The Pursuit of Happiness-Chapter 5 : The End

You seeped into my veins very much like you seeped into my earth.

            There was only one place to look. Little Italy. I can hear the sound of Tony Bennett playing from the radio as I took the car back to the old apartment.

                                                She wasn’t there.

                                 I checked the local penitentiaries.

                                                  Still not there.

                                    I finally called the hospital.

                        Sheena was there and she was barely breathing.

I had waited in the waiting room for the longest time and they finally admitted me in because I told them that I was her old family friend. There my Sheena lay. She was in a coma. I had silently started to cry. Over sniffles and sobs, I asked what had happened.

Apparently, Sheena was drunk and was at a party and someone found out that she was a man so he had actually beaten the fuck out of her.

                                                I cried even harder.

The pain was so excruciating that I couldn’t stop crying. For some reason it was because she was badly beaten and for a second, I knew Sheena was going to die alone.

The next morning, she woke up to the sound of my voice.

I could’ve sworn to God that she was going to die on the ventilator.

She had a cut lip, a black and blue eye and bruises.

“Sheena!” I gasped. I got up and called for a nurse.

The nurse took her off the ventilator. I had a small towel ready with hot water, and I dabbed her eyes.

We both cried.

She had to stay in the hospital longer, so I fed her with fork and spoon and let her drink this went on for a couple of weeks and on the last day, she began to talk.

“Maria honey?”

I looked up.

“Yes Sheena?”

“Can you stop babying me?”

I looked at her and glared and she started laughing so I sighed.

“Sheena. You got beaten up.”

She stopped and looked at me.

“I thought you had left.”

She looked at me like a lost child.

“Are you crazy?” I looked doubtful. “Girl?”

I got up and quickly sat down on her bedside to the left.

“Sheena? Who did this to you?”

“Well, outta all the trashy things to ask.”

I could quickly tell that Sheena had not wanted to talk about it to me. I suddenly felt shunned and really bad so I shut my mouth and cleaned up her face.

We were out of the hospital quicker than you can say Ah.

We went back to the pent. Sheena was quieter than usual. I looked like a wreck as I looked into the mirror.

Sheena sat quietly on the bed. I looked into the room.

“Maria, read me more of your poetry.”

“Sure.”

I began to read what I have written.

War and love are a very dangerous combination of instruments if played right and played well. You are like water and I am like soil.

You are a mortal instrument among men and women who can only be touched and played by the Gods.

But it is you I do not touch for you are like glass. You; my silver lining of a harp amongst the clouds.

I love you. I wish to hear your sweet music.

But;

I think they knew that.

But you don’t, do you?

My love,

Maybe when all this white noise is done and gone,

Maybe then we’ll be together,

The new normal, and then maybe after all this love and romance;

The last of the romantics.

My love, you take my heart and I swear that I will have you in my dreams tonight.

Sheena sighed and asked.

“Maria?”

I stood solemnly still.

“Do you believe in true love?”

“Sheena, at this point….”

I looked at her.

“No.”

Sheena and I changed into our PJ’s after a quick shower and slept.

                                                                    ***

I wondered as I awoke to find Sheena sleeping, about what else was going to happen.

The telephone rang twice.

“Sheena! I oughta fuck you dead!”

Once again, a death threat.

The telephone rang again.

“Listen missy, Sheena’s not what you think she is she’s a man and it just doesn’t fit. Perhaps we can convert her to our Christian faith.”

A missionary on a mission to give that phone call. Bleh!

I slammed the phone even harder.

The phone rang again.

“Hey baby!”

I hung up and yawned. I laughed at the thought of Sheena actually having a fan.

The phone rang again. I hung up.

Sheena was still asleep thank God.

Finally, Sheena woke up. When I told her there was a fan of hers who had called, I was very thankful Sheena was not angry. Sheena then said specifically that if you want something you have to prolong their suffering and make them want you more. Sheena was getting better. Her bruises were healing and so was her eye. I leaned against her chest as she kissed my head.

‘Sheena? You’re going to get revenge, right?”

“Absolutely darling.”

“How do you plan to do it?”

I looked up from Sheena’s embrace.

“I’m going to shoot them dear.”

I started to sob. Not only for my friend’s life but for the next time she would leave. Sheena is precious to me. More precious than gold.

“But Sheena.” I sobbed. “You can’t leave! You’re gonna die out there!”

Sheena rolled her eyes.

“Nonsense darling the night is young!”

I sat down as Sheena held my shoulders. “Darling, you know I have business to do. Shoot me. What life is this when the night is young?”

I trembled.

“Darling, don’t you want to be happy? I’m a woman!”

She exclaimed.

“Can’t you see?”

She looked at me with round, brown sad eyes and gently sat me down. She took off her wig as she went silently out of the building and drove off. I cried as I watched her go. I believe she cried too.

                                                                        ***

Sheena had died. It was all over the news.

The headlines wore dead bodies. Sheena being one of them.

Sheena was finally in peace. I tried to make out a smile on my face but that was it. She was gone. I made my way towards the television set and there it was, Sheena’s lifeless face onscreen. I hated what the headlines wrote.

“Mad Transexual Raids A Manhattan Pent.”

I cried and I ripped the paper. Sheena was mad I suppose but a good friend and although I fought my tears back, I visited her grave often knowing she would never come back.

                                                            ***

Five years later….

Age thirty-five and I couldn’t get my life together. I woke up to the sweet smell of Georgia pies and walked from my homestead to the local library where I worked. Ahhh, how I loved the smell. Also, the smell of maple leaves as they lined every bend down the road. I finally saved up enough to move from the pent in New York working as both a singer and a waitress at the clubs and then take the train to Georgia. It had been years since Sheena’s death. After that, the war had followed and accursed industrialism began to take place. It was during World War 2 that I had decided to become a singer singing duets with the military men and then boom! Proposal after proposal.

Dear Sheena,

Nothing is the same without you.

Maria

I was at the local coffee shop and I saw one of my new friends who had married in the military, a marine after he was back from the attack of Pearl Harbor. Some of his shipmates had been stationed on an island called Guam and others at other harbors that were attacked by the Japanese empire. By then I had changed my name to Mary and life was swell. That’s when I met him.

“Yoo-Hoo! Ma-ary! Yoo-Hoo!”

I looked up drowsily form my newspaper.

I found Barbara Donna Wilkis hanging out with our friend Patsy May Clymer with their husbands, Jack Daniel Wilkis and Danny James Clymer. Two of many survivors. With them another man who looked three years older than me. He was the one. His name was George Craig Kramer. One of the renowned generals of a navy ship that sailed across the Atlantic.

“Well Georgie.” Patsy said while chewing her bubblegum. “Tell ‘er about what happened.”

George was a brilliant talker and had a soft, boyish expression about him that mad you think, gee, that boy’s something and he is bound to get married someday.

Sheena would say, “Better grab him before I do darling.”

But who was I kidding? Sheena had gone into a faraway land but hadn’t come back unlike this one did. It was the end for Sheena but a beginning for me.

“Georgie, tell her!” Patsy chided.

Barbara nudged him.

“Miss Mary Marie Angelo….” I tried not to smile. “Will you Miss Angelo, take the honor of being my wife?”

A timid grin swept over my face.

“Go get ‘im girl!” I could hear Sheena say.

“Yes.” I blurted.

He picked me up from the dining table and carried me to the door. Barbara winked at me and Patsy kissed her husband as they all seemed to hold each other.

Suddenly, I became Mrs. Mary George Craig Kramer and we lived happily ever after.

I was nine months pregnant and I had two loving little boys who loved me as much as my husband. I no longer suffered from loss and I had found love with a man who had belonged to the sea and now belonged to me.

“Georgie!” I called.

“Yeah honey!”

I could hear George’s footsteps falling on the wooden floor boards.

“Is Pierson and Peter goin’ off to school yet?”

“Yes honey!” he peered through the door and came into the kitchen and twirled me around just once and kissed me.

“Mom! Mom!” Pierson ran up to me laughing, “Mom! There’s a giant squid in the yard, he’s comin’ to get me!”

Peter, my youngest was laughing up a fit and spit was gurgling form his mouth as he waved his arms teeter-tottering over the floor.

“Oh Peter!” I laughed aloud. “My little turtle-dove!”

“Oh you two!”

They were still in their pajamas.

“Apparently, someone has to be responsible for them….” I said sarcastically.

George just kissed me and said, “One second.”

“I’ll go upstairs and dress them up.” He added.

I went upstairs to the attic where my stationary set was and wrote.

Dear Sheena,

I have two loving little boys and a wonderful husband. My heart now belongs to somebody and he is a wonderful man. Wherever you are Sheena, I can only hope that you are in a better place. He and my children are everything I wanted. I know that you would be so proud of me because I have achieved what I had set out for. I am proud to be his wife and if you ask me, true love really does exist.

Mary Kramer

I looked up and peered in the window to see my husband and my two beautiful boys walking down the path through the maples where we lived. Past the sycamore tree, the local library, the bakery, past the barber shop and off to school.

I stood up from my chair and went downstairs out of the house passed the maples.

I looked up at the sycamore tree and sometimes I saw Sheena there and as my mind swept back to when I was thirty, I can remember the sweet silent sound of Sheena’s crooning voice over a microphone.

“Sing much?” I asked the sycamore.

I touched its trunk and reminisced.

“It’s a pretty empty street.”

“Yes…. I agree.” I said strangely.

“Do you sing often?” She asked.

I looked down at my feet. “No, Not really.”

“Oh, not really? Not often then.” She said completely ignoring the fact that I was agoraphobic.

“Why?” I had asked.

“You wouldn’t happen to sell your soul for a bit then.” She said.

“Atta girl Sheena, there there.” I said tenderly. “Your soul is finally at rest. Atta girl.”

I looked up and smiled.

Sheena would be looking down proudly and smiling down on me.

I no longer suffered from loss and I had found love with a man who had belonged to the sea and now belonged to me. Maria was no more. I am Mrs. Mary George Craig Kramer and I am happily married with two small young boys who may grow up to be taller than me.

Plus, it was everything Sheena would have wanted. And I loved her. Still; on the pursuit of happiness.