Royal typewriter

The Royal typewriter is both a tool the Birdsey twins share and a physical measure of how difficult that sharing becomes. Given to Dominick Birdsey and Thomas Birdsey at graduation, it begins as a playful, carefully arranged gift from Ma. At the University of Connecticut, however, its lock and duplicate keys become entangled with the brothers’ competing claims to independence, and the battered case remains as a visible record of a conflict neither twin can neatly put away.

A Graduation Gift and a Shared Object

When Dominick and Thomas graduated from John F. Kennedy High School in June 1968, Ma gave them a joint present. She had taped a three-quarter-inch aluminum key inside each graduation card and written the same instruction: “Congratulations! Love, Ma and Ray. Proceed to the front hall closet.” The matching keys made the gift shared in a literal, practical sense: either brother could unlock or lock the dark blue carrying case.

The typewriter had a history of its own before it reached the twins. Ma had saved S&H green stamps for years, hoping to redeem them, and the Royal was something she had redeemed rather than simply bought. The effort behind the present gives its shared ownership a familial weight. It was not assigned to one son or offered as a tool for one particular future; it was placed between them, with two keys and identical cards.

They carried the machine into the living room, set it on the coffee table, and opened the case. Thomas, who had taken a typing class at John F. Kennedy High School, tested it with the sentence “Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country.” Dominick typed a deliberately insulting line about Thomas. Ma stopped the teasing when it went far enough and kissed each of them. The first use thus establishes the typewriter as practical equipment, a source of sibling humor, and part of a family scene in which Ma’s affection frames their competition.

Ownership and the Question of Separation

The gift’s shared arrangement becomes harder to sustain when the twins go to the University of Connecticut. Dominick argues that college is an opportunity for each brother to become his own person and make a break from their closeness. Thomas resists. By summer, his strongest objection centers on the typewriter: it belongs to him as much as to Dominick, and he does not want to depend on his brother to bring it when he needs it.

Their exchange turns a portable machine into a dispute over the terms of separation. Dominick insists, “But it’s portable!” and promises, “I’ll deliver it to you when you need it.” Thomas counters, “It’s just as much mine as it is yours,” rejecting the idea that shared ownership should require waiting for Dominick. Dominick’s final suggestion, “Keep it in your room then!” sounds like a practical solution, but it does not resolve the underlying tension. A duplicate key had made shared access possible at home; living apart makes access depend on where the typewriter is kept, who holds a key, and whether either brother trusts the other to provide it.

The Broken Case

Later, the case is cracked down the middle, with a six-inch piece broken off. Papers are scattered across the room, and a screwdriver, a rock, a hammer, and the typewriter lie on Dominick’s desk. Thomas explains that he had finished a long-overdue English paper but could not find his key. He had waited for Dominick, increasingly convinced that Dominick had hidden the key to make him fail. The locked case, intended to protect the machine, has become an obstacle that Thomas reads as evidence of deliberate exclusion.

Thomas eventually remembers that he hid his key at the beginning of the semester in an unused soap dish on the top shelf. Before remembering, he has gone outside for a rock and smashed the case open. The action has immediate practical consequences: the typewriter’s “w” and “s” no longer work. Thomas asks Dominick to type the paper, says he will buy a new case, and worries that the teacher will refuse it if it arrives even one minute after its 9:00 deadline. His hands are shaking too much for him to concentrate, and he believes the teacher is against him. The broken object is therefore bound to a specific chain of events: a missing key, a fear of sabotage, a paper due the next morning, and damage that makes the machine less usable just when Thomas needs it.

What the Damage Records

Thomas falls asleep before Dominick finishes the first page. At 8:45 the next morning, Dominick carries the paper across campus and hands it to the teacher, who assumes he is Thomas and reprimands him for poor personal management. Dominick accepts the rebuke rather than explain the mix-up. When he returns, he stands before the broken case, passes a finger over its sharp smashed edge, and looks at Thomas sleeping with his mouth open and eyes moving beneath his lids. At the end of the second semester, the university places Thomas on academic probation.

The typewriter’s damaged case makes a previously ordinary object impossible to overlook. Its lock had once enabled the twins to share a valuable gift; later, the same lock becomes the focus of suspicion, and the force used to defeat it leaves a permanent break. The machine still serves its basic purpose, but its damaged keys and case register how the brothers’ shared life has changed: Dominick is trying to establish distance, while Thomas experiences that distance as abandonment. Dominick’s delivery of the paper preserves an act of care within their conflict, but it does not restore the case or prevent the academic consequence. The Royal thus holds two meanings at once—not proof that the twins can remain inseparable, but a record of how practical dependence, fear, and loyalty persist even as they try to become separate people.