December 8, 2012

“What the absolute fuck, Ana?”

Blood coated my knuckles. The man was on the ground clutching his nose. My sister stood between us. “What do you mean what the fuck? Why did you hit him?”

“There was a forty year old man at your door. What was I supposed to do? ‘Oh I’m sorry, is this the wrong house?’”

“You didn’t have to punch him!”

“Yes I did! How am I supposed to know what’s going on in here? For all I knew, you could’ve been on the floor tied up and unconscious and he could have a taser waiting for me.”

“Are you insane! This is my roommate!”

I realized how close I was to her. Her roommate had sauntered into the bathroom, clutching his face and cursing. She sighed and picked up the fragments of her lamp from where I had pushed him into the wall after breaking his nose. I straightened her rug, which had been splattered with his blood. I could hear her bitching as she realigned her throw pillows and pushed her couch back against the wall. I looked at my knuckles and rubbed some of the blood off. My ring finger had been split by my wedding ring and blood had splattered the diamond. I clicked my tongue.

My sister appeared in front of me with a few paper towels. “Here,” she said slapping them over my cut. “Go into my bathroom and clean your cut.”

I rolled my eyes and walked down the hall. Halfway there, I caught a glimpse of him in his room. He looked like a pig in its sty. He had a bald spot that was surrounded by fading blonde hair. Stubble peppered his chin. His huge ears were still red from the ordeal, and his lip was cut. He caught sight of me, flinched, and closed the door. I continued down the hall. My sister’s room was the opposite of his. Everything was in its place. In a corner, I could see Bubbles, my sister’s albino boa constrictor chilling in her cage. A mouse was burrowing in her mulch, seemingly unaware of its fateful end. On the other end of the room, her salamander, Kermie, was scurrying up and down his cage. My sister used to time him all the time, swearing she’d enter him in a race one day.

I went in the bathroom and washed my hands, exposing more wounds. My fingernails had made a tiny incision in my palm. My thumb, which was double jointed, had somehow bent backwards painfully during the ordeal, creating a bruise on my knuckle. I got out her peroxide and sighed before pouring the scalding liquid into my cuts. I sucked air in through my clenched teeth and pressed a cloth towel to my hand. The salt in my wounds had barely ceased. I searched for a Band-Aid or some gauze.

“Look in the medicine cabinet,” I heard my sister say halfway through me tearing her bathroom apart.

“Oh.”

She came in and sat on the toilet seat while I fixed my wounds. “I can clean your ring for you,” she said after a few terse seconds. The stuff is in his bathroom.”

“I’m fine,” I replied.

Her face saddened. She stood from the toilet seat and went into her bedroom. I could hear Bubbles’ cage opening. Ana couldn’t go more than twenty minutes without touching the damn snake. I stood in the doorway of the bathroom and watched her. She stroked Bubbles’ scaly red and yellow skin as she watched her slither across her bed. Bubbles continued across the bed, until she bumped her nose against Ana’s pillow. I could tell she was thinking from the way she paused. Her jaws were unhinging. In an instant, Ana’s pillow was within her jaws. She chuckled. “It’s just a pillow, old woman. Calm down.”

Bubbles began to try to work the pillow into her mouth. My sister just watched.

“You’re going to explode like that python on Nat Geo, “ she scolded. “You shouldn’t stuff yourself.”

Bubbles must have realized that the memory foam pillow tasted nothing like a rat or even a small dog since she suddenly released the pillow, leaving bite marks in my sister’s pillow. She groaned. Bubbles returned her attention to the mouse that was burrowing in the mulch of her cage. She began to move towards it. Her tongue was flitting in and out of out of her mouth. Two minutes later, the mouse was being constricted by Bubbles’ big muscular body. My sister only closed the cage and put the padlock on it. “She doesn’t like to be disturbed while she’s eating,” Ana explained

“Hey Ana, I-” the man was in the doorway, choking on his words.

“Come in,” Ana said sweetly.

The man unwillingly complied.

“Now, let’s try this again. With no hitting. Trix, this is my new roommate Kyle McLeod. Kyle, this is my sister Trixie Wyatt-Truman.”

He stuck out his hand for me to shake. I just crossed my arms. “Why is an old ass man like you living with my twenty-one year old sister?”

“Listen, she assured me everything would be-”

“Fine? Yeah, it’s not. Why can’t you get a house and a job and leave my sister alone?”

“Well, my ex-wife took everything in the divorce. I don’t have anything to buy a house with.”

“Why can’t she just get over it and let you stay with her?”

“She has no problem with it. It’s Paul who has the problem.”

“Who’s Paul?”

“That’s what I said! But she wouldn’t answer. She kept insisting that Paul wants me nowhere around the kids, the house, or her, and he’ll kick my ass if I go back around there.”

“So, what made you beg Ana?”

“He didn’t beg,” Ana chimed in. “I offered it to him.”

“Are you insane?”

“No! I knew he was trying and couldn’t afford a place. So, I said that if he can come up with half the rent every month, we can be roommates. And I know that look, so no, we aren’t sleeping together or anything.”

“It’s not even that. I can’t even bring my kids around anymore.”

“What do you mean?”

“For all I know, this guy is a pervert!”

“Uh, I’m still here,” he said meekly. “And that’s really rude…”

“Can you at least get to know him before you blow up and shoot my roommate?”

I rolled my eyes. “Whatever. Let’s just get this over with.”