The Other Side(12)
After I take that first drag, I fix him with my best I-don’t-have-time-for-this stare.
He matches it and time drags on. Too long—I’m sweating again.
Finally, his patience wears out. I’m making him uncomfortable standing in his personal space, and he huffs. “Fine, but listen to me, you’re not ordering a beer. You’re going back home and you’re fixing that goddamn toilet.”
Nodding once while I take a long pull on the Pall Mall, I swipe up the bills he tosses on the bar and stuff them in my pocket next to Chantal’s.
“Joey needs formula,” I add, my eyes darting to meet his.
The scowl begins to retreat, but I turn away before it dissolves and something softer replaces it. The sunlight is jarring when I step back outside, and I take one last drag on the cigarette and flick it into the street while I jog around the corner to the QuikMart.
The baby section is small. There are two different brands of formula and I’m not sure which one to get. It’s been a few weeks since I bought some and either the brands are different or the packaging is. I take five seconds to deliberate, it’s essentially a speed round of, “Eeny, meeny, miny, moe…” and pick one. I grab one more necessary item on my way and when the dude behind the counter (I don’t know his name but I’ve always called him Dick in my mind…because he is) casts his judging eyes on me and chuckles under his breath, I look away and toss one of the tens Johnny gave me on the counter. He drops the change, a few odd coins, in my open palm and hands me the plastic bag. Pocketing the money, I take my purchase from him.
Before I can put some safe distance between myself and Dick and his patronizing attitude, he calls out, “You know how to use those, kid?” He’s laughing again.
And I’m sweating. Again. While I raise my middle finger up high over my head on the way out the door.
He laughs harder.
When I’m out the door and past the store windows, I run.
Hanging the plastic QuikMart bag on 2B’s doorknob, I knock loudly and walk up the stairs before Chantal opens the door. She’ll thank me, I don’t want that. And my heart can’t take seeing Joey sick again.
Cliff hasn’t moved from his position on his bed. Again, I know the thing to do would be to ask him what’s wrong. We don’t do that in 3A. Johnny, Cliff, and I tiptoe around each other and pretend feelings and emotions don’t exist. Johnny and I have mastered putting up walls and keeping quiet. Cliff’s approach is a little more ostentatious…okay, it’s a lot more because he can’t keep his mouth shut. Which makes his present silence that much more disturbing.
But I forge on. One crisis at a time, I remind myself. The toilet is next. Besides, I try not to get involved in people’s lives, because A: I’m cursed, my mother always said so. I make things worse. And B: I’ll be gone soon anyway, long-term anything is out of the question.
After two rounds of knocking, I let myself into 2A with the master key. No one is home. I leave the front door open, because I make a habit of doing that when the tenant isn’t home, or if the only tenant in the apartment is a female. The transparency feels safe, necessary even. I don’t need any trouble.
The toilet fix is quick and I’m almost done when I hear footsteps walking down the hall. My test flush muffles the voice coming from the other room. I can’t make out the words, but the voice is too low to belong to Alice. The quicker I wash my hands and get out of here, the better. But before I twist the hot water knob on the faucet, there’s a guy wearing a head to toe glare, ripped jeans, a wool coat, and black eyeliner to match his black hair, standing in the doorway. His eyes are slinging violent threats and promises, and he’s pointing a grisly looking, dull steak knife at me. I don’t like seeing them paired together.
“Who the fuck are you and what are you doing in my apartment?” he spits, while looking cool as a cucumber wielding a weapon in one hand and a guitar case in the other.
I instinctively raise my hands up in surrender so he doesn’t take a swipe at me. “I’m Toby, the building super. I’m working on your toilet,” I splutter.
His eyes narrow and then drop to my toolbox on the floor. “Oh.”
I note that it takes five or six seconds before he lowers the threatening, but likely ineffective, blade.
I, in turn, lower my nonthreatening, and likely ineffective, hands. Grabbing my toolbox and skipping the handwashing, because I’ll do it somewhere free of cutlery shanks, I wait for him to step aside and clear my path to freedom.
He nods his head at the toilet. “Alice said it broke a few days ago. Is it finally fixed?” His voice sounds oddly friendly now. He’s set down the guitar case, but he’s still holding the knife.
The obvious disparity, and the fact that he nearly made me wet myself, is what prompts my jackass, knee-jerk response by answering his question with a question, “Did you hear it flush?”
A smile breaks out in response to my obvious sarcasm and he nods on a laugh that’s more chest vibration than actual sound. “Touché, Toby.”
I raise my eyebrows, widen my stance, stand tall, and wait because I don’t know where this is going. He may have several years on me, but I have at least four inches on him and I’m going to use them. I’m not going to make threats, but you better believe I’m going to posture until he lets me out of here. I’m a coward at heart, remember? All bravado.