In the last issue we experienced Chris’s move into a beautiful old building with a young mom and her son. But things are not as tranquil as they seem when bills stop being paid, necessities are not bought, and her friends begin to invade the setting

I returned to the house late one night several days after the turn of the New Year. I had spent a little over a week out of town and had a frightful curiosity about what had gone on in my absence. When I opened the door a wall of pot smoke collapsed and poured over me as kitchen knives came flying through the kitchen toward the side door.

I crossed the threshold carrying my backpack filled with fresh-clean clothes and was greeted by Hank. “Hey man, you want some?” Offering a joint. “How about some shroom tea? There’s a pot on the stove with some in it. We made it last night. Oh, you should have been here for New Years, man. We had this great firecracker war. Don’t worry, we got all of the bottle rockets out of your room.”

“Thanks.”

“No problem man.”

“Where’s BlackJack?”

“Oh. He’s at the vet.”

I walk into my room to drop my stuff off and Julie stops me as I’m putting my stuff down.

“I wouldn’t use your toilet.” I must say that is a powerful line to open up a conversation with.

“What?”

“Oh. The water’s been disconnected for about week and we’ve still been using your toilet. “

I peek into the bathroom and see a pack of coffee filters sitting on the counter next to the sink, directly in front of the toilet.

“I won’t.”

“You missed it. Susan and I did surgery on BlackJack.”

This caught my attention.

“What?”

“Oh. We started this tradition where after we finish a bottle of Boone’s we go out and smash the bottle on the tree. Well, BlackJack cut his foot on some of the glass and Susan, since she used to work at a Vet’s office, decided to fix him up. There’s still some of the blood on the kitchen counter. Come here.”

I follow her into the kitchen and Julie points out the pools of dried blood on the kitchen counter.

“We took out the glass and sew his foot up. A couple of days later we realized that we didn’t do a good job so we took him to the vet. We can’t afford to pay the bill so hopefully someone will adopt him.”

I never could bring myself to ask what they used to anesthetize him while they performed the half-ass surgery. I shook my head and glanced over at the door that had been the target of the kitchen knives as I first entered the house. Julie got all excited and started telling me about how Bob had been teaching them to throw knives and how she was getting pretty good at it, although Susan was much better. Fortunately BJ came out of the back and broke up Julie’s chain of thought. He was naked and Julie told him to go put on some pants. They then turned to me and explained that she hoped I didn’t mind but her and Hank had been sleeping in my bed.

I don’t mind people sleeping in my bed if I’m gone. I don’t mind people sleeping in my bed while I’m there, depending on who it is. But I do have a problem with people having sex on my bed if I’m not included in it. And there was no way I was ever going let any of the people at that house into my sex life. If you open your mouth and a trailer park falls out - you are automatically excluded from my list of people I will even consider having sex with.

I spent the night at a friend’s apartment. The next day I called up my friend Scott and told him about my triumphant return to the house and that even though I didn’t have a place to live yet I was moving out of the house. His response was grand, “Fucking great! I’ve been waiting for this. Call me back in half an hour.”

Heather apologized to me on sight every time she saw me for suggesting that I move in with Susan. She said that she talked to Julie and since Julie spent all of her time at Susan’s the two of us could switch rooms. Julie shared an apartment with a girl I knew. I was also informed that a large number of people I knew were meeting at Nicole’s apartment in five minutes to move Julie’s stuff out.

I later discovered that Heather had never talked to Julie. The first clue that Susan and Julie had about the move was when Julie’s stuff was getting dumped into Susan’s living room. I was moved out of Susan’s and into Nicole’s in less than forty-five minutes, including the time it took to get Julie’s stuff out.

About a week after I left Bob was supposed to appear in court to face his possession charges. He never showed up. He had pawned most of his mom’s antiques and skipped town with Julie. He was still dating Susan at the time and had been for about two months. Susan lost the money she spent on bail and received a letter stating that if he doesn’t show up by a certain date that she would have to start paying a bounty hunter’s fee. Bob’s mom got extremely pissed and threatened to file charges against Julie if she ever showed up in town again.

This was about the same time that BJ’s paternal grandparents started a lawsuit to gain custody of BJ. Apparently he showed up at their house one day and he had what appeared to be a cigarette burn on one arm and a new chipped tooth. I don’t know how the case ended.ª

You can write to Chris with your comments and abuse: gimme that trailertrash