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Five

I moved east on 14th street and cut uptown a block to 15th once I reached 3rd Ave. Not far from the corner was 200 E 15th, also known as “where I lived”. I smiled at the doorman who hated me and waited for the elevator. I got in the car and started to press 5 to head to my apartment out of sheer habit then moved my hand up a bit and jabbed at the 7 like it had offended me in some subtle way. If Ben needed to espouse about the loss of his most recent girlfriend then who was I to ignore a friend in need.

I slid out of the elevator, old slow thing that it was, and started off down the hall to 7B. My thumb and the doorbell had a prolonged conversation with each other that resulting in a sustained grating buzzing noise that I knew could not fail to grab the attention of not only Ben but also the occupants of apartments on either side. I heard the slight scrap of metal on metal as the peephole cover was slid aside. That was followed in short order by snapping open of locks, three in total, and then the door was slowly opened.

Ben stood in the doorway wearing that most classic of outfits, a frayed blue terrycloth bathrobe over a t-shirt and shorts. His blonde mohawk was flopped over to the right, sleeping limply on the side of head covering his spider tattoo. His all too thin frame seemed even gaunter than usual due to the haunted look in his eyes. He turned on his heel without a word and shuffled into the apartment.

His unit was pretty much a duplicate of mine in layout. It was a small studio apartment with a tiny kitchen and bathroom off what was supposed to pass as the entrance hall. Unlike my own place Ben had chosen to decorate his dwelling in early post-modern geek, or in other words cheap: beaten down IKEA with burn holes, random circuit boards and bits of melted metal imbedded in most of it. Designing Women this wasn’t. Delta Burke would’ve been forced screaming into the hallway in search of an E! Fashion Emergency crew. I followed him to the couch and sat heavily, not quite sure what I should say. Ben just sat there staring ahead as if he was still alone, making me wonder if I could do any good here regardless of having the right or wrong words. I ventured a hesitant “So…” and let it float pregnant in the air hoping it might give birth to a full conversation if it was just left alone for a few.

Ben slowly turned his head towards me, noticing me sitting next to him at last.

“Chartrine … she, you know … well she … yeah,” he said hesitantly and then slumped back into the couch.

“I heard man, that’s why I’m here. Anything I can do for you?”

“I don’t know Tom. I just … I don’t know. I mean this is where we bond over women and get drunk and piss on a trailer or something isn’t it? That’s what they always do right? So how come I don’t feel like it huh?”

“Maybe you need to get out a while, go to work, live your life like normal. Not this zombie shit you seem into right now.” Ben looked around slowly taking in his own attire as well as the general state of affairs. He looked like he was taking stock of things, and I had to just hope I was right. Then he shook his head sadly and said “No.” before standing up and walking towards the door. He took a sudden turn and slid into the kitchen, as much as a plodding depressed man can slide. I could hear him moving things around in there and considered following but given the small space we would be on top of each other or I’d be standing just outside the room and still have that odd air of distance anyway. I sat where I was and raised my voice slightly to ask “So what happened man?”

“We were just sitting here,” he began slowly, “having dinner and watching some movie she had wanted to rent. Then as the credits rolled she just turned to me and told me she was leaving.”

“No.”

“Yes! I thought she meant she was going home had a headache that sort of thing, fine whatever, so I asked her you know, I asked her when I’d see her later on. She said I wouldn’t and that Joel was a great guy.” He came back out of the kitchen and started pacing the length of his apartment. I hated people who paced, drove me nuts, but I couldn’t exactly tell him to sit the hell down and stop. So instead I fed Ben the line he wanted.

“She said that? She really said that?” He nodded without looking at me and kept pacing.

“Yeah, she said that. Just like that, flat you know, flat and I thought maybe she was kidding. I didn’t even know a Joel…”

“Yeah we do, Joel Rhineback that guy you used to buy imported shit from?”

“Fine, I know a Joel, but it wasn’t him. Anyway, she went on to give me this whole speech about how this Joel was going someplace and the restaurants he owns, you know La Bulbo? That’s his. So she tells me all this and starts in on how she thinks we aren’t going anywhere and it’s a dead end thing and she needs to be free.”

“She needed to be free?”

“That’s what she said. Free. So, anyway, I start in about how we aren’t standing still and she is free already but come on you know that once someone gives you that whole speech there’s no use right? I did it ’cause I felt like it was the thing I should say.”

“Yeah, really.”

“I haven’t slept yet man, I’ve just been running it all around over and over, the whole relationship. Trying to convince myself it doesn’t matter really.”

“It doesn’t. Relationships with people named Chartrine do not, in general, count. Trust me on this ok? It’s in a book somewhere. Chartrine’s are the exceptions.”

“You always hated her name.”

“Chartrine isn’t a name. It’s a bad crayon color. Come on man, sit down we’ll relax a bit and then you can get some fucking sleep. Sound good?” I suppose it did sound good to him. Ben came and sat back down on the couch and I got up and slid in his DVD of Tromeo and Juliet. After that he wanted to watch Fight Club to try and get himself reacting again, give him something to push against. We spent hours watching movies and starting to joke like normal again and between the movies and the talking it was about 5pm by the time he let me out and went to crash. I had three hours to find some money and get all this taken care of. It was looking worse and worse but Ben had needed me and I couldn’t really say no. I grabbed the elevator and wandered off to my own apartment to begin the quest a few hours late and more than a few dollars short.

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Never Bite the Homeless is copyright Adam P. Knave.