Unconventional

I raised my eyebrows. “And what’s that?”

“You’re not sleeping here alone anymore.”

Twenty

NOAH

“Well shit,” I said, throwing a jagged piece of broken glass over my shoulder. “This is a new one.”

The living room was a total wreck. Holes punched in the walls, stuffing pulled out of the couch. The TV was cracked — it had been cracked before, but now it was completely spider-webbed — and the hundred-year old stereo I’d inherited from the previous owner of the place had been shattered into a thousand pieces.

“The joke’s on them though,” I laughed, kicking one of the speakers. “I never even used it.”

Chase was in the kitchen, putting our cabinets back together. Not just putting stuff back in them, but literally putting the cabinets back on the walls again.

“How much is it gonna take this time?” I sighed.

I could tell my friend was already embarrassed. But there was something else too: a rising anger beneath his humiliation. A far beyond normal amount of animosity, considering our predicament.

“Fuckers!” Chase cursed from the kitchen.

“What?”

“They took the beer with them.”

I chuckled. “Duh.”

“But we just went shopping!” Chase yelled, throwing his arms up.

“Did they leave the spam?”

“Yeah. All nine cans of it.”

“True scoundrels, then.”

The rest of our trailer looked relatively untouched, although they’d tossed the bedrooms looking for cash. All of our drawers were open, our clothing scattered across the moldy carpet. But at least they didn’t slash the pillows, or piss on the bed.

Wrinkling my nose, I leaned down and smelled the bed, just in case.

“They took the toilet paper,” Chase cried. “FUCK!”

“Toilet paper’s expensive,” I shrugged.

“Is it? Is it really though?”

He was storming the hall now, kicking the walls. A glass frame dropped off its wire hanger, sending it crashing to the floor among the rest of the mess.

“You wanna clean this shit up yourself, bro?” I fired back at him.

Chase had his hands on his head, squeezing his hair in exasperation. He released the breath he was holding in a long hiss, then shook his head. “No.”

“Then stop making it worse.”

It took us a half hour to clean up the general clutter, and an equal amount of time to sweep up everything that was broken. When we finished we collapsed together on the couch, side by side. Toasting each other with freshly-drawn tap water.

“You got a metal spring up your ass?” I asked him, shifting uncomfortably.

“Nah. Not on this side.”