Story for my Sister #4

The last thing she said to me as I stood at her apartment door staring it her stupidly was, “Have a nice life.” I continued to stare for a few moments after she slammed the door, and finally stumbled backwards in disbelief. Eventually I’d have to figure out how to get my belongings out of the hallway, and possibly more importantly, where I would take them. First though, my mind was in dire need of a jump start that was not forthcoming.
Instead, abstract visions of the woman on the other side of the door swirled through my head, garbled against meaningless memories and short strings of thought that all seemed to come to the same abrupt dead end. As more and more intangible ideas sprung forth in my mind, the barrage of images came faster and faster until I had become so overcome that I fell back into the wall where I slid down onto the floor.

--

Normally when I open my eyes to a long pair of legs in black thigh highs I get a little excited, but when I woke up and saw my ex-girlfriend towering above me I was nearly overwhelmed with indifference. Apparently I had fallen asleep where she left me the night before, and when she found me her only words were, “You’re pathetic,” to which I so gracefully replied, “No, you’re pathetic.” With a short “Pf” she left.
I had dated this woman for a lot of reasons: her looks, sex… ok, two reasons, but certainly not for her intelligence. A few giggles rose up from my gut when I pulled out my apartment key. It only took a few minutes to get all my things inside, and after a long nap on the couch I finally got around to calling up one of my friends, Larry.
“Just like that, huh,” Larry said after my shocking recount of the events.
“Yeah,” I said, “I was like, ‘you bitch, I don’t even want to live with you any more. I’m outta’ here.’" And that’s all there was.
“But you’re in the apartment now?” he asked.
“Well… yeah.” I waited for him to respond, but he didn’t. “Anyways, I need a place to stay.”
“Isn’t it your apartment?” asked Larry.
“Hey, you’re right!” I stood up in excitement. “Man, why didn’t I think of that! You’re the man, Larry!”
“That’s my job, bro.”
--
By five o’ clock I had moved all my stuff back into the apartment and her stuff into the hallway. I had just enough time to kick back on the sofa and watch some TV before she came barging in. “What the hell is this shit!” she yelled so loud that a few of my Lord of the Rings figurines I had put on the table fell down.
“You think you’re all high and mighty,” I said, not bothering to get up to look at her, “But you forgot one thing. This is my apartment.”
“You’re an idiot!” she said, storming through the place like a drill sergeant. “The lease is in my name!”
Was she lying? I couldn’t tell. “Yeah right, then why is it my apartment?” I said, not entirely sure of what I meant.
“I’m calling the police.”
--
“Hey, what’s up,” said Larry, “Did you give that bitch what’s coming to her?”
“Uh, yeah,” I said. “I really told her off, but, uh, look. I need you to come downtown and bail me out of jail.”

--

“Hey,” I said, collapsing onto Larry’s couch, “Thanks a lot, man.”
He threw me a beer and plopped down beside me. “Hey, no problem. You can crash here as long as you need. Besides, you would have done the same for me, right?”
I tried to run the scenario through my head, but came to no conclusions. “Sure man,” I said anyways.
Larry took a gulp from his beer and made a long Ahhh sound. “Yeah, so did you have to call off from work today?”
Because I hadn’t called off from work, my first instinct was to say, “Fuck,” but instead I said, “God fucking damn shit fuck.”
“Hey, it’s cool man,” Larry said, flipping vacantly through the TV channels. “They’ll probably understand. Just tell them what happened, tomorrow.”
--
On the short drive to work my attention was split fairly evenly between the visor mirror and the road. Despite running a red light and almost running down a kid on a bicycle, I did manage to come up with a somber face that would make even the meanest of bullies ask me what’s wrong.
Once I arrived at the office, I took a deep breath and strode in.
It wasn’t until Millie, the secretary, greeted me that I realized I’d forgotten to come up with a story. “Good morning,” she said, “Is something wrong?”
“Hey, Millie,” I said, “Yeah, I uh, ummm.”
Fortunately my boss, Dave, caught sight of me and interrupted. Not-so-fortunately, he was pissed. “Where the hell were you, yesterday!” he bellowed.
“My grandfather passed away,” I said, contorting my face to look even more solemn.
His eyes narrowed and his face turned blood red. “Your grandfather died last month!”
“Other side of the family,” I tried to thinking about bunnies getting slaughtered, or the last time I played the lottery and lost. The tears were on their way, but still needed some time. “Look, it’s just really hard for me right now, ok?”
Dave was fuming now as he closely examined me from head to toe. I’m sure he knew I was lying, but my story was without flaw. And soon came the first tears.
As our standoff continued, one of my co-workers came by and put his arm around my back. “Hey,” he said, “I don’t know what’s got you so bummed out, but your grandpa’s on line 1. Wants to know if you want to go to the ball game tonight.”
I hastily picked up the phone from the secretary's desk. “Grandpa!” I said as ecstatically into the phone as I could, not really paying attention to what he was saying. “You’re alive! The doctors said you died! … They even put you in the morgue?! … No! … Yeah … Yeah! A miracle! Wow! … Ok, well, I’m glad to hear you’re alive but I really have to get to work, so I’ll talk to you later! … I love you too, Grandpa. Bye.”
“Did you hear that!” I said to everyone, “He’s alive after all!”
Dave put his fist through the drywall.

--

“Hey man,” Larry said to me one night while we were watching Golden Girls, “It’s cool if you want to crash here, and I don’t mind if we share food, but maybe you should get a job, you know? Maybe pay for some of the food you eat, or even a little rent?”

“Larry,” I said in despair, “I thought we were friends to the end. You know if I had a place you’d be there eating my food.”

Larry frowned and opened his mouth to say something, but I interrupted, “Ok, ok. I’ll look for a job tomorrow.” It wasn’t understanding that led me to say that, but rather gears turning in my head revealing the wondrous job opportunities that I might seize.

I saw myself saving babies from burning buildings, driving stunt cars through storefronts, and patrolling the White House grounds for ninjas. Professional boob-jiggler sealed the deal.

“You’re a real friend, man,” he said.

I made a shh noise at him and pointed to the television where Rose was about to make an awfully humorous comment.

--

Much to my dismay, I could not find an opening for boob-jiggler. Instead I had to settle for submitting my resume to the fire department, the local minor league baseball team, a slew of desk jobs, and a random assortment I called ‘other.’

The fire department was more than willing to take me on, but only if I went through some sort of training program. When I asked them why I had to do so much training to be the designated baby and attractive woman rescuer, the official decided that our conversation did not need to continue.

When the baseball team called, I just couldn’t get into the coach’s head how my extensive knowledge of database programming would give me a distinct advantage at the plate. That conversation ended with the coach threatening to “beat my face in with an aluminum bat, dickhead.”

Most of the calls for the other jobs went similarly, but I did score a couple interview. Even better, I won over the manager of a taxicab company with my fluency in English. I’d always wanted to be a taxi driver—ever since I got the job.