Apt. #11
He doesn't remember when he didn't smoke. He must have been smoking for a while. Everytime he stood on that goddamn stoop, he was smoking. Like tonight, he's standing on that stoop and he's on the phone. The door's a little open and she can hear him talk. Maybe what he's saying, she's heard before. He's talking real low, though, and since it's dark, all you can see of him is an orange-red blur sharpening with each inhale of the cigarette. He doesnt smoke and talk on the phone a lot. Usually he prefers smoking to talking, but tonight is different. He's paused in between inside and outside. The door to the apartment is a little open and she is inside, waiting for him, flurrying in the kitchen like her mother. She doesnt want to be like her mama, but she is like her, right down to the way she sets everything down neatly. At the table: Plate, fork, spoon, napkin. In bed: T-shirt, jeans, her gold earrings. At the table, he has to sit down to eat with her, doesn't matter if it was Pop-Tarts or meatloaf. He likes it, but it still edges him out: it's like her mama, after all.

A girl walks by. At this time, it's not night, but it's not afternoon anymore. He doesn't know what to call it. She calls it time-to-eat-dinner, but he's usually not hungry this early. Where's the girl coming from, he wonders, and where is she going? He feels a little intruded upon, even though he is outside. He feels like he should be in an enclosed space right now, like a closet. No one should be able to see or hear him. This girl is walking, with a purpose. She doesn't look at him, which he is grateful for. He's always been a little embarassed of his teeth. He's got few and the ones left are filled with silver, and he's not sure what that's made of. The dentist, when he still went to the dentist, loved looking into his mouth. That's what I got into this business for, the man would say. His name he couldn't remember, but he can recall the shape of the doctor's mouth: always round, always open and pulsating. Maybe a little bit like jellyfish. He doesn't know why, but that's what it is exactly. Jellyfish.

If the girl looked at him, she'd see him standing with his mouth open and that would be it. My god, he's got ugly teeth, the girl would think. And that's all he would ever be, just a man, smoking, on the phone, with ugly teeth. But she walks by with a purpose, a little sway of her head that indicates she's purposefully not looking at his direction. On the phone, it's something about charges, something about deals, something about some man... you don't care to know about it anymore. What business did you have anyway, with this stuff? Shouldn't you be back in school? His standard response: Man, I don't know. He's still driving the big van that he got from his uncle, back in high school. He's still seeing her, though things have gotten easier now that she moved out of her mama's house. He remembers smoking with her, remembers not remembering after smoking up. She liked keeping the apartment neat and scented like dryer sheets. She claims it's not dryer sheets but some fabric spray, but to him, it smells like those sheets you toss in the dryer to prevent static cling.

Maybe she's going to stick around a lot longer than both of them anticipated. Already, she cried a lot at night. He doesn't know this because she hasn't told him how much she cries into the wood-paneled walls. He wouldn't know what to do if she had told him how much she cried. He'd probably just open the door, step out a little bit. Smoke for a while.