Tacky Goblin

by T. Sean Steele

  MAKING FRIENDS

  November 4, 2013

  “Hey, Laurie,” I said. “Let’s go play basketball.”

  “I’m busy.” She was flopped on the bed, staring at the ceiling.

  “Come on, it’s exercise.”

  “I don’t exercise. What you need,” she said, “are some male friends.” She rolled over and grabbed her phone off the bedside table. “Here. My cousin lives in LA. He’s our age. I’ll text him.”

  “Oh, Jesus,” I said. “He’s going to hate me.”

  “Probably, but so what? I hate all my friends. You still need some.”

  *

  “If I make this shot,” Marcus said, “you have to give me twenty bucks.”

  “No,” I said.

  I’d met Laurie’s cousin at a playground down the street. When I showed up he was already there, wearing a full Ron Harper Bulls uniform.

  The shot went in. “Boom! Twenty bucks.”

  “You’re standing right next to the hoop.”

  “Don’t be a dick.”

  “Sorry,” I said instinctively.

  Marcus pointed at me and laughed. “The joke’s on you. I just hustled you. Last year, I got struck by lightning and now I can’t miss a shot.” He stood next to the hoop and made the same bank shot again, to demonstrate. “I was walking home one night through a field,” he said, “and then zap! Struck by a hot bolt of lightning. I woke up an hour later in an alley. My clothes must’ve evaporated right off me. Anyway, now I’m a millionaire. I go around hustling chumps like you.”

  “I’m not giving you twenty dollars.”

  He narrowed his eyes at me. “Fine. But in lieu of money, I get to knuckle punch you in the funny bone.”

  *

  “And then he stole my basketball,” I told Laurie, massaging my arm. I was back at her apartment. She was in the exact same position as when I’d left.

  “Did you have a nice time otherwise?”

  “I hate you.”

  “You didn’t tell him where I live, did you?” she asked.

  KUMAIL

  November 10, 2013

  “I wish you wouldn’t light so many candles all the time,” I said. “You’re going to burn this place down.”

  “I wish you wouldn’t be such a weenus all the time,” my sister said.

  “What?”

  “Sorry, I’m nervous. I’ve got a date tonight. His name is Kumail. I met him at the vet’s office. Barb loved him so I figure he’s a good guy.”

  “Barb wears diapers and barks at the refrigerator.”

  “Anyway, you’ll meet him tonight. We’re all going to a show together. A punk show. You and Laurie, me and Kumail.”

  Before I could complain, I tripped over a candle. Hot wax spilled on the floor.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Kim said. “Barb will lick it up.”

  *

  Kumail was a doughy, clean cut white man. He kept his hands in his pockets the whole concert, smiling like a goon. Laurie and I pulled Kim aside.

  “His name’s not Kumail,” Laurie shouted over the music. “It’s Larry.”

  “What a terrible name,” Kim said.

  “He doesn’t exist,” I said. “He’s intangible. You can’t touch him. Did you not notice?”

  “I don’t go for that kind of stuff.”

  “What, touching?”

  Kim took a little black pill out of her pocket and swallowed it.

  “Where’d you get that?” I asked.

  “Your desk. These things are great. Like pop rocks for your brain.”

  “This is all because you overdosed that one time,” Laurie yelled at me. “He’s had a taste of reality and he wants back in.”

  We looked over at him. He was standing in the middle of the crowd. He pretended to sing along but I could tell he was mouthing gibberish.

  *

  We pulled him into the alley behind the venue. Laurie backed him against a dumpster. “Leave us alone,” she said.

  “It’s not fair,” Larry said. He slid to the ground and hugged his knees. “I exist, I don’t exist, I’m here, I’m gone. It’s disorienting. All I want is some consistency.”

  “My boyfriends don’t cry,” Kim said.

  A cold wind blew through the alley. Kim stomped her feet, shivering. We all watched the huddled, weeping Larry.

  “You two go in and enjoy the show,” Kim said. “I’ll sit out here with Kumail and ride out my high until he blips out of existence.”

  As we went inside, I looked back and saw Kim sitting next to him against the dumpster, passing her hand through his head. Then she scooted over, passing her shoulder through his shoulder, her chest through his chest, her body through his body, until they occupied the same space. I was looking at a crying Larry and a sighing Kim all at once.

  “Some boyfriend,” she said.

  PRECIOUS

  November 16, 2013

  “Barb spoke her first words this morning,” Kim said, shaking me awake.

  “You can’t barge in here and wake me up like this,” I said.

  “Barge in where?” she said. “You sleep on a futon in my living room.”

  “A futon,” I repeated, blinking away the sleep. I had dreamt I didn’t exist, but now it was all coming back. I was in Los Angeles. I didn’t have a bedroom. The full force of the past two months barreled down on me.

  Kim put Barb on my chest. She cooed and drooled on my face.

  “I was brushing my teeth and she climbed onto the toilet and spoke to me. I’m proud of her. She’s so young.”

  Barb wagged her tail.

  “What did she say?” I asked.

  “‘Help.’”

  “Yikes,” I said.

  Kim shrugged. “Could have been worse. Could have been ‘Mommy.’”

  SHADOWS!

  November 19, 2013

  “I’m feeling rowdy,” I said. “I’m looking to get into some shit.”

  “Oh, shut up,” Laurie said. She was watching television.

  We had a new upstairs neighbor, and while I had yet to see him I knew he was there, because each night he made a horrible racket. It was different each time. One night it sounded like he was blowing across the mouth of a jug for an hour straight without taking a breath. Another night it was an hour of him humming into an oscillating fan. Last night, I heard what I thought was the sound of him clipping his nails for forty minutes. I’d never heard nail clipping that loud before. He must have had a lot of nails. Anyway, the noise was awful. Just quiet enough so it didn’t wake Kim, and just loud enough that I couldn’t help but strain to listen. I was losing my mind. I was irritable.

  “Unless I’m way off the mark,” I said, “I’m pretty sure he’s taunting me. He’s performing some kind of experiment on me.”

  “Usually you’re pretty off the mark,” Laurie said. “But by all means, kick his ass. I can’t have this become another lame excuse for you to start sleeping over all the time.” She turned back to the game.

  I pointed at the television. “What is this, sports? Since when do you watch sports?”

  “There are many different types of sports. You get that, right? For instance, this is football.”

  I headed for the door. “Feeling rowdy,” I whispered to myself, nodding. I liked how it sounded.

  *

  “Oh, it’s not me,” said my upstairs neighbor. I was at his door. “It’s an ambient-noise podcast.”

  “It sounds like death,” I said. I looked him up and down. He was chubby but had rail thin, bowed legs, as if his jeans squeezed all the fat in his legs up above his waist.

  “It’s made by a cardiologist in Utah,” he said. “It’s what he listens to when he’s sawing through breastplates.” He smiled, and I flinched.

  “Are you a surgeon?” I asked.

  “Well, no.”

  “Then why listen to it?”

  “Like you said. It sounds like death.”

  I had come up here wanting to punch this man, but now that
I was looking at him I didn’t know where I’d plant my fist. I looked at his nose, but I didn’t want to hurt my hand. I tried to stir up my anger again, but it was gone.

  “I also like it because it gets me all riled up,” he said. “My heart starts pumping and I pace around the apartment. I want to punch the walls. I’ve never felt like that before. It’s fantastic.”

  “Maybe,” I said. “But it’s got to stop.”

  He frowned and cracked his knuckles. “But why?”

  “It’s why I came up here. To get you to stop.”

  Then my face went numb, and I was on my butt on the concrete. I looked up. “Did you just punch me in the nose?”

  He was squeezing his hand and wincing. “Yes. Sorry. Yes.” He gritted his teeth. “Wow. That was not enjoyable,” he said. “It felt like the right thing to do, like it’d been building for days, but Jesus. My hand!” He started to close the door. “I’m sorry. This was embarrassing. I won’t play the podcast again.”

  *

  “I took care of it,” I said.

  “Your face is all messed up,” Laurie said. She was still watching the game. I sat down next to her. I felt really tired, but I knew if I fell asleep, she’d yell at me. I inhaled carefully. I could only breathe through one nostril.

  Laurie pointed at the TV. “I don’t even know what I’m watching. Who are all these guys in three-piece suits? Why are their ties so big? The game is only like one-seventh of what’s happening.” She turned it off, and we looked at ourselves in the screen. My face was covered in blood. Laurie looked at me. “Wanna make out?” she said.

  RHODA

  November 24, 2013

  “I think we need to take Garth to the hospital,” my sister said. “He’s got a big hole in his belly.”

  “Who’s Garth?” I said. I was unclogging the bathroom sink, pulling up gobs of hair tangled in green gunk. It was endless. It was the most fun I’d had in a long while.

  “Garth is the new upstairs neighbor.”

  I picked another hair-gob off my fingers and flung it into the garbage. Almost seemed like a waste to throw it away. “An actual hole?” I asked. “Like a doughnut hole?”

  “No, more like a crater.” She held up a little figurine. The stomach was hollowed out. “Like this.”

  “Tell me you didn’t make those little figurines you’ve been talking about.”

  “I did, I did,” she said. “I had to. He cold clocked you.”

  “First off, he caught me off guard. Second, you can’t just scoop out a guy’s insides because he hit me. It’s overkill.”

  “It isn’t very sporting, I’ll give you that. I was grinding away with a little nail file and upstairs I heard him begging to someone named Rhoda to ‘Please make the pain stop.’ What an ugly name, Rhoda. Anyway, he hasn’t said anything in a while, which makes me think he’s not doing so hot. It was better when he was moaning.”

  I looked down the drain. It gurgled and burped hot, wet air into my face. “Let’s look for some Drano in his apartment when we go up there.”

  “I feel like you’re always in here, scrubbing or whatever,” my sister said.

  “Things don’t just magically clean themselves,” I said. “It takes steadfastness and a good eye.”

  “It’s a lot of time in the bathroom.”

  *

  Kim carried Garth down the stairs to the garage. “He’s not so heavy,” she said. “Although I guess he’s missing like, twenty percent of his body weight.”

  We took his car because he was oozing a lot. He collapsed in the back seat and asked us where we were taking him.

  “Hey, Garth,” Kim said. She sat in the back seat with him. His head was on her lap. “Who’s Rhoda?”

  “She was my therapist,” he groaned. “I told her my life, my whole goddamned life, and then she died.”

  “How did she die?”

  “Old age. She was sixty. I’d tell her about my problems, and she’d give me advice. Great advice. But now she’s dead. I try to talk to her still, but it’s not the same.”

  “Because she’d dead,” Kim said. “You gotta stop doing that. People will think you’re nuts if you talk to yourself. You shouldn’t tell anyone else that story, okay? You won’t make friends in the building.” She lifted the front of his shirt and looked at his wound. “Besides, what kind of advice would she give you right now? This is unprecedented in the history of forever, probably.”

  I pulled up to the ER entrance and turned around to look at him. His eyes were glazed over. “Listen, Garth,” I said. “Kim’s going to carry you to the door and hand you off, or maybe set you on the ground. Then we’re gonna skedaddle. We’ll park your car in the hospital lot for you, though.”

  “Thanks,” he mumbled. “Sorry about your face.”

  “I think we’re even, now.”

  *

  We walked home along Los Feliz Boulevard.

  “What is this, cold weather?” Kim said.

  “It’s the middle of the night.”

  She shivered. We were both wearing jean jackets. “What did he mean, he told his whole life to Rhoda?” Kim asked. “I mean, what does that mean? Your whole life?”

  “Maybe he kept a detailed journal.”

  “No thanks,” Kim said. “Busy work.”

  Across the street, an old man grabbed at his crotch and leered at us. He said we smelled like shit, that he could smell our reek from all the way over there.

  “Shut the hell up,” Kim yelled. “We don’t stink. Or, at least our apartment is pristine.” She patted me on the back.

  CHICAGO FOR THANKSGIVING

  November 26, 2013

  We didn’t know what to do with Barb while we were away in Chicago. Laurie had disappeared without notice, and Garth still spent most of his days unconscious due to his injuries. Our bags were packed, we were ready to go, and Kim was making a last ditch effort to train Barb to open the fridge.

  “It’s not gonna work,” I said. “She doesn’t have hands.”

  “You look awful,” Kim said. “Are you drunk? It’s three in the afternoon.”

  “I don’t like to fly.” I’d been mixing those little black pills with alcohol, and the effect was incredible. I thought I might be a superhero. I had an almost uncontrollable urge to patrol the neighborhood, or sacrifice myself to save the universe.

  “Stop touching your biceps and help me stuff Barb into my carry-on,” Kim said.

  ALL OF THEM PARENTS

  November 27, 2013

  Dad picked us up from the airport. He was bundled up against the cold. We could tell something was different.

  “Seriously, what is going on?” Kim said. “You’re trying to hide it under that big hat and scarf. Take those off.” She wrestled off his winter hat, unwound the scarf. When he was bare-faced Kim recoiled and said, “I feel sick.”

  I leaned forward from the back seat to get a better look.

  He looked like Mia Farrow in Rosemary’s Baby.

  “It’s not so bad,” I said. “You look cute. Does this mean Mom is going to look like Frank Sinatra?”

  “Frank Sinatra? What are you talking about?” Kim said.

  “Dad looks like Mia Farrow.”

  “No, he doesn’t,” she said. “He looks like you.”

  “What happened, Dad?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I spent yesterday cleaning your bedroom of all the mold that had built up since you left, and when I was done I looked like this. I’m not too worried. It’s already wearing off. My back hair is already growing back.”

  I was flattered. He didn’t think I had back hair.

  *

  Dad and I were in my room because I wanted to see if the mold mouth really was all gone.

  It really was all gone.

  I had always assumed the mold mouth had ulterior motives, some master plan, but now I saw it for what it was: a patch of life that could be killed by bleach and hot water like anything else. Maybe it was never my enemy. Maybe it had be
en my friend.

  “What about you? Are you worried now that we look the same?” Dad said.

  “Why would I be worried?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I might kill you and take over your life?”

  Mom yelled to me from the living room. She wanted me to rub her feet and knew I could be guilted into anything. I took Dad by the shoulders and guided him into the hall. He struggled, but he was my size now. We had the same weakling body, but I’d been living in it my whole life.

  “Give special attention to the bunions,” I told him.

  PETS

  December 4, 2013

  On the plane back to LA, I sat next to a lady with a dog. The dog was large and black, and its fur was wet. It lay on my feet.

  “It’s an emotional support dog,” the lady said. “It’s on the up-and-up. I have the papers.”

  “Okay,” I said. My stomach was still upset from Thanksgiving, and now I was on a plane with a dog whose saliva was seeping into my socks.

  “That was a lie, just now,” the lady said. “It’s not an emotional support dog. There are no papers.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  “What I mean is,” she said, “no one’s ever been able to see the dog but me. I don’t even want her, but she follows me everywhere. You’re the first person who’s ever noticed her.” She reached down to pet the dog. Her hand came back up covered in black hair. “I think she might be my dead twin.”

  “Your twin was a dog?”

  “No, but she was run over by a car.” She wiped her hand on the window, leaving a streak of slobber and fur. “Anyway, I’m sick of her. She’s been following me for years. I thought she was only haunting me, but now you can see her.”

  “I wouldn’t read into that. I have a creepy dog, too. This type of stuff always happens to me. For instance, see my legs? They’re not actually my legs.”

  “Oh?”

  “They were transplanted onto me by the mold on my ceiling. And sometimes I take these black pills that create an imaginary friend for me. And I used to have a human skull that sucked out my soul while I slept. I used it as a paperweight until I gave it to my upstairs neighbor. I could go on.”