Small Apartments Read Free

deeper issues, of course, and the meatloaf was just a catalyst. Tommy used the opportunity to deliver a fierce monologue on what he perceived to be his parents’ shortcomings. His speech was so venomous that it made his mother dash into her bedroom crying. She spent the rest of the evening reading and scribbling notes inside the dust jackets of her Dr. Mennox books. His father, for his part, put on his hat and drove to the Knights of Columbus Hall. Within the week Tommy had put down a deposit on an apartment at 100 Garner.
    TOMMY HAD JUST finished smoking a joint and was in a pleasant state between consciousness and sleep as he stared into the television. An episode of
Magnum, P.I
. was on. It was twenty-four minutes into a twelve-hour marathon.
    As he gawked catatonically at the television, Tommy ran through his mind all the objects he would need to build his inaugural gravity bong. First he would need a bucket. He was pretty sure he had a bucket behind the door in the bathroom. He had a faint recollection of a white plastic bucket with one dark sock in it. Next he would need a two-litre plastic soda bottle. He would need to cut the bottom off of that, so he would also need a serrated knife and a pair of scissors. Tommy knew he had the knife, and probably the scissors, but he was positive he did not have the soda bottle. Although he consumed, on average, three cans of beer and one two-litre bottle of soda pop per day, he had just brought an entire month’s worth (ninety-eight cans and thirty-three bottles) to the recycle machine at the Open 24 Hours convenience store where he was a clerk. He’d applied the resulting $6.55 towards the purchase of a dime bag from Bobo at the pool hall on Elmwood Avenue. Securing a soda pop bottle without making a trip to the 2-4 store may pose a problem, thought Tommy.
    Finally, the gravity bong called for weed. He had plenty of that, thanks to Bobo. Tommy budgeted for two things in his life: rent and weed. I have to have weed and a place to smoke it, he reasoned. His job as a clerk at the 2-4 store on the corner of Grant Street and Forest Avenue allowed him to barely afford both.
    Bucket. Knife. Scissors. Weed … soda pop bottle.
    Tommy blinked and a glimmer of awareness, however faint, crept in behind his eyes. Tommy scratched at his orange goatee. He was positive there were no two-litre soda pop bottles within the confines of his apartment. He ran through his options. He could go purchase a two-litre beverage and purge it of its contents, but that would require him walking the three blocks to the 2-4 store. If Ruiz was working his shift down at the 2-4 store he would surely let Tommy grab a bottle off the shelf at 100% discount. If Buttmunch Artie was working, he could forget about it. What day is this, thought Tommy? Tuesday. Artie worked till six on Tuesdays. That was all beside the point, anyhow. Tommy did not want to go outside. It was his day off and he just wanted to hang out in his apartment and get high.
    Tommy Balls shook his head and smiled at the television. Magnum, P.I. was being reprimanded by Higgins, the caretaker of the Robin Masters Estate, for borrowing his camera without asking. Why do I have to live in Buffalo? Why can’t I be living for free in Hawaii like Magnum, thought Tommy.
    “Fuckin’ Higgins,” said Tommy Balls.
    Tommy got up and stretched his arms above his head until they cracked. He picked up a black, Metallica tour T -shirt from the arm of the couch, sniffed it, then pulled it over his tattooed torso. Sure enough, behind the bathroom door he found a white plastic bucket. He removed the dark sock and searched the bathroom for a good place to drape it, settling on the sink. He found a steak knife sticking out from the dirty dishes in the kitchen sink and a pair of scissors on the table under a stack of
High Times
and empty plastic CD cases. He gave a futile look inside the garbage can for a soda pop bottle. On top of the wet trash was a paperback