Small Apartments

by Chris Millis

  Three-foot high red neon letters illuminated the corner of Grant Street and Forest Avenue. “We Never Close” was the sign above the Open 2-4 store. Franklin pulled the door and it was locked. They were closed. The lights in the store were on, but no one was behind the counter. There was a handwritten note taped on the glass door from the inside:

  “Our freezer’s busted. Sorry for the temporary inconvenience.”

  He cupped his hands and pressed his greasy nose against the glass to investigate the store’s interior. Not a soul to be found. Shouldn’t there be someone in there with a mop? What the hell were they doing in there, he wondered?

  “Probably smoking dope in the stockroom,” said a female voice from behind Franklin. He turned. It was the pretty teenage daughter from the yellow building across the street—Little 101. “I know you,” she said. “You’re the man who lives across the street from me.”

  “Do they do that?” asked Franklin. “Do they smoke pot in the stockroom?” He tried not to stare at her budding breasts beneath her white cotton tank top. Could she see the lust in his eyes?

  “Oh yeah,” she said. “They smoke back there all the time. I’ve been back there with them a few times. Mostly college guys, some older. They’re pretty cool. The weed is bitchin’.”

  Franklin did not know how to respond to that.

  “I’m going home right now. Do you want to walk with me?” she asked.

  “Sure. Of course. Er, yes,” said Franklin. They walked side-by-side for half a block without speaking before the girl said something that almost made Franklin lose his bowels.

  “My friend and I call you Mr. Peepers,” she said.

  Franklin’s heart stopped beating and his sphincter pinched tight as he waited for the other shoe to drop.

  “I know you watch me and my mom. It’s OK, my mom doesn’t know. I see you over there in your window with your specs behind the big maple tree. I don’t mind. In fact, I sort of like it. How old are you, fifty?”

  “Forty-one.”

  “When my friend and I are old enough we’re going to be dancers in Canada. I’ll bet you never heard anyone say that before. We’ll get to wear sexy clothes, and we’ll own hundreds of awesome shoes, and we’ll be able to do whatever we want because we’ll be making tons and tons of cash. We’re even going to start our own website. My friend Suzy and I have it all planned out.”

  Franklin would definitely log on to that, he thought. But first he would need a computer—and a phone. He could not decide whether he was thrilled by, or terrified of, the young girl. He resolved that he was both. He felt wonderfully nauseous and had, for the moment, forgotten all about Mr. Olivetti.

  “Sex is about control, don’t you think?” she asked, arching one of her thin, brown eyebrows towards Franklin. “I don’t let you see any more than I want you to. I have the control. It’s the same with the boys at the 2-4 store. I don’t show them, or give them, any more than I want to. That’s the way it should be. Don’t you think?”

  “Mmm,” nodded Franklin eagerly.

  As they turned west onto Garner, Franklin’s new friend ran three strides ahead and turned around. “You have sad eyes,” said the girl. “But sort of an impish smile. You probably wouldn’t be bad looking if you lost some weight. I’m not saying that to hurt your feelings or anything. You just really should lose some weight. Being fat is unhealthy. How tall are you?”

  Before he could answer she was back-to-back with him. She placed her hand flat between their heads and turned around. “Wow. I’m almost an inch taller than you.”

  “My brother Bernard is 6’3”,” said Franklin.

  “I guess you got the short end of the stick, huh?” she said. “He should have given some to you.” She ran ahead and turned around again. “What are you doing tonight at midnight, Mr. Peepers? I think that tonight I’ll give you a show you’ll never forget.” She leaned forward, cupped her young breasts and gave them a provocative squeeze. Then she delivered a pouty kiss into the night air and took off running towards her yellow building. “Don’t forget your specs tonight, Mr. Peepers!” she called over her shoulder as she ran up Garner, up her stairs and into her building.

  Franklin wiped the sweat off his forehead with the sleeve of his T-shirt. He was so thirsty he could barely swallow. He looked at his watch: 9:05. Whatever he was going to do with Mr. Olivetti, he positively had to be finished by midnight. He walked up to Mr. Olivetti’s Chevy pickup and looked in through the passenger-side window. “Sonofabitch,” Franklin said. The Chevy was a standard transmission and Franklin had never learned how to drive a stick.

  FRANKLIN THREW MR. OLIVETTI’S keys down on the table. Mr. Allspice’s light was off when he came in. That was a good sign. I’m not surprised he’s in bed by nine o’clock, Franklin thought. The crabby bastard is up by five every morning. He grabbed a can of Moxie cola from the refrigerator and took a long swallow. He sat down in his orange chair and looked across the street at Little 101’s window. The blinds were down and the curtains were drawn. I never asked her what her name was. Probably better that way, he thought. He was percolating with nervous energy. He rubbed the tender bump on his head and took three, long gulps of soda pop, finishing the can. Franklin got back up again and removed the ice tray from the freezer. He twisted the tray until the ice cracked then spilled the contents into a plastic grocery bag. He twisted the bag tightly around the ice, sat back in his chair at the window, and placed the bag atop the bump on his head.

  Franklin closed his eyes and replayed his conversation with Little 101. This is what Switzerland would be like, he thought. It would be this feeling every moment of every day. He wanted to blow his alphorn but the timing was imprudent.

  “I have to get up off my fetid, fat ass and get rid of Mr. Olivetti if I want to be back in this orange chair by midnight,” Franklin said conspiratorially to his sleeping hound dog.

  CHAPTER

  4

  TOMMY BALLS SAT at the edge of his faded, corduroy couch and inventoried the objects laid out on his coffee table: one white, plastic bucket; one serrated knife; one pair of scissors; one empty, slightly crushed, two-litre plastic soda pop bottle; one dime bag of Bobo’s Nicaraguan weed; and a cocktail napkin with a diagram of Tony’s gravity bong.

  It was 8:50 and the Magnum, P.I. marathon was winding down to its last three episodes. Tommy decided he had procrastinated long enough. It was time to build the bong.

  First Tommy decided to select the proper music for bong building. He laid the nylon, zippered case containing his collection of 160 CDS across his lap and began thumbing through the pages. Metallica, “Enter Sandman”: mmm, no. Jimi Hendrix, “Purple Haze”: getting warmer. “Riders on the Storm” by The Doors: almost there. Aha! Perfect. James Brown, “I Feel Good.” Tommy slid the CD out of its plastic sleeve and placed it in the player. Now for the task at hand, he thought.

  He filled the white bucket halfway with water from the bathtub. Next, he poked the knife through the soda pop bottle just above the hard plastic base and sawed it up and down a few times to get the cut-line started. He used the scissors to make a clean cut all the way around the bottle with the plastic base as a guideline. Tommy removed the white plastic screw cap and discarded it over his shoulder.

  “I’ll leave that for the cleaning lady,” Tommy said.

  He set the plastic bucket of water between his legs then packed a monster bowl of Nicaraguan weed and sparked it. He placed the bottomless soda pop bottle in the water inside the bucket. Tommy took a long drag off the pipe, bent over, and blew it into the mouth of the soda bottle then capped it with his thumb. The bottle was sitting in the water as far down as it could go. He marveled at how a cloud of the sweet smoke formed above the cold water.

  “I feeel nice. Sugar and spice,” sang Tommy.

  Tommy looked up at the television and smiled in anticipation of a glorious hit. Magnum and his friend, TC, were in a helicopter somewhere high above the lush, volcanic mountaintops of Hawaii.

 
Tommy bent down, uncorked his thumb from the bottleneck and covered it with his mouth. He sucked the sweet smoke deep into his lungs as he slowly raised the soda pop bottle out of the water. He got halfway up through the water, then erupted into a coughing fit, spraying saliva and marijuana fog all over his coffee table. He flopped back into the old couch, still coughing sporadically, all smiles. His eyes looked like they had been rinsed in chlorine then replaced in their sockets. That was the best hit of my life, Tommy decided. Kudos to Tony, the would-be hotel manager. His gravity bong was a complete success.

  “Fucking gravity bong, baby!” exalted Tommy to the four bare walls of his apartment.

  CHAPTER

  5

  FRANKLIN HAD TO use his own car to move Mr. Olivetti’s body and that was all there was to it. He had no idea how he was going to remove Mr. Olivetti’s Chevy from Garner Street, but he thought it best to worry about one thing at a time. What he did know was this: He had to do something, anything, with his fat, dead, Italian landlord before midnight.

  Then, like a thunderclap, the solution was clear. He could take Mr. Olivetti back to his own house in Lackawanna, a rural suburb of Buffalo. He lived alone, a widower, and he had a barn behind his house that he used as a workshop. Franklin had been there twice in his four years as a tenant at 100 Garner. The first time was to sign his rental agreement. The second time was to pick up the simulated-wood table that he was now leaning on, plotting the removal of Mr. Olivetti’s murdered corpse. Lackawanna was about twenty minutes south. If all went to plan, he would be back at the window, binoculars in hand, with time to spare. What worried him were the dark, country roads. Franklin did not much care for driving to begin with, but he despised driving in the dark. I’ll just have to gut it out, he thought. I’ll take this dead bastard out to his house and I will deal with his truck when I get back.

  Franklin stepped out onto the porch. The breeze was cool. He looked west to Dewitt and east to Grant Street. No one was out on the sidewalks or in the street. Music was blasting from behind Tommy Balls’ window. Franklin recognized it and began to sing softly, “I feeeeel good. You knew that I would.”

  He could see that the apartment light was on behind Tommy’s tie-dyed tapestry. Franklin knew Miss Parson from Grover Cleveland Elementary would be disappointed, but he was willing to assume that Tommy Balls was either sky high or passed out cold. He was right on both counts.

  Franklin groaned as he allowed gravity to suck his buttocks into the concave driver’s seat of his silver 1986 Pontiac T1000 hatchback. He settled in with a flurry of weight shifts and instrument adjustments, then pulled the Pontiac up to the end of the sidewalk in front of 100 Garner. Unless he could find a better solution he would have to drag Mr. Olivetti all the way from the front porch and hope for the best. Franklin groaned again as he lurched forward out of the Pontiac, leaving it rocking on its four bald tires.

  FRANKLIN SPOTTED A RED Radio Flyer wagon. He knew it belonged to the strawberry-haired kid next door with the giant melon on his shoulders who always wore the same dirty green T-shirt. The metal wagon was in the neighbour’s yard, just inside the picket fence. Franklin reached over the fence and snatched the wagon. He leaned it on the other side of the stone steps, out of sight, and went into the building.

  Mr. Olivetti was about an inch shorter than Franklin and not one chocolate chip cookie less than 220 pounds. Franklin rolled the body onto a green army blanket, then re-covered it with the blue wool blanket. He grabbed two corners of the wool blanket at Mr. Olivetti’s feet and pulled the body across the cracked linoleum floor to the door. Franklin maneuvered the body around the door as he opened it into his apartment. Out in the foyer, he dragged him the six feet across the hardwood floor to the inside door of the breezeway. He reached into the breezeway and clicked off the porch light. The inside door was spring activated and had to be worked around the body every few inches as it kept trying to close. Franklin felt the strain in his back and groaned as he slid the body six more feet across the checkerboard tile of the breezeway to the outside door. The inside door, which was being held open by Mr. Olivetti’s smiling head, slammed shut when he pulled the body all the way into the breezeway.

  Franklin froze. He listened. He waited. He could feel his pulse pounding in his ears. Nothing happened.

  Franklin knew that if Mr. Allspice were to materialize from behind his apartment door, the jig most definitely would be up. He worked the outside door around Mr. Olivetti’s stiff elbow and pulled him onto the porch. Franklin, hands on knees, was panting. Five stone steps and twenty feet of sidewalk separated Mr. Olivetti and the trunk of Franklin’s Pontiac T1000. Franklin could not recall when he had been so winded. Good golly, thought Franklin, I’m having a hell of a time moving this fat bastard.

  From the sidewalk behind him Franklin heard the jingle of a dog’s collar. He could not bear to turn around but he looked anyhow. Across the street was a young man he did not recognize wearing a leather jacket with chains jangling around the shoulders, walking his Rottweiler. The dog walker was looking right at him but Franklin had no idea what he was able to see. He and Franklin locked eyes for an instant. Franklin nodded like a good neighbour. The dog, sniffing the ground and pulling the leash, tugged the dog walker forward a few steps. He turned the corner and headed north up Dewitt.

  Thank god nobody in this city gives a good goddamn what you’re up to anymore, he thought. Hey buddy, I have my dead landlord here wrapped in blankets. Want to have a looky-loo?

  The dog walker gave Franklin a powerful surge of adrenaline. He pulled the body to the edge of the porch and let Mr. Olivetti’s feet dangle over the first stone step. Franklin grabbed the red Radio Flyer wagon and placed it at the base of the steps. He pulled Mr. Olivetti by the feet down the steps (bumpitybump) and hoisted him face up onto the wagon. Franklin went around to the front of the wagon and began to pull it towards the street by the handle. The hard, plastic wheels ground against the cement and created an awful racket. (This was a bad idea. Bad idea.) Franklin started running backwards, pulling the wagon with both hands clenched firmly around the handle. Suddenly he heard the creak of flimsy metal and the arm and handle of the wagon snapped off in his hands.

  Franklin let out a girlish shriek and whipped the broken handle into the neighbour’s shrubs.

  He dashed to the rear of the wagon, grabbed two fistfuls of Mr. Olivetti’s flabby thighs, and started to run on the balls of his feet towards the Pontiac’s open trunk. The hard plastic tires roared against the pavement. The end of the sidewalk was not flush and the front tires slammed against the lip, sending Mr. Olivetti sailing ass over teakettle. Franklin found himself snarled in the green army blanket and shrieked again as he spun 360 degrees to see if anyone was witness to this morbid burlesque.

  Mr. Olivetti was on his back, smiling. Franklin squatted beside him (keep your back straight, lift with your legs) and slowly lifted Mr. Olivetti like a wounded dog.

  “Oof,” groaned Franklin as he rose to his feet. He waddled over the curb and deposited the body into the trunk, nearly falling in with it.

  Franklin slammed the trunk shut and the porch light popped on. He wheeled around in terror to see Mr. Allspice standing inside the breezeway in his blue-striped flannel pyjamas. Mr. Allspice stepped out onto the porch.

  “Why was the porch light off?”

  “Um (pant), I (pant), uh (pant),” Franklin struggled to catch his breath. His clothes were soaked in sweat. “I think it’s busted.”

  “It’s not busted, you fool,” said Mr. Allspice. “All I did was turn it on.”

  “Oh. Good job then,” said Franklin. “I think you fixed it.”

  Mr. Allspice moved another stride closer to the stone steps.

  “What is all the commotion out here?” asked Mr. Allspice.

  “I’m packing.”

  “Packing?” said Mr. Allspice. “At this hour? Are you leaving on a trip?”

  “I’m moving,” said Franklin. “I’m moving to, um … Switzerland.�
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  “Oh, well that is good news,” said Mr. Allspice. “Let the Swiss deal with you and your ridiculous horn. Good riddance, I say. If I weren’t so old, I would help you pack. Maybe this time Mr. Olivetti can bring in a suitable tenant.” Mr. Allspice turned and walked back through the breezeway. “I’m sure you’ll love their chocolates, you fat twit. Keep this light on!” The inside door slammed shut.

  Hot dog, thought Franklin. The goomba is in the trunk. Speaking of hot dogs, I haven’t eaten all day. He looked at his watch, two minutes ‘til ten.

  THE DRIVE DOWN to Lackawanna was not as treacherous as Franklin had feared. There were only a few turns after he turned off Rte. 5 and there was barely another car on the road. He remembered the turn-off from the main drag and started down a gloomy, meandering country road. He drove for about five miles and began to look for a white picket fence on the right-hand side. After the fence it was two, maybe three mailboxes. Franklin remembered Mr. Olivetti’s mailbox had a red reflector screwed to it. Despite the bright moon, the road was black and seemed to pitch into a 45-degree turn every hundred yards. Twice Franklin shrieked as deer materialized on the side of the road, their eyes shimmering in the headlights like tiny mirrors. Mr. Olivetti was beginning to get a little ripe in the back. The Pontiac T1000 was a fine machine, but it was also a hatchback. So even though technically the dead body was in the trunk, only the back seat separated Franklin’s olfactory system from Mr. Olivetti’s carcass. Franklin turned on the interior light and looked at his watch, 10:24. Mr. Olivetti had been dead for almost eleven hours. He rolled down the window.