Couch

by Benjamin Parzybok

  “You’ll be sore. That was a hellish fall. But shit, you saved us, I bet.”

  “Not the TV though,” Tree said. The three looked at the TV, upside down in a corner, surrounded by water, like a shipwreck stuck in the surf.

  “Probably not,” Thom said. “Doesn’t look good for the TV. Or the apartment.”

  “What in the fuck?” Thom raised palms toward the upstairs, or the sky. Or God.

  “Waterbed upstairs,” Erik said. “Some kind of fire underneath it. That lady came back. She’s so mad.” Erik smiled. “I mean, she’s mad. The whole waterbed let loose. I’m mad too, I guess. All the water in here is soaking the apartment below us, the poor suckers.”

  “This is really screwed,” Thom said. “Let’s get out of here. I’m treating everyone to breakfast. Does your car still work, Erik?”

  “If it doesn’t, at least it’s dry.”

  Outside, rain was streaming from a black sky. “Celestial waterbed,” Thom joked and was ignored. The three piled into Erik’s car and headed for an all-night diner across town, black smoke curling up behind them, an ocean of rain in front. Every once in a while Erik would bang on the steering wheel and curse.

  The restaurant was full of the regular assembly of stylish, alternative Portland nightlife—people none of them felt at home with. Velvet Elvises mixed with local artists and black lights on the walls.

  Erik ordered two pieces of pie, Tree a grilled-cheese sandwich, and Thom complicated things with eggs without cheese, no toast, and Italian sausage that he felt guilty ordering in front of the vegetarian-looking waitress. Beers were had all around.

  “So, dreamboy, what are you going to do now?” Erik said. “Dream this one too?”

  “I did have . . . I’ve had a lot of dreams with water lately. Sort of thought it was one of those.”

  “Oh, you did, did you? Next time let’s have a little more warning. I woke up from dreaming that I was getting pissed on by a horse.”

  Thom chuckled and noticed the bar was playing his ex-girlfriend’s favorite band, Neutral Milk Hotel. Oh comely, I will be with you when you lose your breath. A tingle went up his spine.

  Erik lurched up and over to a group on their last drinks of the night. He came back with a lit cigarette.

  “Yep,” he said, “yep yep yep.” Exhaling smoke. “It was pretty funny though. You’ve all got to admit that it was pretty funny. Tree’s swan dive. The whole thing like a SeaWorld exhibition.”

  “Yeah,” said Thom, “it’d be funnier if I wasn’t so entirely screwed. Maybe I’ll go live with my mom.”

  “Hey, at least you can,” Erik said. “My folks are probably lost in a jungle somewhere. Home-home has been gone for decades.”

  “Yeah,” Tree said.

  “Yeah what?” said Erik, covering Tree in smoke, waving it away.

  “Mine too. Not a . . . err, not a jungle, but same sort of thing.”

  Erik exhaled another cloud of smoke in a sine wave, nodding vigorously. “We could always get arrested.” His white teeth picked up the glow of a black light somewhere. “It’s better than the rain.”

  “I think we . . .” Tree started and then looked down at the table, fingered the saltshaker. He grabbed the pepper and made the two spices do a self-conscious jig.

  Erik and Thom exchanged looks.

  “Not more of that dream shit. That’s freaky shit,” Erik said.

  “It’s not so freaky,” Thom said. “The mind is an interesting entity. The dreams may be subconscious wishes, snatches of extrapolated information that seem like premonition. Jung even talked about tapping into a collective mind—so he may have lifted the fifty-eight from your mind, or it may have been a lucky guess. But the important thing I think is not to get too carried away.”

  Tree nodded vigorously, Erik jabbed the cigarette into the ashtray with repetitive violence, and their food arrived.

  “Well, I’d like to hear it, dammit,” Erik said.

  “I wasn’t saying I didn’t want to hear,” Thom said.

  “No, you said you weren’t going to believe it.”

  “I didn’t,” Thom protested.

  “Well what the hell do you think you said? And shit, if he can pick a number out of my mind while I’m sleeping—how about that guy over there?” Erik pointed to an older man nursing his coffee, a ski cap tight around his ears. “What’s that guy thinking?”

  “I can’t,” said Tree, and his face reddened. “It doesn’t . . . I don’t . . .”

  “He’s thinking he’d like to get the waitress naked,” Thom said with too much on his fork, trying to pare down the load. “Just like the rest of us who are too afraid to admit it.”

  “That’s the spirit!” Erik took a swig of his beer. “That’s exactly right. He’s thinking he’d like a pair. See those greedy eyes? That one sitting up there”—he gestured with the bottle to a woman dressed as a goth, black tights on slender legs, beautiful lips with dark lipstick—“and the waitress.”

  Thom and Tree shyly studied the goth.

  “Heh heh,” Thom said, an ache in his throat. Thom’s brain repeated his mantra: She is pretty; I am homely.

  They looked at their plates, pushing around food they were too exhausted to eat.

  Thom grabbed a handful of his hair and squeezed, felt several of the strands pop from their roots. “What in the hell are we going to do? How can so many things possibly fail at once?” He tried to put a humorous tone on his words but knew he couldn’t keep it up. He was this far away from real depression, the state that puts you in bed for a couple of weeks, too weak to move.

  “Hey, big guy, none of that. No despair at this table. Tree’s got it all worked out.” Erik nudged Tree.

  “Uh!” Tree rubbed his side where Erik had elbowed him. “I don’t, really, I just think that . . . maybe something else might come up. Maybe we’ll eat some foreign food.”

  “What in the Jesus hell are you talking about? What kind of a plan is that? We’re trying to cheer Thom up. Come on now, foreign food—we’re heading to a Thai restaurant next? Listen, this is how you do it. I’ve got an uncle that lives in one of those fancy houses in the hills, great place, there’s a hot tub, it’ll be warm and dry, big improvement right there. He’s away in Europe for three months, and I know where the spare key is. Fantastic kitchen, view of the city, we’ll get girlfriends and have them over, it’s a hell of a place. Just to get back on our feet. You’ll get your job, Thom, and then whatever happens, happens.”

  “Really?” Thom smiled dreamily. “We could do that?”

  Erik rolled his eyes. “No, man, come on, think I’d have been staying in that apartment if I had a place like that? I was just showing Tree how to cheer somebody up.”

  “You sonofabitch.”

  “Sorry, sorry about that—this is what’s going to happen. The water will have made the apartment pretty much unlivable. The landlord will tell us to get our shit and get out, because it’s got a lot of repair time and they’ve got to check electrical and structural and all hell, and while they’re at it, why not just renovate the damn thing so it gets more rent?”

  Thom put his face in his hands and stared between fingers at his Italian sausage.

  “We’re going on a trip,” Tree said.

  “You dreamed this?” Thom said.

  “Hey, man”—Erik pointing at Thom—“don’t knock dreamboy, I told you he had a plan.”

  “But I’m not sure. Sometimes they don’t . . .” Tree stared at his plate.

  “Quit saying that! So your dreams don’t always come true. Mine don’t come true. Yours come true, Thom?”

  “Not a one.”

  Erik brought his beer bottle down to the table with a heavy thud, “That settles it then. We leave tomorrow.”

  “You have got to be out of your mind. Where to, what money, why?” Thom said.

  “Come on, you big worrywart, what have you got going here?” Erik said.

  Thom looked hopelessly at Tree.

  “I don�
�t have anything going,” Tree volunteered. “But we could find another apartment.”

  Erik spread his hands wide in mock indignation. “Just a minute ago you were talking about a trip. Besides. Who is going to rent to three unemployed types?”

  “I have some money from my grandfather,” Tree said.

  Erik nodded several times. “How much?”

  “Erik,” Thom growled.

  “Hey, it’s cool, man. Don’t tell me. I was just asking.”

  “Fifteen hundred.”

  Erik calculated on the ceiling for a moment and then mashed the remains of his second piece of pie into a liquidy hash with his fork. “Well, that’s an extremely short apartment rental or a long trip.”

  “I’m going to live with my mom,” Thom said.

  “Where’s that?”

  “Central Washington.”

  “The hell are you going to do there? I say we just get in my car and head south, seek our futures in less rainy climes. Go to Mexico. Think about fifteen hundred bucks in Mexico. Viva México!” he yelled, fork in the air. Heads at several tables turned toward Erik then back again.

  Tree shifted uneasily in his seat.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Thom said. “I want to look at the apartment again.”

  When they hit fresh air, Thom decided all at once he wanted the trip. He wanted to get out of town, do something different, see somewhere different. He needed to move, to ramble, to let road dust and sky patch tight the various holes in his life. “I’ll do the trip,” he said.

  “Yes!” said Erik. “We’ve got a plan. You’re in, right Tree?”

  “Okay,” Tree nodded and smiled.

  “Okay!” Erik started the car, revved it, and, with a whoosh of smoke and a bang, it gave out and would not start again.

  Thom clapped his hands in glee. “I’m cursed. Let’s all of us just coast this thing into the Willamette River. Us in it.”

  Erik pounded on the steering wheel.

  “Tell me about your uncle again,” Tree said.

  With nowhere else to go and no other way to get there—the buses wouldn’t start for several hours—they walked. Down Clinton Street to Twelfth, two miles, down Twelfth to Burnside, three miles. On Burnside a car brimming with party revelers pummeled them with fast-food remains. A milkshake struck Thom square in the chest, exploding onto Tree and Erik in a chocolatey mess. Erik turned and ran after the car, holding his middle finger up and shouting incomprehensibly. He made it a full two blocks before he ran out of steam. Thom and Tree waited, scooping off globs of milkshake.

  Burnside to the river, over the bridge and the frigid glare of the Willamette River, the Superfund ecodisaster. Thom imagined the slick, rubbery bodies of suicides floating coldly under the bridge, merging into the Columbia and then finally out to sea.

  They continued up through downtown and then up to Twenty-Third, three miles.

  By the time they got home, they were exhausted. A note from the building manager was taped to their door. Hi Tree, heard about the leak. Will have a look in the morn.—Bob. As if they’d had a small issue with a leaky toilet and he’d be around to fix it when he got the chance.

  Erik checked the couch and was amazed to find it dry. “Feel it! It’s dry. Think all the water soaked in?” Both roommates dutifully felt the couch.

  “There’s something about this couch,” Tree said.

  Thom sighed. “I’m going to bed wherever I can.”

  “What’s about this couch is it’s where I’m going to sleep, that’s what’s about this couch,” Erik said. The others curled into dry corners of the apartment wherever they could find them, with clothes and scavenged dry blankets piled over them for warmth. The sound of dripping echoed through the apartment like a cave lullaby.

  The apartment manager was at their door first thing in the morning with an older, well-dressed gentleman in tow.

  The knocking came to Erik like announcements in foreign countries. Like undersea drums, leagues away. He couldn’t seem to separate the sound from his dreams, and even on his feet he was unsure which part of the wrecked room the noise was coming from. He found the door, forced it open enough to look out, and the two men on the other side took a half step back. A smell of must and rot bustled past them and filled the hallway.

  “Fue una noche terrible, bien mojada,” Erik said, and felt his voice didn’t sound right. His hair stood out at angles like the sweeping end of an abused broom.

  “What?” said the gentleman.

  The manager glanced at the other man, swallowed and said, “Qué pasó?”

  “I speak English,” Erik said, confused and irritated.

  “What happened?” the manager said.

  “You were speaking Spanish,” Erik said, ready to close the door.

  “In the night, what happened in the night?”

  “Oh. Waterbed upstairs.”

  “But how about with your apartment?”

  “Ever seen Titanic?” Erik asked.

  They both nodded, and Erik stared at them until he realized they wanted to come in. He wrenched at the door, then went to take a piss. When he got back, all that was left of the men was a scattering of fading shoeprints in the wet rug. One set of shoes had spent a fair amount of time at the couch, he noticed, and then Erik folded himself back into it and back to sleep.

  Tree woke to the smell. It smelled like a house on the commune when a cat had died in the basement and lay undiscovered for a week. He ran to the bathroom and lost the remnants of the grilled cheese sandwich from the night before.

  He found Thom and Erik in the kitchen, drinking coffee from paper cups. Thom handed him a cup.

  “Electricity is off,” Thom said. “They’re worried about fire danger and other problems. It’s all old knob-and-tube wiring through here. So we went out and got coffee.”

  “Thanks,” said Tree. He took a sip and let it wash down the terrible taste in his mouth. “I threw up,” he said. “That smell is terrible.”

  Thom nodded. “Erik says he can’t smell it.”

  Erik shrugged.

  They drank their coffee and watched the rain through the kitchen window. The apartment was cold and uncomfortable, and Thom filed through his life looking for bright spots.

  “Boy, that was a fun night.” Thom raised his cup in a mock toast.

  Tree got a pair of needle-nose pliers from a kitchen drawer and began to dismantle the small wire house that he’d made and set on the kitchen table in a spirit of home.

  “I think we’re going on a trip,” Thom said.

  “Not you too,” Erik said. “Why aren’t I having these dreams?”

  “No dream,” Thom said. “I just think we should get out of here.”

  “I have eighteen dollars to my name,” Erik said in what both roommates felt was an uncharacteristic moment of truth. “And you know where my fucking car is.”

  “You’re a realist today,” Thom said. “It doesn’t really become you.”

  “Well, I don’t think you can even take the Greyhound anywhere for eighteen bucks. Maybe Salem or something, but I’m talking about getting out of here.”

  “I’ve got a couple of hundred,” Thom said.

  “You guys know how much I have.” Tree’s disassembled house quickly morphed into a bus shape under his pliers. “I’m in.” He paused and looked up at them. “I can front you.”

  But why? Thom wondered. We don’t even really know each other. A faint paranoia coursed through him. There was a knock, and Tree went to get the door.

  It was the building manager, his hair tied up in a ponytail. He wore a Grateful Dead shirt, slacks, and work boots, and took a step back when the smell hit him.

  “Hey, Tree,” he said fondly. He worried his lip with his teeth, raised his eyebrows. “That’s quite a smell.”

  “The rug, I guess.”

  “Ah, it’ll have to go.” He exhaled dramatically and put his hands on his hips. “So I’ve got bad news for you guys.”

  “We’ve got
to move out?” Erik said.

  “Everything has got to go. We’re going to overhaul the three apartments entirely.” They nodded and stared at the floor. “I’m sorry about that, guys. Here’s your deposit back, Tree.” He handed Tree an envelope.

  “The couch was here when I moved in,” said Tree.

  The manager studied the couch through the opening in the doorway, “I know,” he said. “It’s funny. This morning the owner said to make sure you take the couch with you. Not sure why he would say that. I can have the workmen chuck it for you, though, if you don’t want it. Or better yet, you guys could just haul it over to the Goodwill. It’s only two blocks away. That might be easier, if you don’t mind—I’d probably have to charge you otherwise.”

  “It is a nice couch,” said Thom, thinking of the extent of his furniture. “The owner came by this morning?”

  “Yeah, we spoke with . . .” Pointing at Erik. “Sorry, I don’t know your names, just Tree since he’s on the lease. I’m Bob.”

  Erik and Thom introduced themselves.

  “This morning?” said Thom.

  “Yeah, we knocked at about eight a.m.”

  Tree and Thom stared at Erik, who wore his eyebrow-raised, open-eyed look.

  “Okay,” said Tree.

  “I’m really sorry,” Bob said. “There’s just nothing really to be done about it.”

  Thom nodded.

  “You could let us take a couple of swings at the people upstairs,” Erik said.

  “You’ve got to wait in line for that, my friend.”

  They busied themselves with undoing what they’d done just a week before. Packing clothes, this time divvying up what could be taken on a trip and setting the rest aside to be donated, thrown away, and forgotten.

  There was not much to pack. Tree had his wire and pliers, the Bible he’d never opened, some slightly damp dream journals, a change of clothes. Fetching a knife from the kitchen, he opened the Bible and cut carefully along its spine, separating the Old Testament from the New. He packed the Old. With a deep sigh, he threw his entire sculpture collection in a box, and the box in the dumpster.