That man loved a good garage. At his home in Ohio he had "The Garage Mahal". When he moved to North Carolina he picked an apartment sight unseen because it came with a two-car garage. On our travels around the country he would spot a three or four stall garage and start salivating.
At the time of our first date, while I thought he was checking out my jeans, cute sandals & fresh pedicure he was really lusting after my 2 1/2 stall garage and the fact that the only thing in it was The Canyonero.
We shared our first kiss in that garage. Perhaps not the most romantic spot you could imagine but I think for him, it was perfect. Within months, my once almost empty garage was full of motorcycles and parts. HIS garage and most of his apartment was full so why not use all the square footage at my house?
I had fallen in love with a motorcycle hoarder. So, I had to set some boundaries.
1. My car would always be parked in my garage. As long as there was space for it, he could put anything else in there he wanted.
2. The upper two floors of the house were off limits. No motorcycles parked in the living room. No tires in the kitchen. He got the basement and garage only. Period.
Mind you - we weren't officially living together. He still had his place in North Carolina, a storage unit in Ohio, and various motorcycles parked in friends garages all over the country.
By the time he did move in, he had managed to move all of his stuff into storage units in Georgia and for the first time in probably 12 years, everything he owned was in one state.
He would spend hours down there in the garage - tinkering away, cleaning bikes, messing around with God knows what. After his long journeys we would reunite in the garage. Jake and I would run down the stairs to greet him. There would be kisses and squeals of delight. And then he would turn and give me a big hug and kisses too, with Jake wiggling between us.
Once Eddie had everything moved within the state lines of Georgia, he began parting with it all. He told me he was tired of his stuff "owning" him. And so it slowly started to disappear. We had room in the garage for both of our four wheeled vehicles plus several motorcycles. This was good. I could live like this.
I started to think that a really cool vintage bike would look great in the dining room. Oh my. What was happening to me?
On the night of Eddie's accident, in my panicked state of mind and desperate to get to the hospital, I slammed into the garage door so hard it buckled. I didn't care.
Eddie's brother managed to get it to the point where it would go up and down. Pedrow practically rebuilt it with scrap plywood. And so it stayed that way until today. Almost 17 months later, that daily reminder of that horrible night is finally gone.
Even today with the lovely, quiet new garage door, this space still belongs to Eddie. I just get to park there.
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