I started a video call and woke Judy up. She was obviously in bed with Brian, wrapped in a more expensive version of her old nightgown. “Hello? Timothy?” She was already pissed.
“Judy, I’m sorry to bother you, but I really need to see you. Tonight.”
“Timmy, it’s eleven o’clock. People with jobs are in bed by eleven o’clock.”
“I know, and I’m sorry, but things in my life are… speeding up, in a lot of ways, and I don’t want to wait to do this. Please, it’ll just take a few minutes.”
Judy said, “Whatever this is, it can wait until morning,” and hung up on me.
This went against every instinct I ever had, but what had started as a silly emotional outburst now felt like life and death. I summoned a cab and went straight to her house.
* * *
Her doorbell was off, so I pounded on the door, just like an idiot in a movie. I had to stand there and bang on it for several minutes before somebody came to the door. I’m just glad it was Judy, because I don’t know how I would have dealt with Brian.
She was in a full robe, mad as hell, clearly prepared for combat on the lawn. I saw Brian’s shadow in the living room, but I guess he had been told to stay back.
“I expected better from you,” Judy said. “Even at your worst, you were never this pathetic. But you’re here now, and I’m awake, so just say what you came to say and go.”
“I have to break up with you,” I said. “I know you broke up with me a long time ago, but I never really broke up with you.”
Judy’s face sank into a profound mix of pity and disgust. “Timmy, we’re done. We’ve been done for years. And you’ve been cool with it, for years. What the hell is wrong with you? Are you drunk? Did somebody slip you drugs? Why are you having a tantrum in the middle of the night?”
I took a breath and tried to keep myself calm. The last thing I needed was a surge right now. “I broke up with you in real life, but I never broke up with you… in my heart.”
Judy laughed. “In your heart? So, what are you saying? You’re telling me, all this time, you’ve just been pretending to be my friend, so you can get back in my pants?”
I shook my head. “No, it’s not like that. I never expected to have you back, but I can’t get away from you, either. I feel like you’ve been keeping me at just the right distance, like a sidekick or a pet, and every time I pull away, you do something to pull me back. I can’t go on like this. My life is like a game right now, and I’m losing. If I have to play this thing out, I have to be careful where my pieces are. I have to take you off the board. I’ve spent years trying to get over this like a grownup, but I can’t. I can’t unravel this knot, so I have to cut it. Here. Now. Once and for all.”
Judy put her hand on her hip, turned away for a second, and snorted at me again. Then she threw her hands up and said, “Fine! Breakup accepted! Can I go back to bed now?”
“Not yet. You never actually told me why you were leaving, the night you left. You said I should know exactly why, and I kinda do, but if I really want this to stick, I need you to say it to my face. What did I do to drive you away?”
If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
“Jesus,” Judy said. “You won’t give me an inch, will you? You won’t let me spare your feelings. Is this how you want it, Tim? You’re really gonna make me stand out here and give you my laundry list? I already said this a thousand times.
“Everybody has a superhero phase, and everybody grows out of it. I stuck around for years waiting for you to grow out of it, until I just couldn’t take it anymore. You want to know what finally made up my mind? What finally made me realize I couldn’t fix you? It was that fucking autograph.”
I already knew her laundry list of my faults, but I had never heard this detail before. “What autograph?”
“The autograph of that asshole from Bluestar 3, the strong guy with caveman eyebrows.”
“Sonny Mao? You left me over an autograph from Sonny Mao?”
Judy put her hands on her head. “Oh my god, it was so much more than that. That was just the straw that broke my back. You took half a day off work and took an air cab three-hundred miles so you could stand in line for an hour and buy an autograph from that fucking prick.”
“Wait!” I shouted. “Do you remember what he did the day before that convention? He pulled a single dad out of a burning car and got his kids to the hospital. So yeah, you’re damn right I wanted his autograph. He was a hero!”
“And do you remember how much you paid for it?”
“What? No.”
“Two hundred and fifty dollars.”
I shook my head. “No way. No way it cost that much.”
“Oh, I assure you it did. You put it on our joint account.”
Oops. I probably would have apologized for that one.
“We were supposed to be saving for a house,” Judy continued, “and you were blowing money on $250 autographs and $300 cab rides.”
“Why didn’t you say something?”
“Because you were so happy! God, you were so happy! And that’s what I’m talking about. You worship these people. There was never a hero so base, so disgusting, or so corrupt, that you wouldn’t lick their boots. You think Sonny Mao was a hero? Was he a hero to the family he hit while he was drunk driving his Porsche? Was he a hero to the women he raped?”
“Those charges were dropped!”
“Yeah? So why did his sponsor pay $3.5 million to settle with eight women out of court?”
I couldn’t answer.
“It was all connected, Timmy. You never grew up, because you never stopped waiting for Captain Cobalt to swoop out of the sky and save you from your life.
“I remember that documentary you made me watch. I never saw you cry over anything when we were together, but you cried like a baby when they showed his funeral. You cried more for that evil son of a bitch than you did for your own father! Oh no, the world has lost a super-powered CIA hitman! Whatever will we do!
“How many times do I have to say this before you get it, Timmy? Captain Cobalt is dead! No one is coming to save us! Where was our superhero when we were attacked at the museum? Where was my hero when I was running for my life?
“These super people hate us! We’re nothing to them! They don’t save people because they care, they save us because it gets them on TV! So, they can sell action figures to manboy shut-ins for $100 a pop! I can’t believe you’re making me say all this out loud, shouting at you like a crazy person because you couldn’t interrupt your busy day of surfing porn and sniffing benches at the mage tower!”
She almost got me with that one. I had to squeeze my eyes shut and do my mantra: no anger, no magic. No anger, no magic. Just stand there and take it. Just. Take it.
“Thank you,” I said. “Thank you for giving me what I asked for. I know this doesn’t make sense right now, but I came here to solve a problem. I have to turn myself into something stronger than I ever imagined, and I gotta do it fucking fast. I came here tonight because I can’t become what I need to be, if I still see myself as the loser you think I am.”
I took one step toward her and had to stop myself. “Judy, you were my first love. Hell, you taught me what the word means. You took my shitty childhood and washed it all away, allowing me to feel real happiness for the first time. I’ll always be grateful for that. But sometime after high school, you turned into a serious bitch, and I just can’t handle your bullshit anymore.” I said, “You guys have a good night,” turned on my heel, and walked away.
It wasn’t like in the movies, okay? She didn’t just go speechless and watch me do a hero walk into the streetlights. She was screaming and spitting and I’m sure she had some awesome comebacks. But for the first time in years, I just didn’t care.