Going In - Chapter 2

After a rather uneventful shift change, James and Alice were back at the dwelling they knew as “home,”—it wasn’t exactly their ideal location, but it’s were they slept and got high. Not usually used for anything else, and not exactly properly cared for, the current situation was somewhat dismal. No electricity, a broken TV (not that it’d be any good without power), and their creepy roommate Jake, there wasn’t a question as to why working at Bernie’s was sometimes preferable to coming home. James and Alice took off their shoes and hats (James placed his in the corner neatly, Alice flung hers across the room with no regard for their landing) and plopped onto the beer-stained carpet beside Jack. He was playing a few simple, but pretty rad, riffs on his acoustic guitar. Neither one of them knew where he got his songs, but his guitar was the center of all their worthy activities.

Smoking weed, sitting around and talking, and playing the guitar were their day-to-day activities; with the occasional party thrown in when they had electricity. Not many normal people would even enter their residence, let alone stay in it for an extended period of time. Still, Alice somehow managed to feel comfortable here when Jake and James were around. Jake greeted them in a friendly manner, at least for him; by flashing one of his crooked smiles (he had the strangest habit of tilting his head when he made an expression). “I already rolled the weed,” Jake said, motioning to their “weed station,” a section of the carpet untainted by cigarette butts and built around the Buddha container Jake had gotten from his grandma before she died. He was convinced it somehow helped their lives, and hell, who knows, maybe it did.

“Yeah, hold on,” Alice said, heading for the refrigerator. “I’m gonna grab a drink,” she said. After shuffling bravely through the spoiled, mostly rotten contents of the fridge, she settled on a can of hot Coca-Cola. It had a little bit of spilled, rotten yogurt on it, but she wiped it on a kitchen towel. “Fuck man, we don’t even have any booze! This blows,” she said, glaring at the Coca-Cola in disgust before gulping around a fourth of it down in one swig. James rolled his eyes. “It’ll be all right Alice; we’re going to Andy’s party tonight. I’m sure she’ll have booze there,” he said, giving her a somewhat disapproving look.

“I always forget how much it smells in here until I get home,” James said, passing the weed to James. “Smells like an ashtray…” he said. “Well, it would smell even worse if we still had the couch you vomited all over,” Alice said, motioning to the spot the couch had been. Now, it was simply a rectangle of cigarette butts from people putting out their cigarettes and tossing them under the couch. It really was a miracle it hadn’t caught on fire and burned them all to a crisp considering how much alcohol it had soaked into it…maybe there was something to that Buddha statue after all.

“You know, one of you women should clean up this place,” Alice said gruffly, eyeing the mess. “This place is a wreck,” she said, her lip drawing up in disgust. “I’ll clean when your slack ass fixes the sink. I think there’s something living in that drain pipe, something horrendously smelly and filthy,” he said, punching her lightly on the arm. “You’ve got to learn to be manly someday if you have any hope of finding yourself a nice lesbian to settle down with,” he added, his pearly teeth glinting at her….mocking her.

“Shut up, you freaking jerk! Just because you guys are queers doesn’t mean I am by association,” she said hastily, clasping her left hand over her right wrist in a gesture of impatience. “Hey, I’m not gay…” said Jake, his voice faltering a bit and barely above a whisper. 2 sets of eyes jerked to him immediately, Alice’s with an expression of amusement, like someone looking at a child who was lying about something very silly, James’ expression of offense and disbelief. “Riight,” they said in unison.

After the novelty of smoking and listening to Jake play his guitar wore off, Alice’s patience went quickly. Listening to James talking was beginning to annoy her. James had a bad habit of repeating the same things to every person he came into contact with; which meant Alice had to hear most of his stories about 400 times before he finally shut up about them. “So, where are we going tonight?” Alice asked, interrupting an overly detailed story James had been telling about a guy he’d been flirting with at Bernie’s last night. He looked slightly annoyed but said, “Remember, Andy’s party! She should probably be here pretty soon...”

“Andy?” asked Jake. He hadn’t met her yet, Alice and James both had known her for around 2 weeks. Although they hadn’t hung out with her much, Alice took to her immediately. For whatever reason, it seemed as if they had known each other a fairly long time, they kept conversation easily.

“Yes, Andy. She’s pretty cool,” James said, somewhat distracted with cleaning under his nails. “I don’t know which way she swings, seems like a dyke to me,” he added gruffly.

“Reeally? What does she look like?” Jake asked, eyes widening with interest.

“She’s pretty,” said Alice, “I don’t think she’s queer,” she finished, crossing her arms and rolling her eyes at James. “He thinks anyone who doesn’t wear make-up and fix their hair a certain way is a raging bull dyke,” she grinned a little in his direction.

“You mean like you, right? Seriously, you should do something about that mane of yours. Bit harsh isn’t it?” said James, looking away from his nail bed long enough to pull one of Alice’s jagged locks playfully, then returning his attention to his personal grooming.

Alice swatted at him hazardously; he dodged rather easily and earned himself a somewhat angry glare from her. She was about to attack again, but the three heard light, tapping on the door. Hearing Andy’s voice, Alice hopped up immediately and went to open the door, and James chuckled at her behavior.

Andy entered the room and the two of them grinned at each other for a moment. Alice thought about hugging her, but suddenly felt much shyer than she was accustomed to feeling. “Hey guys, how’s it going?” she asked, glancing briefly at the other two.

“As good as it could possibly go living with these two idiots,” Alice said dryly, bounding out the door and living the other three alone. She smiled widely as she heard Andy chuckling quietly and the other two insulting with some degree of enthusiasm, which actually meant they were excited, not angry.