Chapter III: Spilled Spaghetti-Os All Over the Sofa

I was on a strict diet of an entire package of bacon a day; bacon because it paired well with my Brother Thelonius Belgium. This is the kind of life I was living: Sybaritic...deprave...lazy. The mornings were the worst.  There’s nothing more depressing than having to wake up up with nothing to get up for. It begins to make you weary, even moreso than the end of the day. I just want to go back to bed. Can I trade my dreams for reality? Atrocious thoughts for a young man with fleeting ambition. Oh but dreaming does little in the real world asshole! It probably doesn't help that I'm constantly under the influence of something. Whether it’s smoking a cigarette to kill the edge and clear my mind, taking a bar to kill the paranoia, rolling to be social, yay cuz it’s bomb and brings me up, weed to help the comedown, blotter or mush to evaluate my life, and drinking to numb it all away. I rely on the holy trinity, weed, alcohol, and Xanax on a daily basis to even attempt sleep (on the occasions I did). I sleep sporadically throughout the day or I would simply go without it. Conversely, my nights were always sleepless, stricken in a mania. Unclear thoughts; a reckless outlook. I just need something to help me feel…think. I prefer to pass out than to have a disciplined sleep pattern. Falling asleep is too hard, and I am too lazy. By early morning, I’m a cesspool of regret, lingering to the ethers of the night. I let my medicated mind drift away. I reckon that's no way to live. But it's the only way I know how. I feel like I've fucked up too much; backlogged on too many promises, giving up any sign of redemption. Regardless, these are underwhelming compared to my many other druthers. Can you bless a man for having such indolent behavior? Netflix was my religion and Breaking Bad, my communion. I should meditate more. My mind doesn't belong here. I like to pretend I am a writer, though my prowess often goes undocumented. For creative genius, writers have to maintain a clear line of focus. "Letting go" and letting the muses take faculty is fair and good for painters and sculptors. But for an art like writing, critical thinking is inherent. O me miserum to comment on the human condition.

Ethan caught himself vacantly staring the red spot on the sofa. That's all I have left of this child. He didn't know how to "feel" about the whole situation. His lack of extreme emotional output worried him. What if I'm a sociopath? Or, he was still struggling to wrap himself around the idea that he had a potential child, ‘til the bastard committed suicide all over his couch, god bless. That was on Tuesday. It was Thursday. He hadn’t left his apartment since he arrived home from the hospital. He called off work and put his phone on “airplane mode”. He needed to get away; disappear from public scrutiny and start fresh. I’m just in shock is all. Poor little guy...or girl. Must've read my last novel. Ethan chuckled out loud at his self-deprecation. If a joke was ever too soon, this was the one, but Ethan couldn't help himself. Darkness was comedy.

He was sitting at the bar top which split the kitchen from the dining room. He had a large salad bowl filled halfway with purplish milk; assorted colored orbs bobbed at the surface. Ethan absently stared past the jovial rabbit on the front of the cereal box. He was delliberating whether or not to call Alexis. But what would he say? "Uh, sorry for our loss, or whatever." ERH! Wrong. "Let's try again...maybe?" ERH! Two strikes ass-clown! "What did you do to cause this?" ERHHHHHHH! Silly Ethan, babies are for grown people! He looked down to his Welsh Corgi, Rufio, sitting patiently below, waiting for an offering or a catastrophic spillage. He found Rufio at a kennel he worked at briefly in New Mexico during his travels through the western United States. Owners dropped him off but never came back. Ethan and Rufio instantly had a connection that only a boy and his dog can understand. Weeks passed, and when Ethan was getting ready to  depart for the next town, he asked if he could take the orphan pup. The rest is history. He called him Rufio, named after the successive leader of the Lost Boys in the movie Hook. He would never grow up.  

“You think I should call her?”

 Rufio cocked his head to right, as if to say, “Fuck do I know? I’m a dog. So is there any chance I’m getting some of what you’re having or am I wasting my time here?”

“You’re right boy!” Ethan rubbed Rufio behind the ears by his chubby neck rolls, “She does owe me an explanation. It was mine as much as hers.” Ethan’s mind was infested with questions that only she knew the answers to: How long has she known? Did she even know? Why didn't she tell me? Wait...was that even mine?

He shot his glance back at the marooning circular spot on his floral print sofa. He had been ruminating whether or not to get rid of the sofa altogether; he felt he had to. But it was an antique from (you guessed it) an ex girlfriend of Christmas past. He couldn't just throw it out; mostly, though, because he was on a very fixed income at the moment. I could reupholster it he reasoned. Nah! Even if it was covered up, and I would be the only one--well one of two...and a half (and the “half” took the secret to the grave. HAHAHA...sorry) who knows what's underneath, it would still bother me even out of sight. And I'm the main user of the couch. His cogitation was abruptly interrupted by a knock on the sliding glass door of his terrace. He jumped, spilling the bowl all over himself and on the floor. Rufio immediately assumed custodial services, vaccuming up the colorful clusters from the ground into his mouth. Ethan reached over the counter and grabbed a dish towel to mop up what he could from the counter and his wife-beater. He looked around the corner and saw a silhouette to the backdrop of city lights. He instantly dropped down to a knee, putting a finger to his lip to shoosh Rufio who wasn’t even barking to begin with. He was more interested in the sugary cereal. Some guard dog he is. 

"It's Alexis. May I please come in?"

Ethan crept toward the door, skewing his head to the side, so as to catch his phantom visitor in better lighting. Noting his uncertainty, she reaffirmed her identity.

"It's fucking me, dumbass! Look, you haveeee...” She pondered upon a Snapple fact that only she might know about Ethan, “a little birthmark that looks like Texas at the base of your cock."

Ethan strode to the door and flung it open. He was greeted by Alexis, shrugging and waving with a cute smile. They just stood there in silence for what seemed like eternity.

"Are you gonna let me in?" she asked, already sidling by Ethan.

"I have a front door you know", Ethan replied the only way he could.

"Well if I buzzed the front, I dunno if you'd pick up or even let me in, considering..." She looked at the spot on the sofa through her bangs from the corner of her eye.

"Oh that!? Pshhh that's nothing. You shoulda seen what Mitch did to that sofa when he got plastered at the Made in America festival. We came back here and he was all--" Alexis cut him off with raised hand.

"That's not even close to funny!" she said through grit teeth, fighting back tears. Her face began to shake and her breathing got heavy, "CAN’T YOU EVER BEING FUCKING SERIOUS??? I MEAN FOR ONCE!” She fanned herself with her hand as she tried to breathe through the tears. “I...I came here to try to be with you during this. I didn't want you to be alone. I DON'T WANT TO BE ALONE!" Her face was flush and her voice cracked. Her eyes were fountains. “You know what?” she shook her head, "FUCK YOU ETHAN CAMPBELL! Go burn in the ghetto of HELL!" She turned to walk out the door, but Ethan grabbed her wrist and pulled her back.

He wanted so badly to counter with the fact that she disappeared without a word to him. Or how he had to hear from someone else that she had a miscarriage. But he was walking on egg shells. If he wanted any answers, he would have to play his cards wisely.

 "I was just kidding!!! Can you relax?? Can we talk like civilized--OUCHH!! Oh bite me?? That's how grown people fix problems right?" 

Alexis broke free, falling to the ground and knocking over a drawer. Rufio started barking. Ethan instinctively dove to her aid but was promptly stopped.

"NO!" she muttered, her crying breaths turning to angry breaths, "Don't. You. FUCKING! Touch me." Ethan recoiled as she stood herself back up. "You know why I never told you? Why I didn’t even want you to know? Why I didn’t want to see you in the hospital?" Yes! Yes! Yes! Ethan responded in his head. It was like she read his mind, "Because you can't be a father. I mean look at you; Look at this place. You're a fucking child. How can a child be a Dad?"

Ethan, the novelist, the wordsmith, was speechless. He stood there taken aback. The air was thinner than Karen Carpenter. Alexis’ eyes were averted, still drizzling tears. 

She obviously wants me to say something. "So......That--I mean It--I mean the bab--", he took a deep breath "It was mine right?" The most anxiety Ethan had ever felt was the moment those words left his lips.

Alexis sniffled and wiped her eyes. “That’s all you can say to me right now? After everything I just said, you're just trippin' on whether or not you’re responsible for this mess?" She put her hand to her hip and peevishly licked her lips, "What if it wasn’t? Huh? You’re in the clear? You dodged a bullet? Or if it was yours? Then your life is over. This,” she gestured to his general living space, “this will be all gone and you’ll finally have to care for someone other than your sad, spoiled self. Is that what you want to know, you Maury fuck boy?” Ethan couldn’t even make eye-contact. He felt ashamed and embarrassed. He could tell himself any lie he wanted to mollify his motives, but she was right, even if just a little bit. He couldn’t hide from that now. Her lips pursed indignantly as she slowly shook her head, "Yup. That's right. A man child. Exactly what I'm saying. Can't see anything but all the outs. Typical black stereotype." She turned and stepped out the door.

Ethan was too in shock and mixed emotion to take offense to that. This is it!  I'm never seeing this girl again AND she probably isn't going to tell me now.

Alexis turned around to face him. She had stopped crying and she wore a thin smile. She kissed her index finger, looked back at her brilliant writer endearingly, then immediately swapped for the middle finger and a scowl. Then she was gone. Just like that.

Ethan stared through the empty door. The sky was starting to turn a bright magenta, crested with a yellow horizon. Rufio stopped barking and started to whine.

Soon after, the lock to the front door clicked, followed by a long, extended squeak as the door glided open. A series of thuds from heavy luggage being dragged over the threshold broke the silence of the early morning. Ethan kept his eyes glued to the horizon. He knew it was just Keith, back from Vegas.

“DUUUDE! EDC KILLED!!!” Keith peeled his shirt off and threw himself on the sofa. “I was rolling on that bomb molly the whole time bro. Ay, how’s the whole, you know, thing? You talk to Alexis yet? AWWW DUDE! Who spilled Spaghetti-Os all over the sofa!” He shot up and looked over his shoulder at the back of his board shorts, examining for damage. “That’s not coming out…”

Ethan held his gaze, “You hungry?” he asked solemnly.

From behind him, “Hell Yeah man! Going into serious catabolic mode for sure! What are you feeling?”

“I’m feeling pho’cked”