"I can't live here anymore."
Brad Logan doesn't say anything right away. He's got the best seat in the house and smokes with his yellowed arthritic claws clutched against his chest just sort of staring off in the distance. For a second I figure he's had a stroke but then he blinks himself back to reality and considers the anguish etched on my face. "You paid six months," he says. "Haven't been here a month yet so there's no rush to bugger off. But I won't be able to give you any refund on that pretty lighter."
I'd thought so and hoped no but there it is. He's started into a wracking fit of coughing and crushing his butt into the ash tray not looking at me when I regain my powers of speech. "That's fine by me. Just do me a favour and credit Carissa the difference."
The fit passes of into wheezing and he nods after a moment's hesitation extending his hand. Now it's my turn to hesitate having no desire to feel his fingers crack like dry twigs in my grip. "Shake it, Ronnie. We all know what you did for Miss 'Rissa. I'm in no less pain than you." The conviction in his voice forces my hand into his. He winces not in pain but embarrassment when I offer him a limp fish and bears down on me with a vicelike grip. You're a good man, Mr Weaver."
"Don't let that get around Mr Logan."
"By their deeds shall ye know them," he says with a bit of a smirk and draws his hand to his chest. "Best of luck to you, son."
"Thank you sir."
And with that he's shuffling out my door lighting another cigarette. Minutes long as days slide past as I try wrapping my head around what just happened.
I don't have a chance to lock the door before H2SO4 sounds an incoming call alarm. "What now?" I ask myself. No one who actually knows me would call my phone. It's basically a text message system on steroids and after my time at Talk2Me I have no inclination to speak into a telephone. But the caller ID I recognize and wouldn't you know it's someone I'm willing to break the rules for.
"What's crackalacking, Tyler?" I say with as much genuine feeling as my routed soul can muster.
Tyler took my old house off of me when I went on what I thought would be permanent vacation with Manon. Truth be told, I haven't spoken to him since I took off but there's more than a little solace in knowing that he's on the other end of the call. "Heard you were in a bit of a bother living wise," he says like he'd been sitting in on the conversation with Brad Logan.
"How the hairy fuck do you know? I just found out myself."
Tyler's laugh would be contagious if I weren't already so sick at heart. "Your landlords' father's an old friend. He called. Did you really give him a platinum Dunhill for six months rent and credit a girl the rest?"
"The man talks too much but the answer is yes, I did."
The laugh again but I join with him this time. " How about you come by and have a brew with me?"
"Done, I'll be there in five. Want me to bring?"
I'm expecting a negative response but he surprises me. "Yes please. See you soonish."
It's actually less than a five minute walk to the old house from Keystone but it's closer to ten before I get there after stuffing my pockets with H2SO4, dope and cigarettes. Tyler's watching me from the front porch, waves when he sees me and raises a beer. There's something different about him and I have to get closer to notice he's filled out a bit. It takes me another moment to realize he's wearing a loincloth sitting in full lotus under the sun and lilac bushes in full view of the Ferguson Street traffic.
"Christ God, Tyler!" I yell from twenty yards away. "What have you been up to!"
"Taking a lesson from the Book of Weaver!" he yells back. "Beers under the lilac tree!" I reach out to shake his hand and he pulls me into a hug instead. We clutch and pound each others backs like we've been separated by miles instead of two blocks. Passers by give us the eyes and for once in my life I don't feel like telling them off.
When enough time has passed he holds me at arms length to take a long look at my face. "Girl trouble," he says after a moment's past. "Not Manon though."
I nod and he waves me towards a table set up by the front window. He's done a lot of work since I left him to it. The bricks have been scrubbed from peak to foundation and all of the trim's been painted an old copper green. Window boxes boast sprays of beautiful blossoms that look side to side in the wan summer breeze. To look at him curl up into the patio chair it's easy to imagine it all coming to him during some misguided meditation. The thought makes me chuckle.
Tyler smiles back and offers me a cold one from the cooler by his feet. Easing down across the table from him brings back a lot of memories and none have ever included Tyler drinking alcohol. "Great day for a cold one," I say as we touch bottles.
"I'll have to take your word on that," Tyler says before taking a sip and wincing. "I only started drinking day before yesterday. Think maybe I'm an alcoholic yet?"
I have to replay that last bit in my head a few times and watch his eyes crinkle around their edges to tell that he's kidding. "Let me know the first time you wake up somewhere you didn't fall asleep and we'll talk about it then."
He nods sagely to my superior wisdom in this regard and takes another swig out of his beer. "I got a new tenant last month, Russian kid from a Siberian shithole called Archangel. Won't pay his rent and thinks he can walk all over me because he's supposed to be connected. So, now I drink."
I'm spinning one while he talks and he's watching my hands play their perfect roll trick. "Sucks dude, but not all tenants are like you."
"Agreed, I was a model tenant." I light the joint, puff puff pass and Tyler takes a long hit. His eyes widen a tad and I think he's about to lose his lunch in a coughing fit. "Good stuff," he says on the exhale before taking another hoot and passing it back.
"What else can I do besides introducing you to some more bad habits?" I ask.
He thinks about it for a second or two with the same far away look on his face as I can see him assuming gazing across the Mongolian steppes as a kid. "I thought about kicking his ass for a while but he's got a hand gun and didn't want to wind up ventilated. And I don't know how to reason with him, I see the guys who slaughtered my people every time this fucking guy opens his mouth to speak. He's always got that gun close by."
Tyler's probably the best guy I know and when he plucks the offered joint back I spot a tiny frustration tear creep down his cheek.
"What room's he in and what does he owe you?" I ask softly.
"He's in your old basement room and owes $350. I realize it's not much but..."
"It doesn't matter how much he owes, he owes and that's that." I don't even wait for him to get up before I'm at the front door. Down the hall to the kitchen, down the stares and I have to marvel at what Tyler's done to the basement. Shit, it looks like a featured design in some glossy architectural digest. "Buddy should be kissing your ass letting him live down here so cheap," I say to myself before pounding on my old door.
"Fuck you!"
"Open up, Boris!" I yell back. "Rent's due!"
"Fuck you! I know people!"
Funny thing about being an alcohol and drug abuser is you can sometimes misplace your keys - imagine that. Sure enough, my old spare's still tucked up under the drop ceiling tile by the door and it slides into the lock like a greased up cock. Deep breath and I enter like I still own the place.
He's spread wide on a couch against the far wall with his dick in hand. There's a snub nose .38 on the coffee table in front of him but he doesn't have time to get to it. By the time I have it to hand his eyes are bugged out and wild looking. I don't point it at him - I don't play guns anymore - but he doesn't know that I won't shoot him. "$350 now or get the fuck out. I'm giving you this one time chance to make right by Tyler."
"Who the fuck are you?" he asks. His accent's thicker than his cock (not saying much) but reminds me of a Rocky and Bullwinkle villain.
"Call me One-nut. Pay or pack up, you've got 10 minutes." His eyes go from mine to his gun in my hand and I smile, "Make that 5 minutes. "
"I have no money," he manages after a moment.
"Then get out, it's that simple here in the True North Strong and Free." I don't know if he just doesn't believe me or doesn't get the National Anthem reference but he's giving me a look like I'm spouting Aramaic at him. "Get dressed and get out, you're evicted."
"I know people," he sputters. " You can't just..."
There's just no talking to some assholes. "Your people aren't here, it's just you and me. Bring them by sometime and maybe I'll quake a bit for show but you're done here." I still won't point the gun at him but let my hand twitch a bit as if it's itching to burp the little darling and spit up a round of lead between his eyes.
"Let me pack. Half a day and..."
"Get dressed, get out and thank your fucking stars I'm letting you." He wants to argue but not against Smith and Wesson. He grabs up his tangled pant waist from around his ankles, belts himself and casts about for a shirt.
"Take the one on the couch," I tell him.
"It's stained," he protests but fuck him.
"One minute left...wear it or go topless."
When I escort him upstairs Tyler's at the kitchen table waiting. Boris doesn't give him a glance but Tyler just nods at the gun in my hand and watches me lead him out the front door.
"I see you soon," the Russian dickhole hisses from between clenched teeth.
"Bring your friends," I tell him with a smile. "Maybe they'll lend you a new gun. Or you could buy this one off of me for $350." He doesn't take me up on the offer, he he just leaves with a backward glance that speaks of things to come.
Tyler's still at the kitchen table when I'm done with a pot of green tea to hand. I take the chair across from him while admiring the improvements he's made in here and accept the cup he offers me. "That was the dumbest stunt I've ever seen you pull," he tells me when I'be taken my first sip.
Still, I manage to sputter a bit when I say, "You got what you wanted so what's the difference?"
"He could have killed you," Tyler reminds me.
"I used my spare key and caught him spanking off. He never touched the gun."
"You couldn't have known that. He might have been pointing it at the door waiting." Tyler has always had this way of talking to me like I shouldn't be allowed out without a helmet and I can hear it now. "You just walked into a room with an armed man why?"
I want to give him a flip answer but it's all just too fresh to deny. "To be doing something useful again, helping you and basically not giving a shit about whatever the fuck happens to me anymore, I suppose."
Tyler nods, sips his tea and drops the offer like a penny off the CN tower, "So, you'll take the room."
I can't believe what I'm hearing at first but he's got this shit eating grin on and it sinks in. "Sounds like a plan."
Tyler just nods. "Welcome home, brother."
Published with Blogger-droid v1.7.4
No comments:
Post a Comment