Behind the Front Door May, 2013. volume 1. | Page 8

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Not much to it, but a couple of trips to the laundry mat down the road and I hosed the place down with the old Spray-nine. Nothing worse than coming home to a filthy fucking apartment. Clean bed clothes and dishes and all that. Make sure there’s nothing lying around for the mice, no milk or nothing the might spoil. Just get rid of it all. And I gets the place in good enough shape after a day or so and then it’s just me lying around with a scatter beer waiting to go offshore again, not troubling nobody, not making no scenes, keeping to myself. Anyhow, shoulda mentioned earlier the apartment next door was usually a bit rowdy, especially around the weekends. Young punks with their strange dope. The walls are that thin in the kitchen too, could hear em plain as day like they were standing in the same room, sometimes. I’m standing at the stove waiting for a bit of soup to heat up and I starts paying attention to what their getting on with over there. Arguing about money, one fella, Jeremy or something, he’s saying how he’s owed this much from some fucker named Spider, and the other lads, I think there was two more, their shouting him down saying how Spider is down in the Pen since last month. One of em mentions the shop then, down the road. Jackman’s. Little convenience store. They starts talking about knocking it over. But they don’t seem too much up for that. Next thing this Jeremy fucker says What about the feller next door? The old drunk? Well, I perks up when I hears that part. This Jeremy fucker, he starts saying how I always got booze and smokes and how I works on the boats and must have a few dollars tucked away in me mattress. Let’s just go over, he says, and chat him up for a few drinks and roll him. I’m listening, listening, watching that soup heat up. They starts saying how I’m always drunk, always tanked, how I’m probably drunk now. Let’s just go on over, they says, and fuck him up and grab his stash and go on. He wont remember nothing anyhow. Haul a fuckin sock over your head and burst right in on ‘im. What’s he gonna do? So what if he calls the cops, we’ll just deny it. He wont be able to identify us. Cops wont fuckin pay no mind to him anyhow, old drunk fuck. Come on! Come on!

Well, I’m stood there long enough, listening. I has a good look around the little apartment, a good look at what I got, what me life is after coming too. And I thinks how decent I got it, all said and done. I works hard you know, to be able to live like I do. And what I got aint much but it’s a fuck of a lot more than what I was lead to believe I’d ever have and I says to myself I’ll be good and Christed if some young junky punks are gonna try and take it away from me. I scans the room and spies the old chair in behind the table that I never uses cause one of the legs is busted. Nice tidy little set of table and chairs and I always thought to get around to fixing that busted one but sure no one’s ever around to need it anyhow. I slips that chair out from under the table and pries the wooden leg off and it’s sharp on top from the break. Good solid wood. I holds it like a club and stands there staring at the apartment door, listening to the lads next door rustling around getting ready to storm in. They’re not talking no more, just little murmurs is all I can hear. I’m standing there, waiting, watching the door. And I gets thinking, you know, about fuckers out there, fuckers like my old man who lives their whole life and leaves no one with nothing only bad memories and a bit of relief once their in the ground. Fuckers like that. Smacking little youngsters around the back of the legs with a strip of rubber tubing, just cause they’re playing too loud or because they’re after breaking something or asking for something.