Charlie Huston - Every Last Drop

I long for matches and gasoline.

End of the hall, front of the building, I stop at the final door.

There's silence behind the door. Not even the grinding of teeth I would have expected. The lock is the worst piece of shit I've ever seen in my life. I flip my straight razor open, slip it in the half-inch gap between the door and frame, and start to edge the bolt out of its socket, pulling hard on the doorknob to create friction so the bolt doesn't snap back into place.

The door to the bathroom opens and a girl with the hem of her short skirt tucked into her panties, a ring of hickeys around her neck, and a shiny pink wig askew on her head, staggers down the hall to the room where I heard the fucking sounds.

She tries the knob and it doesn't open.

She bangs the door.

— You fuckers! Stop fucking and let me in!

The panting and groaning behind the door gets louder, faster.

She bangs again. -Fucking open up! I'm not waiting out here till you guys cum.

The fucking goes on.

She puts her forehead against the door and slouches and turns and looks at me, my razor working the lock. -Hey.

I watch the pulse that makes one of the hickeys on her neck flutter. -Hey.

She licks dry lips. -Thought that guy lives there.

I look at the door I'm working. -This guy?

She closes one eye, trying to think over the rising volume of her friends' fucking. -Yeah. Said he lives there.

— When'd he say that?

She looks down, sees her skirt, tries to pull it free of her waistband. -Shit. Uh, when'd he? Other day.

She pulls her panties down, gets her skirt straight, leaves her panties at her knees for the moment. -He, urn.

She covers her mouth.

— When I was blowing him. Said he lives there when I was blowing him. Said anytime I wanted to score I could come over for the same deal.

She drops her hand, points at the door.

— He wasn't lying to me, was he? I was fucking counting on getting some X off him for a party tonight.

I shake my head. -He wasn't lying.

She smiles, reaches down and pulls her panties back up, catching her skirt in them again. -Cool, that's cool.

There's a definite crescendo from behind the door, a shriek, a yelp, glass

shattering.

She blinks a few times.

— Hey, if you, like, got something on you, I could really use it. Not for free, but like the same deal I made with your friend.

I shake my head. -No, I'm not holding.

She sighs. -Shit.

The door bumps her ass and she lurches upright as it swings open into the hall. -Fucking about time.

She walks into the room. -You're such a whore, I told you not to fuck him without me.

The door closes.

I pop the lock, go inside, shut the door.

The room is shin-deep in empty take-out containers, plastic baggies, dirty clothes and toenail clippings, the walls covered in photos of barely clad starlets and models torn from men's lifestyle magazines. Through the grimy

barred window I can see an edge of sunlight is touching the roof of a building across the street. I pull it open to get some air in, then grab a dingy blanket from the bed to drape over the curtain rod. Its summer in New York City and the air coming in the window doesn't smell any better than the air already in the room. I light a cigarette and sit on the board-narrow bed and smoke and wait for the scum bucket that lives in the shithole.

Finally.

Back where I belong.

The cockroaches in the room, they move to avoid the blade of sunlight that cuts through the crack at the windows edge and slices across the floor. Roaches not liking daylight, its no great shock that I don't have to wait long for my particular roach to come home.

I know him by the sharp report of nails worn through the heels of his ankle boots striking the hallway floor. Even over the stuttering pipes, creaking joints and bitter howls of the waking building and its occupants, I recognize his nervous step.

Outside the door he jitters the keys in his hand, simultaneously keeping rapid time with clacking teeth. The key jams into the lock and the door jerks open and I smell his greasy pomade.

He steps in, closes the door, freezes with his hand on the knob and looks at the blanket blocking out the day. -Oh.

It's a small room, a very small room, a room with more in common with a closet than with other rooms. It takes his eyes less than a heartbeat to look it over and see the dark silhouette on his bed.

He holds his key to his face, looking at the fob that dangles off it. -My bad. Wrong room. Ill just. Don't get up. Ill just.

Not the brightest bulb, but not the dimmest, he knows that people who wait in your room with the window blacked out are bad news.

He just doesn't know how bad the news is yet.

He starts to open the door.

— Ill just. Go to my own room, yeah? Right. Sorry about this. My bad. Totally my bad. This place, so cheap, right? Have like ten different locks in the whole joint. Open someone else's room by accident. Happens all the time. My bad. Really, don't get up.

I don't get up. -No, you got the right room.

He stops vibrating. -Oh shit.

I watch a roach skitter across the shaft of daylight. -Close the door, Phil.

He closes the door.

I stomp on the roach. -Got some things I want to talk to you about.

If it wasn't daylight I could take him by the ankle and dangle him out the window and cut to the chase.

Instead I have to be subtle. -I'm going to cut your nose off, Phil.

He holds his hands up.

— Whoa! Whooooaaaahhh! Who said? Cut me? How did we get to? Hey, man, I'm sayin', How did we just skip aii the way across you're gonna beat the shit out of me, kick my teeth in, put a cigarette out on my forehead, and get aii the way to cutting my fucking nose off?

He drops his jaw.

— Like, what happened to conversation? What happened to getting all caught up?

He crosses his arms over the front of his dirty silk Hawaiian print shirt and moves his head to one side. -Hey, great to see you, Joe. Long time. How ya been? Fine? You been fine?

He puts his hands on his hips, moves his head to the other side.

— Sure, Phil, I been fine. How you been? What you been up to?

Back to position one.

— Me, oh, I been OK, the usual. This and that. And, you know. Mostly what I been up to is.

He throws his hands in the air.

— Mostly I been spending my days and nights making sure no one cuts my nose off.

He covers his nose. -I'm saying, Seriously fuck, Joe! Cut my nose off? My nose?

He walks in little circles, kicking the trash out of his way. -Why not an ear? My lips? Fingers? Jeezus!

He stops, holds a hand up.

— Not, mind you, that I'm making suggestions, expressing a preference, mind, just that, you know, fuck. You know?

He stands and pants.

I show him the razor again. -You want to let me finish?

He pulls his head back.

— Oh, there's more? There's more after you're gonna cut my nose off? You got more that comes after that? Here, let me pull up a chair, let me get comfortable for this, I can't fucking wait to see how it ends.

There's no chair in the room, so he takes a seat at the end of the bed, crosses one leg over the other, rests his hands on his knees and cocks an ear my way. -By all means, man, proceed.

I balance the razor on my finger, watch it jump slightly with every beat of my heart. -What I was gonna say, Phil, was, I'm gonna cut your nose off.

He nods. -Yep, yep, got that part, got it. Gooo ooon.

I flip the razor, catch it so it rests easy in my palm.

— I'm gonna cut your nose off, I was saying. I'm gonna cut your nose off if you waste a single fucking second of my time, is what I was saying.

I look from the blade to his face.

— If that makes any difference in your reaction, Philip, that is what I was saying.