Well, it’s my birthday.
Like I’ve told you time and time again, I don’t do people. And that means no one to sing happy birthday. It doesn’t bother me, though. I grew up not getting special treatment from my mom, dad, or dimwitted peers at school on my birthday.
I spend my day in the crummy apartment where you would think my mom would be, but she’s off with her lover of the week. I warm up the Spaghetti-Os in the microwave, and lick some that’s dripping down the side of the can, trying not to gag on the same meal I’ve had for 3 weeks in a row.
The kitchen is very small. It has a fridge that works part time, a microwave, and an oven with a crack spidering across the smudged surface. Next to the fridge is a sink that runs brown water. Occasionally, it’ll decide to be clear, but it still tastes like chlorine. To the right of the kitchen there’s a sliding glass door, covered in fingerprints, and through it a patio that holds one chair rocking on its uneven legs in the wind. I don’t go outside to eat, I go to the makeshift dining room. The room is square and leads directly to the living room, holding a dusty couch. The walls are bare. For a table, there’s a plastic foldable one with rusty legs barely holding it up.
I’m now 16. Still not an adult, but closer than I was. Honestly, I’m surprised CPS hasn’t been called on me by my bat of a neighbor Kennedy.
I finish about half of the can, and put it in the fridge, which is mostly empty besides the rotten apple infested with flying insects.
I am on the bottom floor, so in the evening I sit on my patio and watch people. My mother still isn’t home, so nothing new.
The boy has a red beanie.
Well, more of a maroon, with ice blonde tufts of hair sticking out the side. His platonic companion has a very unattractive bowl cut. Brown. Almost a muddy brown. A memorable brown; and yet I still can’t get myself to remember it, because at the same time I see them on the opposite side of the busy street, a bus drives past them, and they’re gone. Just like in the movies. I don’t particularly care much. There are plenty of people to watch and judge, so two gone isn’t a complete misfortune. I allow myself a second of bemusement, and move on.
Still perplexed, but totally unfazed, I look for another victim. I spend hours doing this, plucking apart their features and actions like a newly-shot pheasant’s feathers. I look to my right and tune into the crashing of a lamp- or maybe a plate- in the neighboring apartment.
That’s where Kennedy and her husband live. She’s about four and a half feet tall and skinny as a pair of shears. She always wears her pearls. The set is complete with two bracelets, earrings, and a necklace. She’s a psycho and apparently has plenty of breakable items in her small apartment that’s identical to mine. I know this because I used to be their maid. By maid, I mean the person that picks up all the broken fragments that she throws at her quiet husband, Clerk. I’m guessing he sleeps on the couch because there's a pillow and blanket on it and an alarm clock on the coffee table.
He slips outside and closes the cracked glass door. He leans against it and seems like he’s trying to catch his breath. He has a slice running along his cheek bone, and as my eyes swim down his blue sweater-covered-arms to reach his hands, and they’re scarred from countless identical situations. He’s a round man, and has very skinny, short legs. He reminds me of the M&M characters in commercials. His hair is shaved to about a centimeter, except on the top, where it’s completely bald. I imagine a very tiny man with an appropriately sized lawn mower, mowing the grass, which in this case is Clerk’s hair, but never getting the chance to finish his whole head. He looks over to me and pauses for a moment.
“Just needed a bit of fresh air,” He says in his british accent with a smile. His double chin casts a shadow down the front to his neck and the yellow light of the lamppost begins to make his eyes turn a frightening orange- the color of the end of a cigarette. He locks those dull eyes with me and we seem to be communicating through thoughts.
Help me. He says, I can’t live like this much longer.
I know. I reply, and quickly dart my eyes away.
“What are you doing out there?! Get back inside!” Screams the old woman, and I notice a bead of sweat forming on his forehead, and it trickles down, bouncing through the wrinkles from years of making that same worried look that's on his face at this moment. He squishes his bent wire glasses up between his knitted brow and breathes in.
“Will you excuse me. The Mrs. gets very impatient.” He mumbles, eyeing the ground as if it were a wild animal about to pounce. He stumbles back inside.
What a sad life that man has.
Even this late at night, there are many cars on the road, reminding me of a school of fish- swarming down the currents of a freshwater river with haste. One catches my eye. It’s small, cheap, and held together loosely by Duct Tape and Zipties. The individuals inside the vehicle are droopy. That’s the only descriptor I can get my vast mind to label them with. No obvious traits other than droopy cheekbones, droopy eyes, and droopy clothes. They sit, not speaking a word to one another. The passenger has a smear of what looks like dried yellow mustard on his bottom lip.
Who the hell spit in these peoples’ coffee this morning?
My eyes follow the rusty license plate as it drives away, turning left two blocks down. BAXFH08. As I tear my eyes from the hideous scene, I capture a young man, walking in what seems to be my direction, eyes adhered to the wet concrete below.
He wears a navy blue coat down to his ankles. It has some sort of embroidery on it’s lapel, snaking down almost to the back of his knees, and I can’t help but envision the orange granny from the park grabbing a hold of him and sewing the inexpensive fabric with pink and green thread. The entertaining thought is stripped away as I see the boy’s eyes clumsily fall on me. He is right at my patio edge, looking uncomfortable, as if he can’t decide whether or not to walk up the 3 shallow steps, or run away like a puppy who’s just had its first encounter with a vacuum.
“Oh. um. H-hello mi-miss Hop-” he takes a breath, “Hopthorne.”
He tests a painfully faked smile, only to wipe his face clean again. He can’t seem to keep eye contact.
“What do you want?” I focus back down on my notebook and scribble annoying with his other descriptors.
“Well, y-your mother-r is in the h-ho-hospital. I came to e-e-e-” he stops, and attempts to speak again, “I came to escort you to her.” He puffs out his chest a smidge.
I stand up, unamused by his dorky composure, and open the sliding glass door only half as gracefully as I’d like to admit. I begin to take a step inside, but that’s when he finds the courage to wobble onto the stairs, his legs shaking so vigorously that for a moment I wonder if he’s about to topple over.
“Well, m-ma'am. D-don’t you wan-want to-to-to visit-sit your mo-mother?”
I roll my eyes and know I’m going to regret giving him the time of day.
“No.” I say numbly.
“May-may I ask wh-wh-why, ma’am?”
“No.”
“But sh-she reque-requested your p-presence, ma’am.”
I start to feel a heat in my cheeks, aggravation bubbling beneath my skin.
“She always does, so you may go now. I do not intend on following you, so call me ma’am one more time, I dare you.”
He pauses a moment, hesitates, and speaks again, concern encapsulating his eyes. This boy is really getting on my nerves.
“Sh-she is in-in se-serious d-danger miss.”
“You don’t know her, bonehead. She always does this. She goes to a party, takes the wrong pill, wakes up in the hospital and apologizes, saying she’ll ‘change’ and ‘do better’, but she never does, so you can leave now.”
I wonder if I said too much. I turn back around and fully enclose myself in silence, shutting the door behind me.
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