title

I woke up. I was lying in bed, which was also the living room sofa, and the phone was ringing on and on in the kitchen. My eyes blinked the world into focus. The ceiling looked smooth and white. An arm hung down over the side of the sofa and a knee popped up in the bedsheet like a shark’s dorsal fin. Light streamed in through a crack in the curtain, slanting down, making a pattern on the brown carpet. I was happy, and remembered where I was.

When I rolled onto the floor, I took the blanket with me. I wrapped it from both ends across my chest and stalked into the kitchen. Glaring briefly at the red flashing receiver, I picked the phone up and brought it to my ear.

“Hello?” I said.

“Yeah, hi.” It was a voice I’d never heard before. The tone was high, young, uncertain. It cracked and faltered. I heard him pause taking a breath to begin again; so I cut him off.

“I don’t want any.”

“I’m your new room-mate,” the voice said.

More confused than interested, I listened for a few moments. Scratching myself, I pulled the bedsheet up where it was slipping, grumbled something about the earliness of the morning and hung up. When I checked the alarm clock it read just after noon. Nodding and yawning, I passed my hand over the top of my crew cut head smiling and feeling it push back like the bristles of a toothbrush.

In the bathroom, I rubbed the sides of the tub down with last night’s washcloth, tossed the cloth into the washer, took a piss, and turned the shower knobs counter-clockwise until steam came up. The steam was good. It filled the bathroom, and clung to the mirror. My sinuses opened and I breathed the hot air slowly and strongly so my chest expanded. I lathered under my armpits and scrubbed my face. I rubbed behind my ears were the grease collects, and passed the cloth from hand to hand behind my back to get those hard to reach places. The water rolled down on me from eight convergent streams, warming the knot out of my shoulders and I thought about girls I knew.

Stepping lightly from the white rubber bathmat onto a blue cotton towel, I looked up at the heat lamp in the ceiling. I closed my eyes, spread my arms, and shivered under the artificial sun, trying to drip dry; but the room was still too full of steam. So I grabbed another towel off the wrack and worked from my head down to my arms, from my chest to my toes. It felt good. When I was done the mirror had unfogged and I could brush my teeth.

I brushed my teeth. I turned on the radio and listened to some music, tapping my toes. I brushed, up and down, side to side, and in quick little circles, minding my gums and pressing down harder wherever the teeth felt loose or tender. It brought up a white froth that came dribbling out of my mouth and I leaned over the sink to spit. That’s when I locked eyes with myself in the mirror and froze.

Did that ****er just say his name was Kathy? And he’s bringing me a refrigerator? I couldn’t have heard that right, I thought. I’m going to have to call him back.

My black jeans were in a ball on the floor when I put my feet into them. Sitting down I snaked them up to my knees and up over my hips holding onto the sides as I stood up. I attributed my earlier communication failure more to a lack of pants than to a lack of sleep. A man is always at a disadvantage when he isn’t wearing his pants. Just as the Scots were conquered in their kilts by the short short wearing British, so too the Americans in their pants would conquer the rest of the known world. It was destiny and inevitable. Just a matter of time and denim: the pants that conquered the old west.

I zipped up, pulled on a tee-shirt, and drew a leather belt through the loops of my jeans, fastened it, and walked back to the phone in the kitchen. Information gave me the last number calling in and I dialed it myself to save some money.

His name was Kassra, not Kathy. He was a Freshman and he came from Portland, Oregon. Though he hadn’t taken any classes yet, he already knew he wanted to be a lawyer and make money without working for it. More power to him. The world could use more chiseling parasites. Lord knows, I’ve felt the absence in my own life. His cousin had told him to get in touch with me and find out what furniture and appliances I’d be moving in with.

“So you’re not bringing me a fridge?”

Inside, I was crying.

“Oh, we can fit both fridges in, and I’ve got a 25 inch t.v. No. I’ve lived there before, it’ll all fit. Me? Sunday or Wednesday. Yeah, I know classes start Tuesday. Don’t you worry about ol’ [terror]. You worry about yourself. I’ll be there,” I said. “With freakin’ bells on.” Then I hung up.

Little Mexican children played outside. One bounced a ball up and down on the concrete, and against the sides of the building. Another rolled back and forth down the hall, on a red tricycle. The sound was long and scraping, as the front wheel dug and cut into the carpet, getting distant then coming back slowly. Television sets murmurred far away. A couple passed my window and I didn’t understand a word they said. A man slammed a door upstairs and my room shook.

I took my keys off the counter and placed them in my pocket.