The Apple Thing

My only problem with the girl was the way she ate her apples.  She would always skin them first, with her teeth.  Sometimes it’d take her ten minutes.  What’s the point of even eating an apple if it takes you ten minutes to skin it?  She’d peel the whole thing naked and leave these long, red curls of apple skin on her plate, which was disgusting enough.  But the noise it made, Christ.  It’d make you cringe to hear it.  Other than that, though, she was really something.  I never brought up the apple thing.

She took work off for a few days and drove off to visit her folks.  I stayed around the apartment like always.  The first day, I fetched the paper in the morning and sat up in bed with a sharpie, circling some jobs I could do without having to kill myself or anything.  In the afternoon, I rode my bike downtown, just to get out.  It was raining, but I rode anyway.  I’ve never had a problem with rain.

The second day, I got the idea in my head to clean the apartment.  The girl always used to yap at me for being such a damn slob.  But I thought I’d fix things up by cleaning the place, even her room, because she’s a bit of a slob herself to tell you the truth.  So, I got some trash bags and threw pretty much everything out.  My potato chips, her fashion mags, our old love letters.  I found my pet snake, Rufus, slithering through a pile of my clothes.  He looked skinny.  “Man,” I said to Rufus, “I am disgusting.”

The third day, I did some laundry.  I put my clothes in first as a test run and ended up bleaching all my shirts.  Son of a bitch.  I had better luck with her load, except her undies were staticky as hell.  After I put all her clothes away, I biked down to the pet store and bought some rats.  Dead ones.  When I got back, I fed Rufus and he ate the rats gladly, but with some dignity and without skinning them first.    

The fourth day, I woke up electric because she was supposed to be back any minute.  I sat in the window with Rufus curled around my arm and watched the Matchbox cars file in and out of the parking lot.  The day passed in time lapse.  The sun fell.  My face sagged.  I called her phone and got no answer.  

The fifth day, I called early in the morning and got nothing.  I left a message.  Call me, bye.  I tried to remember her folks’ number, but it occurred to me that I never even had it in the first place.  The apartment was clean, the laundry was put away, and I was anxious.  So, I cooked.  I baked her a cake.  It looked like hell, honestly.  I called several times that evening and she did not answer.  

The sixth day, I got tired of not knowing, so I started making up stories.  Is it Craig, that prematurely balding elitist asshole who wears all the t-shirts of the bands she likes?  Or Danny, that tool from church?  Every Sunday, she’s all his.  Clean-cut, crisp collar bastard – they’ve always shared eye contact like they’ve got a secret.  Or maybe it’s Rob, the failed poet.  Or Kyle, the car guy.  I made a list, and there were ten names on the list.  By the end of the sixth day, I believed she was screwing every last one of them.

The seventh day, I biked down to the Hootch Hutch.  I purchased one clear bottle.  I came back and drank in front of the window with Rufus in my lap and watched the black oil spot where her car belonged.  What the hell did I do?  Nothing.  That’s how it goes.  You bust your ass for the girl and she won’t sleep with you because you won’t get rid of your snake.  Like I can control it.  It’s a goddam snake.  Then she wants her own room.  Then she drives off to visit her parents.  Then she’s gone.  

Out of nowhere, Rufus decided to nip me in the knee.  It turned purple and swelled up real big.  Hurt like a bitch.  Before I could grab him, Rufus flung himself off my lap and slithered under the futon.  Everything was going to hell.             

Today, the eighth day, it’s raining out.  I stand in the flooded lobby with two letters in my hand.  Grey water sloshes around my ankles.  One is a bill marked URGENT, but I drop it because the other one has her handwriting on the envelope.

This time, she does not dot her Is with hearts.  There is no mention of Craig or Danny or Rob or Kyle.  The hazy blue ink has only to do with me.  I am a selfish little kid who doesn’t know anything.  I am incompetant, with an a where the e should be.  I’m not going anywhere.  I am messy as heck.  I am a waste of her time.  But she’s been praying for me, and there’s a cute little cartoon crucifix she’s doodled between the blue bars in the left margin.  I guess that’s good.  I assume she’s coming back to pick up her freshly washed undies, but she writes as though she’s never going to see me again.  She asks me to say goodbye to Rufus for her.  Goodbye, Rufus.

I drop the letter and pick up the bill.  It’s soaked through and all the black ink has run together.  How the hell am I going to pay this?  I stuff it in my pocket and walk across the apartment lawn, like a wet bathmat under my feet.  I get on my bike – the cold, beaded metal in the rain, bleached blue shirt damp and suffocating across my chest.  I steady myself and pedal like a maniac into the wind, into the rain.  

She was something.  But the apple thing.