Mat Johnson - Drop

In just a few weeks, I discovered that my apartment was not actually a space in itself, but rather a hole between the four other homes of my neighbors. Below, living behind the thrift shop on the first floor: the screaming one. Late night curses into the silence of the building. His favorite word: niggers . Two syllables that could be belched in anger or surprise or sometimes palpable awe, niggers, niggers . It was hours before dawn when the screaming came and I turned over on my stomach and sat up, my heart becoming a noticeable component beneath my shirt. A new unit of time was formed in the darkness, hijacked from dream, waiting for the next scream to come. In the isolation of my hole I dialed Alex.

‘What?’ she said picking up.

‘He’s doing it again.’

‘Chris, didn’t I fucking curse you out for this shit last time? Remember what I said and then hang up on yourself.’

‘I’m sorry, but the guy, he’s screaming again.’

‘It’s three-thirty in the morning.’

‘I know! And this guy, Alex, he’s yelling. It’s insane.’

‘Then go tell him to shut up.’

‘Hell no.’

‘Chris, do you even know what day it is?’ What day it was wasn’t important. I went back to sleep curled up with the butcher’s knife I borrowed from her two weeks before, dreaming of striped snakes biting the bones in my arms until I woke up and saw my elbows were gashed and painted in blood.

Right side: the guy who lived behind my toilet. In the morning, when his girlfriend stayed over, his metal bed frame slammed chunks of plaster from the wall, for weeks making me think it was a washing machine because I didn’t know anybody boned like that any more (no slight change in rhythm, no moan, sigh, or recrimination). The last three beats slamming with deliberate finality and then gone. After that, sitting on the toilet with my ear pressed against the wall, all I could hear was the sound of Live with Regis and Kathie Lee being turned on.

Left side: one damn song. Never the sound of a toilet flushing, of a door being shut, or even a cough. Just one damn song. Coming on about ten o’clock at night and going till midmorning. The same Hammond organ intro, giving rhythm to the melody, to the light rain of a snare drum. The same crying voice, too, begging to satisfy some need long forgotten. I could never make out the lyrics, or even identify the artist (besides the persistent suspicion that it was a Stax B-side). No one outside that room had heard that song in a long time. Sometimes it was so loud I could hear the record’s scratches. Torturing me with the hope that every time it reached its end that it would be the last time. A moment later, fingers on a Hammond started it up again.

Above me: a rarely present owner and his always present dog, heartbroken and crying just as I was, a high whimper that would go for a few minutes until transforming into a bark until, feeling sorry for itself, it would stop. Only to break down shortly later and begin again, running tiny circles above me, enjoying the circumference of the room. Hours of nails clipping into wood with pawpads thudding behind. Lying on my mattress, staring at my ceiling, I felt sorry for it. I wanted to comfort it. I wanted to take it somewhere pretty and shoot it in the back of its furry skull. I heard its owner taking it out for a walk one night, and as soon as they were downstairs I turned off the lights and poked out the bottom corner of my window. The dog was a beige dust mop. The guy being pulled by it was older, tall with hair unfashionably large. He wore a security guard’s uniform and tennis shoes. At least he had a job. It couldn’t have been his dog. Some woman had left it to him. Across the street the beast, stopping to leave its fecal mark, looked up towards me. I ducked before it could start barking me out to its owner, name me to this place, inciting a riot from the city I was hiding from. Pulling me from my world of sleep and smoke, where I dreamed of getting off the tube at Brixton station, going up the escalator to the street beyond, turning left and walking towards my true home. The dream didn’t come every day, but enough to keep me satiated. In the best ones David was still alive and Fionna still loved me. Alex was there too: we had all escaped this and everyone was safe and smiling. Happy and riding the Victoria Line tube into South London. Each time, I looked for signs that this new return was the real one, noticing the curve of the train’s inner walls, the speed of the escalator steps, searching for any clue of authenticity. When I awoke, Margaret’s number tempted my phone. But I resisted. I wouldn’t be dialing until the call when I told her I’d be coming home. Until then, all that was needed was to roll some spliff or order food so I could lie down again. Outside Philly rumbled by, hopefully forgetting my arrival.

Midway through the second Philly month, all I had was fifty-eight bucks. My roll of crisp, tightly fitting, bills had degraded to a rumpled collection of soiled notes sitting on top of my television.

‘What happened to your money?’ Alex asked.

‘Well, I think that’s pretty obvious. I spent it all.’

‘How? You never go out your house.’

‘I order take-out.’

‘You order take-out. That’s great, Chris. Real smart, real responsible. What the hell you plan on doing now?’ From the tone of Alex’s voice, borrowing from her was not the answer.

‘I was thinking I could use the rest of my money to buy some Sara Lee cake mix. And some rat poison, as much as I can afford. Then I’ll bake the whole thing together into one massive chocolate tart.’

‘Get a job.’

‘I don’t want to get into the industry here. I’d much rather eat the cake.’

‘Get a temp job. Make some quick money. I’ll bet it won’t be anything that could tempt you to stick around. As a matter of fact, it might even make you as miserable as you seem to want to be right now.’

‘I don’t want to be miserable. I just want to be gone.’

‘Well, have you been working on getting out? You said you were going to come up with some new samples for your portfolio. How’s that going?’

Next morning, while right-side neighbor’s bed frame slammed into my wall, I went downstairs and read his paper. The agency that listed immediate openings’ in bold caps told me to come in the following day for some tests, run through some drills, dress as if I was interviewing for a job. That night, I started getting nervous, fucking around a little first. There was all that weed, left over from the last buy, and since I would be joining the work force again it seemed appropriate that I should acknowledge the end of my obsolescence by lighting the rest of my stash afire. Unfortunately, there seemed to be no rolling papers currently on my premises, so I was forced to make due with my baby-blue toilet paper instead.

I packed everything I could gather into one collective log and set it burning. Based on the power of the hit I took, the initiative was a raging success. The sheer force of the blow was strong enough to make me completely unaware that, in the process of ignition, I had set the entire contraption on fire, along with my hand and top lip as well. It wasn’t until I opened my eyes that I saw that the Buddha wasn’t the only thing burning, and by then I was forced to swat the stogie to the floor. Before taking my morning nap, I frugally ate the burnt remainders to make sure nothing was wasted.

Hours later, when my alarm went off at two in the afternoon, my lip was really hurting. In the absence of a pilled pain reliever, I decided to take shots of the whisky I had left over in the fridge as I got dressed for the interview. This strategy first proved faulty when I fell asleep on the number 34 trolley and missed my stop at 22nd Street (making me a full twenty minutes late for my meeting), and continued to provide difficulties at the temp agency itself. For one thing, along with the first-degree burns I’d suffered earlier, it made the typing test very challenging. My fingertips felt like greased plums; I wasn’t sure what language was coming up on the screen but I was positive it had never been uttered before. While filling out the application, I found it nearly impossible to obey the thin little underlines that the form mandated my handwriting follow. Fortunately, though I was sure the whisky was slurring my speech during the interview itself, the red blisters covering my upper lip must have been sufficient distraction, considering that the agency actually called me the night after.