by David Jester
I surveyed the expectant faces, including Mrs. Andreasson, who had now joined the rabble. They all looked like they wanted blood, even the police officers. Matthew had excelled.
“Matthew, I think you should come down,” I said, playing the part of the negotiator.
He shook his head. “It ain’t happening. You don’t know the story; you don’t know what they’re going to do to me. All of them, including your wife now. She’ll kill me.”
I tried to laugh it off. “Lizzie isn’t going to harm—”
“Yes I fucking am,” Lizzie cut in.
I stared at her for a moment and the turned to the firefighter. “Put the ladder up,” I told him. “I’ll have a word.”
It wasn’t quite how I envisaged spending my night. I wasn’t particularly great with heights, but my curiosity got the better of me, and as much as I hated him at that moment, I was keen to hear Matthew out.
They all watched and waited eagerly, a few of them checked their watches, a few others looked ready to race up after me and throttle Matthew. Once I made it to the top, they took the ladder away and I remained where I was, unwilling and unable to move as Matthew came over to me, hopping across the many bumps and turns of the roof as if it were his home and he understood every curve and every incline.
“Now, tell me,” I said, feeling out of breath from the climb and the panic of being up high. “From the beginning. What happened?”
He sighed heavily and sat down next to me. “Okay.” He slapped his hands heavily on his thighs and turned his attention toward the waiting faces below. “So, it began when I tried to watch a film on pay-per-view.”
“We don’t have pay-per—” I paused. “What kind of film?”
“It might have been porn.”
“It might have been?”
“Okay, it was porn.”
“You tried to watch porn with my child in the house?”
Matthew shrugged, unable to see the problem. “He was the result of two people humping, and these days he spends his days rolling around naked and sucking tits. If anything he’s more suited for porn than I am.”
That sort of insanity didn’t deserve a response, so I moved on swiftly. “And then what?”
“When I couldn’t get it, I tried phoning them up.”
“Them?”
“Sky.”
“You rang my satellite provider to ask where your hardcore porn was?”
“Precisely.”
“And?”
“And the guy tried to tell me that there was none.”
“No, really?” I said sarcastically.
He rolled his eyes and then continued. “I may have been a bit of a dick on the phone.”
“That doesn’t sound like you.” I layered the sarcasm on even thicker.
“Anyway, he told me that I should have been able to access all of the adult channels, but he said that the satellite reception was down and that I probably just needed to tweak the aerial, fix the alignment, that sort of thing.”
“You realize it’s digital, right?”
“Yes, yes,” Matthew said, swatting at me. “The guy was messing with me. I should have known, really, but he waved the promise of naked ladies in front of my face and I lost all common sense. Truth is, he just wanted revenge.”
“Revenge?” I was confused at first, but then it dawned on me. This was Matthew after all. “What did you say to him?”
“I may have said he was a useless prick and that the only reason he worked the night shift in a call center was because he was too ugly to be seen in daylight hours and too incompetent to find a better job.”
I nodded. “And you said this, why?”
“He made me feel like an idiot for not knowing how to work the TV.”
“You were.”
“Can I tell my fucking story now, please?”
“Okay, okay.”
The scene below me was even more animated. Matthew’s ex was talking to the police again, while the butch rugby players were thumping each other on the arms. Lizzie was the only one who hadn’t moved. She was still staring up, unblinking. Even I was spooked, so I didn’t dare imagine how terrified she must have made Matthew feel.
Matthew continued with his story. “So I took a ladder and climbed on the roof.”
“As you do.”
He nodded. “But just after I got up, the ladder slipped. By this time, I also realized that the guy on the phone had probably been fucking with me.”
“It’s that sort of quick wit and keen intelligence that I admire in you.”
He continued, doing his best to ignore me. “I waited for a few minutes but then I began to panic. Ben was inside, alone, and short of jumping off the roof, there wasn’t nothing I could do. Then I saw your neighbors, the old couple.”
I looked down at Mr. and Mrs. Andreasson. She was still angry; he was now lying down in the back of the ambulance, ready to be taken away and clearly still very excited by the prospect.
“Their light was on in the bedroom and I saw them in there.” The look he gave me at that point said more than words could.
“Oh God, they weren’t having sex, were they?”
He nodded sheepishly. “But I didn’t know that then. I tried to get their attention, jumping up and down, waving, then I figured I’d get something to throw. By the time I found a chunk of slate and tossed it at the window, the old fella had responded to the shouts and opened it.”
I sucked in a breath through my teeth when the realization hit as heavily as the chunk of slate had hit poor Mr. Andreasson. I would later discover that he’d taken some Viagra in preparation for their night of passion and that the main reason his wife was so annoyed was because he had wasted a good erection, which was hard to come by.
“Next thing I know,” Matthew continued, “the crazy bitch was shouting at me from the window. I saw her on the phone and then these dipshits came out from down the road.” He nodded to the four young lads who all glared back, looking like they wanted to tear out his throat, and like they were capable of doing so.
“I tried to explain myself, but they were having none of it. They thought I was a burglar, a Peeping Tom, a fucking weirdo—they wouldn’t listen to the truth.”
“I don’t know, that sounds spot-on to me.”
“They started yelling abuse,” he continued, ignoring me again. “And naturally, I started yelling some back.”
“Naturally.”
“And when they started throwing stuff at me, I threw some right back.”
I shook my head in disbelief, imagining Matthew on the roof of my house throwing stones and hurling abuse at the neighborhood children. “Then the cheeky fuckers tried to climb up, that one—” he nodded to the odd-smelling one “—came straight for me. I had nothing to throw and nothing to stop him with so—” He shrugged and let his sentence trail off.
I stared at the boy with the wet T-shirt and the odd smile, seeing the anger in his eyes. After a few seconds, it hit me.
“You pissed on him?”
He shrugged. “What else could I have done?”
“Anything. You could have done anything that didn’t involve pissing on someone. What is wrong with you?”
“I did what I had to do, and it worked. He stopped climbing after that.”
I groaned and sank my head into my hands. “And then?” I asked, not sure I wanted to hear the rest. “How did little Miss Psycho get involved?”
“She came out during the commotion, with all the others. She must have friends or relatives here. I couldn’t believe it. What are the odds?”
“That you would run into an ex-girlfriend that hates you?” I asked, raising my head to look him in the eye. “I’d say quite high.”
“I tried telling them all the truth, but then one crazy prick said he thought I was trying to kill myself. I told them about the baby being alone. I said that if they didn’t get me down then something was going to happen to him. But the wires crossed. They thought I was threatening to kill a bab
y and myself.” He sighed heavily. “Before I could correct myself, that crazy slut started telling them that she knew me, that I had a few screws loose and always had.”
“She has a point.”
Matthew’s eyes flared, moving from exhausted to annoyed in a blink. “Are you just going to sit there and make snide remarks?” he asked. “Can’t you see what’s happened? I fucked up. All those people, including your wife, are waiting for me so they can beat the shit out of me.” He grabbed my arm tightly. “I need you. Help me. For fuck’s sake, help me, and I swear I’ll never watch porn again.”
He was exasperated, but before I could speak, he corrected himself as I thought he might. “Okay, maybe not never again.”
“You let me down,” I told him.
He nodded and lowered his head. “I know.”
“I trusted you. We both did.”
No words escaped his lips this time, just a defeated nod.
“You put Ben’s safety at risk and you went to war with the entire neighborhood. You nearly killed Mr. Andreasson, and everyone believes you’re a lunatic on a mission to kill babies and piss on rugby players.”
Again, he nodded and I let the shame sink in for a moment, I let the misery wash over him. He needed that, because he didn’t get it enough. I turned to the crowd below, to the ambulance that was taking my happy and concussed neighbor and his wife away; to the police, who had sent the crazy chain-smoker away and were now there to keep the peace; and to my wife, who seemed to settle when she saw the peace on my face, the genuine regret on Matthew’s, and when she realized that as long as Ben was okay, then the rest—the whys, the hows, and the what-ifs—didn’t really matter.
I wrapped an arm around Matthew, causing him to lift his head in surprise, not sure if I was about to tell him that everything was okay or if I was about to toss him to the wolves. “But you’re my friend, and as much as I hate you, I still love you.”
He beamed a bright smile. “Thanks mate.” He threw an arm around me and then we both turned to face the crowd. “Now what do we do?”
“Now we wait. They’ll go home eventually.”
“What about Fireman Sam down there?” he asked. “I think he wants to kill me for kicking his ladder and calling him a prick, but he’s okay with you. You can talk to him.”
I shook my head. “No. He’s a dick.”
“I heard that!” the firefighter called up.
“And now he wants to kill us both.”
8
The Feline, the Fuckwit, and the Full-Blown War: Part One
I wasn’t great with animals, but Mickey had softened me somewhat. I still wasn’t ready to get a dog or a cat—that was a big leap and one I wasn’t prepared for. I already had something small and cute destroying my house and shitting everywhere; I didn’t need another. But despite my aversion to acquiring a house pet, one of them decided to acquire my house.
It was a cat, a species that somehow manages to be both adorable and arrogant, both loving and sociopathic. She wasn’t as needy as Mickey the Duck, but she was just as cute. She began to appear at the front door every morning, and I had no idea why. Lizzie was equally clueless and happy for me to believe it was some kind of omen. I would later find out that she had actually been feeding the cat treats, and that the cat didn’t even know where our front door was until Lizzie coaxed it in from the street with a slice of ham.
Cats like routine, and by the time I realized she existed, she had already established a routine of waiting by the front door until she was fed.
“Ah, it’s so lovely.” Lizzie was on her haunches by the open door, grinning at the cat as she caressed it. The cat was presumably wondering where the food was and how much more she had to tolerate before it arrived.
I put my foot down. “No, not in the house. Keep it away.”
“But she’s so cute.”
“I don’t like animals. They’re dirty, they’re devious, you never know where they’ve been and—”
“Mickey?”
My eyes opened wide, my head spinning in all directions. “Mickey?” I said. “Where?”
It took me a few moments before realization dawned. I reluctantly pulled my attention back to my wife and to the curious cat currently judging me from the doorway. “I see what you did there,” I told her.
“I didn’t do anything,” Lizzie said, before shrugging and adding, “but I did make my point. And anyway, Ben loves her.”
“Really, well …” I paused. Her words had worked; they softened me and made me think, but she hadn’t counted on me not being oblivious. “How do you know? I haven’t seen Ben anywhere near her.” I should have figured it out then, but I wasn’t as observant as I gave myself credit for.
She quickly changed the subject. “Ben has been lonely without Mickey. I think she would be good for him.”
The cat’s big eyes bore a pitiful, pleading hole right through me, and Lizzie’s look wasn’t too dissimilar. If I didn’t know any better, I could have sworn they rehearsed this. “Okay,” I said, relenting. “Just give it a saucer of milk. Leave it on the doorstep.”
She gave me a look I had seen all too often. It was a look that said I was an idiot, and it always preceded an explanation of why I was an idiot. “You can’t give cats milk. They’re lactose intolerant.”
I snorted with derision. “Nonsense, cats love milk.”
“No, really. You can’t give cats milk.”
“Is this like when you tried to convince me that mice hate cheese?”
“Well yes, I mean, it should be common sense to anyone who doesn’t acquire all of their animal knowledge from Disney cartoons.”
“I think you’re talking shit.”
Walt wouldn’t lie to me.
Her brow furrowed, her mouth twisted, and she gave me another look. This was the look she gave me when she was plotting to kill me, the same look she had given me when I laughed at her father’s jokes—made at the expense of her mother—and when she caught me telling jokes to an air-headed, big-breasted shop assistant whose boobs jiggled every time she laughed.
“Okay then,” she said slowly, making it sound like the prelude to a nefarious scheme. “You let her in and you give her some milk. If that’s what you want.”
“Her? How do you know it’s a her?”
“She’s intelligent,” she sneered.
I frowned.
“She has no balls, okay?”
I invited the cat in and poured her a saucer of milk. She seemed to know what I was doing and followed me to the fridge, and to the counter. She dove in as soon as I put the saucer down, lapping it up. A smug grin spread across my face. I waited for her to finish, to lick the remnants of milk from her whiskers. I wore an I told you so expression and prepared a speech on the importance of humility.
The cat sat on my feet and Lizzie smiled at her as I gave her my speech. “I’m not going to say ‘I told you so,’ because that’s not who I am. Many people—no doubt you included—would not let this opportunity pass them by, but I’m different. I’m better than that.”
Lizzie was still staring at the cat, still grinning. It was as though she wasn’t embarrassed at all, as though she hadn’t just lost, as though I hadn’t just been proved right.
“But I knew this was going to happen.” I changed tack; her smile annoyed me. “I knew the cat would be okay, and I knew that because I do not get all of my animal knowledge from the Disney channel.” I was on a high, but she still wasn’t paying much attention to me. She was still grinning at the cat resting on my feet.
At that moment, I saw the cat walk up to Lizzie and brush past her. I stopped my lecture in its tracks, my finger still pointed at my wife like some fired-up dictator. The cat seemed happy, which was nice to see, but I could still feel her tail wrapped around my feet.
Lizzie was giggling. “You realize the cat threw up on your feet, right?”
I looked down to acknowledge the white vomit sprayed all over my socks and up my trousers. There were small ch
unks of half-digested meat mixed in with it, along with clumps of hair and other detritus that I had no inclination or desire to learn more about.
“I see that now, yes.” At that moment, I knew that I had lost the battle and would need to regroup to reestablish my grip on the overall conflict.
“And as averse as you are to saying it, I’m perfectly fine with it,” Lizzie said, giving me a cocky and assured grin. “I. Told. You. So.” She paused for effect. “Now, clean up that mess.”
The cat, who we named Ella, had no collar, and as far as we could tell, she was a stray. She was also very fat, which was odd. I didn’t dwell on it, as I didn’t want to make her self-conscious. She had a way of staring at me that suggested she knew exactly what I was thinking and what I was saying. I tried to think happy thoughts and told myself she was just big-boned.
Two weeks after she threw up on my feet, a trick she followed up by stealing my place on the sofa and then falling asleep on my pillow, we found a potential cause for her ample proportions.
Lizzie found it when she opened the patio door one morning. She was casual about it, and while there was a note of sarcasm, I didn’t detect it initially. “Oh, look, a present!”
Feeling a little giddy, as if Santa had gotten his dates wrong and was too lazy to get down the chimney, I rushed out to see what it was.
It wasn’t quite what I expected, and the shock forced me to release a sound that I would later—once the disgust faded—feel very embarrassed about. “What the hell is that?” I pointed, my voice a little higher than I would have liked.
“Ah, bless her. She brought you a present.”
“A present?” I yelled. “What kind of sick animal are we dealing with here? I don’t want it. I appreciate the sentiment, but it’s not for me. Take it back. Exchange it for a living one.”
“It’s just a mouse,” Lizzie said simply. “Well, it was just a mouse.”
“Don’t mice usually have heads?”
Lizzie disappeared into the house to retrieve something to pick it up with. I followed her, not wishing to be alone with it.
