Moving On

Your housemate arrives home and the apartment is an absolute mess. Dishes are broken, sheets are torn, and there is an angry zoo animal loose. Explain what happened. 45 minutes

I was sitting in the old chair I like—the lumpy recliner with the rip in the back. I was going through the shoebox full of pictures of us, full of movie ticket stubs and souvenirs and memories. I was bleary eyed, drinking a greyhound and blowing smoke into the ceiling. She was so dear to me. I knew I shouldn't look at that shit. I knew wasn't good for me, and wouldn't do anything except upset me. I knew this, but I was doing it anyway.

The smoke made me emotional, tapping my mind directly to the feelings of the memories in the box, and that overwhelming sense of loss that I usually smother with smiles and busy thoughts. I’d gotten to the bottom of the box, where I rediscovered her favorite shirt—a threadbare tank-top commemorating a trip to Cancun. It was carefully sealed inside of a freezer bag, and hadn’t been opened since its original encasing those four months ago. I opened it then, tentatively drawing the talisman from its case.

It still smelled like her.

I breathed her in, closing my eyes and letting the tears flow. I pressed the cold wrinkled cloth into my face and let the memories fill me. My mind was too fluid to grasp any single memory for more than a moment, but I could feel her arms around me, her skin against mine.

But she was gone. She grew up and away from me, and this shirt she treasured for so long was forgotten. She did not comfort me then—she’d shed this skin long ago, and I could do nothing but clutch it to me and shake tears into it.

A knock on the door drew me out of my memory and into the present. I weaved my way to the door and fumbled with the deadbolt, jerking the door open and falling back slightly as it gave. Standing at my door was a fat clown who I smelled before I comprehended. His frilled costume was stained and yellowed, the seam of the right shoulder badly frayed and exposing a small patch of hairy flesh. His face paint was thick and greasy, but did not hide the considerable stubble or the scar that decorated his left cheek. His painted mouth was frowning, and so was his real one. His plastic orange hair was tangled and had twigs and probably insects forever trapped. He wore a grimy Dodger cap that they give away on Hat Tuesdays. In one hand he held a bicycle horn which at that moment he gave a halfhearted, wheezing squeeze. In the other hand he held a leash, which was attached to a monkey.

Nothing interesting ever happens when I’m sober.

The monkey looked at me and with one hand shoved me backward. He (yes, it was a he) monkey-walked in, grasping the leash and pulling the clown stumbling after him. I don't know my monkeys, but I think this was a chimp. He didn't have a tail, and stood about waist high. It was the kind of monkey people put next to pictures of Bush. The clown held onto the leash and stumbled behind. The ape climbed up a barstool and deftly grabbed a grape from the fruit bowl my hospitable housemate had provided. He placed this is his mouth and began to chew, watching the clown expectantly.

“Where’s the birthday party,” the clown slurred, the smell of whiskey on his words.

The monkey threw a grape at the fat man. Monkeys can throw--or at least chimps can. The grape splattered flat and juicy on the clown's face.

“Fucking monkey!” he shouted, puffing himself up for a moment. The ape gave him a threatening glare and the clown deflated visibly.

“So I guess there’s no party. Little Suzy is going to be terribly disappointed. So, do you have any need for an alcoholic clown and a pain in the ass monkey?”

I wasn’t really sure how to react. I wasn’t doing any hard drugs, and certainly hadn’t had enough to smoke or drink to create a hallucination this strange, or a dream this real. The monkey unhooked the leash from his collar, which he adjusted like a businessman might straighten a tie, and leapt from the stool.

“Fucking monkey… Hey. You look like shit,” he said, suddenly taking a closer look at me.

I wanted to say something at that point along the lines of “look who’s talking” but I didn’t have time or wit to stammer such a thing before he slumped across the distance separating us and slung an arm around my shoulder. I immediately felt dirty, like fleas were migrating from body to body across the bridge he’d formed. Just thinking about it makes me want another shower.

“What was it, a woman? She take the kids and leave? She obviously didn’t take the money. Nice place. No no, you’re too young for children. Ah. I know. She broke your heart. First love? I can see it, yes. I’ll bet you have episodes where you don’t do laundry for a month, you’re moping so much. You haven’t done laundry, have you? You wore that shirt yesterday.”

I’d actually slept in that shirt, and had a mountain of laundry that would match the stack of dirty dishes if my housemate didn’t keep the kitchen spotless. And she had been my first love.

“Your hair looks terrible. You should stop getting twelve dollar hair cuts. At least you didn’t Flowbee it.”

Then the monkey came strutting back into the living room with my shoebox, wearing the tank top. He gave a knowing look to the clown, who glanced at the monkey and farted.

“Take some advice from someone older and wiser. Forget her. No! Fuck her! This bitch,” he said, pulling out a large portrait of us, smiling and holding each other, “is not worth it. Hot though.” He licked his lips and began folding the precious photo. I was about to object when another grape exploded on his cheek. He yelped.

“Okay, okay! Shit! Anyway, fuck her.”

He tore the picture lengthwise, and proceeded to shred it into dime size pieces of photo paper. He went into a frenzy then, dropping to his haunches and tearing through the box like a frothing beast, tearing notes, biting photos, disemboweling a stuffed bear she’d given me. He howled loudly and ran out of the room, flailing his hands above his head, throwing the confetti of my past into the air behind him.

“Fuck her!” he shouted as he overturned the glass-top table in the middle of the room. It cracked in half, and the large vase with the pair of birds of paradise shattered on the cold stone floor.

“Fuck her!” he screamed as he pulled the bookshelf away from the wall, dumping novels across the floor before sending the heavy wooden case crashing on top of them.

He panted for a moment, wheezing as though he’d forgotten he was a very fat man.

He picked up a barstool and flung it through the sliding glass door that lead to the backyard.

“Forget her.”

The monkey leapt from his perch on the barstool again, and clipped the leash to his collar once more. Placing the end of the leash in the clown’s hand, the monkey, still wearing the Cancun shirt, opened the front door and pulled the huffing clown out of my home. I stared after them for a few moments before I started to laugh, an uncontrollable fit that had me on my back, holding my sides, with tears running down the sides of my face.

That’s when you came home. You just missed them.

The Other Side is probably looking pretty good