“Great,” I mumble to myself, “even after getting hammered, I still can’t sleep past noon.”
I was trying so hard to be one of those derelicts who throw caution to the wind and, whatever.
There’s a knock on the door, and I’m almost at the peephole when I realize what I did last night. It’s worse than I could have imagined.
If Mike and I had slept together, at least we could chalk it up to being such close friends getting drunk and doing something stupid. It would be weird, but I think we’d both find a way to live with it.
No, the truth is much worse.
“Hey, is anyone in there?”
It’s him.
“Just a minute!” I call out.
There has to be a way for me to get out of this. I know I told him that he could move in here but, in my defense, I was drunk and drunken people should not be held accountable for their phone calls.
Now that the generalities of the mistake are clear, the specifics start to set in. I can’t really be certain, but I think he was having sex while he was on the phone with me.
“I don’t have a key yet,” Dane calls through the door, and I bite my fingernails on one hand while, with the other, I unlock the door.
“Dane, look, I—”
“I’m glad you called,” he says, trotting in. “Fucking thrilled is more like it, actually.”
“When I called you last night,” I start again, but lose my train of thought.
He shrugs and says, “I don’t have that much to move in, really. I’m having my mattress delivered here today along with some other essentials, but I’m sure I’ll be all settled before I have to go to work.”
“Isn’t it Saturday?” I ask.
“Yeah,” he says. “It’s my busiest night of the week.”
“That’s right,” I yawn. “You’re a musician.”
He shoots me a look that I’m nowhere near interested enough to decipher and starts talking again. It’s insufferable.
“Yeah,” he says. “In this city, the two best jobs to have are also the ones that’ll kill your Saturday night more than any other.”
I wait for him to expound on his philosophy, but he either chooses not to or simply hasn’t thought it through far enough to have decided what the other “best job” would be. Neither possibility would surprise me.
“Listen,” I say. “It’s Dane, right?”
“You’re good at that,” he says. “I can’t remember someone’s name if we’re fucking.”
I get the feeling the statement isn’t hyperbole.
“Charming,” I mock. “You and I are going to have to talk about that little phone call last night, but before that happens, I have got to get some more sleep.”
“I can tell,” he laughs. “Looks like you got hit by the drunkest train in the state.”
“Uh huh,” I say dismissively. “Anyway, so, why don’t you help yourself to some food and make yourself comfortable for a while? Just keep it down. I’d really rather not have to kick you out before I’ve had a chance to drift into a hangover-induced coma and die.”
“You know what helps with that?” he asks.
“What?” I ask, for the first time looking forward to hearing something that’s about to come out of this idiot’s mouth.
“Hair of the dog,” he says.
“What does that even mean?”
“Hair of the dog that bit you,” he says. “It means to have a couple of shots or a Bloody Mary or something. Trust me, that shit fucking works.”
“Have you ever gotten through a conversation without pumping it full of obscenity?”
“All the time,” he says. “If you need to go lie down now, I can fix you up something to drink. Just tell me what you like.”
“That’s okay,” I tell him. “I think that would just make me puke right now.”
“Oh yeah,” he says, “you’re going to need a vomit can. I’ll get one for you, roomie.”
I’m done listening to him. That is, until I get to the door to my room and realize that I’m about to pop.
“You look like shit,” he says. “Think you can make it to the bathroom, or are we about to get to know each other in a very new and disgusting way?”
“Just grab me a ‘vomit can’, will you?” I ask, only hoping the phrase means what it sounds like it means.
“All right,” he says. “Go sit on your bed and I’ll bring something in for you.”
I sit on the edge of my bed for about twelve seconds before I give up and lie down flat on my back. It’s a long time before I move again.
Whether I actually fall asleep at one point or another is hard to say, but the next thing I know, I’m hearing what sounds like someone hammering a nail into the drywall in the other room.
I’m about to get up and tell my new and very temporary roommate to “knock it off and, oh, by the way, get out, you’re not moving in here” when I hear a woman’s voice punctuating the same rhythm as the banging noise.
“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I exhale.
I would love to go in there and throw him out right now, but I’m really not willing to see whatever it is that he’s doing to that poor woman. Either he’s killing her or they’re having sex. Either way, I don’t want to be a witness.
Sure, I could knock and call through the door, but it’s so much easier to just bury my head between two pillows and wish for death. His or mine: it doesn’t really matter.
Even through the pillows, though, I can hear the woman’s screaming moans, or whatever you’d call that noise.
To me, it sounds like a cat being nailed to a board. It’d almost be sad if it weren’t so infuriating.
“Oh fuck! Oh fuck!” the woman is screaming, and I’ve got to get the hell out of here.
The man’s only been in my apartment a couple of hours, and he’s already driving me out of it. If I had any residual guilt about going back on my offer for him to move in, it’s being drowned out by the woman’s howling.
She’s got to be faking it. I wonder if he knows.
He probably doesn’t care.
I’ve had sex before, and at no point did I feel the need to start making noises like a tortured rabbit.
Real or not, I’m done. I start to think that I might not hear them if I get in the shower—a necessity at the moment, I assure you—but the squealing is way too loud for me to hang onto that illusion for long.
Luckily, I find my phone and call Mike.
“Hello?”
“Mike, I’ve got to get the hell out of here. Remember that idiot I told you about—the one who went through my newspaper?”
“Yeah?”
“I called him last night and told him that the room is his. Now, he’s in the other room, doing unspeakable things to a poor woman, and I can’t even—”
“Is he hurting her, or are they having sex?” Mike asks.
“Probably the latter, but I have no way of knowing. You’ve got to get me out of here.”
“Just go for a walk or something. When you come back, tell him that you made a mistake and that he’s got to go. Wait, you didn’t sign a contract with him or anything, did you?”
“No.”
“There you go. I’m at work right now, but just go get food or something. It’ll be uncomfortable, but you’ll be fine.”
“Are you sure you can’t do it?” I ask.
I’ve never liked confrontation.
Mike sighs on the other end of the phone.
“I’ll tell you what,” he says, “if you can hold out until I’m off, I’ll come over and provide moral support.”
Deep breath in. Deep breath out. “All right,” I sigh and hang up.
I had been so focused on the phone call that I hadn’t noticed the disembodied grunting in Dane’s room had ceased.
I go back to my room and close the door. I don’t want to see him or the woman that’s in there.
Sadly, the two were apparently taking a breather as that thump, thump, thumping of the headboard is back and louder than before.
I get dressed in record time, grab my wallet and am out the door. It’s not until the latch clicks behind me that I realize I forgot my keys.
This is quite possibly the worst day of my life.
* * *
I’m not going to lie. I’m a little drunk.
Dane was right about that whole hair-of-the-dog thing. This is fantastic.