Would that work.
What would that change.
My roommate refers to it as a “worldwide friendship mandate.”
It doesn’t seem convincing.
At the liquor store I stand in line holding the beer while my roommate ties his shoes.
There is a song about love playing from the small speakers behind the register.
A homeless man gets in line behind us.
He’s holding a dirty plastic doll.
He smells worse than me and I smell worse than my roommate.
I establish a hierarchy.
My roommate looks at the homeless man then around the store, still tying his shoes.
“I hate this fucking place,” he says. He switches shoes and says, “Why do they keep the tampons by the duct tape and the gardening gloves.”
The homeless man behind us says, “In case shit gets real.”
His eyes are open wide and he is nodding.
He moves his tongue around his mouth, over two big teeth on top that look like tusks.
I nod upward once and say, “Nice tusks, man.”
The homeless man clutches his plastic doll closer to him.
“Don’t touch me,” he says. “Do not, fucking, touch me.” He laughs hoarsely, then coughs a little. He says, “Pretty soon everyone will have a better chance at falling into the pile. You know, I saw the plane crash in my dreams and it was boo-tiful. It was boot-iful.”
He kneels down and bows his head while holding up the doll.
“Boo-tiful,” he says.
I decide to play the disappearing game, where I try to see how completely I can be gone from any interaction.
The problem with this game is that with victory comes no recognition.
So I pay for the beer and the guy at the register holds up a red plastic chip I must have accidentally given him with some coins.
He says, “We don’t take bingo chips, bitch.”
He flips the bingo chip to the counter, where it bounces then lands on the floor.
I grab it off the floor and take our beer off the counter.
My roommate says, “You never told me you played bingo.”
“It was a long time ago,” I say. “I’ve changed.”
The homeless man shakes the doll at us as we leave.
It looks evil to me in the fluorescent lighting.
The bell on the door rings when we leave.
It is really cold out.
We walk home in the cold.
And I see Christmas lights still hung in a high-up window on an apartment building.
There is no talking.
The word “ouch” scrolls through my headhole in neon letters.
I feel concerned that knowing how to really forget something is a talent learned too late.
We get back to our apartment.
In the hallway outside our apartment, I hold the beer while my roommate gets out his keys.
“Hey, would you sign the paper,” he says.
“What.”
He turns the key and opens our apartment door and he says, “The piece of paper that would make everyone agree to be friends. Would you sign it.”
“Fuck that,” I say.
We stand in the hallway.
The door to our apartment is open to us.
I adjust the beer in my arms, uncomfortable.
I say, “I think like, whenever the next time somebody buys something off me, and they want to know how much it costs, I’m going to be like, ‘Fifty clams.’ And then wait a second and say, ‘Actual clams.’”
My roommate is looking into the apartment.
“Sounds good,” he says.
I adjust the beer again.
“You aren’t listening to me,” I say.
“Yeah, I know. I just kind of feel shitty.”
And he is the winner.
We go inside.
23 (Other Version of 22)
When we get back to our apartment building we stand in the hallway.
I adjust the beer in my arms and I say, “I don’t have my keys with me.”
My roommate gets his keys out.
He says, “Hey would you sign it.”
“Sign what.”
He turns the key and opens the door.
“The piece of paper that would make everyone agree to be friends,” he says. “Would you sign it.”
I say, “I’d have to see who else signed it.”
We stand outside in the hallway, looking into the open apartment.
My roommate says, “Me too.”
And we stand there staring.
We are the maggot philanthropists.
“Are you going to go in,” I say.
“I was going to wait to see who else would,” he says.
“Ha ha,” I say. “I love you.”
He nods toward the open door and he says, “Love you too.”
I say, “We are both winners here.”
We go in.
My dinner is a handful of mints taken from the entryway of a restaurant on the walk home.
I have fun.
24
It’s nighttime.
I’m sitting in the empty bathtub in our bathroom, fully clothed.
I’ve been reading one of my roommate’s old yearbooks from like his freshman year of highschool.
He keeps it in the bathroom for some reason.
There are many people in the yearbook.
I touch the people’s faces with my fingers.
I read about fun dances and experiences.
I read about science contest winners and sports things.
The word “distance” flashes through my headhole on loop, in buzzing neon letters, and I sit there.
The pictures seem so beautiful to me.
There is no relief from the feeling of the beauty of the yearbook pictures.
Goddamn.
I bite my nails and I write letters to the people in the yearbook, but I only write them in my head.
It feels good.
It feels like practice.
Overall, I am comfortable.
I’m celebrating my new status as the master-champion of the entire galaxy.
And I know that when I run from something, there is a bigger part of me that hopes I get caught than there is that hopes I get away.
My defense is that I taste horrible.
That’s my defense.
My roommate knocks at the bathroom door.
From the other side, he says, “Did I leave a shoe in there. If it’s in there, can I get it.”
I see no shoe.
25
The girl on the first floor hasn’t had a job for a while either.
She invited me over tonight.
It’s too cold to sleep in her room so we sleep in the livingroom on the couch pullout bed.
The pullout bed smells bad to me.
Maybe she is thinking the same about me.
Who knows!
We lie down together and our only light comes via tv, where a friendly old man is trying to sell necklaces.
At the bottom of the screen there is a phone number and a counter.
I watch the counter while she adjusts the sheets on the pullout bed and distributes them evenly between us.
She always does that.
It’s nice.
“It’s much warmer out here,” she says. “Why is it so cold in my room.”
I ignore her, watching the counter rise.
What’s the counter for.
The word “intriguing” scrolls across my headhole in neon letters.
Maybe that’s the amount of friends the old man has.
Fuck yeah.
You know what, I’m one of them.
I am part of that bigger number.
He just looks so friendly.
The old man I mean.
We could do everything together.
We could go bowling together.
We could dress alike.
Me and the friendly old man, we could have dates.
Try on necklaces.
Play catch with a football.
I’d always make sure to just loft the football so I wouldn’t destroy his little old-man arms.