Andersen Prunty's Blog

“I don’t know,” they say. “The one time I went back there, it smelled like mildew and there was a short, thick, older man doing somersaults with an overly determined look in his eyes.”

“The one time I went back there,” I say. “I saw Timbo giving it to a very old lady lying on a couch who was vomiting into a bucket on the floor. They both seemed to be having a really good time. I might have been hallucinating.”

We’re sitting in two posh recliners, fairly close to each other, after having turned the OPEN sign off for the furniture store.

“I wonder what’s going on in there right now,” they say.

“I don’t know. I’m too drunk to get up.”

“There’s definitely an odor.”

“Moderately alarming.”

“I don’t think there’s any reason to freak out. This place has always been here. Probably not going anywhere.”

They’re right. We’ve worked in the furniture store since we were in high school. Our parents worked here before us. I’m nearly fifty.

“No. Unfortunately. No.” I dig the flask out of my pocket and take a healthy slurp. “We going home or …” I have to ask. Sometimes, when we’re both in this condition, we’ll find a mattress in the warehouse and sleep on that. Usually with another mattress on top for warmth and added stealth. I’ve almost suffocated myself on at least three occasions.

“I was just going to sleep in my car. Tell them I got here too early and dozed off.”

“Have you ever done that?”

“What?”

“Gotten here too early.”

“No. But there’s a first time for everything.”

“You mind if I sleep under it?”

“My car?”

“Yeah. I normally sleep in the bathtub at my apartment. I like a hard surface and there’s carpet everywhere. Like … everywhere.”

“I don’t fucking care.”

“Thanks. I really don’t want to walk home.”

“You live across the parking lot.”

“Too far.”

We only ever stopped vacationing when the vacation started to feel like work.

I ask her when she’s coming over and she tells me she has to finish smoking her pack of cigarettes.

A few hours later, she shows up and asks if I have any cigarettes. I remind her I don’t smoke and tell her we’ll get some on the way to the club. She says she’s ready but we both know there’s something we have to do first.

We take off our clothes and wipe each other all over ourselves.

We put different clothes on, as ill-fitting and mismatched as possible.

We douse ourselves in fragrance because now we both smell like cigarettes. I’m pretty sure we use way too much.

Eyes watering, we go in search of tonight’s entertainment.

We wander into what I suspect is a costume party where everyone is wearing the same costume. A man is running a jackhammer in the corner while everyone else runs around doing other things. The volume is deafening. It might be a construction zone. They don’t seem to mind that we’re there. They don’t ask us to leave until I start trying to do construction things and she lights a cigarette.

After a lot of arguing and some minor violence, we decide to leave.

“Ain’t nowhere lets you smoke inside no more,” she says.

We go to a hospital. After driving around for an hour, it’s the only place open besides convenience stores. We’ve been banned from most of those. Various reasons.

When they ask us why we’re there, I tell them I’m dying of boredom and she tells them she’s pretty sure she has lung cancer.

A security guard escorts us out. I try to steal his gun and he gives me a violent beatdown before tossing me out into the parking lot.

She hikes up her skirt and pisses so close to me I can feel the spatter hit my face.

I ask her if she knows smoking can change the smell of your urine.

She tells me tonight’s been a real dud and she’s going back home to smoke and drink until she loses consciousness.

I ask if she can give me a ride home and stumble after her when she says yes. She barely stops the car at my house. I watch her pull away, envious of her cigarettes and booze. I pick up a small stone and hurl it at her car, just because. It doesn’t come anywhere close.

I try to think if I have something in the house that I can do until losing consciousness but can’t think of anything.

It doesn’t really matter anyway because I’ve forgotten how to open my door. I thought it was the same as any other door, but it seems different now.

I curl up under the porch swing and patiently wait for sleep.

I hope I wake up in time to threaten the school children on the way to the bus.

Maybe by then I’ll remember how to open my door.

Maybe I’ll remember what’s inside my house.

A woman takes a vacation to a remote island in the Pacific. The first few evenings on the island, she visits the beach after dinner. She finds her favorite spot on the boardwalk and leans against the railing. Sure enough, she spots a couple fucking. There has been at least one couple fucking every time she’s come here. She always stays until they’ve finished.

She comes back to the same place the following night and sees a man standing against her spot on the railing. She seethes with resentment. From this distance, she thinks the man looks familiar, but as she draws closer, she realizes he’s not who she thought he was. He has uncut, scraggly hair and several weeks of beard growth. His odor becomes more pronounced the closer she gets. Oddly, his apparent poverty makes him feel safer to her. Or maybe she just feels sorry for him.

“Fun to watch, isn’t it?” she says. “Someone’s been here every night … doing that.”

“They’re prostitutes,” the man says. “Well, sometimes they’re shooting a video.”

“Oh, sex workers,” the woman says. “Yeah, that makes sense. I never thought of that. Although, I’d have to say with all the surveillance here, everybody is making a video all the time. I always watch until they’re finished.”

“Does it turn you on?”

She pauses before speaking. “I don’t think so. I’m on so many pills I can barely feel my body. It gives me a sense of completion and accomplishment.” She introduces herself.

“People call me Jimmy,” the man says. “I don’t remember what my real name is.”

She doesn’t pry. She doesn’t even really care.

“You wanna come back to my place?” he says. “Just to hang out.”

“Sure,” she says, figuring she’ll barely feel it if he decides to murder her.

“Do you want to stay until they’re finished?”

She thinks about it. “No. They will finish. Knowing that’s good enough.”

She follows him down the beach to an abandoned lifeguard shack. He’s got some blankets on the floor, surrounded by empty liquor bottles and cigarette butts. There’s a ratty backpack. She imagines it probably holds a change of clothes or something. This is a pretty posh island. She feels like he must work at one of the hotels or restaurants. She’s pretty sure homeless people are not allowed to exist here.

She isn’t planning to mention it, but he talks incessantly about bathing in the ocean and not having to do anything he doesn’t want to.

She finally asks him.

“Are you unhoused?”

He smirks.

“I’m not,” he says. “But do you want to see someone who is?”

She’s slightly confused by this.

“A … an unhoused person?”

“The only one on the island. Not me.”

“I … I guess so.”

She doesn’t really need to see the unhoused person, but now she kind of wants to.

The man goes over to his backpack and brings out a pair of binoculars.

He steps out of the shack and points the binoculars down the shore.

“Ah!” he says. “There he is.”

He hands the binoculars to the woman. She presses them into her eye sockets and squints until she sees the unhoused man. There’s no question about it. He’s definitely living off the mountain of supplies in his rickshaw.

“Sometimes he tries to give people rides in his cart thing there, but he smells so bad nobody can take it.”

The woman whimpers a sympathetic sound.

“Nothing to worry about,” the man says. “He’s mine.” Jimmy tells her his real name that he supposedly couldn’t remember only moments before. She recognizes the name first and then the man. She was used to seeing him clean-cut and always on her phone or TV screen. He reminds her of an overgrown baby learning to walk for the first time. Something about the way he holds his arms and moves his legs. It all clicks into place. “I like to keep him around just so I know how things could’ve gone if I hadn’t worked so hard.”

The woman knows he comes from a fantastically wealthy family and assumes he’s had a lot of job titles but has probably done very little work.

“I make sure he doesn’t get too close because, yeah, that smell is no joke. But I like knowing he’s around. I think other people do too.” He motions to the shack surrounding them. “You know, it’s all just billionaire stuff.”

Suddenly, the woman wants to be anywhere but in this shack with this ghoulish creature. She doesn’t think any niceties are necessary since this man is probably so used to it and isn’t really deserving of anything.

She turns and bolts out of the shack. She’s running down the beach, kicking up sand. She thinks about running toward the unhoused man, inviting him back to her room, letting him shower, and ordering a feast for room service. But eventually she gets too tired or maybe her body just forgets what it’s doing and she collapses in the sand. She rings the hotel and they send two islanders down to collect her and wheel her back to her room.

The next night she goes back to watch the people fuck on the beach.

The billionaire isn’t there but it occurs to her he probably pays at least some of these people.

Her vacation is ruined.

We all go to the cinema. We’re drunk, high, and extremely well fed. The seats are so comfortable we’re barely aware what we’re watching. Leaving the cinema, we all agree that it looked and sounded amazing. We can’t remember the name of the film or who was in it. It was an experience.

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Marcus and Robin meet in an online forum. It isn’t long before the two become a couple and Robin moves in with Marcus. Life in their cozy apartment in the city suits them, until a notice is slid under their door. The cost of rent is going up, something neither of them can afford, and finding a new place that’s within their budget proves to be a challenge.

When Robin discovers an ad for a charming tiny house in a village called Little Falls, not too far from the city, it seems too good to be true. After visiting the town, they convince themselves the house isn’t too small and the landlord is more quirky and eccentric than creepy. Besides, they tell themselves, if it doesn’t work out, they can always move next year when the lease is up.

But shortly after settling in, they begin to question their decision. Something about the ever-present landlord feels off. And when they begin to regret signing the lease, the landlord offers them a chilling warning: breaking it will bring consequences far worse than staying.

Barb goes to the bar. She sits on the stool, lowers her top, and flips her heavy breasts onto the bar.

“Sauce me,” she says.

The bartender sprinkles salt on one nipple and dumps some tequila on the other.

Mickey scurries over, lowers his head, and laps Barb’s nipples clean, the salty one first. He looks ashamed of himself and refuses to make eye contact with anyone. He puts a soggy wad of money he’s been holding in his sweaty hand on the bar between Barb’s breasts.

We have no idea what Mickey does or did for a living.

He could be thirty or ninety.

We don’t know.

Barb got involved in a party girl scene. We were all real shocked. At 70-something, we thought maybe she had gotten some kind of dementia, but Kyle, a doctor we knew, ran some tests and said she was fine. The tests were performed at the bar.

“Maybe she just likes to have fun,” he said. “This bar’s real sad.” He looked at Mickey when he said that. Mickey sat at the end of the bar, had a ridiculous haircut, and was drinking himself through his second liver.

“Yeah,” Mickey said. “I know I ain’t much of a party guy no more.”

Later, Barb came in with her crew, two school age grandchildren, and her new boyfriend, a rocker hunk named Deen.

Barb promptly sent the kids out to the alley to play with Slurf. We were never sure if Slurf was a human or some kind of large dog.

Barb made an announcement. She said, “Me and Deen think this should be a party bar now. A real club.”

The music changed like that. It was stuff most of us had never heard and weren’t sure we liked. After only a few minutes, the place was packed. Barb pulled her tits out. We’d never seen her look so ecstatic.

We watched as Mickey pounded the rest of his drink, looked around at the festivities, and shook his head before leaving. Every time he left, we were never sure if we’d see him again.

We bought cocaine from a sweaty guy who’d shown up with Barb’s crew and took it to the bathroom so we could clear our heads and try to figure out if we should stay. We left the bathroom energized and with a renewed sense of focus and purpose. We decided to stay until close.

Even though none of us had previously been interested, we each took our shot with Barb. She turned each of us down. Now that the bar was packed, there should have been other people we were interested in, but something seemed magnetic about Barb. Super charismatic.

When the bar or club or whatever it was now closed, we followed Barb and her crew to an afterparty spot in the city. We had to ride bikes because we’d all lost our licenses so many times they refused to ever give them back.

The afterparty got really dark for a while and we all declined eye contact once it started breaking up. We told ourselves we should go get tested for everything and then laughed. There was no way we could afford to do that.

Barb’s crew left to get food and we followed them. We sat as close to them as we could but there was no getting Barb’s attention. She went to the parking lot several times with several suspicious looking people.

Just before dawn, she announced that she had to go retrieve her grandkids and take them to school. We knew the night was over. We got on our bikes and went home to our studio apartments, parents’ basements, and subsidized housing.

We knew Barb had single-handedly made our lives more interesting, more glamorous, and we all looked forward to doing it again tomorrow.

Downtown is crowded even though most of the businesses are permanently closed. Almost everyone is on their phone and we get bumped into a lot. No one says excuse me. A man with one ear hisses at me. Eventually we find a restaurant that’s actually open. Maybe it’s some kind of pop-up. I don’t see a name for it but there’s a sign in the window that says “We speshulize in food!” The exclamation point relieves a lot of my anxiety.

I reach to open the door and a man that smells like death says, “You’re gonna go in there?” He’s a little aggressive about it.

“Yeah,” I say, pulling the door open and letting Amanda enter.

“It’s your funeral,” the guy says before walking away in his cloud of stench.

“He’s probably just jealous,” Amanda says when I join her in the very low-lit restaurant.

Nobody has any money to buy anything anymore, if they can even find a place to buy it from. We’re only here because it’s some kind of anniversary—we can’t remember what for—and I sold my pinkie toe to someone on the dark web to afford it.

“Have a seat wherever,” the teenage girl behind the register says.

Amanda, nervous after giving the place a once-over, says quietly to me, “Do you think it’s okay?”

“I’m sure it’s fine,” I say.

I’m not sure it is at all.

The girl behind the register waits until we’re seated and begins walking toward us. A man is yelling loudly from what I assume is the kitchen area. He’s not yelling words. It sounds more like screams of terror.

“Would you like something to drink?” the hostess/server says.

“I’ll just have water,” I say.

She looks at Amanda, who nods and says she’ll have the same.

“Normal water … or with ice?”

I’ve heard iceless, uncarbonated water described as flat, still, or sometimes even tap. I’ve never heard it described as normal. I’m intrigued.

“Ooh,” Amanda says. “That’s probably better for my sensitive teeth.”

“Yeah,” I say. Half of my teeth are rotting too. “I’ll go with the normal.”

“Normal water for me too.”

The server looks ecstatic.

“I’ll be right back,” she says.

I look at the table. “Guess this place is menu free.”

“Well,” Amanda says, “I’m not super hungry anyway. I think that infection’s making me nauseous.”

I’m not sure which infection she’s talking about. I’m starving.

“I probably should have thrown up before I came. That usually makes me feel a little better.”

“If you want, I can take you home.”

“I’ll be fine. It’s our night out. Celebrating … something!”

The server returns with two small paper cups of water, the kind they sometimes bring you in hospitals. She’s beaming.

“Two normal waters,” she announces before ceremoniously placing them on the table.

She’s gone before I can ask for a menu.

There’s more screaming coming from the back and now it sounds like things are being thrown.

“You know what?” I say, feeling wild.

“What?” Amanda says.

“We should dine and dash.”

“Like … now?”

“After we drink our water.”

“We didn’t have to come to dinner if you can’t pay.”

“I can pay. You’re not hungry. I just thought it would be something new. Kind of fun. That’s all.”

“I don’t know,” she says.

“They’re in back fighting or something. They’ll never catch us.”

Amanda shrugs and says, “I guess.”

I pick up my cup of water.

“You ready?”

“I’m ready.”

We pound the two cups of water, I stand up, grab Amanda’s hand and, together, we race for the front door. We burst from the restaurant into the milling groups of people and keep running. We don’t stop for a couple blocks when Amanda has a coughing fit followed by a vomiting session.

I’m laughing, feeling really energized.

“Whoo!” I belt. “That was some of the most normal water I’ve ever had. Makes me wonder if I’ve ever had normal water.”

“I don’t know,” Amanda says. “All I can taste is puke.”

“I feel like stealing a car, driving to the lake, maybe jumping in some normal water.”

“I don’t think the lake contains normal water. It glows at night.”

“I’m gonna steal that car.” I point to an idling car missing all its windows.

“There’s an old man sitting in it.”

“We’ll steal him too.”

The old man is very thin, so it isn’t hard to drag him out of the car and toss him into the backseat. He doesn’t fight back.

We drive to the lake.

Halfway there, Amanda’s teeth start falling out and she spits them out the window. Soon after, I feel mine loosening too. I just swallow them so I can keep them in my body a little while longer.

Eventually, the sky starts glowing a borealis green and I know we’re almost there. The lake comes into full view and I pull right up to the water’s edge.

I try to rouse the old man but he won’t wake up so I assume he’s dead. With Amanda’s help, I throw him into the lake.

“Guess it’s our car now,” I say.

Amanda collapses to the ground.

“What’s wrong?” I say.

“I don’t know if I’m too hungry to stand up or if the bones in my legs have dissolved. I mean, I don’t feel hungry.”

Much like the teeth, I assume this is a side effect of the normal water. I can still feel it coursing through my veins, but I haven’t felt this alive in years.

While I still can, I drag Amanda up to the hood of the car before climbing up with her. My arm gives out while I’m getting situated and I collapse with my head on Amanda’s lap.

“I feel like my insides are liquefying,” she says.

“Normal water,” I say. “Let’s just enjoy it.”

We stare out into the phosphorescent green lake, its chemical smell wafting over us as sick, bloated insects make disturbing sounds.

The sun begins rising in the yellow sky.

Before my brain turns to water, I try to say “It really is beautiful, isn’t it?” but my mouth won’t work, so we stare into the sunrise and hope the normal water wears off soon.

My roommate, Scatman, rips the front door off its hinges as he comes charging in the room. Monstrously fat. Pupils dilated. Pants unzipped. Half his hair missing. And, as always, he reeks of shit. I’m in the corner snorting BBs, the pain of each tiny ball shooting through my nasal cavity is like a bit of heaven. If I’m not careful, I’ll end up with a belly full of copper.

Scatman grabs the remote control and frantically presses all the buttons. “We gotta,” he begins. “We gotta watch the fuckin’ game. The Assholes are playin’ the Date Rapists.”

I don’t know what he’s talking about but turn to look at the huge screen TV. It’s bigger than the wall. We’ve had to have the house modified.

On the television … I don’t even know what I’m looking at. There is a lot of wood and frantic people screaming. They look like monsters. Toned guys in costumes are throwing a ball around and sweating. Some of them are snorting cocaine off a bench. Others are being led away by the police. I get scared. Worried. I think, maybe, the apocalypse has finally come. Scatman is already asleep. I nail the door back into the frame, not worrying about the hinges, pick up the phone and call a help line. I don’t even know which help line it is. I just know they’re offering and I think, maybe, I need it.