In the photo, he and some old girlfriend smiled — their greasy faces idiotic with hope that the picture would one day remind them that for three seconds they acted happy and thought it final.
“Hey have you thought of a name yet,” I asked.
He turned and hung over the side of his bed facing me.
“What.”
“A name. For the movie.”
“No, I haven’t thought about it.”
I set the bowl down and put my elbows over my propped knees — then held my left wrist with my right hand. I said, “How about, Carmen Hopefully Doesn’t Reproduce Himself.”
He laughed.
“No wait I wasn’t finished,” I said. “It’s Carmen Hopefully Doesn’t Reproduce Himself, Because That Would Suck Because He’s An Asshole.”
“Sounds good,” he said. “I like it.”
“Nice soccer trophies by the way,” I said.
“Thanks,” he said.
“You should’ve put the camera on the other side of the room so people could totally see your trophies,” I said. “That’d make the whole thing so much more awesome. That way they could be like, oh man, and trophies.”
“They wouldn’t shine the right way in video, I think,” he said. Then he coughed once, loudly, and went, “ehh” to clear his throat.
“What are the trophies for, is that soccer.”
“Baseball,” he said. “Pretty much everyone on the team got one, if they showed up to the last practice and stuff.’”
In the video Carmen and a girl came back into the room.
They talked on his bed for a little bit and then Carmen started taking her clothes off.
The girl in the video wore a blue bra.
Carmen took it off her as she lay face down on his bed.
Both of their faces were poorly lit and there were circles around their eyes.
She laughed at something and pushed her hair back, folding her arms underneath her chin.
He took off his clothes and rubbed her ass with both his hands.
Then he put his dick in her from behind.
She looked behind her, eyes closed.
There was no sound in the video.
He said something in the movie, but it was soundless.
“Nice moves man,” I said. “I totally would’ve done that if I were filming myself having sex with someone and then knew I was going to show it to my roommate.”
“Yeah man,” he said.
In the video, the girl had her face down in the pillow and her hair was all over and it looked like her head had melted then froze.
Carmen cleared his throat and rewound part of the movie. “I wish I could draw on the screen like a sports broadcaster,” he said, lying back down. “Right here, I make the ‘West-side’ sign, see.”
In the video, he made the ‘West-side’ gangsign, looking at the camera.
I surveyed the trophies on his bookshelf.
Besides the trophies, there was also an old map of Illinois folded up on the bookshelf and some crossword/wordsearch puzzle books. And three volumes of an encyclopedia — the complete E and W and Br-Ch.
“Be right back I have to use the bathroom,” he said.
He went to the bathroom.
My stomach made sloshing sounds.
The video was paused — the girl’s head in the pillow and his hand on the back of her head.
She lay face down in her hair.
I was reminded for some reason that a long time ago I seemed to put off thinking about things and said I would come back to them, but never really caught up.
In the video Carmen was facing the camera — his mouth open as if screaming, “No.”
Static widened his face and the hole of his mouth, brushed them across the screen.
The video was paused in-between frames, and they flipped back and forth.
Blending.
Carmen’s open mouth and half-open eyes occupied two areas on his skull.
They whirred fast enough to almost glow.
His eyes and mouth and his expression too — everything in two places on his skull, whirring fast enough to glow.
He looked like a skeleton.
And so did I probably.
And almost everything else could be explained as an intersection between myself and something else, as a skeleton.
I scratched my shins with long loops of my thumbnail.
I moved closer to the screen and inspected the bones of his face and those around his mouth.
Each bone held tight.
But if asked why, they might not have anything interesting to say.
They might just intersect.
The screen buzzed quietly.
And I made a promise to myself.
I promised myself that, after last night’s rain dried off the grass, I’d mow the lawn.
I’d take my time, with Carmen’s shitty push-mower.
I’d get the push-mower out of the garage.
I’d grip the handles hard, pushing, sweating, taking my time to make the grass look nice.
I wouldn’t take any time to clear the fallen branches, I would just push the mower over everything, reducing everything — even if it’s a person sleeping on the grass — even three-hundred people sleeping — even everyone ever.
My feet inside whosever shoes I borrowed, greened, smelling vegetably, hot and sweating badly inside the shoes, without socks.
I’d allow myself no more or less than three breaks, to drink hose water and/or just sit on one of the three front steps, staring at the street.
And after I was satisfied with the way the grass looked, I’d clean off the blades of the push-mower — first with my shoe, then maybe a rag I find in the garage or if I have to, my shirt.
Putting away the mower in the garage, I’d take several deep breaths to enjoy the gas and oil fumes.
Then I’d get a broom if there was one, or borrow one from the guy who’s always sitting in a chair in his garage, four or five doors down.
He’d mention the Chicago Cubs, because they’d be broadcasted over a small plastic radio behind us in the garage.
And I’d broom the clippings off the sidewalk, back into the lawn, where they’d maybe get raked over the grass again, distributed nicely.
Maybe then I’d hose off the sidewalk, drink some of the hose water and put some on my face and back of neck and sweat and feel good and sit on the front steps eating a bunch of those things that are like, frozen juice inside a plastic sleeve, where you push it up through the sleeve to bite it and always wait until the end when you can drink the fully melted juice and it’s so awesome, it’s so worth it.
And then probably the kids who live down the block would come over.
And I’d let them stand around and talk to me because I know at their house they get beat because at night it’s audible from down the block.
They’d stand around asking questions to keep me occupied while one or two of the others tried to get into the house or fought each other, or attempted to get me to buy lighters for them.
And every time I’d decline doing something bad for them, the kid who was like, maybe three or four (the most evil one) would say, “Tumm on, man. Peez. Peez man.”
Carmen walked back into the room and unpaused the movie.
We watched the movie and it was boring but I felt good on account of it being summer.
“The Midwest is beautiful during the summer,” I said, opening up the map of Illinois from Carmen’s bookshelf.
Carmen was on his back, lying in bed.
Without turning, he said, “It’s the fucking greatest.”
#2
Eventually, we damaged so much stuff in the house, we all had to move out.
A couple weeks before we moved out, I was out walking around, looking through the garbage.
This was around the time people from the college started to move out of apartments and find new ones, throwing out shit that was still ok to use.