Samantha hesitated. “Um, Aaron’s sick actually.”
“What?”
“He’s sick. He can’t come in.”
“Jesus fucking Christ.”
“Sorry.”
“Well, can you tell him to call me at the store please?”
“Uh—” Samantha began, but Nicole had already hung up.She put the phone back in its cradle and muttered, “Bitch.”
*
Martha Haggerty sat on the floor in her kitchen, her backresting against the cupboard doors below the sink, her spindlylegs sprawled out in front of her in leopard print stockings. She’dtaken Nuggles out of the garbage bag and placed him on a bed ofcrumpled newspaper in a cardboard box, and wrote RIP on oneof the flaps. Then she proceeded to smoke joint after joint untilthe whole supply she’d just purchased was gone. Soon she’d haveto seal the box closed with duct tape. Nuggles was starting tostink.
She looked at the seven or eight little roach triangles in theashtray on the floor at her side. If she really wanted to, she couldempty the charred, resinous contents from each one into somefresh rolling paper, but the high would be negligible after everything she’d smoked already. If she wanted to stay numb she’dhave to make another trip up to Zack’s unit.
An earwig emerged from a hole in the baseboard. Marthawatched it scurry along the floor, past where she was sitting, thendisappear under the fridge. She yawned and tried to stand up, buther legs had been asleep, and were now aflame with pins andneedles. She held onto the counter for dear life, giggling in ticklish agony every time she so much as wriggled a toe. After aminute or so the feeling in her legs returned, and she managed toslouch out of her apartment and down the hall to the elevator.She wondered what had become of Mr. Böröcz. For all she knewhe was dead by now. Maybe later she’d ask the nice young manwho’d arrived on the scene and called 911 to finish diggingNuggles’ grave for her.
The elevator doors opened on the sixth floor. For a second,Martha forgot what she’d come up here for, but rememberedwhen she caught a whiff of the marijuana stink emanating downthe hall from unit 608.
As she approached the door she saw that it was ajar. Sheknocked gently and the door inched forward.
“Zack?” she said into the crack.
No answer.
Some kind of rap music was playing inside. Gunshot andscreeching wheel sound effects provided the backdrop for the rapper’s repeated declaration that he would “get his nut”, whatever that meant.
“Zack? Are you there?” Martha said, louder this time.
Still no answer. She pushed the door open slowly, justenough for her to slip into the foyer. The air was foggy withcannabis funk. Martha coughed. She could feel herself gettinghigh again already. Maybe she could just hang out in here for awhile and get high enough to not have to buy anything.
“Hello-oh,” she said in a well-meaning, sing-song tone asshe turned the corner and entered Zack’s living room.
When she saw them on the couch, her sharp intake of breathwas so loud it almost sounded like a scream. She thought she’dcome face-to-face with a two-headed, eight-limbed, fleshcoloured monster in a fit of violent convulsions.
The blonde was riding Zack on the couch in the reversecowgirl position, her skinny thighs vibrating as she bounced upand down on his pasty, hairy lap. The blonde’s eyes were closedand there was a lit joint in her mouth. Zack’s hands cupped herbreasts from behind. An involuntary sound came out of Martha’sthroat, causing Zack to poke his head out from the side underneath the blonde’s armpit.
“Miss H!” he said without stopping what he was doing. “Bad timing, yo.”
Martha spun around. “I’ll come back later,” she blurted, andwas back on the first floor and inside her own apartment withoutany memory of the elevator journey down.
She stared at Nuggles in his cardboard coffin for whatseemed like an eternity, then went to her bedroom and stared atthe ceiling fan, wondering if she had the materials or was competent enough to fashion a proper noose; if she had the guts todo it; if humans and kitty cats shared the same afterlife.
*
Aaron couldn’t believe it. He could not believe it. Thatbristly douche-bag had been in his apartment. He’d brought his germs into the confines of his and Samantha’s haven—andSamantha had invited him!
He should have seen it coming. Samantha had been actingweirder than normal lately. The mood swings. The horniness.The cold emotional detachment. She probably had a crush on thelumbering idiot. What was it about dirty guys with facial scruffand musky B.O. that drove girls wild? He’d never had to worryabout that baffling phenomenon before because he thought—mistakenly, it turned out—that Samantha wasn’t the kind of girlto be attracted to sleazeballs. Thankfully he knew she was toowary of disease to ever do anything about it—especially now,with an epidemic on.
He tied a thick knot into one of the empty garbage bags ashe boarded the elevator, and recalled some of the things the idiothad said. I recognized you from the picture . . . Your place is, like, überclean, dude . . . You must never have people over . . . Samantha’s a coolchick. He wanted to memorize the guy’s words so he could brandish them like weapons in the upcoming fight with Samantha.He tried in vain to remember the idiot’s name. He’d said it, butAaron had discarded it right away like a snotty napkin. It wassomething ridiculous, like Link or Lobo or Lazarus. Somethingdumb.
As the elevator arrived on the fourth floor, he tried to calmdown. Whenever he argued with Samantha, he was always toofrazzled by emotion or exasperation to make any sense. Her cool,stone-faced logic always seemed to put him in the wrong, evenif—sometimes especially if—he was the one who had the right tobe upset. This time he’d take her approach. He had the ammunition: she had broken rule number one and invited someoneinto their apartment without his consent. He’d like to see her tryto talk her way out of this one.
He stood outside the door to his apartment for a moment tocollect himself, the empty garbage bag now a ball of stretched,overlapping knots. He looked at the numbers on the door, andfor a fraction of a second he saw them for what they really were:nothing but arbitrary symbols, meaningless outside their own context. 404. Just a bunch of lines and a circle. This was how hishome was marked.
The toilet flushed inside, and the sound of water swooshingthrough the pipes in the walls seemed to wash the thought fromhis mind. He shook his head, tried to scowl, and let himself in.
Samantha was sitting sideways in the easy chair, naked exceptfor a pair of black and yellow Batman socks. Aaron felt his angerdeflate just from seeing how cute she looked, but he knew he hadto be firm on this. It was the principle, damn it.
“Nicole called,” Samantha said, with obvious scorn in her voice.
“Guess who I just—wait, what? Why?”
“She said you were supposed to work or something.” Shehalf-yawned. “I told her you were sick. She wants you to call her.”
“Screw that.”
Samantha smiled proudly at him before her eyes shifted tothe black ball of knots in his hand. “What’s that?”
“Huh?” He looked down at the bag. He’d forgotten he washolding it. “It doesn’t matter. The laundry bag. Listen.” Hethrew the black ball of plastic into the kitchen and stomped overto the couch. He didn’t sit down, just loomed in front of it, hisshadow stretched across the floor. “I just bumped into a friend ofyours in the laundry room.” He spat out the F-word like a shardof gristle in a tough and flavourless piece of steak.
Samantha just looked at him. Her face gave nothing away. “Who?”
“Don’t play dumb,” Aaron said. “You know who I mean.DeLorean or whatever. The scruffy guy. The dirty bird man.”
Something twitched in Samantha’s neck. She moved in thechair so she was facing him head-on. She didn’t say anything.Only a few seconds passed, but it felt like an immense span oftime.
“What the fuck, Sam. I can’t
believe you.”
She put her hands in her hair and stared at the floor, her chestexpanding and contracting with every breath. Her Batman sockswere ridiculous and charming. She was cute. She was beautiful. Aaron felt his anger evaporating—until his brain processed whatshe said next.
“I had sex with him.”
STAGE 5A: DISSOLUTION
“Turn that off,” Dr. Sedgwick said. “I hate looking atmyself on television.”
Lisa rolled over, a clump of bed sheet between her thighs.“Oh, shush. Everyone says that. I’m tired of it.”
“Well, I mean it.” Rosamund zipped up the fly on her dresspants. “I was there. I know what I said.”
Lisa rolled back over onto her stomach and continued towatch, her feet in the air.
Roz stared at her girlfriend’s bum, covered by the thin whitesheet—a sloping hill of smooth, downy snow—and felt a stabwound of desire in her chest. She didn’t want to work today. Shewanted to spend all day in bed with Lisa. They hadn’t done thatfor months.
“Is it really that bad?”
“Yes,” Roz said quickly, and then, “Wait, what?”
“This flu,” Lisa said. “Should I be worried?”
“No, but these things are hard to predict. You’re healthy. Andeveryone who’s been quarantined so far has been male. I don’t thinkit means anything, but it’s strange. We need to look into it further.”
Lisa turned around and looked at her lover. “Really?”
Roz laughed. “Aren’t you paying attention to the press conference? We mention it multiple times.”
Lisa gave her a look like she was crazy. “You really arestressed, aren’t you.”
“What do you—” but then it hit her. The television was onmute. She shook her head. “Sorry, Lis.”
There was a look of pity in Lisa’s eyes. Normally, Roz hatedthat look, but this time she saw love in it.
“Go to work,” Lisa commanded. “But please, please don’twork too hard.”
Roz continued to dress while Lisa flipped channels. She wentto the bathroom to fiddle with her hair, and when she came backto the bedroom, Lisa had turned off the TV and was pretending tosleep. She kissed the top of her head and left the apartment. Thecreepy defense lawyer who lived in the unit across the hall waswaiting by the elevator. He smiled at her, so Roz took the stairs.
*
Zack Pike opened his eyes, climbed over the naked womansprawled out beside him, and stumbled into the bathroom just intime to puke into the sink.
“You kneeled on my arm, you fatass!” he heard Claire saybetween retches. “That’s going to bruise.”
Zack envisioned an animated .gif file of his knee pressingdown so hard on Claire’s arm that it snapped in two. It repeatedand repeated itself in his head while he spewed last night’s BurgerKing into his sink. He waited for a long enough break betweenretches, then moved to the toilet and continued to blow chunks.The bathroom smelled strongly of French fries.
Claire was making noise in the other room. Zack held hisbreath and rested his head on the toilet seat, watching her.
“I’m going out,” she was saying, as she stepped into a pair oftattered pink panties.
Zack pinched his eyes and looked at her. She was right aboutbruising. There were purple and blue blemishes all over her legs.It was sort of a turn-on, but also sort of not. She was a hookerafter all. Her upper-arms were covered in pimples, and her hairwas wild and crusted with various forms of hair product. Still, shewas amazing in the sack. He thought back to fucking her doggystyle on his couch and sticking his thumb in her asshole, thenunleashed another chunky wad of half-digested burger meat intohis toilet bowl.
“This place reeks,” Claire said on her way out the door, thenslammed it behind her.
Zack stood up and looked at himself in his grime-fleckedmirror. He was green. His eyes were swollen and bloodshot. There was a small cluster of red dots on his left collar bone. Hewas panting, his chest rising and falling like an angry IncredibleHulk. He grabbed his tooth brush and stabbed the mirror hardwith the butt-end. It shattered instantly. Shards exploded acrossthe bathroom, tinkling into the sink and at his feet. He was afucking monster. He felt a stronger-than-ever urge to destroyeverything in sight; to smash the world with the rage on fireinside him.
He needed a joint ASAP.
*
“The first time I laid eyes on Mary Swanson,” said LloydChristmas, on Luca’s shit-box TV, “I got that old-fashioned romanticfeeling where I’d do anything to bone her.”
Luca had lived with a woman before. Her name was Krystal.He’d met her at a bar, and their one-night stand sprouted andbloomed into a four-year relationship.
It ended messily, as most longterm relationships do. Krystalmoved back in with her parents, where they’d kept her old bedroom completely as she’d left it, as though they’d anticipated oreven hoped for a break-up. Krystal came from a family withmoney, and Luca always had the impression they didn’t like theidea of their eldest daughter living downtown in a shabby apartment with a tradesman.
Things with Krystal had ended a little over a year ago, andLuca had been alone since. At first it was a struggle. He missedthe little things, like coming home from a long shift and tellingher about his day, asking how hers had been, trips to the grocerystore, and watching seasons of hit shows on DVD together. Hefelt empty and inhuman in the apartment he couldn’t afford onhis own. He’d spend his nights getting wasted and looking atporn on the internet, trying and failing to masturbate to something other than memories of Krystal, images of her naked bodythat haunted him like cruel ghosts.
There were moments he’d contemplated suicide—not tooseriously, but the thought had been there: a single black page in a vast encyclopedia of options. He ignored it and took on work.It was the only other thing he had.
Gradually and without effort, he drifted into the simplifiedsolitude of a bachelor’s life. He hadn’t slept with, let alonetouched a woman until the day Samantha Riske invited him intoher apartment. He had forgotten what it felt like to burn forsomeone. It felt good. He wanted more. He wanted to go further. He wanted to fuck her hard, to be violent even. The wolfinside him had been asleep for too long.
He stood up and looked out the window. Across the lot andthree floors up, Samantha’s blinds were closed. He imagined herinside, scrubbing the kitchen floor on her hands and knees,naked, with dirty feet. He got an erection almost instantly. Hesighed deeply, and just as he was about to sit back down, a figureburst out of the building’s rear entrance. It was Samantha’sboyfriend. He was moving fast, almost running, with a mask onhis face and a half-zipped backpack dangling from his shoulder.
Luca stepped closer to the window and peered out, butAaron had already turned the corner and was gone.
*
He couldn’t see. He was moving on instinct in a tunnel ofnausea. He just needed to get away from her because hecouldn’t believe it was real. This wasn’t real—any of it. He wasdreaming. It was a fucking nightmare. When he got away fromthe building onto a main road he would step out into traffic.Yes, that’s what he’d do. A car, or a truck, or a goddamn minivan would hit him at full speed. He’d feel a split-second ofbreathlessness and then he’d wake up. Or maybe he’d die.Wasthere a difference? Of course there was. But the differencedidn’t matter. Not anymore.
Turning the corner out of the parking lot, Aaron felt a sudden gash of panic. What was he doing? Was he actually leaving?He felt he had forgotten something. Something important. Thenhe realized what he’d forgotten was Samantha. Fuck it. Hestopped and turned around.
Wait. No. Fuck her. Fuck her. He turned around again andcontinued toward the street, his backpack full of who-knowswhat. He’d packed in a fury. Band-Aids, Altoids, Alka-Seltzer,jeans. Nothing useful or important. Was that the spout of ateapot jabbing into his side? Probably. He’d just thrown thingsinto his backpack and left.
Samant
ha had just sat there and watched. Was she that cold?He should’ve known this might happen. She’d always been selfish. At best she had some severe personality disorder, at worst shewas a psychopath. She had no empathy at all, no foresight. Shewas a specimen to behold, a callous and insensitive being, and hehated himself for loving her. He probably loved her more now,in this moment of excruciating betrayal, than he ever had.
Maybe that made himthe sick one.
Now, where the fuck was he going?
His phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out, realized hewasn’t wearing any gloves, and checked the call display. It wasNicole from work. Normally he wouldn’t have answered butthese weren’t normal circumstances.
“Hello,” he said, semi-out-of-breath. He took in his surroundings for the first time since he’d stepped outside. He wasalready blocks from his building. There were strangers around—walking and driving and living their lives.
“Aaron, it’s Nicole. I can’t believe you answered. Are you okay?”
“No.”
“Are you outside? There’s a lot of background noise.”
“Why are you calling me?”
“Samantha said you were sick.”
“Don’t trust her. She’s a liar.”
“What? So you’re not sick?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“Umm, okay? Anyway, you were on the schedule to openthis morning and you never showed. Can you come in? It’s kindof an emergency.”
“No, sorry.”
“Aaron, what the fuck? You’re on the schedule. Do youwant to get fired?”
“That might be okay.”
“Are you fucking kidding me?” Her screechy voice was giving him a headache. “I can’t stay here all day!”
“So go home.”
He was on a busy street now with lots of traffic and pedestrians. There were children everywhere. School must have letout. Was it lunch time or after school? He didn’t even know. Hewas trying to avoid touching anyone or anything while Nicolesquawked in his ear.
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