St. Valentine’s Day Massacre Issue | ‘09 #1-2

After work, I take the J train from Manhattan to my apartment in Brooklyn. It’s Friday night so my two roommates and I, feeling festive, smoke a couple of bong hits and listen to Abba before Johnny (the nice roommate, music junkie) gets twitchy and changes the record to Waylon Jennings “Greatest Hits” then gets twitchy again and puts on “Bitch’s Brew.” Leslie (the desperate roommate) sits at the kitchen table in front of the computer and instant-messages with some guy she met online. Every few seconds she grins maniacally at whatever the internet guy is writing to her. Johnny got a new haircut today. He chopped some of his brown hair off into the toilet and dyed the rest neon pink — he sort of looks like a weird version of one of the characters in The Warriors. I sit on the dirty living room couch rolling a cigarette and contemplating changing my bra because the underwire is starting to pinch. Johnny shakes a can of green spray paint and I watch as he decorates the wall with a pretty decent drawing of an old guy in a wheelchair shooting a submachine gun at a unicorn. The window’s open and a cactus is perched on the window ledge with a stick of burning incense shoved in the dirt; the JMZ train rumbles past on the elevated tracks nearby and makes the entire second story apartment rattle.

Leslie wants beer. Johnny wants beer. I want beer. But not one of us is willing to walk to the deli to buy it. Leslie leans back in her chair and chuckles about whatever the internet guy writes: with her bright red lipstick, drawn-on eyebrows, and her flab and cleavage spilling out of her black tank top, she looks like a blubbery white blow-up doll wearing clothes that are too tight. How perfect that she’s a phone sex operator. Last week my friend, Handsome Rene, and I stuffed Leslie into a cab and took her to the emergency room in Bushwick because she claimed that she’d eaten four or maybe seven Vicodin. She’s tried these lame suicide attempts a number of times and maybe I should be flattered that I’m the person she relies on to deal with it. I can’t say no but I’m fairly certain that the attempts aren’t real. Sort of a catch 22: I don’t want to discredit every attempt as just drama because what if the one time I do, I happen to be wrong and she’s toast; but still, I’m hand-feeding her insatiable attention monster. And each time I get one of her, “I’m so sad, I think I took too many…” phone calls, I have to stop what I’m doing (which usually isn’t much), find her and take her to the hospital. At least Johnny is pretty normal, semi-normal, and requires about as much attention as the cactus.

“You should really go buy us all some beer, Leslie. We’ll give you money,” I tell her.

“Not it.”

“We’re not playing the ‘not-it’ game right now. Please, beer, please.”

Leslie ignores my whining and continues to instant-message with the internet boy. She dates a crap load of internet boys. These random and lonely men (receding hair lines, acne, low paying jobs, sweatpants, mommy issues, and moist palms) willing to date anything that claims a pulse: men that make up the chain link fence that protects Leslie from real intimacy. Not that I have relationships figured out myself. I don’t. But I’m better off than Leslie. Well, sort of.

“I’ll buy you a steak sandwich if you go now,” I yell to her from my spot on the couch.

“You can’t bribe me with food, Jasmine. Make Johnny go,” she yells back from the kitchen.

“Seriously Leslie, I’ll buy your beer and a sandwich.” I walk through the living room into the kitchen with my arms out like one of the slow moving zombies in Night of the Living Dead, “Thirsty…Thirsty…” I put my hands around her neck and she pretends to choke to death.

“I like it when you choke me,” Leslie says. She raises both drawn-on eyebrows in some odd and suggestive pose. Not again. I stop play-choking her and give her sad eyes.

“Okay, okay, okay. I’ll go.” She giggles.

Johnny and I piece together twelve bucks and Leslie snatches the money from Johnny and slides the bills into her floppy boobage. She leaves. Johnny takes her spot at the computer; he smashes an intruding roach, with his palm, into the table, leaving a gross brown smear of legs and shell, and within five minutes of Leslie being gone, the boy comes up with a plan.

“Jasmine, sooo, what do you say we post an ad on Craigslist in the Women Seeking Men section and see if anyone will come take the annoying one away for the night?”

My mind is officially blown. “What do we say?” I ask.

Johnny sputters out the words as he types the Craigslist post, “Help! Our annoying roommate is stoned and loud and driving us crazy. Please do anything to shut her up. If interested, just come over. We live at 1857 Cook Street, Brooklyn. Thanks!” He looks up at me, “How’s that sound?”

I rub my chin. “Add a line. Add the line: All cats are gray in the dark.”

“Done.”

And within minutes we post our devious little gem of a plan and within minutes I feel guilty, especially considering all the freaks in New York, but not guilty enough to do anything about it. Leslie returns from the deli about a half-hour later. She holds a paper bag of forty-ounce beers under one arm and a wrapped steak sandwich in her opposite hand. After an hour of watching Johnny play Dr. Mario on Nintendo, we get our first taker. As I walk over to answer the door, guilt tramples over me like a herd of buffalo. Leslie isn’t so bad. In some ways she’s socially fearless; she’s creates drama which on occasion -has made my life more interesting, and she looks up to me like I’m her older, wiser, and prettier big sister -even though we’re the same age. I can’t just coat her in butter and throw her to the wolves, so before I answer the door, I yell to her: “Leslie, we put an ad for you on Craigslist to have some Prince Charming come swoop you away. I’m really sorry.”

“That’s funny!” She giggles from the kitchen.

“You’re not, at all, mad?”

“No, I think it’s funny. Maybe I’ll meet a dreamboat.”

I roll my eyes and open the door.

A decent looking guy, same age as us -mid twenties, leather jacket, spiky black hair, bright white teeth, possibly Native American, stands there holding a shoe box with a purple bow on it. “I’m Keith, I’m here for the ah… roommate.”

“Sure, sure,” I smile. “Come in.”

Johnny sets his forty down on top of the TV and shakes Keith’s hand. “Hey, how’s it going, man?”

“Good,” Keith says.

Johnny beams a huge smile at the guy. “Just to be clear, you aren’t some crazy, psycho douche bag that’s going to do un-mentionable-things to my roommate Leslie, are you?”

“Not really,” He smiles, “I liked your ad, funny.” Johnny and Keith laugh.
Leslie saunters out of the kitchen like a fat Marilyn Monroe and speaks in her little phone-sex kitty voice, “Hey, I’m Leslie.”

“This is for you.” Keith hands her the shoe box.

Leslie pulls off the lid, “I love it. It’s beautiful!” She pulls out a little metal owl. It’s a great gift, or at least–something I would like. Damn, Keith is pretty cool and I’m a little miffed about it.

Keith hangs out with us for twenty minutes while Leslie dolls-up in the bathroom. Johnny and I grill Keith about his life: he works in Chelsea as a computer programmer, collects comic books, listens to a lot of old country music, plays acoustic songs in the vein of Hoyt Axton, and likes films made in the 1970’s. He comments admiringly about the abundance of graffiti on our apartment walls, the piles of dirty dishes in the kitchen, the chair glued to the ceiling, and the stacks of books, records, and junk everywhere. Keith actually likes our trash-hole- gutter-chic apartment. Johnny gets Keith’s cell number and offers to let him open for his band at a house-show we’re having the following weekend. Keith and Leslie leave.

I smoke two more cigarettes but stop drinking beer. It’s 8:30. Johnny gets a call from his girlfriend and blows me a friendly kiss as he leaves for the night. I have nothing to do. I spend twenty minutes talking to Handsome Rene on the phone about the pros and cons of liposuction. He tries to convince me to go to the gay bar with him but the idea of surrounding myself with attractive, well-groomed, sweaty, unavailable men for a few hours sounds too depressing. I decline his invitation by telling him the truth: that I’ve been working way too many hours this week at my housecleaning job and sleep sounds amazing. I do twenty five sit-ups in my room and then I stare at myself in the mirror on the closet door for a while. I’m glad I don’t have a boyfriend. I probably shouldn’t feel so happy that I don’t have one but they’re a lot of work and I want to find the perfect one. And honestly, I’m not ready for all the responsibility and in a lot of ways; I’m still not over my last one –though it has been three years. But I know I could have a boyfriend if I wanted. I mean, Leslie finds boys on a daily basis. It can’t be that difficult.

At 9:30, I put on my pajamas, plow through a chapter of Robert Jordan’s Knife of Dreams (one of the last in the Wheel of Time series) and I start to doze when someone knocks softly at the apartment door. I’m kind of thankful that someone’s here to relieve me of my boredom but when I answer the door, it’s a guy I’ve never seen before. He peers at me through slinky gray-blue eyes. His hair is brown and short. He seems in-shape, thin, and his skin has a healthy glow to it. He wears a long black coat, button-up shirt, and a burgundy scarf. I’m guessing he works in a bookstore and spends his nights sipping lattes and arguing about arcane stuff with his other bookish pals.

“Speak,” I say.

“Hi, damn this is awkward and… but did you post something on Craigslist about a roommate?” He enunciates his words sharply, and his voice sounds tinged with a little sadness or like a guy who doesn’t talk much because he’s shy. It’s the scratchy blue velvet voice of a dude who plays an upright bass in a dive jazz club – I don’t trust it.

“Oh. We did. But some unlucky bastard already nabbed her.”

“Did you write the ad?”

“Sort of…”

“Quite the little jokester, made my night.”

“Oh.” I put my hand on the open door; I’m ready to shut it.

He smiles politely at me. I’m guessing that he wishes he would have prepared more things to say or perhaps he’s waiting for me to speak. He scratches his head and I can tell he’s thinking pretty hard until finally he blurts out, “My cat, Mona, had a litter of kittens this week. They’re all in my room, so I should probably get back to my apartment and ah, check on them.”

“Cats…” I say.

“Kittens, mostly gray colored - fur balls. That’s kind of why I liked your post. I liked the all cats are gray in the dark line.”

“Oh.”

“Well, you know, thank you. I felt like, ah, total shit when I got home from work and your humor helped. I’ll see you around sometime, or something.” He smiles, the lines of his face spread into a beautiful and elaborate web. I don’t trust anything about this guy.

I clear my throat. “Wait a minute; there’s a diner… It’s probably too late and I’m tired. But… Well, I don’t know, we could go get coffee. I’m not doing much.” I say -trust is overrated.

“No, I should be heading home.”

What? You came here. You came all the way over and now you’re just going home. That doesn’t even make any sense. What’s with men? Huh? What is with you guys and your bullshit? I mean, really! “Whatever. Have a good night.”

“Sorry, I didn’t mean for this to be weird.” He frowns but it seems more like feigned sympathy.

“Whatever. See ya.” I’m hurt and I don’t know why, I just am. It’s as if he came over here looking for Leslie and checked me out, probably realized that I wouldn’t be giving it up, and truthfully he probably doesn’t like what he sees and now’s he’s leaving. I’ve somehow unintentionally put myself out there to be rejected. Bosh!

He turns and quickly scuttles back down the stairs — he can’t get away from me fast enough. “Hey guy.” I yell. He gets to the last wooden stair, stops, and turns around and glares up at me. “You really aren’t that great,” I say. I take a step back into my apartment. The lines on his face drop into a frown. There’s something sinister about the way he looks up at me, like I’ve somehow become someone else to him (maybe a hated girlfriend from his past or a parent who abandoned him). He looks towards the door to the street and then looks back up at me. He bolts up the stairs: stomp, stomp, stomp, stomp, stomp. He wags his finger at me and his mouth makes a clicking noise. I begin to shut the apartment door. He has this look on his face like he wants to strangle me or at least berate me and I’m not really sure what to do. But right as he gets to the top of the stairs -SMACK! My fist connects to his face. He drops to the ground. He lays still. Instantly, blood flows out his nose or lip (I can’t tell which) onto the dirty wood floor, the crimson spreads a few inches from my sock covered toes. “Shit. Hey, you okay?” But he doesn’t move. He doesn’t make a noise. I don’t trust it.

It’s one of those situations where you know you should call the police. You know you should call the ambulance. But you don’t. You freeze up.

Because, well. I feel conflicted about this. The guy looked like he wanted to kill me. He moans. This is a good sign. But still, I don’t know what he’s capable of. So I do what any non-caring person would do. I pick up his ankles and I drag him into the hall. He’s not so heavy but it takes all the energy in me. When I get him into the dark hallway near the stairs, he starts to moan a bit louder. I have a feeling he’ll be up and good as new, soon enough, so I go back into my apartment and lock the door.

I spend twenty minutes digging through my junk-filled closet searching for bullets to my 22.caliber rifle that I inherited from my great uncle. But I can only find the little empty box which means the bullets are probably woven into the layers of junk the way fossils are often woven into layers of sediment. I walk back to the front door, and peek out at the guy. Please be gone, please be gone, please be gone. But he’s not. He’s still laying there and his lip looks bloody but I’m guessing it’s just a brief concussion from hitting his head on the floor and he’ll be up in no time. I shut the door and pace frantically. Who to call, who to call… I know that Handsome Rene will have way too much of a freak out if I call him. And he’ll advise me to call the cops and somehow I feel like I could get in trouble for all this. If I call Johnny, I might be interrupting his girlfriend time and I don’t want to concede that he could probably solve my problems better than I can. I could call Leslie but she’s on a date with, finally, a decent guy – a guy who can inherit my role as caretaker of her issues and free me of the burden. Which leaves my boss from the housecleaning gig but she’s a total Republican and I already know what she’ll tell me – gosh, keep looking for those bullets. I walk into the kitchen and down a cup of water and wash my hands. I’m breathing hard and I can feel the apartment shake and rumble again because of the passing JMZ train on the elevated tracks.

I hop on the internet. I want to post another Craigslist ad that reads, “Help, there’s a creepy guy passed out just outside my apartment door, please come and take him away. You will be rewarded handsomely. Please hurry!” but I don’t. I just remove the first ad. I turn off the computer and after nervously pacing for five minutes; I decide to check on the weirdo with the blue velvet voice. I open the door ever-so-slightly. I peek out but the guy isn’t lying there anymore, just a little pool of his blood remains. I shut the door, lock it, and sit back down on the couch and stare blankly at the coffee table until the tobacco pouch and rolling papers come into focus. I roll a cigarette and light up and then this overwhelming feeling of guilt gurgles up from my gut and I realize what a horrible human being I am for punching this innocent guy, dragging him to the hall, then leaving him. Who does that?

I walk into Leslie’s bedroom, which is almost entirely decorated in heart decorations –hearts on the bedspread, hearts in her posters, a painting of a heart over her bed, and a really ugly cupid towel that’s been tacked up above the little love seat in front of her TV. Her room smells like a mix of lilac air freshener and nail polish remover. I lay on the bed, my head and arms dangle over the side. I fish my hands under the bed until I feel the shoe box. I excavate the shoe box and mill through it (tampons, markers, a photo of The New Kids on the Block, phone numbers scribbled on matchbooks, cards, little scraps of paper, a little notebook of her bad poetry, a brush) until I find Leslie’s prescription bottle of Vicodin that she somehow scored from one of her internet dates. I pop two pills, without a glass of water, and I know it’s too many because they’re the prescription kind, not the stuff you get from Canada, and probably way too powerful for me, especially considering I’m pretty thin and have no tolerance for such drugs. Twenty minutes pass, I think. I’m still lying on Leslie’s bed, I feel like a root beer float. I feel so good in fact, that I take another pill and then another. Things slow. Way too slow. Life floats at me. Knock, knock, knock. I say the words out loud as if this will help me comprehend what’s going on: “Someone is knocking at the door.” And then I realize that, in fact, someone is actually knocking at the door. I stand and almost fall because I’m a little dizzy but I stumble out to the living room and to the front door and for a second I think to myself, this is a bad idea, don’t answer the door, but I’m stupid and messed-up so I answer it and a huge guy stands there.

“Ah, hi.” I know I’m slurring.

From what I can decipher in my state, the dude is completely bald, maggot white, tall, hairy like a baby monkey, wearing a white shirt that says something about a cement company (stained by mustard, I think…) he has a thick gold ring on his finger, he’s wearing gray sweat pants, moccasins (which actually look pretty comfortable), tube socks pulled up, and he has to weigh like 250-plus and I’m pretty sure he’s in his mid-forties. His arms are covered with tattoos of ships, a zebra, a zombie geisha, and the word “Mother” is tattooed in purple cursive on his bicep.

“I’m here for the girl.” His accent is thick, Bronx.

“What are you talking about?” My lips form the words but it’s as if I’m speaking the language of a dream. Like the words just float out of my mouth without effort.

“I’m Donny. I’m gonna take the roomie away.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, she’s already gone. I should have taken the ad down sooner.”

“Well, I should get some type of reward just for comin’ all the way out here. You’re a decent lookin’ girl. I got a cement truck in Long Island City, ever heard of Tony’s Cement Incorporated?” He scratches his head. “My wife don’t give a shit, you know? She’s got brain cancer but she don’t know that I come all this way. You got a boyfriend?”

“My boyfriend’s NYPD.”

“That right?”

“My grandma just died.” I try another tactic. “You close to your granny? I loved my granny. She raised me, the ruthless bitch. I’m just kiddin’.”

He glances around the apartment like he’s either assessing the value of our stuff or canvassing to see if anyone else is home.

“I’m really sad, so… You should go now.”

“Girly, ain’t no NYPD live in this shithole, maybe an A-rab cabbie. And I don’t give a fuck about a dead grandma, know what I mean?” His fingers remind me of night crawlers, the way they move.

He and I stare at each other for a long time before I finally give up, and as pathetic as it sounds, I ask, “Do you want to go get a cup of coffee? My name’s Jasmine.”

I stick my hand out to shake but he only shakes the tips of my fingers, his hand is cold. He looks me up and down, like he’s weighing certain factors in his mind but I’m not really sure what those are. He frowns, “Nah, I should get back to my wife. You have a nice night.”

I listen at the door and I can hear the guy’s footsteps as he bumbles down the stairs. I go to the window and watch him exit the apartment building then shuffle down the street.

Five minutes pass before I’m able to do anything. My hands tremble. I roll another cigarette. I bring it to my lips. I grab my cell phone and call the first number I can find which happens to be Leslie.

I turn the cell phone off before it has a chance to ring. I speak into the phone to no one. “Leslie… I ate too many Vicodins. I’m not doing so well. You have to come back here and take me to the hospital. I feel bad for interrupting your date with the dreamboat but… you owe me one.” I put the phone in my pocket, lock the apartment door, go into my bedroom, and fall onto my bed. At least I’m not Leslie.

© 2009 Joey Amdahl
A novelist, painter, screenwriter, musician, Joey’s Life Outside The Box was featured in SS 08#2 at http://smokesignalsmag.com/2/dicklit.htm