Toby
I’m a creature of habit,a fan of routine.
Today is Sunday and Sunday means one thing: a trip to Mile High Comics.
It’s early; Cliff and Johnny must still be sleeping because I haven’t heard their bedroom doors open. I’m in the bathroom. I tend to linger when I’m in here because it’s my favorite room in the apartment. I know how weird that sounds, especially when it’s a bathroom shared by three guys, two of which are pigs. I’ll let you guess where I fall in that equation. And I’ll be offended if you choose incorrectly. But the bathroom is spacious, has a window, and a lock on the door. Privacy paired with hot water, fresh air, and sunlight. I’m not claustrophobic in my bedroom, but I can’t deny that my time in the bathroom feels like an escape. It’s also the place I try to chase away the images that race through my nightmares. The steaming water loosens my tight muscles but does little to loosen the tightly wound tormenter (aka my memory) inside my skull. I can’t escape it, blood stains for a lifetime.
After a long shower, I shave, brush my teeth, and comb the tangles out of my wet hair—it’s getting long and hangs in my eyes, I need a haircut.
I return back to my room in a towel wrapped around my waist, pull the string that hangs in the middle of the space to turn on the single bulb in the ceiling overhead, and shut the door behind me. The illumination is weak. The bulb burned out last week and I replaced it with the only one I could find in the basement supply room. It’s twenty watts, basically a nightlight. A candle would probably give off more light. Hanging the towel on a hook next to the door to dry, I turn to see what I have in the way of clean clothes.
Shelves line one wall and I like to keep them orderly. My life is divided into compartments: clothes, school stuff, an old boom box I filched when Johnny evicted the tenants in 2A last year, three cassette tapes, drawing stuff, comics, more comics, my skateboard, my backpack, and a small box of Nina’s stuff. The opposite wall is covered in my drawings. I rotate them out continually. It’s not that I’m a self-absorbed admirer of my work—I don’t have a window, so the change of scenery is welcome. The narrow space between those two walls is about five feet, just wide enough for my sleeping bag and the two-inch pad of foam it’s lying atop, a pillow, a desk lamp, and a pillowcase in the corner that I use as a laundry bag. I do laundry once a week, the bag is full.
Dressed, I grab my backpack and skateboard before exiting and securing my bedroom door with the not-Cliff-proof padlock. I’m two steps away from the door when the phone rings. I sigh, because I was seconds away from freedom, and answer it. “Hello.”
“May I please speak to Toby?” The voice is female, scratchy like she’s just woken up or has a cold, and unexpectedly pleasant.
Which trips me up because I’m not usually on the receiving end of unexpectedly pleasant. “This is Toby,” I answer clumsily.
“This is Alice.”
Alice? I wait, hoping she’ll keep talking because I can’t place the name.
“Alice in 2A,” she adds.
Oh,Say goodbye to hopeAlice, the new tenant. “Right,” I confirm, mostly to myself.
“Um…Johnny said if we…you know…if we had any issues to call…you.” Her voice is soft again like it was when I met her, but the hesitation sounds like she’s the type of person who hates asking for help.
“Yeah.” I pause, but when she doesn’t continue, I ask, “What’s the problem?”
“The toilet won’t flush. I’m sorry to bother you, but…it’s…urgent…if you know what I mean…” she trails off.
“I’ll be down in a few.” I hang up the phone before she can say anything else, unlock the useless padlock again, stow my backpack and skateboard, lock up, and grab the toolbox from on top of the fridge instead.
The door is open at 2A when I approach, but I knock anyway before I step inside.
“Toby?” Alice calls, which is odd because she’s standing six feet inside the door looking right at me. Doesn’t she recognize me? Not that I’m the sort of person who’s memorable, but we met less than forty-eight hours ago.
“Yeah,” I snip. I’m already irritated that my trip to the comic store has been delayed and now I can’t figure out what’s going on here. Is she messing with me? Does she have short-term amnesia? Is she high?
Again, she’s staring directly at me when she says, “Come in.”
I step inside, into the cramped living room that’s void of furniture except one small love seat with more exposed foam than upholstery and four milk crates filled with records. I leave the door open, feeling it’s better for both of us if I do.
She turns and starts walking toward one of the two bedrooms. I stop and watch her instead of following. Her steps are short in length and she barely lifts her feet off the hardwood, she’s cautious. And her arms are stretched out in front of her slightly at waist height, fingers fluttering up and down slightly like she’s playing a piano.
I assume she’s going into her bedroom to leave me alone to do my thing, and normally that’s exactly what I would do, but for some reason I say, “I’ll take a look at the toilet.”
At the doorway she stops, points, and says with mild confidence, “Yeah, it’s right in here.”
I don’t know what to say, so I go with the obvious. “That’s a bedroom.”
She turns toward my voice behind her and a pair of red splotches blossom on her cheeks. “Sorry, I’m still getting used to the layout and I’m still half asleep. Next door to the left, isn’t it?” she asks sheepishly.
I nod, noticing her pajamas are a pair of boxer shorts and a ragged, thin Siouxsie and the Banshees T-shirt.
She pauses like she’s waiting for me to speak.
