November 21, 2009

•      "A-ha, yeah...we're not going to talk about where that stain came from."
       He shot me a look of amusement. "Forget I even asked," he muttered out of a crack of a smile.
       I shrugged and lay back on the couch, my feet dangling over the arm and my head on one of the seat cushions. "It's dirty as all fuck, but what would I do without it?"
       Jim didn't answer and just swirled his drink around. He wasn't all too concerned. But then, why would he be? It was my couch regardless.
       I glanced toward the T. V. and quickly glanced away. Bears were losing by 14 points; fantastic. I attempted the classic too-lazy-to-get-up-so-lean-head-as-far-as-possible-to-look-behind-you-upsidedown move (luckily, it's less difficult to perform than to say). Katherine was talking to Tyler by the sliding glass door to the balcony. They had kept the door halfway open, allowing a breeze to waft through easily enough. The light from the stars struck the glass, smearing brilliantly downward.
       Jim gave me a disgusted look, picking at something brown and hard that clung to the fabric. I laughed, despite myself; he quickly withdrew his hands. I waved my own, saying, "No, no - nothing to worry about. It's just a rather old fruit rollup." His look of disgust intensified.
       "It's brown. What'd you do? Wait, lemme guess - you took a perfectly good fruit rollup, smushed it into your couch, and then shat on it. Maybe you took the time to mix all of it together well and evenly."
       I patted my couch nostalgically; "Only the best for my baby." Jim just shook his head, then jumped at the sound of a crash. He was actually always jumpy.
       "Christine?" I asked. He nodded. I sighed.
       I had wanted to paint the walls green, when I had first bought the place. It wasn't like it was a color I liked now, in any case. The walls were a wretched yellow, the color of baby vomit and shattered teenage childhoods.
       Not that the green we were going to use was much better of a color, but that was precisely the point.
       I met Katherine through Christine the day I was moving in. I had needed help and amusement, so I called Christine up. She had a friend over, so I ended up meeting Katherine because she had to tag along. Not that I minded. There was something about Katherine, when I met her right away, that made you pause. She was more withdrawn at first glance.
       "Did you decide to piss all over the place?" Christine asked the second she entered the room.
       "Oh, so you noticed. I was worried it would be too subtle."
       She laughed. "Please tell me the landlord isn't going to make you keep it like this? It's horrid."
       "Oh, I most certainly agree," I told her, falling back against a wall to keep myself up in my laughter.
       Katherine walked around the room, surveying the room and its walls. As she passed by the glass door, she was assaulted by the sun gushing through. Comically, she batted at it like it was a swarm of flies, backing away in a spastic fashion. We all laughed, a semi-embarrassed smirk coming from her own face.
       "You should paint it green," she told me, her face lightly animated.
       "Like a pretty jade?" I asked her. I was patronizing; I can admit that now. She shook her head.
       "Vomit green." I gave her a look of confusion. She simply smiled. "It's not as bad as piss vomit; and you can't really expect things to be ideal. You can only get a little better."
       I had liked the idea, but the landlord refused to let me alter the place. So I was still with baby vomit and smog plastered to my walls.
       "Fuck!" Jim snorted, jolting back.
       "Hey, I never told you to go sniffing my couch," I told him, catching the iPod change to Can I Live. The soft jazz of the beginning wound itself around the sharp contours of the room, trying to mask the desperateness of its question.
       I glanced Katherine shooting daggers from her eyes at Christine. "College is a big moment, they say," I muttered to Jim. He shrugged.
       "I suppose I keep this old thing," I slurred to him slowly, though he already knew despite the difficulty he gave me, "because it's been with me since as long as I can remember. I mean, sure, there's some...well, interesting things it's been through." I rubbed my finger over some plastic that had clutched to the threads from an art project I had worked on. "But that's going to happen. I'm not going to throw some dumb plastic cover over it or try to clean it up. I can't ignore or avoid it. It wouldn't be the same." Jim smirked at my sentimentality. "I'm not throwing this fucker out."

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