Thanks, TJ

TJ Myers could be cruel to adults and small animals. He wasn’t cruel to children. Never to children. Despite what some people thought TJ had been a child himself once. He knew what it was like to be hurt by an adult and he swore to never hurt a child once he became a grown-up. And he never had. But he could cut other adults to the bone. He was savage with his words and deeds. Of course he always felt terrible afterwards. He felt guilty and thought the best thing to do in order to never hurt anyone again was to put a bullet in his brain. That’s exactly how he’d phrase it, “Put a bullet in my brain.” He never would of course. Or, at least, he never thought he would. The problem, as he saw it, was this - TJ believed in God. He believed in Heaven and Hell. And he did not want to spend eternity in a burning lake of fire because he’d put a bullet in his brain. That was for sure. Now, granted, he might end up in Hell anyway but it would be for an oversight, a sin he’d forgotten to ask forgiveness for. No way was he going to intentionally go to Hell. He planned on spending eternity behind those Pearly Gates. Walking down those streets of gold and talking with the Saints and the Disciples and even Jesus Himself. Bending the ear of God. Getting all his questions answered. Did He really build the world in seven days? Did Noah really build that ark? Was Jonah actually swallowed whole by a whale? Did Moses have a lisp? Did Oswald kill Kennedy? Who was Jack the Ripper? These were things that bothered TJ and he was going to get the answers and he wasn’t going to ruin that by putting a bullet in his brain. Of course he didn’t even own a gun so he was probably safe from the whole ‘bullet in the brain’ thing anyway. The only time he’d ever owned a gun was when he was a policeman but that had lasted all of twelve weeks and he had to return the gun when he quit the department along with his uniforms (the gray ‘rookie’ shirts, not the cool black ones – he’d never been issued those) and all departmental issue notebooks and field guides. He was able to keep his handcuffs because he had bought them himself and they let him have his nametag because he was told there would probably never be another officer named TJ Myers. He’d lost the nametag somewhere along the way. He broke the handcuff key once when he was trying to unlock an actress from his wrist during a rehearsal of an off-off Broadway play. It had been in the middle of winter and they ended up having to walk from 85th and Broadway down to 64th where there was a police station. A cop who looked like a homeless guy opened his ragged coat and had a ring of keys inside. He popped the handcuffs no problem.
“Bet you don’t see this everyday”, TJ said to the homeless cop.
“Oh, sure,” the cop said, “But usually they bring in the headboard.”
TJ wasn’t brought down by a bullet in his brain but by a spot on his lung. He slipped into the arms of God on a cold November afternoon in New York City. He had no family but he will be missed. Missed by a fellow actor who will write a few words for him and missed by an actress who remembers a snowy evening, walking down Broadway in handcuffs.