Dollhouse

“Hey, assmunch.”

I let out a soft moan, turning onto my other side and pulling my comforter up to my chin. Whoever it was could screw right the fuck off. I was tired and I refused to acknowledge them until I was ready to get up. Which, by the way, was not going to be for a long while.

The universe had other ideas.

“Oi! Wake the fuck up!” Something hits me in the side and, judging by the pain and how quickly the air left my lungs, I was left to assume it was one of my steel toed boots that were spread throughout my room and were only really out for use of weapons, it would appear. I blindly picked it up from where it had fallen beside my bed and threw it back full force. There was a loud slam as it hit my door and I could hear someone screaming at me from the other end of the house.

“Closer this time, Bri. You were only, like, six inches off,” the intruder, who was currently blurry in my half focused vision, spoke. “At this rate, you’ll be able to hit me by the time we graduate.”

“Fuck you, man,” I groaned. I rubbed at my eyes with the heels of my hands before turning my attention back to the figure. I finally recognized the person to be Jimmy, my best friend slash couch drifter. I turned to the clock on my end table to see the red numbers of ‘6:32’ glaring at me. “What the fuck, dude?”

“I got bored. Wake up and come eat. I made bacon.”

That has me sitting up straight and I’m desperately sniffing the air as if I should be able to smell the burning carcasses of my family in the air. “You cooked?”

“Oh, c’mon! I almost burned down a house one time and I’m getting reminded of it all the time,” Jimmy scoffed.

“But that’s where you’re wrong, it wasn’t just one time. You’ve almost burned down buildings at least eight times since then when you’ve gotten bored. You would have succeeded at Matt’s apartment if that faulty thing wouldn’t have chosen to actually work that day,” I reminded him.

“Well now you’re just splitting hairs,” Jimmy said dismissively. I rolled my eyes as I ran a hand through my slowly growing hair. Suzy had been scolding me to cut it off, but now it was just too much fun to annoy her. I was worried that one day I was going to wake up to her hovering over me with scissors. One day her mom sensors were going to overload and I’d be bald.

“Are you not going to let me sleep anymore?”

“Not a chance.”

“Then fuck off so I can get dressed at least.” Jimmy grinned before merrily skipping out of my room, slamming my door shut behind him and causing someone - probably my dad - to scream again. I lazily pulled a shirt off my floor and over my head after a quick sniff and deeming it ‘clean enough’. After that I shimmied into some bootcut jeans, socks, and my combat boots (once I finally tracked down a matching pair). I trudged into my bathroom and scolded at myself in the mirror. No effort today it is. Pulling on a bandana, my fedora, and applying some deoderant, I decided that that was as good as I was ever gonna get.

After taking a quick piss and grumbling to myself that I 'should have probably done that first', I finally got to the kitchen, yawning halfway down the the hallway, to see Jimmy munching on a strip of bacon. I raised my eyebrow as I spotted what could only be measured as a mountain of bacon. I didn’t even think we owned this much bacon. What the fuck? Jimmy noticed my look and shrugged. “I ended up going to the store before I cooked and bought some bacon with money from the laundry mat.”

Oh right, he does have a job. I guess I’m just lucky Dad is a pushover with providing for me. I forget sometimes that Jimmy and Matt actually work and support themselves. Well, Jimmy does for the most part. He just has shit luck with getting a place to stay. “Wait a minute. When the hell did you wake up again?”

“Like, five, I think. Maybe four thirty.”

“And you went to bed at...?”

“Two. Or was it three?”

“Dude, how do you survive on so little sleep?” I questioned, slipping into the chair across from him and grabbing my own strip of bacon. Wow, only a tiny bit burnt. That’s an improvement.

“I sleep through metal shop,” Jimmy remarks with a shrug, starting on another piece of bacon.

“Which I still don’t know how you do it. Even in the separate classroom that shit is too loud,” I sighed. Jimmy was always sprawled all over his desk in our first period and I really didn’t get how with those grinders being used all the time. It feels like I can still hear it with headphones in and the classroom’s door shut. “Do you really expect us to finish off this entire plate?”

“No. I figured Matt would eat, like, half of it,” Jimmy spoke, chuckling at his own joke. But seriously, I think his stomach is probably just a black hole. He could eat for hours and never get a tiny bit fat. I swear he just exercises in all his free time. I mean, he runs in the morning before school. I checked the time on the clock above the stove and grinned.

“Wanna go bug him now?”

“Always up for bugging Matt,” Jimmy laughed, standing to his feet as I did. We both paused and stared at the pile of bacon. After searching for, at least, two minutes in hopes of finding a tupperware container with the right sized lid, we gave up. We improvised and dumped the entire plate worth into a freezer bag that Jimmy shoved into his backpack. Once I grabbed my cell phone from my bedroom, we went into the garage to my car.

My car was pretty much my child, right along side my guitar. My baby is a ‘05 Camaro that was so deep of a blue it was nearly purple. Being nine years old, people aren’t too highly impressed, but I adored it. I guess that’s what everyone feels about other people’s children. Look at me, being a parent so young already. We climbed into the vehicle and Jimmy took it upon himself to fiddle with the radio as we waited for the garage door to finish opening.

“Oh, damnit Jimmy,” I sighed as he gave up on the radio (it’s only lame talk shows this early anyway) and plugged his iPod into the docking station. That docking station took more time and money to install than I thought it would, but it is fantastic. Jimmy simply grinned at me as the beginning of Barbie Girl from whatever godforsaken artist created this abomination was. If he put in his iPod, that was always the first thing to come on. When the day comes that he doesn’t, I will go get my penis pierced. “I am personally going to kill Matt for showing you this shit.”

“Don’t deny your inner feelings towards this song, Bri. You’d make love screaming these lyrics,” Jimmy teased.

“Oh yeah, totally,” I agreed sarcastically with a roll of my eyes. “I’m sure screaming ‘come on Barbie, let’s go party’ will definitely get her off.”

“Hasn’t failed for me yet,” Jimmy replied matter of factly.

“It’s sad that I can’t tell if you’re being serious or not,” I sighed in reply. The bastard simply grinned at me. Luckily, after about three minutes and sixteen seconds - not that I’ve counted or anything - better music came on. I still didn’t understand how Jimmy could have such a wide music range. He had Aqua on the same device he had Metallica. And then he had some stuff from musicals (“Chicago is fucking Godsent you uncultured swine!”), dubstep, and even some country bull. I’m pretty sure he has Spice Girls hidden under a different name. But I guess if anyone was going to have weird music choices, it would be the guy who wore an orange kimono to school for four months on a dare.

“I forgot he lives so close to you,” Jimmy remarked as I pulled the vehicle into one of the parking spots below Matt’s apartment that he shared with his sister. Though ‘sharing’ has a very thin meaning to it. She was rarely ever home since she crashed at her boyfriend’s apartment on the other side of town. When they had first gotten the place, Matt had still been seventeen so she got an apartment with him since there had to be someone that was at least eighteen. After his birthday over the summer, they just hadn’t gotten around letting him rent it alone. He made enough money at his part time job working for the gym down the street to pay for all the rent, so there was no point why he couldn’t live alone.

“Funny how it passes your knowledge every time,” I remarked with a roll of my eyes. I don’t think Jimmy ever really knows where anything is. When he walks by himself, he probably needs to ask for directions every ten steps. How he maneuvered school, I would never know. And the fact of the matter is that it’s not even that he’s bad with direction or anything, he just has a very selective attention and it seems that finding his way to things was not one of those ideas that make him interested.

“Whelp, let’s go feed the mammoth,” Jimmy announced, completely ignoring my sarcasm and climbing from the car with his backpack in hand. I sighed and followed him, locking the doors and setting the alarm with just a click on my key ring. By the time I had climbed the stairs, Jimmy had already reached Matt’s door and simply pushed it open, sauntering in like he owned the place. I could faintly hear him call, “Honey! We’re home.”

“It’s, like, seven in the morning you fucking imbecile,” I could hear Matt scoff as I reached the door. He looked up at me from his spot on the couch and raised an eyebrow. “I stand corrected. It’s seven in the morning you fucking imbeciles.”

“Whoa, someone call the police, Matt’s not exercising. I think that’s a felony,” I said seriously as I shut the door behind me with a push from my foot.

“Same for you. Up before seven thirty? It’s a miracle,” Matt mocked. I rolled my eyes before plopping down on the couch next to him. Jimmy had disappeared and neither of us were too concerned about what he was doing. There wasn’t much that was fragile in Matt’s apartment and the things to worry about were locked in his closet, the key always around Matt’s neck. You can say we’ve had some...problems in that department and so there was never a moment we could relax until we learned the tricks.

It was about fifteen minutes of Spongebob later that Jimmy reappeared from the hallway. He was limping a little, but he tried to play it off as he sank into the armchair that was perpendicular to the couch. He let out a soft ‘oh’ before unzipping his backpack and tossing the bag of bacon at Matt. “Eat up. It’s the peace offering I give to you.”

“Why is the peace offering in a freezer bag?” Matt asked, his face twisting in disgust, but yet he was still opening the bag and taking out a piece of bacon which he began to nibble on.

“We got bored with looking for a real container,” I answered with a small shrug. Matt shook his head as we all got wrapped up in the cartoon still playing on the screen. When Matt finally excuse himself at seven thirty to get dressed, more than half the bacon was gone. I had only snuck about three pieces out of the bag when he wasn’t paying attention, so it was pretty concerning. I think the grease is going to end up clogging his arteries. “Well, you definitely called it right.”

“Told ya,” Jimmy said as he scooped up the bag and began to munch himself. “Health did teach us that exercising makes you hungry and thirsty beyond belief.”

“I’m shocked you paid attention,” I murmured. “So how’d you hurt yourself this time?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Jimmy replied dismissively.

There was a soft scuffling kind of sound from down the hall and Matt let out a pretty loud curse of ‘fuck’. “Jimmy! I told you to stop moving my fucking dumbbells! You’re going to make me trip over them and fall you asshole.”

“You dropped the dumbbell on your foot again, didn’t you?” When Jimmy failed to reply or look at me, I rolled my eyes. “You’d think you’d learn your lesson, man. You are clumsy as hell around workout equipment and shouldn’t touch it.”

“You’re not my mother,” Jimmy retorted childishly, biting into a piece of bacon and chewing it rather obnoxiously. I couldn’t stop myself from rolling my eyes again.

“No, that would be Zack.” And it was true. For whatever weird ass reason, our friend Zack was like the mother hen of our group. I mean, he literally cooked soup for me when I was sick, on multiple occasions. We didn’t really understand it, but we just let him because we are good friends and it’s very convenient sometimes. I mean, yeah, other times it’s fucking crazy and weird, but again, we’re his friends.

“So, did you guys hear?” Matt asked, walking down the hall as he finished zipping up his backpack. He was no longer in just his sweats, actually dressed and ready to go it seemed as he walked to the fridge to grab a Gatorade.

“Hear what?”

“We’re going to get some new project in Mrs. Brooks’s class.”

“How the hell do you know that?” I questioned as he picked up the remote and turned off the television. We all climbed to our feet, Jimmy grabbing his own backpack off the floor and more obviously limping now that we knew about it. I followed him out the door, but paused by the railing outside as Matt locked up his apartment.

“Did you guys seriously not give her your email at the beginning of the year?” Matt laughed as he began to walk with me down the walkway towards the stairs of the building. “She always sends us emails to give us heads ups if we’re starting a new project or book or if we’re having a test that day. How do you think I do so damn good in that class?”

“Man. I really should have. Will she take them now?”

“Nope. You missed your chance, man.” I groaned to myself as we reached the parking lot, Jimmy leaning against the roof of my car. I glared and he stood to his full height, holding his hands up in surrender.

“Oh well. I’ll just have Zack be my partner and help me out,” I said with a shrug.

“What if Zack says no?”

I simply scoffed and the other two rolled their eyes before Matt walked to his SUV that was conveniently parked two spots away from my car. Jimmy added, “One day Zack is going to get tired of your ‘I know you’d never let me fail, man’ routine and laugh in your face.”

“The day that happens I will personally cut off my middle fingers,” I remarked as I unlocked the car doors.

“Dude, can I keep them as a trophy in a glass jar when it happens?” Jimmy questioned as he pulled open his door and tossed his bag onto the floorboard at his feet.

“Sure. I’ll toss in an eyeball so it looks even cooler and a plaque made of gold,” I agreed with sarcasm dripping off every syllable.

“No need to get hostile, Brian,” Matt laughed as he climbed into his seat. Before he shut his door he called, “See you at school, assholes.”

With that he started up his vehicle and drove off as Jimmy and I both climbed into our designated chairs. As I started up my own engine and clicked my seatbelt, Jimmy asked, “Do you think he realizes that I stole his favorite Metallica shirt?”

“Wait, what?” I turned to see Jimmy opening the black, button up shirt he has been wearing to reveal said shirt. It looked like it was a little too big for him from the lack of muscles he had compared to Matt. I was silent for a few moments, staring at him as I idled the car in the entrance to Matt’s parking lot. Finally I sighed, turning onto the street to head towards school. “You’re trying to get killed today, aren’t you?”

“It’s the only way to crack in a Monday.”