“All right, then.” And she squeezed my shoulder and returned to her cubicle.
The rest of the day went by without incident and I sold four vacuums and resolved Mrs. Ranger’s problem, so all in all it was a good day.
CHAPTER 9
I got home and took Molly for a walk and then had dinner and took the garbage outside to the back dumpster. The landlord was out back raking leaves and I could see that he’d chained his dog to the back fence and the dog was shivering. The dog was skinny and had a dull coat and I thought that maybe it was even mangy, but then I felt bad for thinking that and it made me want to apologize to the dog but then he wouldn’t understand me even if I did so I figured there’d be no point.
I walked closer to them by pretending I was just taking a walk around the grounds and as I got closer it seemed as if one of the dog’s legs was hurt because it was bent at a strange angle, so I asked the landlord what had happened. He stopped raking the leaves and brushed his shirtsleeve across his forehead to wipe away some of the sweat that had collected.
“Dog is always running into things,” he said.
“What did he run into?” I asked.
“How the hell am I supposed to know?” he said then resumed raking the leaves.
“I think maybe he needs to go to the veterinarian,” I said.
“You do, do you?”
“I do.”
“And you gonna pay for it?”
“I don’t see why I should have to pay for it,” I said, and when he didn’t say anything further, I just went back inside my apartment and to my own dog who also sometimes ran into things but who’d never ended up with a crooked leg.
***
I took Molly for another walk just before bedtime which is something I usually did, and when we left through the front lobby I could hear the landlord’s dog barking through his door, and then I heard it yelp as if it had been grabbed or hit and the barking stopped quickly, and then I continued on out the door with Molly.
I took her on an extra-long walk and after a while I couldn’t feel my hand anymore, and I thought maybe it was just because of the cool air, but then I realized I’d been clenching the leash so tight that it had cut the blood off from my fingers, so I loosened my grip and let the blood go back to where it belonged.
When we got back inside, I stopped beside the landlord’s door and tried to listen for any noises coming from his apartment, but I couldn’t hear any except maybe the television, so I went back upstairs and turned on my own television and watched a show, but it wasn’t much of a show, so I turned it off and soon fell asleep.
CHAPTER 10
The rest of the week went by without incident.
Mr. Peters left me alone and Donna seemed to make some effort at not fraternizing, though she did still send me suggestive looks whenever she could and I could tell that she was still interested in helping me to achieve it, which pleased me. I also sold almost twenty vacuums that week which was a good haul and helped make up for the speeding ticket and the restaurant bill.
On Friday Donna asked me what I was doing that weekend and I said that I hadn’t much thought about it and she must have thought I was being coy again because she smiled and said “I bet you haven’t” and touched me on my arm.
Then she asked if I wanted to meet at a bar that night and I told her there was a bar close to my place and we agreed to meet there at eight.
I went home and took Molly for a walk and saw the landlord outside raking leaves again but didn’t see his dog anywhere, so I just went inside where I saw one of the older tenants who lived in my building and she commented on Molly being “a good little dog” and I said that she was indeed a good dog. I then asked her if she’d seen the landlord’s dog, and she told me that the landlord’s dog had died. I asked her how it had died and she said that she didn’t know, but that the landlord had told her it had some health issues. The whole thing made me think of the incident two years ago and though I was listening to the old lady I was also practicing the breathing exercises that I’d been taught that were meant to slow down my thinking and help me to control some of the scary thoughts that sometimes went through my head.
Once back in my apartment I thought about the landlord’s dog and Molly and the incident and I no longer felt like going out to the bar, but then I’d already told Donna I would be there, so I felt that I shouldn’t cancel and that maybe if I continued on with my breathing exercises and had some drinks and if she helped me to achieve it, then I’d probably feel better than I did at that moment.
CHAPTER 11
I got there early to make up for being late to the restaurant last week and once she arrived we took a booth near the back of the pub and ordered some beer and we each took a few sips in silence.
“Why are you always so quiet?” she asked.
I wanted to tell her that I was only quiet with my words and that I was usually loud in my mind, but instead I just told her that there wasn’t much to say most of the time.
“Maybe that’s why I like you so much,” she said. “You’re not always blabbing away like so many guys do. It’s so refreshing.”
“That’s good,” I said.
“What are we going to do about Peters?” she asked.
“What’s to be done?” is all I said.
“I don’t think it’s any of their business,” she said.
“He thinks you will give me preferential treatment.”
“I don’t see how I could.”
“He seems to think it’s possible.”
“I wonder if I should talk to him?”
“I’m not sure,” I said. “You can if you want to.”
“Do you want me to?”
“It doesn’t matter to me,” I said.
After I said this she pulled away from me and turned sort of rigid. She then asked me if I liked her and I told her that I did.
It was clear that Donna was self-conscious about whether I liked her or not. The funny thing about women was that the more self-conscious they were about if you liked them, the more they seemed to like you in return, which didn’t seem to make much sense because you would think they’d be better off liking boys that clearly liked them back.
“Why do you like me?” she said.
I told her that she was always nice to me and when I said I also liked her blouses, her cheeks went red to match the color of the blouse she’d worn that night.
I asked her if she liked me, even though I knew that she did because she was always touching me and wanting me to call her and helping me to achieve it and not caring about how long it took me when I did.
“Isn’t it obvious?” she said then cozied back up to me and kissed my cheek.
“I suppose it is.”
“So then why don’t you care if I talk to him?”
“I just mean it’s your decision to do so.”
“What will you do if he tells us to stop seeing each other?”
“I haven’t thought about it,” I said then took another sip of beer.
Again she pulled away from my shoulder and became rigid. She apparently did so each time I gave her a response that she didn’t like, but then I figured I should tell the truth whenever possible, even if it meant that she would do that.
“So it doesn’t matter either way to you, does it?”
I told her that it did matter, but that my job was important and I couldn’t risk it, no matter how much I liked her blouses, and she smiled and came back to my side. I had often found that women could change between angry and happy very quickly, but it seemed especially true with Donna.
We got back to my place close to midnight and as we walked through the front lobby I stopped by the landlord’s door to listen and I could hear him laughing at something on the television set. Donna asked me what I was doing and I just told her that I thought I heard something and then went up with her in the elevator.
Once inside my apartment I wanted to see her red blouse on the floor but she wanted to keep drinking, s
o I took some beer out of my fridge and placed it on the counter. Molly was excited to see us and was running around our feet. I found that I’d been drinking more often since I’d started seeing Donna and I wasn’t sure it was such a good idea because it became harder to control my thoughts and the breathing exercises didn’t always work so well but then there hadn’t been an incident for nearly two years so I figured it would be okay.
We each had two more beers and when Donna got up to get a third Molly ran out to greet her and Donna stepped on one of her paws and Molly let out a wild yelp and I shot up from my seat as fast as I could, given my impaired condition, and immediately thought of Donna as red and open.
Donna bent over Molly and apologized to her but nearly fell over when she did because she was so unsteady on her feet because of all the alcohol. Molly ran back several steps and whimpered and I looked at Donna very angrily and I saw her look at me and she seemed scared and I tried my breathing exercises but the beer got in the way so I said not her fault in my mind and closed my eyes.
Not her fault.
Not her fault.
Not her fault.
Not her fault.
Not her fault.
Not her fault.
I felt an arm on mine and opened my eyes and saw Donna’s face and she seemed to be crying and it made it easier for the thoughts to go away and then she hugged me and we kissed and soon after we were in the bedroom with her blouse on the floor and both of us naked and she helped me to achieve it and as she curled up against me afterward I felt guilty for ever thinking of her as red and open.
CHAPTER 12
Donna went home the next morning but we agreed to meet that night at eight o’clock which would be the first time we’d met on consecutive nights and the first time I’d seen a girl on consecutive nights since college.
Molly was fine and was walking normally by then so it seemed as if she might have just overreacted to what had happened or perhaps had a low threshold for pain. Either way, I took her for a long walk and the air made me feel better, and I spent the rest of the day reviewing some orders before I went to make dinner, but I didn’t get very far because the faucet stopped working altogether and I needed water to make my dinner.
I went down to the first floor and knocked on the landlord’s door. He didn’t immediately answer but after I knocked a second time the door swept open and he was standing in shorts and a thin white T-shirt.
“Yeah?”
“My sink,” I said.
“What about it?”
“Remember how I told you it was broken?”
He seemed to think it over but then told me he didn’t know what I was talking about.
“It’s stopped working,” I said.
“You can fill out a work order,” he said, motioning toward a box that was to the right of his door and had some white pieces of paper sticking out of it and a pencil on a thin ledge at the bottom.
“I need water to make my dinner,” I said.
“You still got water from the bathroom faucets?” he asked.
“I suppose so,” I said. “But then that’s bathroom water and it would be difficult to make dinner with that.”
The landlord looked at me queerly and shook his head but finally told me he’d look for his tools.
He left the door open and I stepped a foot inside and could see a large unchewed dog bone on the floor along with some other junk. The landlord returned after a few minutes and he’d changed his shirt but was still wearing his shorts.
He put on a pair of sandals and followed me upstairs to my apartment where I took him to the sink where the faucet didn’t work. Molly kept a safe distance back from him as he bent down and started pulling some of the junk from beneath the sink including the pail that had been catching the leaky water and was now practically overflowing.
He asked me for the flashlight so I leaned over and handed it to him and then his head and shoulders disappeared beneath my sink and I heard him muttering this thing or that but I still felt a bit wobbly from all the beer the prior night and placed a hand on my counter for balance.
I heard him tugging at the pipes and then swear a few times and it made me think of how he used to talk to his dog and I thought of the dog’s crooked leg and the mostly un-chewed bone in the landlord’s entryway and I started into my breathing exercises but they didn’t seem to help so when he asked me to pass him his wrench all I could think of was seeing him red and open and it made me want to pick up the wrench from his toolbox and smash it into his skull over and over and over again until his skull was smashed in and the blood was pouring free and open from where I’d caved his head in and how Molly would be barking at my feet and not understanding what was happening but how I wouldn’t stop until he was still and lifeless and red and open.
I was thinking of all this when he asked me again for the wrench.
And then I did what I was thinking.
CHAPTER 13
It took me several hours to clean it up.
I briefly felt bad about what I’d done, but then I knew what he must have done to his dog, so I didn’t feel bad for very long. I did regret not letting him fix my sink before I did it, but then I was swept up by my emotions so it couldn’t be helped.
I had to pull him into my bathtub and clean myself up well enough to go find a hacksaw and there was blood everywhere. It all washed up well enough with some soap and bleach, but I was exhausted by the time I was supposed to meet Donna. I thought that perhaps I should cancel but then I couldn’t think of a good excuse to get out of it so I just decided to go. I did call her and ask if we could push it back to nine and so we met at a bar by her place and had some beers and went back to her place for the first time.
She had a small apartment that was a bit smaller than my own and a pet turtle named Bob and not a lot of furniture. She opened a bottle of wine that we shared and nearly finished and we talked about this or that but she did most of the talking because I was thinking about this second incident that had now happened and how most of the landlord was in garbage bags in my closet and wondering how I would dispose of them in a way that wouldn’t smell or draw the attention of raccoons or other animals that might open the bags so I thought Donna might be able to help.
“I need to get rid of something,” I said.
“Oh yeah?” she smiled. “Hopefully you’re not talking about me?”
I laughed my loud laugh that sometimes had some of my colleagues staring at me but it felt really good to laugh at that moment and it made me feel better once I had finished.
“I like it when you laugh,” she said. “I wish you’d laugh more often.”
“I guess I could, but then maybe it’s better when I do finally laugh because then it makes it more special.”
“Maybe you’re right,” she said, then laughed herself before asking me what I needed to get rid of, and whatever I was going to say I’d already forgotten in our discussion about the laughing, but I knew I couldn’t say it was garbage bags with my landlord inside so I said nothing. But then she pressed me so I told her I wanted to get rid of my green chair and as soon as I said that she got excited and asked if she could have it instead and I felt as if I had no choice so I said that she could have it even though it was actually my favorite chair.
“But I don’t have a car so can you bring it to me somehow?”
“It won’t fit in my car,” I said, and I thought that maybe that would save my green chair, but then she said she had a friend with a truck so that it would be okay and I agreed again to give her the chair.
“But where would you get rid of a chair like that if you wanted to?” I asked.
“I don’t know. The dump maybe.”
“The dump,” I repeated.
“Why do you want to get rid of it? It’s so comfortable.”
She was right, it was very comfortable, and I almost rescinded my offer of the chair, but then I figured that would bring a lot of other uncomfortable questions, so I just said that it was old
and I was thinking of getting a new chair. Then she asked if I wanted to keep it until I actually bought a new one, and I thought that was a perfectly good excuse to hold onto the chair a bit longer so I agreed. I was also thinking of the dump and thought that it would be a good place to dispose of the landlord as long as I could get the garbage bags into my trunk without bringing too much suspicion on me.
That night was the first night she helped me to achieve it at her place, and though she wasn’t wearing a blouse, the dress she had on looked good on the bedroom floor, and I had a great night of sleep because Bob the turtle didn’t wake us up early like Molly always did, and he didn’t even need to be taken for a walk.
CHAPTER 14
I got home early Sunday and took Molly for a walk and when I got back inside I saw the same old lady tenant at the landlord’s door.
“Have you seen him around?” she asked.
“Not since yesterday,” I said.
“He was supposed to help me with something,” she said.
I nodded because I didn’t know what else to say.
“It’s the darndest thing,” she said. “I think I can hear the TV inside but nobody answers.”
“Maybe he’s asleep,” I said.
The woman didn’t say anything else, so Molly and I took the elevator back up to my apartment.
Later on I did a test-run to the back parking lot with a box of rubbish and placed it in my trunk. It was late and there wasn’t anybody else back there, so I returned with two of the bags and placed them into the trunk then went back up and returned with the final two bags and drove quickly to the dump, where I discarded the bags in something of a landfill and did the same with his toolbox.
By Tuesday the owner of the building had come around looking for the landlord and had apparently called the police because when I got home from work that day I saw his apartment door open and the owner was speaking with an officer just inside the front entryway, where I could still see the un-chewed dog bone.
The Introvert Page 4