The Apartment House
Alice was out, not exactly sure where, perhaps at the library studying, or having lunch with her friends, or… other possibilities came to mind, but I left that thought alone. Anyway, it was Saturday afternoon, and I was determined to enjoy the day. Maybe read or walk down to the park.
After I had finished eating a tuna sandwich for a late lunch, Jon came down from upstairs and knocked on our door. I invited him in and as I had just made a pot of coffee, we sat down in my living room, occasionally glancing at a college football game on TV. I muted the sound so we could talk. Soon, as usual, I didn't even have to ask, I pulled out my bong, we were smoking pot. Jon has a tremendous appetite for pot, and yet great strength at resisting its effects. I have to be careful, otherwise I end up on the hugging the floor.
We played a casual game of chess as we watched the game, and he beat me. He usually beats me, although he makes stupid mistakes, and his game shows he knows virtually nothing of the classical styles of play. I've been studying the game for years, and his talent amazed me more than it frustrated me. Yet, he is a good sport always, never coming close to gloating, always claiming he was just lucky.
Jon has a good job at a bank, but hates it. He has a graduate degree in finance. He was talking about people he knows who have made their money and “got out”, and that this is what he planned to do.
“Money is not everything,” I am paraphrasing myself here, but actually I went on for quite a while to say that. I have a job at the University in the student aid department, which is OK, but the pay is only a little better than shitty.
“Money is important,” he said. But I didn’t hear any real conviction in his statement.
“Yeah, I can't deny that being broke sucks, for sure,” I said. I was sure that I was “broker” than he was, but you wouldn’t know it from the way he talks.
“Absolutely! Nothing worse!" He shook his head in agreement.
“But the problem is," I said, "the whole chasing money thing will waste your life making you either a slave, or as a hamster on a wheel,” I said.
“It’s just a means to an end,” he said. “Really, name one thing that money will not buy? I contend it will buy happiness. Getting it is hard, sure. But - at least for me, it's the little things that make me happy. Name a ‘little thing’ that money won’t buy?”
The love of a good woman I thought, but knowing he lived alone, I let it go.
"You want a glass of wine," I asked. He nodded listlessly. I didn’t want get in an argument and proclaim the evil of money, how earning it changes you little by little, how it will eventually destroy you, how it turns you into a prostitute, how it desensitizes you, and makes you forget what really matters. So I let him go on and on, and I found (as I always do) that if you really listen to someone, even a fool, which Jon certainly is not, you can come to appreciate the point of their argument. What is it that really matters anyway, and does THAT even really matter?
But, nevertheless, I made the point that to be successful you have to discard something fundamental and central in yourself, otherwise losing that something will bog you down in doubt about what ‘really matters’, and doubt is the one thing you can not have in order to be - happy? Is "happy" even a meaningful word…I guess I meant successful in the way he means, but was confused now. Money?? Happiness? It's not quite what I was trying to say, but it will have to do.
He shrugged, as if I didn't get it.
"The question is, is it worth it?" I managed to say. " What price?"
"Price!?" He laughed, at what I wasn't sure. “Listen Albert,” Jon said. Normally he calls me Al, so I am on my guard. He leaned back in my favorite chair, the one I had reupholstered recently. It was an old chair, and the way he was sitting, I was a bit nervous that the legs would break, but I didn’t say anything. “Those people down at the bank are a bunch of losers,” he continued. “They bore the heck out of me and the hours are killing me. It’s like I can feel my life draining away! I need to figure out a better way to make more money, before I end up like them.”
“Well, perhaps having a negative attitude about it makes it worse,” I say as cheerfully as possible. “I feel the same way sometimes about my job, but I just put my mind in neutral and focus on the work. You gotta play the long game sometimes.”
“I have to have a negative attitude about it!” He abruptly exclaimed as he drained his wine and set on the table. “I need to get the hell out of here. Otherwise I will just end up stuck there accepting it. I say to myself,” Jon said, “I am going to hate this but it’s only for a couple of years…Keep the eyes open! Bail out for something better. But - but - I can't wait that long.”
I nodded, and refilled both of our glasses and sat back. He actually has no idea! I think to myself - only a couple of years! If I thought it would only be a couple of years, I would be baying at the moon in delight! But I know it will be longer than that. Maybe Jon is right. Acceptance prolongs it.
“...But when it is over,” Jon continues, “I won’t be hassled by all that stupidity!" He leaned forward, and spilled a bit of the red wine on the arm of my chair. "I can start doing something worthwhile - and start enjoying myself too.” He noticed the spill. "Ah, shit, I'm sorry."
"Don't worry about. Its an old chair." I was a little pissed, but did not to get up to clean it. “Enjoy yourself? What are you going to do to ‘enjoy yourself’ ".
“Who knows?” He smiled sadly. I could see he felt a deep disappointment with what life had dealt him. He was at bottom paper pusher like me, and it offended his sense of who he thought he was.
“So how do you keep it going until - you can ‘get out’, as you say?”
“Well…”
He never got a chance to finish his answer because Kathy, the woman from across the hall knocked and just came in as I opened the door, wanting to know why she wasn’t invited to the party.
“Not much of a party,” I said.
She rolled her eyes, shook her head sadly as she looked at Jon. She stretched back pushing her breasts out in order to reached into the back pocket of her tight, peg-legged jeans and pulled out a flattened slightly misshapen half smoked joint.
“You guys want to get high?” She looked at Jon, who smiled with widened eyes. I was already pretty stoned so I wasn’t quite so enthusiastic. "I smelled something illegal in here, so I thought I’d check you guys out.”
She struggled to slide her free hand into her front pocket and managed to extract a Zippo lighter.
“Here,” I said, “I have a lighter.”
She ignored my offer and lit up with her Zippo. It burned unevenly, nearly dropping an ember on my shag carpet. She quickly passed it to Jon who flicked the hot ash onto a saucer on the end table next to his chair, took a deep toke and passed it to me. I took my turn, and passed the roach back to Kathy, who snarfed it then dropped the roach into my nearly empty coffee cup. I was already pretty buzzed, but one hit off her ugly already half smoked joint moved it up a notch.
“How’s your play coming along Kathy,” I asked. She immediately began to tell us about her rehearsal that day, and her story was quite boring, even for me, who occasionally enjoys hearing gossip about the arts community. I knew the personal quirks of all actors in her ensemble. Alice and I have seen a couple of their plays at the local community theater, and she had a cast party at her place recently. That is where Alice and I met Jon. After some interminably long chitchat, perhaps ten minutes, Jon excused himself and left. So I was alone with Kathy, who continued gossiping, unabated, until she suddenly stopped and moved over next to me and started kissing me. Oh, wow. Yeah, then we just did it right there on the shag carpet, no talk, just right to business. I plowed her good.
Can I take that back? Yes, we did it - but - as I laid there next to her, I didn't feel - responsible. I mean, I know I was, kind of anyway, but there was certainly no farm implements involved, imaginary or otherwise. It was just me. But she started it! At least I think she did.
Oh shit, I thought, as I laid there, I am fucked.
After about five minutes of insincere snuggling, she got up, pulled her tight jeans back on and said, “Say hi to Alice. See you later.”
****
Kathy was talking to Alice about feminism in the kitchen when I got home from work on Monday. I was hungry, and felt even more than usual like I needed to get cleaned up. I looked in the fridge for something to snack on. A casserole was in the oven, but was quickly warned by Kathy that dinner was “at least an hour away!”
“Fuck - can you turn up the oven or something? I thought we were ready to eat?”
I grabbed a beer. I headed for the bathroom. The shower was still broken, so I drew a bath and sat on the toilet and drank. Even with the water running and the door closed, I could still hear them.
“What’s he so mad about?” Kathy was talking about me, I guess because I had slammed the bathroom door shut.
“I guess because he has a full time job, and I am still in school,” said Alice. “He doesn’t think that counts as work.”
It doesn’t, I thought.
“It is kind of passive aggressive abuse though,” Kathy persisted. “At least that is what it seems like.” What is she playing at? Well, at least she is throwing Alice off the scent about our "encounter". I felt like I still needed to scrub off the sex stink off, even though I had taken a bath right after.
“Why do you put up with the abuse?”
What is Kathy playing at? Is she trying to break us up?
“He's just tired,” said Alice.
I heard Kathy laugh at this. Then they were quiet, suspiciously so. I got out of the tub, and came out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around my waist. “Are you two broads still yapping?” I said, channeling my inner Jackie Gleason. “I’m hungry, chop, chop!” I lightly tapped Alice on the ass. She listlessly pushed me away. “Hey Kathy, what’s going on?” My towel was drooping.
“Not much,” she said. She laughed a little, but I could see she was a little nervous. She got up and moved toward the door to leave. She waved to Alice, and left.
I watched TV until the casserole was done. As we sat down to eat, Alice said “She’s kind of a - a drag sometimes.” I shrugged my shoulders as if to say, I don’t know. Other than "How was work?" "Fine." "How was school?" "OK.", we ate and didn't talk about much.
“I think she and Jon should get together,” I said. "I think she could bring him out of his shell, don’t you?”
She shrugged. "Or maybe you."
That was a strange thing for her to say? I chuckled a little, but felt her staring at me, so I said, “Yeah, you are probably right. They wouldn't really click, would they? But who knows. Anyway, I'm sure not going to play matchmaker.”
“Humm,” she said. I looked up at her, but now she would not meet my eyes.
****
On Tuesday I came home from work to find the apartment half empty. There was a note. Alice had moved out, it said. She and Jon were going out of town for a while and then moving in together. She said she was sorry, but she and Jon could no longer live with themselves, sneaking around, pretending. She said she loved me, but felt like I had been unhappy. She said she was sure we would be friends later, after...blah, blah.
I sat at the kitchen table, staring out into the back of the apartment house at the parking lot. Jon’s car was missing. I felt an unfamiliar sadness descending on me like a heavy dentist’s x-ray blanket, or maybe it was anesthesia. I knew the pain would come later.
Kathy knocked, then opened the door and poked her head in. “Hey, how are you doing?”
“Did you know?”
“About Jon and Alice?” she suppressed a chuckle. “I guess so.”
“Did they know about us?”
“You mean that one time? For some reason, I thought you knew - especially after…” She pulled another flattened joint out of her jeans and we smoked it.
She shrugged. “Are you sad?”
“Yes.” I think I was, or at least soon would be, but at that moment I was numb. "So you don’t think she suspected - us?”
“I don’t think it had anything to do with us.”
There is no us, I thought. We were quiet for a while. "Do you play chess," I asked.
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