My Artificial Heart (13) "Look, a Barnes and Nobles!" Tammy jumped up excitedly. I began to wonder what she was so worked up about. "You want to go there or something?" We'd already gone for a walk, watched Saturday cartoons, eaten at a Denny's restaurant and went to the mall today. Tammy wanted to see all the things I had described to her. The last of them being Barnes and Nobles. It was dark out already but I wanted to make Tammy happy. "Yeah!" she anxiously pulled at me. Seeming to push me closer to the place. I walked in and Tammy looked around like I would in the Sweet Factory. She stared at all the books and all of the potential knowledge they contained. I walked up to a sign that had the categories of the isles. "I want to learn more about me. I'm a heart, right?" "Yeah, you're a heart, an artificial one." "I want to see how a real heart looks like." "Ok." I headed for the medical health section. After sifting through some books I came upon one that would most likely match what we were looking for. I opened it up and paged through the rather new looking book. Until I came upon a diagram detailing the internal organs of the body. I pointed a finger towards the center of the figure, to the small, roundish looking thing, "That's a heart." Tammy was silent for a long moment, she didn't seem to know what to say. She looked fixedly on the heart, as if it were completely alien to her. "It... doesn't look like me. How come?" "Human hearts look different, they'll all made up of muscles and veins, or whatever else hearts are made up of. But they run on electricity, sorta like you do." "They look icky." I laughed, "Yup, everything inside a human looks 'icky'." "I like the way I look better." Tammy refuted proudly. I turned the pages some more, until I found a close up inside view of the heart. "Ew, and you used to have a heart like this?" "Yeah." "Did your real heart ever talk to you? Like I do?" When it did "talk" to me it was usually to tell me how much pain I was in. Other then that it was silent. "No, real hearts don't really 'talk' to you. They sorta just keep beating and beating until they clog up with cholesterol and die." "Do you ever miss your old heart?" "I can hardly even remember it. It was always just there. Until it got blown apart that day, but..." "That's when you met me. Well, at least I met you." Tammy peered at the image of the real heart curiously. It was quite interesting to see someone discovering the world for the first time. I flipped through the pages some more. "Hey, look at that." I stopped, and turned to a page that had a picture of a woman. "That's me! I'm a woman. So that must be how I would look... if I had a body of my own." "Yeah, that's a woman alright." "I don't mind." "Don't mind what?" "Not having a body. I'm glad to be inside you, we keep each other company... Can we go to the women's health section?" I guess this was one of the disadvantages of having a female artificial heart. "Um, well. I don't know, it's not exactly the best place for a guy to hang out at." "Please!" She asked mischievously, "I want to learn more about being a woman." I smiled. I couldn't deny her request for long. Cautiously, I made my way to the women's health section. I stopped before rounding the corner, checking to make sure there was no one around. I glanced at the isles quickly, anxious to get out of there as soon as possible, but Tammy was searching carefully. Trying to find something that could answer her questions. "Get that one, please." She motioned to a small book, I picked it out of the shelf and opened it. I turned the pages and began to read to Tammy. The book was about dating for women. It was quite detailed and even I got interested in the "dating tactics" women used. I sighed and secretly wished a good-looking chick could practice her tactics out on me. But sadly that wasn't the case. I read to her for a good 30 minutes. Until the sudden smell of sweet strawberry perfume caught my attention. A woman? "That's what I am Dreeve, isn't that great?" "Yes, but there's another one nearby. We should get out of here. I really don't want to be seen here." The smell got closer. Until my eyes came upon the image of a beautiful woman. She had light brown hair that seemed to be naturally curly and was grown all the way to her thighs. She wore a colorful tie-dyed T-shirt with the symbol for a woman in the center, her blouse was small and I could see her nipples through them. Her abnormally tight shorts revealed the fine outline of her hips and displayed her long, slender legs. Damn, she was fine. "Dreeve! Watch out, you're staring again!" "Huh?" My eyes couldn't get off her. A pair of bright green eyes turned on me. Almost blinding me. "Oh shit.." I muttered underneath my breath. She rolled her eyes at me, and I quickly averted my gaze back to the book. She began to browse through some books, passively flipping the pages and pretending she didn't notice my staring. "I want to get out of here Tammy, I don't want to get in trouble." The woman put down her book and began to walk away. Her back was turned, and against my own common sense I took a long glance at her firm ass. She turned instantly, as if she predicted my actions beforehand. Now I had screwed myself up. "You men are so pathetic!" She charged at me, her shiny hair reflecting on me like a lamp from an interrogation room. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to, I just-" "You sick pervert!" A stinging slap across the face, leaving the bittersweet scent of her perfume. That hurt, but not as much as booted kick to the knee, which brought me tumbling to the ground. "You're over reacting a bit don't you think?" I tried to suck in the pain and stand up again, no luck. My subconscious pulled out the words from old stack of flash cards. I attempted to get back up on my feet, Tammy was helping me out the best she could. More footsteps coming, this was getting out of hand quick. "Is there a problem here ma'am?" A third voice came from behind me. A Barnes and Noble's employee in his Dockers and polo shirt uniform came into sight. The lady stood their trying to catch her breath, her eyes glaring with such familiar hatred. "This man is harassing me! I want him out of here!" "Is this true?" I got back on my feet again, leaning my hand on the bookshelf next to me. "Hell no!" Like he would believe me. She was beginning to bring out the on command tears. My fate was sealed. "Sir, I'm going to have to ask you to leave." I got one last glance at her before I walked out. Feeling sorry that Tammy's learning would have to end because of my damn goo-goo eyes. I walked out of the doors, and back into the hub of Rew City. Defeated again. Chapter 20: Cocoa the cat I walked down the streets of Rew City, this time cautious not to even look at any woman, for fear that I would offend them and end up getting another beating. It was so pitiful that I couldn't even look at the creatures that I loved so much for fear that I would be punished for it. I simply stared at the ground as I walked, hoping that would be enough to safely navigate through the hectic streets and not get hit by a car. "Did you hear that Dreeve?" Tammy spoke up, interrupting my misery. "Hear what?" I forced myself to look up, a young woman walked into my line of sight. "Damn!" I covered my eyes with my hands, I must've looked really silly doing that out in the streets. "Dreeve, don't worry about that. She walked into your line of sight, so that doesn't count. Besides there's no law saying you can't look at women. Don't be so hard on yourself now. I still think you're a cool guy." "Sorry." I uncovered my eyes again, and found myself standing before the window of a pet shop. The rough barking of dogs and the dainty meowing of cats came to my attention. "You hear that Dreeve? Those must be 'pets' huh?" "Yeah, those are pets." Tammy stared at the little critters in wonderment. "They're so cute! Look at that one!" Tammy nudged at a small kitten. It was a brownish one with stripes of different shades of brown. I edged closer to the window and knelt down so Tammy and I could get a closer view. "Ah, look at its tiny paws!" I smiled at Tammy's cooing. As I looked at the small kitten a name suddenly came to mind. "Cocoa." The name of my cat came rushing back into my memory, already I was missing him. "Huh?" Tammy's cooing stopped. "He looks just like my cat Cocoa when he was a kitten." "Really? Cocoa must've been so cute! This little thing looks like a tiny Hershey's Kisses drop!" "Yeah, that was Cocoa alright. Always reminded me of chocolate." Tammy was full of questions tonight. "I remember you saying Cocoa ran away, did he ever come back?" Tammy asked innocently. I closed my eyes as I remembered what had really happened to Cocoa. I didn't want to tell Tammy the truth. I didn't know how she would react to it, but she'd find out sooner or later. "He never came back, did he?" Tammy stated after a long silence. "Cocoa was missing for a week. During that time I had posted missing cat pictures of him all over town, in every spot I could think of. During the day I would search the neighborhood, in all the alleys, anywhere I thought a cat would hang out. I even asked one of Trissa's friends to ask everyone she knew if they'd seen him, but there was no luck finding him. I just couldn't live with the thought that Cocoa would just get up and leave like that, I felt that he must've been kidnapped or anything other then me being stupid enough to leave my window open!" The small kitten in the window began clawing at the glass, it seemed to have thought my hair was a ball of yarn as it scraped away. "Oh, so he escaped from the window while you were asleep or something?" "Yeah, God I'm such and idiot." I pulled my hand away from the window, and the kitten went back to staring at me through its two oversized eyes. "It wasn't your fault Dreeve." Tammy tried to console me. I knew all too well that it was entirely my fault, I left the window open because I heard fresh air made your skin healthier, I wanted perfect skin for Trissa. "Anyways, after a while I started to become paranoid." I became more than paranoid, I became violent. Every dog made me want to strangle it and demand it to tell me where Cocoa was. "Why's that?" The kitten scuffled over to the rest of its brothers and sisters. "Because I knew that my next door neighbor owned a pit bull. That damn thing was a mean son of a bitch. He would do nothing but bark and jump at that weak fence that seemed it would fall down at any moment. So, not knowing what else to do I decided to climb over the fence just enough to get a look at the backyard." Tammy went completely silent, as if hoping not to hear what she was going to hear. "Cocoa," I choked on a sudden unwanted rush of tears. "Cocoa was torn to bits, his insides were all over the yard like road kill." Tammy gasped. I covered my face to hide the sudden on pour of tears. "That stupid dog! I knew he'd end up killing someone, I never thought it would be Cocoa!" "Don't cry Dreeve." I was hoping she hadn't notice. "Ah, God! Why am I crying? Men aren't supposed to cry!" Tammy softened her song and began to generate a warmth around me, as if to comfort me. "You loved Cocoa a lot. It's ok to cry." It wasn't ok, I was supposed to be strong, I was supposed to me macho! I could almost see Mitch and Tray watching me, laughing at me for shedding tears over such a stupid thing. "That damn kid and his stupid dog! I knew that dog was a hazard! I knew that he wanted to eat Cocoa up! God, if only I hadn't left that window open! If only I hadn't!" Tammy continued to sooth my sorrow with her song. I was as embarrassed as I was sad. After a while the tears finally took a break, and I was allowed to see clearly again. "So, Cocoa got eaten up by a pit bull?" "Yeah." I said simply. We were both silent for a long time not knowing what to do or say. "Poor Cocoa." Tammy said mournfully. "I was ready to kill the first person I saw the moment I found Cocoa torn to bits. Cocoa was like a brother to me, I was so caught up with Trissa at the time that I didn't have the time to make friends with anyone else. Cocoa and I were best buddies, he listened to everything I told him. He'd put up with all my bullshit about Trissa and all. He wasn't just a cat, he was my best friend." "Sort of like I am to you?" The kitten in the window began to jump around his brothers and sisters, causing the sawdust to leap up like popcorn at the movies. "Yeah. That dog murdered my friend! I had to get revenge somehow, I had to avenge Cocoa's death. I decided to go next door and talk to the kid or his parents or something. When I walked up and rang the doorbell his mom answered. I told her what happened and then she just scolded in this nagging tone, 'I'm not responsible for where your stupid cat goes! It's your own fault for all this. Expect to pay for the cleanup bills, because I'm certainly not cleaning that mess up!' And with that she just slammed the door."
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