-- Andy.
Bert owns the dog. That’s what Bert says anyway. Of course anyone who paid even a bit of attention could tell it’s the other way around. Still, when the dog barks, am I supposed to yell at it or at Bert ? I guess it doesn’t matter much. I’m sure I’d get the same result either way, so I don’t try.
I don’t know why I live where I do. This small apartment with its thin, beige walls, its half-sized water heater and its drafty windows. It’s just...where I live. I moved here after college. I moved to this city. Got my first job. Found this apartment. And... And it’s where I live.
I know I could afford better. I’m not the junior member of the team any more. Haven’t been for some time now. I make enough money and could afford a bigger place. Quieter. I could buy a house. Shelly at the office keeps telling me that’s the thing to do and she’s probably right. But... What’s the point? Moving is a pain. And finding a place... And I really hate the idea of mowing a lawn. I got plenty of that as a kid...with my step-dad yelling at me the whole time. I guess he’s not around anymore, but still I’d have to be outside.
Bert asked me in for a beer the other night...something that’s never happened in all the years we’ve been neighbors. His dog was spending the night at the vet or something and I guess he was bored or lonely. So I went over. He spent a lot of the night telling me all about working at the store. He works at one of those places they call ‘Big Box’. You know the one, but I don’t want to say its name. I don’t shop there. It’s my own personal protest...you know against consumerism and that sort of thing. I’m not really sure how effective it is.
After the first beer he opened a small door built into his coffee table. He has one of those coffee tables that looks like it came straight out of the late 1980’s...which I’m certain it did. It’s got two cushions on each end for putting up your feet and a wooden surface in between for setting things...your bible, some magazines, coffee, that sort of thing...and beneath all that is a small cabinet where you might keep the t.v. remote or hide junk when guests come by. Bert, I learned, keeps his weed in there. He pulled out a baggie, an ashtray and an old spiral notebook that he turned over so that the rough cardboard back was facing upward. He dumped a bud onto the notebook and started breaking it apart. “Smoke?” he asked.
It had been a pretty long time for me, but I said ok. My company doesn’t drug test unless you get hurt on the job and they’re trying to get out of paying medical expenses. To be fair, I think the insurance company makes them do that. Doesn’t matter much for me either way. I work in the office.
Bert reached back under the coffee table and came up with a packet of rolling papers. He pulled one free and began loading it with the crumbles of weed. “Don’t they test at your job?” I asked.
“Shit yeah, they do,” he said without looking at me. I watched as his fingers expertly rolled around the paper, smoothing and adjusting it here and there. “Don’t matter to me though. One job’s as good as another, I guess. Plus I got a guy who’ll piss for me if I need him to.”
“That’s cool,” I said.
So we sat there smoking and just hanging out. I didn’t have any more beer as I’m outta practice, but Bert had a few more. We talked. Mostly he did. He told me his store’s general manager was a bonafide member of the klan - some sort of grand something-or-other - and once the corporate office came in and did an audit sort of thing and told him he had to promote some black people. “He was piiiissed about that.” Bert said. But he’d done it. Bert told me all the black employees know he’s in the klan, but they aren’t scared of him or anything like that. They all laugh at him. Once, he told me, someone laid out a cross made from boxes of bedsheets in front of his office door. Bert really busted up telling me that story.
After a while, I was feeling pretty good and I decided to tell Bert that his dog sometimes kept me awake. He said, yeah, that dog sometimes kept him awake too.
At one point he asked me why no women ever came by my place. I told him I didn’t have a lot to say about it. I’m just not all that into the dating thing. He asked me if I was gay. I told him no. He said it wasn’t a thing to him if I was. I said again that I wasn’t. He said ok, then I should find a girl. It would be good for me. I told him that was probably true.
Bert asked me about my job and I started to tell him about Clark, our manager, who spends one week every year walking across the state. He hasn’t gotten all the way yet. Each year he has someone - his wife, I guess - drop him off at the spot he ended the last year’s walk. He picks back up from there and walks for a week. Camps out at night and everything. He’s made it more than half way by now, which is something, I guess, but then again he’s been at it for 14 years. Some of us at the office did the math once, and, honestly, I’m not so sure he’s really trying all that hard.
As I said, I started to tell Bert all that about Clark, but he cut me off to tell me about the time they’d caught an Elvis impersonator stuffing frozen dinners into a secret recess in his fat-suit. Now that was a good story.
Time passed. We smoked another joint. I asked Bert what was wrong with his dog. He said they didn’t know. Some stomach thing. He didn’t seem to want to talk about it very much, so I let it go. Too personal, I guess.
He told me all about his ex-wife. The dog had been hers and I got the impression it was the only victory he could claim in the divorce. She had been a dancer, he said. Not a stripper, he added right away, but a dancer. Graceful and elegant. To hear him tell it, she moved like a swan. Hardly touched the ground. “How she ended up with me, I don’t know,” he said. “When she left, she said it was pity, but I don’t believe it. You might feel sorry for somebody and give ‘em a throw, but you don’t marry ‘em.” That logic seemed pretty sound to me and I told him so.
Sometime around midnight...or at least before one...I told Bert I had to call it a night. I slipped out the door of his apartment and moved, slowly, toward my apartment’s door. I remember thinking that any minute another neighbor would pop out and bust me for being stoned in the hallway. I thought about the cops coming and hauling me away. I thought about them taking Bert too and how no one would be there the next morning to pick up his dog at the vet. It’s really quite amazing the things you think of when you’re high and it’s equally amazing how long a 15 foot walk from one apartment to another can seem.
Eventually I got there and managed to get my keys and unlock the door without incident. I went inside and immediately kicked over a full bag of garbage I’d set by the door to remind myself to take it to the dumpster. I’d forgotten to do that. Oh well, at least years of experience had taught me to tie the bag well and nothing leaked out. I’m pretty sure I considered taking it downstairs right then and there, but couldn’t make myself open the door.
I managed to take off one shoe before I landed on the couch and fell asleep.
Bert hasn’t asked me back to his place. The next day his dog was home and things were back to normal. I think I’m supposed to invite him to my apartment in return, but I haven’t. He’s a good enough guy, but it seems like a lot of trouble.
The End.
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