The Roommates

Lester sits alone on a second hand couch. He stares at a silent television set, the images of reality programming flash before his glazed over eyes. The door behind him opens and closes. His roommate Randy climbs over the couch and sits next to him. Randy looks at the TV, then over at Lester. Randy sprawls his arms across the arm and back of the sofa and waits for a response from his roommate. Without looking away from the TV, Lester addresses Randy.

“I’m tired.”

Startled, Randy asks, “What’s that?”

Lester reiterates, “I said, I’m tired.”

“I hear you man. Five-o-clock couldn’t come fast enough. The damn conveyer broke, and I had to carry all my shingles up two fucking stories on my back.”

Lester looks over to Randy, “That’s not it.”

“What now?” Randy asks, giving his attention to Lester.

“That’s not it. I’m just tired.”

Randy scratches his greasy neck, “You’ve been kinda quite the last couple days. Sara giving you a hard time?”

“Sara is fine, I guess. I don’t know.”

“What, is she holding out on you or something?”

Lester sighs, “Maybe. I really haven’t been in the mood for her lately.”

“Oh man, I hate it when the sex dries up. I mean talking and holding hands and making out is all fine and well. But I got my own agenda here. You could say I’m kinda romantic like that.”

Lester looks back at the TV, “I don’t think Sara is the problem.”

Randy agrees with himself, “Oh course she is. The sex has become perfunctory. Am I right? Get rid of her”

“I like Sara. She’s a really nice girl.”

“Dude, we’re in the mid-west, most of the girls out here are nice. There’s no commodity in them round here.”

Lester defends, “She got me that Stones import last week.”

“Oh, she knows how to use the internet. She’s a keeper. Are you listening to yourself?

“Randy...”

“Here’s what we do. I’ll grab a shower; you grab a shirt without an alligator on it. Then we hit up the watering hole. I got designs on that new bartender.”

“The one with the snake tattoo?” Lester asks sarcastically.

“You’re damn right the one with the snake tattoo. Chicks like that wanna get freaky more than anything else. And I’ll tell you this; they got freaky girlfriends that wanna get freaky too. That’s where you come in. Another thing, freaky chicks usually come from money.”

“I’m not tired of Sara. I’m just tired.”

Randy gets up and makes his way to the kitchen. Lester hears the refrigerator door open and waits for the sound of a beer can opening, and the inevitable question that follows. Randy pokes his head around the corner, “Get you a beer?”

Although he knew it was coming, the question still catches him off guard, and he answers the truth, “No.”

“No what?” Randy retorts, holding the extra beer.

Lester removes his face from his hands and turned his head just far enough to point an eye in Randy’s direction. This was a battle he was not prepared to get into. With a sigh, he says, “Fine.”

“That’s what I thought.” Randy struts back to his position on the couch. He continues on with the train of thought that carried him from the kitchen. “Man doesn’t want a beer, that’s just wrong. I got this shit on sale. Five bucks off the case. Now that’s value you can taste.”

As Randy flops down on the couch, Lester grabs the extra beer, opens it, and takes a swig. Lester pulls the can from his lips and looks down at the opening, then pulls it away and rotates it in his hand to look at the label. He remembers that there is supposed to be a frog taking a leak in the background or something.

“What the hell is a frog taking a leak look like anyway?” he thinks. Five dollars off a case. It rings through his mind. He calculates that five dollars divided from thirty is just under seventeen cents per unit. Does this beer taste seventeen cents better than it should? He takes another swig and says, “All I can taste is beer.”

Randy puts his empty beer can on the make-shift coffee table next to the eight other empty ones from last evening, and a half empty coffee cup filled with who knows what from who knows when. He pulls a fresh beer from the kangaroo pouch in his hooded sweatshirt and opens it. The foam flows over the can’s lip and onto his hand. He quickly puts it down, agitating even more. He wipes his hand off on the arm of the couch and looks over to his friend, who was oblivious of the whole transaction.

“Are you okay man?”

“Yeah. Well... no. I’m just... tired.”

Randy sucks the excess beer from his can, shifts his back to the corner of the couch, crosses his foot over his knee, and realized that his roommate is truly tormented. “Come across man. What’s going on with you?”

Lester puts his beer down and looks again at the mute T.V. “I woke up today. I think it was today. It could have been yesterday or the day before. I didn’t care. I didn’t have to. I had a bit of a shadow on my face, but not enough to get your uncle on my case. I mean shit, I talk to people on the fucking phone. Do they know if I’ve shaved, or showered, or even if I’m wearing pants? Anyway, I really didn’t want to get up and go to work. I really couldn’t think of a single reason to go. At the same time I come up with any reason not to.”

“Can I get a smoke from you?” Randy interrupts.

“Yeah, so I get dressed and pick up on my trail.”

Randy moves away from the Maxim magazine he was eyeing, only half listening to Lester. “Trail?”

“It’s like that. I walk out of my room. I find the bathroom, and sure enough I’ve got business there. Then I walk out into the hallway. It’s dark and narrow, but there’s a light at the end of it... a clearing.”

“The kitchen.” Randy says through the first puff off the cigarette.

“Exactly. I got in there and there’s all this breakfast food. So I eat it, right. By now my foot is gotten cold, so I find my shoes. I lean on the counter to put my shoes on and suddenly I notice that my keys are in my hand. The morning light strikes every other cut in the Toyota key making it look green and yellow, and blue, like some fishing lure. I was ready to strike, when it turns in my hand, and like some divining rod, it points towards the door. And before I know it, I’m sitting in the driver’s seat, seatbelt buzzer screeching, staring at the gauges. I’m thinking that this is my last chance to get out of work. You know, if there was something wrong, a dead battery, seized motor, or what-not. My hands were seated on the steering wheel, my heart pounding, I turned the ignition, and the son of a bitch starts. And that was it, no turning back. I get on the road and pick up on my trail again. There was no way to get off it. I was piloting a vehicle that I truly had no power over. Before I realize it I’m in a parking lot, and I’m idling in my favorite spot. Radio on, fingers just inches from the keys, I sit there listening to the heater blower motor. The mindless chatter of the morning hosts ends for a hard break at the top of the hour. Outside everybody else is hustling towards the front door and looking at me just sitting. So I get out and try not to be the last person in the building. The lines on the carpet guide me to the office.”

“Another trail.”

“So it seems. I look around, and the only open seat is the one at my cubicle. After an hour, I got on the phone, sold some people some stuff that they probably didn’t want and certainly didn’t need. And as I turned my monitor off at the end of the day, I realize that I have been beat.”

Randy ashes his cigarette which has burned to the filter. He takes a good look at his roommate and puts out the smoke. “So are you like offering this as evidence against self determination?” he asks.

“I don’t know. All I do know is that I’m so tired of this life. I’m so tired, I don’t even have the strength to try and change. I think I should just ask Sara to marry me, and just get it over with.”

“Why man, you don’t love her do you?”

“I’m not doing it for love. It would just be something different, at least for a while. And that’s got to be worth something.”

“Take some advice from a man who has been down that road before.” Randy begins, “It’s never worth it man. Unless you get a chick knocked up, and you can’t get out of it, forget it. And as for this deal with your job, don’t worry about it. I’ll call my uncle tonight and see if we can’t get you moved to a different department. Now hand me the remote, I think Tiny Toons is on.”