Don't these guys have to pass a test or something...

Attention Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoffon: Louisiana is not a city...

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Nocturnal Interuptions

She doesn't 'hate men', she just 'hasn't met one yet'. She tells me this forgetting that I didn't ask, popping open her third can of Schlitz and still not telling me she's doing here in my apartment at two in the morning in the first place. Not that I mind really. I was awake anyway, having spent the last two hours listening to her and her woman go at it non stop. First I heard the doorslam from upstairs, then the stomping across the ceiling and finally the muffled shouts that became screaming accusations that echoed down the heating vent and spilt into my living room. I muted the tube and allowed their arguement to permeate the air around me- two disembodied voices barking threats & heartbreaks at each other. It was like having a poltergeist soap opera burst into your home unannounced! There was a large crash and a roll of thumps that criss crossed the ceiling.
'That's all you got? Huh? HUH? one of them bellowed (I'm pretty sure it was my current guest judging by her still swelling black eye and bloodied lower lip). This was followed by more crashes. An hour in and I was sprawled out on my futon, smoking cigarettes and taking in the drama storm raining down from above me. Then it got silent suddenly. The sudden cease fire filled the air with an electric tension. I sat there wondering what happened. Did they make up? Has one of them broke down and started crying? Did one of them murder the other? I waited. I imagined everyone in the apartment building waited. A dozen ears pressed to the drywall waiting for the resolving echo that would bring this impromptu flash of theater into some form of denouement. The ash grew an inch unflicked off my smoke when finally I heard the beginning of a long sucession of doors slamming back and forth which cumulated to the scene in the parking lot right outside my window.
'Where the hell do ya think yer goin'?' my guest demanded
'I'm taking your piece of shit of a car, bitch! And i'll be back for the money you owe me too!'
'Yeah? Good Luck!' at which she picked up a potted fern from my front porch and threw it at her car, or possesion being 9/10th's of the law, her girlfriends car. It was a good shot, she had some power in her throw but she missed none the less and I watched it smash into my one of the neighbors brand new Toyota. Oh well, I never liked that fucking fern anyway. She stormed off back into the apartment.
'That's that' I tell myself and flicked the volume back on. I was in luck, Turner South was playing 'Man From U.N.C.L.E.' reruns. I killed the lights and tuned in to Napoleon Solo doing his poor mans James Bond routine. I get five minutes in when theres a knock on my door and she's standing there with a six pack of Schlitz in one hand a pressing a wad of papertowels stuffed with ice cubes over her eye.
'Hey I didn't wake you did I?' she says walking right past me, in no way pretending to be interested in the answer and taking my seat on the futon. She pops open her first beer, leans back into the cushion, puts her feet up on my coffee table and then finally notices me. She stares me up and down and asks:
'Aren't you gonna put some clothes on?'
I was in my boxers and a wife beater that could be argued was once white.
'I will if company shows up' I tell her, grabbing my drink and refilling the Jack part of my Jack&Coke.'So what's up?' I ask her.
'Well I just had a big fight with the woman I love and now i'm sitting here with a guy who doesn't even realize his dick is hanging out of his drawers...'
'Oh. Heh. Don't worry. He's seen worse' I laugh and retuck the lil' guy away.
'Were you beating off to 'The Man from U.N.C.L.E.'?'
'Nah it's a repeat. So what can I do for you...?'
'You know, I try so hard to do right by that girl...'
'Yeah?'I say almost sounding like a give a damn.
'When she was all finishing up her doc-ter-it fer school who ya think it was that paid the bills huh? Me! Thas' who.'
'No arguement there'
'Yer goddam right there ain't'
We sit there quietly for a moment. I offer her a cigarette. She downs her beer and immediately goes for the next one. Meanwhile Illya Kuryakin is being interogated by THRUSH agents. It looks like he's well and truly fucked if his boy Napoleon don't show up soon.
'So where's that lil' goth girl your dating? I don't see her around much!'
'Heh. Y'mean Lorri?' she just shrugs 'Yeah, well uh... she moved out a few weeks ago..'
'So you guys broke up?'
'Why you want her number?' I get defensive about my ex.
'Okay, okay... I didn't mean to touch a sore spot' She looks around my living room, probably for the first time since she arrived. Buddha statues, Taiwanese shadow puppets, action figures, Warhammer minatures, a collage that is spreading across the wall like an amombea with ADD. She gets up and grabs a book, flips through it and puts it back in the wrong place.
'Hey you read all this shit?'
'Nah. Who wants a bunch of books they've read already. Y'know it's getting awfully late...'
'Yeah. You know Emily's a big reader too...'
'Who?'
'Emily. My girlfriend. Your neighbor. Well former neighbor. I jes' kicked her ass out...'
'Really?'
'No... no I didn't she left actually. Said I was too... what's the word... narci.. something?'
'Narcissistic?'
She snaps her fingers and makes a little gun with hand. Bang! I nod, remembering Lorri storming out the door three weeks ago.
You Don't love me! You think ... you think i'm just some sort of cartoon animal or ... or a pet... you don't think i'm real. You don't think anyones real but you... she starts sobbing uncontrollably and slams the door behind her. I nod to both women. The one in my memory walking out of my life and the one sitting here smoking all my cigarettes. The shows back on. Napoleon Solo bursts through the door at the last second karate chopping THRUSH agents left & right. We sit there, just the two of us, drinking and smoking until I pass out just as the first crack of light comes through the blinds. When I wake up she's gone. Just six empty Schlitz cans & a flooded ashtray to prove she was here. I look out the window and can see her womans back, or she at least returned the car. I scratch my nuts, burp and call out sick from work. Another slice of lowlife cut fresh from my post-girlfriend exsistence.