Dirty Mouth

You ever see one of those old western flicks where the two guys in a shootout walk out onto a dusty barren main street, legs bowed and fingers twitching by their holsters? A hawk cries overhead and everyone in town is hidden away in their houses and shops, peeking out of a crack in the window. It’s all really quiet until somebody makes the first move and pulls the trigger. Then it’s complete and utter chaos. But that feeling of suspense before it happens, where you’re holding your breath and biting your tongue, that’s a crazy feeling. It happened to be exactly what I was feeling the moment Emmie’s old man parked his fancy car and got out of it.

He was a tall guy. He had to be at least 6’3. He was dressed in some fancy black suit with a navy blue tie tucked neatly under his collar and behind his jacket. His eyes were cold as ice and I swear to god he didn’t even blink when he stared at me. Everything was silent. He had a trimmed, neat moustache on his upper lip; black with flecks of white, and his hair was the same, well, what was left of it, anyway. I felt real small, even though I was quite a few feet away from the guy. Not many people can intimidate me like he did. To be honest, I’m not even sure why I found him so intimidating. Maybe it was because I could feel Emmie’s nervousness radiating all the way from the front door.

“Emmie,” His voice was gruff; quiet and deadly. “Who’s this?”

I broke eye contact with the guy and looked at Emmie. I was kind of nervous about what she’d say. Part of me hoped she’d pretend she didn’t know me, that I was coming to the door to ask for a boost for my car or something. Another part of me really didn’t want her to say anything like that. But she’d already made it pretty clear she didn’t give a shit about me, so I wasn’t expecting any grand introduction.

“Uh,” she said quietly. “I-I’m not sure I caught his name.”

So it was this game we were playing now. I could play along if it meant saving my ass.

“Johnny,” I said firmly. “Sorry to bother you. I, uh, I’m new here and lost.”

“Like hell you are,” he snapped. Shit, was it that easy to tell I was lying through my teeth?

“Dad…” Emmie shifted uncomfortably in the doorway and came out onto the porch. It was a daring move, considering she hadn’t even batted an eyelash since he pulled in.

“Excuse me?” I asked, tilting my head to the side as innocently as possible.

“I’ve seen enough idiots like you coming in and out of my house with my daughter,” he snarled. “I know what you were doing in there.”

I had to bite back a laugh. To me it sounded like he just called his daughter a slut. At least he seemed accepting about it.

“Honestly, that’s not what we were do—”

“Those are some nice wounds you got on you,” he interrupted me, stepping around his car all suave-like. “You want some more, kid?”

“Not particularly,” I shrugged. “It’s thanks to your daughter I look this gorgeous.”

“What the hell did you just say?” he snapped. “Huh? What did you say?”

“Alright, I know that didn’t come out right,” I tapped my chin with a finger, trying to organize my words a little better. Clearly this guy wasn’t the genius his attire proclaimed him to be. I had to dumb it down a little. “Somebody already beat you to it—beating me up, I mean. Emmie saw me and brought me here and cleaned me up. I was covered in blood, get it? I didn’t take her clothes off or lay a single finger on her, really, I didn’t. She—she doesn’t even care about me enough to know my name. And that’s okay, right?”

He looked from me to Emmie, clearly trying to see if she’d deny what I just said. She didn’t say a word, though. She only stared back at him like some terrified mute. It made me a little angry, for some reason. It probably saved my ass when she didn’t say anything, but it made me mad that she could pretend to not really know me so well. But that was just me being an idiot again. It was really easy to pretend to not know me; a lot of people did it. I guess I can’t blame them. I think if I knew a guy like me, I’d be embarrassed to know him, too. It’s like when you see those jokes where someone’s making a fool of themselves and their best friend looks away and says “I don’t know you.” Yeah, it’s just like that.

Suddenly I was feeling really damn bad about myself and I kind of just wanted to leave. I didn’t want to look at Emmie, who didn’t want to look at me, and I didn’t want to see her father’s glare anymore. I just wanted to go home to Sid and starve and sleep and wait for tomorrow to come. I kicked a pebble away with the toe of my shoe and took a couple steps back. No one seemed to notice, so I turned around and started walking. I got to the sidewalk before a gruff voice stopped me.

“Wait a second,”

I froze and my dark cloud got darker. I turned back around and kept my head low but looked up as Emmie’s dad rushed me. He stood about a foot away from me and jabbed his finger right in my face. His moustache twitched angrily as he warned me.

“I see useless scumbags like you all the goddamn time,” he snarled. “I highly doubt you’re any better than the other losers I’ve seen leaving my house at all hours of the day and night. I doubt you’re even better than the dirty, shit-filled gum on the bottom of a hooker’s shoe. I don’t care what the circumstances were. You’re going to stay away from this house and my daughter, got it? Don’t make me tell you twice, boy.”

“Sure, yeah,” I nodded, but I wasn’t really listening. Honestly, people telling me what to do only ever made me angry.

He didn’t say anything else so I took it as my cue to leave. Emmie wasn’t standing in the doorway anymore when I left, I checked. What a nice girl. What a nice family. What a nice neighbourhood full of nice girls, nice families, and nice fucking homes. How nice everything is. That’s a terrible word, “nice.”

Anywhere was better than being in that neighbourhood. I wanted to get home a lot faster than my legs could take me and I didn’t feel like hailing a cab because I didn’t want to talk to anyone anymore. I was starting to get frustrated with myself because I couldn’t move fast enough. I didn’t want to start running or anything because then it looks like I’m in a hurry for something and I hate looking like that. I’m never in a hurry for anything. I just wanted to go home.

It felt like it took me an hour to walk home but I’m not sure how long it actually took. My legs were aching and my feet hurt so badly. I practically fell through my front door. Sid yipped at my feet, running figure eights between my legs as I walked. If I hadn’t been feeling so bad for myself I might have chuckled.

I walked to my bedroom and collapsed on my mattress. My blankets were all in a knot at the foot of my bed but I didn’t bother separating them and pulling them up to my shoulders. I ignored them. I just shut my eyes and stayed like that. I thought maybe sleep would just come to me; I mean that’s how it was every other night. But of course, the one time I wanted nothing more than to sleep, I couldn’t. I just laid there like a fucking idiot with my eyes closed, completely conscious. I kept getting flashes of Emmie and her stupid dimple and her angry dad. It only made things worse.

So, as soon as my legs stopped throbbing I got up. My apartment was a mess and it stunk. So, believe it or not, I started to clean it up. I cleaned up the mess from last night and I vacuumed and I got all my dirty clothes into my laundry basket. I searched the top of my dresser and in the creases of my recliner for quarters so I could do laundry. I felt like I had to keep busy to keep those miserable thoughts out of my head so I hauled my laundry down five flights of stairs to the laundry room.

I dumped it all in the washing machine with some Tide and pulled the shirt I was wearing off my back to throw it in there, too. I wondered if the bloodstains would actually come out of it or not. Once the machine was making all kinds of weird noises and rattling away, I sat down in front of it and watched it churn my clothes in the soapy water. I reached into my pants pocket and pulled out a cigarette and my lighter. I played with the nicotine stick for awhile, running my fingers up and down it and tapping the filter. I felt like shit; complete and utter shit.

I hadn’t felt that bad in a long time. I used to get that way lots when I was younger and when I’d first moved to Rogersdale. My chest ached, but it wasn’t the kind of ache I got if I ran too much or coughed too hard. It was a deep ache that I couldn’t quite explain. It felt really hollow; empty. It made me think of what heartbreak feels like. I didn’t really have a decent reason to have a broken heart, but that’s kind of what it felt like, I guess. I couldn’t stop moving. I kept tapping that damn cigarette or shaking one of my legs, even though they were crossed. I don’t even know why. I just couldn’t sit still. I felt more uncomfortable if I sat still. My head was killing me, too. I just felt really fucking lonely. I know I said I like being alone, and I do. But damn, feeling lonely is a completely different ballgame.

I lit up the stupid cigarette finally and sucked in the nicotine. You weren’t really allowed to smoke in the basement for some reason, but I didn’t care too much. You weren’t allowed to do half the shit I did in my apartment building. Anyway, I just sat there half-naked, smoking and watching my laundry go round and round. It was dumb, but such a monotonous, boring thing actually helped calm me down. I just focused on the continual cycle of the machine and I forgot about the pain in my chest and in my head. Funny how something like a damn laundry machine can distract you off the cliff, though. There was always that nagging worry though, like what’s going to happen when the washing machine stops? Will the pain come back? How will I make it go away again?

I’m not an emotional guy. I don’t like feeling things too often. I know feelings are unavoidable, but that doesn’t mean they don’t suck. No one wants to feel that empty pain in their chest, or the sad ache in their gut. No wonder people kill themselves. This kind of misery is crippling. I wish there was an off switch for emotions, I really do. I think that’d be so handy. If someone died, you could turn everything off and it’s not like their death wouldn’t matter to you, you just wouldn’t feel that crippling loss that you normally would. Or if you didn’t do as well as you’d hoped at something, or if you didn’t win some lottery, you could shut off the disappointment and it wouldn’t affect you as bad. I think lives would be saved if there was an off switch for emotions. There’s so many people walking around like zombies these days because they’re so damn sad, but if they could just turn it off and not care so much I think they’d feel better. I don’t know. None of this makes any sense to anyone but me, I bet. I guess you have to be feeling pretty shitty to understand what I mean.

As my laundry was coming to the end of its cycle, I started to think about this one guy I used to know back in Toronto. His name was Andrew Hansen and I think he was the happiest kid I’d ever met. I swear on my own life he always had a smile on his face. Shitty things happened to Andrew, too, but they never seemed to get him down at all. One time, he was at the skate park when I was there. Andrew was really good at bike tricks. He had this little BMX bike, it was green and purple, and he could do all sorts of things with it. He’d said it was just a hobby, something he did when he had spare time. He must’ve had a lot of spare time because damn, was he good. Anyway, this one day at the skate park he didn’t time a trick right and he had a real bad landing on the big ramp. He landed in this awkward way on his left foot and broke his ankle and shattered a bone in his wrist. I remember I’d been just sitting on the cement, watching him do his thing, and when he’d landed like that I stood right up and dropped my skateboard. Me and about six other guys rushed over to where Old Andrew was laying. He wasn’t moving and it was actually kind of scary to see. I remember this kid named Jerry asked if he was dead. This old hobo that always hung out at the skate park—his name was Charles and he was a total hippie but he was really cool—he climbed up on the ramp and walked over to Andrew’s body. He put his fingers to his neck and nodded before turning him around. Believe it or not, Andrew was smiling! He actually laughed while Jerry called 911 to come pick him up. “Guess I wasn’t ready for that one yet,” Andrew had said. I remember just staring at this kid like he had five eyes. He’s the only kid I’ve ever met that could break bones and still laugh about it as he’s getting carried away in an ambulance. I wish I was more like Andrew Hansen.

The washing machine cut out and I hauled myself up to remove my dripping wet clothes from inside it. I quickly transferred them into the closest dryer and put in the last of my quarters. I made a mental note to go to the bank and get change for a twenty in all quarters so I could do my laundry again. Everything’s a money grab. There’s no avoiding it. Pretty soon we’re going to have to start paying for the air we breathe, tax included.

I finished my cigarette and I put it out on the wall. I couldn’t watch the dryer tumble my clothes around because it was a different model than the washers. I was feeling lonely again. It was starting to annoy me because it just wouldn’t leave me alone. I didn’t even have a half decent excuse to feel this shitty. Oh wow, a girl ignored me and her father called me useless, like that was anything new and terrible. I needed a new distraction but there was nothing around me but white walls and a rumbling old dryer.

I was just about to grab another cigarette out of my pocket when the heavy basement door opened. This lady, I was pretty sure I’d seen her before, walked in carrying a green and blue laundry hamper in her arms. She looked kind of funny carrying it. She was waddling, so it must’ve been awfully heavy or something. She dropped it with a heavy thud to the cement floor and opened the lid of the washer I’d just been using. I guess I’d been staring at her because she turned to look at me and gave me this awkward tiny smile before returning to her laundry. She wasn’t much to look at really, and she seemed too old for me anyway, but she was a distraction for the moment.

“Burning the midnight laundry detergent?” I asked. It was a stupid thing to say.

She jumped a little and turned to blink at me with huge green eyes. “Excuse me?” she asked in this quiet little voice.

“Oh, uh, you got a lot of laundry to do?”

“Um, not any more than usual…” She looked away from me and started doing her laundry as fast as she could. I could tell she didn’t want to talk to me but my mouth wouldn’t stop moving.

“Right, yeah,” I said. “I’ve seen you before…what floor do you live on?”

“Oh, the second floor,” she answered. She still wasn’t looking at me. She was mumbling all her answers so I really had to strain my ears to hear her. I hated it when you had to pay extra attention just to listen to someone yap.

“Second? Is that what you said?”

“Yes.”

“Oh. I’m on the fourth. There’s way too many flights of stairs for my liking.”

“Oh.”

No matter how hard I tried I couldn’t stop the words that kept pouring from my mouth like puke. I was just so damn lonely, I guess.

“What’s your name? I’ve seen you before.” I said. I leaned up against the dryer for some dumb reason. Like I said, she wasn’t much to look at, so I don’t know why I was trying to act all suave and cool.

“Jessie,” she mumbled.

“Jackie?”

“No, Jessie.”

“Oh. I’m Max.”

“Okay.”

“You’re not much of a talker, are you Jessie?” I asked, tilting my head at her.

By that time she’d finished throwing her dirty clothes into the washer and she was hastily putting her quarters in the little slot to start it.

“Um, I have to go. Bye, Mark.”

“My name’s Max,” She was heading towards the door but I still felt lonely. “Okay, if you really gotta go. But maybe we can hang out sometime, huh? What do you think?”

“N-no, thank you.” She let the heavy door swing shut behind her and she was gone.

“People are so fucking friendly these days it makes me want to puke,” I muttered to myself. Then, for no reason, I kicked the dryer. It rattled and paused and then continued on with this big bang. I sighed and sunk to the floor. I just wanted it to be done. I wanted to not feel so damn lonely anymore.