So here's the plan. Jane is almost crazed with anxiety. She reeks of cigarettes and cat litter. Joy is quiet. She hasn't seen Jane this bad in months. At least she's still clean and sober. Sounds like shit, though.... Joy can hear Jane's lungs working and it's freakin' cold, too cold to turn down the windows even a little bit and Joy knows she'll have to shallow breathe and then do a major detox of the car once she drops Jane back home. Jane struggles with every breath, every movement agony, her rheumatoid arthritis flaring with the cold and stress.
Here's the plan. Joe is moving into the back section of the old ( mostly) condemned house that's been ( barely) converted into three separate apartments. Jane will finally have the front section to herself, all the love and duty she had for Joe drained out of her.
"Joe's a schiz " Joy reminds her," he'll hang on,no matter what...and he's fronting his dealer,Jane...."
"NO, he's going, " Jane's force of will is going to make it happen. It will kill her, Joy thinks.
The only thing that's been keeping him there this long was the box spring. Queen size. Joy has solved that by coaching Jane on the realities of the split queen box spring. Obscene sounding thing, but it did the trick, the irony not lost on Joe, a trannie as well as a schiz.
Joy needs a time to show up with the van. She will take the box spring and put it in storage."I'm getting allergen covers, " Joy says " I just am.... I can't hack the bedbugs, I can't touch it without a cover.... I can't...."
" Ok, Ok " Jane hates the bugs, too; it was the last straw, being bitten at night. Even worse than the dog shit and the hoarding, even worse than the mould and the grime.... the bedbugs.
"...and the rats? " Jane slouches down inside her coat. " I've caught all the babies," she says in a small voice. Joy glances over. " All of them," Jane coughs up a glob of something, " the humane society is coming to get them.... but I'm keeping Pixie...
I AM ... " Jane insists her way into another coughing jag. " He's had such a tough life"
" He's a rat," Joy shakes her head, " he fathered 11 babies... geez... "
" But he's old," Jane's voice is shaky," he only has a few months left and Joe really fu#@ed him over... I want him to have it easy for some of his life."
Fine. Fine.
Get the bug covers.
Get the van.
Get this shit out.
Get Jane some space.
That's the plan.
3 comments:
Sections 1 & 2 can be found at the entries on 28-12-09.
this is really good, harlequin, and really coming into focus. the same humor and telling details as your accounts of the autistic children. i look forward to future installments.
You revealed so much here and made it real.
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