeem himself, but set my alarm early, giving myself an hour before I had to actually start getting ready for work. I had to figure out what I was going to do. I stood in the middle of the little apartment I shared with Manny, surveying the impact of his presence within our living space. There were not many visible signs that this was his home. It was really my apartment, I thought, he moved in with me, this is all my furniture, all my stuff. I went to his closet that was crammed full with the bulk of his belongings, which was mostly junk: tools, broken parts of things, and dirty clothes. I sighed and went to the kitchen, cursing myself for not going to the grocery store that week. I only had two big garbage bags. The rest of Manny's stuff got shoved into those tiny, cellophane grocery bags that accumulate so easily, with the handles tightly knotted. It seemed like there was a sea of little bags bundled full of Manny's stuff, covering the floor of the entire dining area and half of the living room. Filling those bags didn't take nearly as long as I thought it would, and I had time to sit down with my coffee and compose myself as best I could before leaving for work.

As I left, my eyes rested on the roses that he'd given me just two weeks before. They were dry and withered because I was too sentimental and had kept them too long. How could he have given me roses just two weeks ago and now its come to this? The question screamed in my head, but I quickly stopped myself from attempting any answer, glancing again at the sea of garbage bags as I closed the door. I did not leave a note. When I got home from work that day, the garbage bags were gone.