Party! Patio!, Page 3

up. He tried to act alarmed but did it poorly. He was too tired.

  “Can I borrow the car?” Keith asked.

  “I don’t know where it is,” Kevin said. “You’ll have to take the bus.”

  “I don’t have any money for the bus.”

  Kevin pulled out the pockets of his voluminous khaki pants and shouted, “There! Take everything I have!”

  Then he ran around the penthouse to blow off steam.

  Keith got down on his hands and knees to look for change. It was mostly just trash and cigarette butts that had come out of Kevin’s pockets but he did manage to find a couple of dollars. He’d never ridden the bus before so he wasn’t sure if that would be enough.

  When he left, Kevin stopped running around and shot a few videos with Joan.

  He felt closer to her than he had in a really long time before thinking she was once again being difficult and mean.

  He took a luxurious bubble bath in the tub and went to bed.

  When he woke up, he called Keith at work and asked what time he would be home.

  Kevin woke up really hungry. He wanted to go to Applebee’s but remembered he didn’t have a car. He tried to use his phone to call a cab but couldn’t figure it out. He looked in the refrigerator for food but everything in there looked and smelled really bad.

  Joan still lay on the kitchen floor.

  She was leaking something.

  Kevin took the laptop to the kitchen table. He ran some water from the faucet into a glass and found an old bag of chips. It was so sad it nearly sent him on a crying jag. This was probably how poor people ate all the time, he thought.

  He started watching the review videos.

  They were ... not what he expected.

  They didn’t look very professional.

  There weren’t any graphics or anything like that.

  The edits were weird, the cuts at odd times, and he didn’t like the way he looked. He would have to start wearing makeup.

  He called Keith at work.

  “This is Keith,” Keith said.

  “Hi Keith. This is Kevin.”

  “Hi Kevin. I’m at work right now. I’m ... really busy.”

  “When are you coming back?”

  “I already told you the last time you called. I don’t know, man. I don’t get off until five and then I have to catch the bus. I barely had enough money to get here so I’ll either have to see if I can borrow some from somebody or panhandle. If I have to do that, it’ll be a lot later.”

  “Don’t borrow any money from people you work with. That’s embarrassing. You don’t want them to know you’re poor, do you?”

  “Dude, I don’t really care. I’d like to get back before nine or ten though.”

  “Did you look through the desk for money?”

  “Yeah, man, all the drawers are empty. Well, there was a calculator in one of them but it didn’t work.”

  “A calculator?”

  “Yeah, man, a calculator.”

  “I don’t remember that. Can you bring it back with you?”

  There was a long pause and Keith said, “Yeah. I guess.”

  “I watched the videos, by the way.”

  “The videos?”

  “Yeah, the videos ... product reviews, whatever. They need a lot of work. You need to get better.”

  “I was really tired. Plus I’ve never done anything like that before. Video editing stuff.”

  “Well, you should try to get back as soon as possible so we can do some more. Also, I’m really hungry.”

  “Then eat something.”

  “I ate some chips but they were really unsatisfying.”

  “Then go get something. You live downtown. There are like a lot of places to eat around the apartment.”

  “It’s a penthouse. Calling it an apartment makes me sound like white trash. I was really in the mood for Applebee’s and that’s too far to walk.”

  “Look, Kevin, I really need to get back to work.”

  “I’ve been thinking about asking Joan to move out.”

  “Um ...”

  “That’s all you need to say.”

  “I really need to go. That Kenneth guy is staring at me.”

  “Okay. Don’t forget the calculator. And think about how you can make the reviews better.”

  The product reviews did not have a lot of views but they already had several comments:

  “Nice review. I wish you sed litle more bout producte tho. LOL”

  “Were you get shirt, brah?”

  “I hate _____. Never buy from them again.”

  “Lose som wait.”

  “Y r u so shinny.”

  “Fagets.”

  “Nice pleats.”

  He tried to respond to every comment but was so hungry he felt like passing out. He watched a couple of John Wad’s videos to see if he could pick up any pointers. Wad had long hair. Sometimes he kept it pulled back into a ponytail. Sometimes, in the videos where he wasn’t reviewing products – just talking – he let it flow wild and free. He looked like a pro wrestler or a rock star. Only older and maybe poorer. When he opened a new package, he focused on it with such intensity that Kevin wanted the product without even knowing what it was. When he wasn’t staring rabidly at the product he looked directly into the camera with the same intensity. Or maybe the lights in the room were just really bright. Occasionally he would stop talking and look away from the camera for a few seconds. Kevin wasn’t sure if he was zoning out or creating dramatic tension.

  After a couple of hours, he had to close the laptop and go back to bed.

  “Why is Joan in the hallway?” Keith asked when he came back from work.

  Kevin was playing video games and was also really hungry.

  “I’m too hungry to concentrate.” Kevin threw the controller onto the floor.

  “She smells really bad. Did you put her out there?”

  “We had a disagreement.”

  “Whatever. And thanks for lying to me about the car.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “You said you lost it.”

  “I did. I don’t even know what happened last night. Wild Times was closed. I went over to John Wad’s but he had a lot of people there but everyone seemed really tired and it wasn’t a lot of fun.”

  “Well, it’s parked right outside.”

  “Then I lost the keys.”

  “They’re right there.” Keith pointed to the floor where Kevin had emptied his pockets that morning.

  “Want to go to Applebee’s? I’m really hungry.”

  “I’m really tired.”

  “There’s no time to sleep, Keith. We have a lot of stuff to do.”

  They went to Applebee’s.

  When they came back, Joan was still in the hallway.

  Kevin told Keith to call building security and report her.

  They shot some more videos. They had run out of things to review so they decided to call the videos vlogs. Kevin had a really hard time saying this word and always ended up making a gagging noise.

  Later that night, John Wad came over with his party friends.

  Keith fell asleep on the floor at one point and everyone urinated on him.

  They all had a lot of fun. Everyone except Keith.

  The next morning, Joan was gone.

  While Keith was at work, there was a knock at the door. Kevin looked out the peephole. He hoped it wasn’t the cop who’d come there earlier.

  It wasn’t.

  It was Keith.

  Kevin opened the door.

  “Hi Keith. Why are you home so early?”

  “I got fired.”

  “How can they do that?”

  “I kept falling asleep. That Kenneth guy called me into his office and told me he had to let me go then he told me he never hired me in the first place then he told me I smelled.”

  “You smell like urine.”

  “I shouldn’t smell like urine.”

  “It’s because we all u
rinated on you last night when you fell asleep.”

  Kevin waited for Keith to have a crying jag. Keith hit him, hard, in the stomach.

  Kevin dropped to the floor and began crying very dramatically.

  Later, over dinner at Applebee’s, they discussed their options.

  “I’ve been thinking,” Kevin said. “You no longer have a job. You don’t have any money put away because you are very poor. You still owe me a ... good deal of money. I’ve been trying to think of ways you can work off your debt. I’ll let the cleaning lady go. Now you’ll have to clean the apartment. Also, you’ll need to bathe me and make me breakfast and stuff. I’ll provide you with a place to stay, lavish dinners at Applebee’s, and the occasional night out at Wild Times. Basically, you’ll be my assistant. I’m already paying for everything. I don’t have the time to do everything too.”

  “I’m not bathing you.”

  “What?”

  “I guess I don’t really mind doing the other stuff, but I’m not bathing you.”

  “Well, have a nice life then.”

  Kevin left the table.

  Keith found him wandering around the parking lot and having a crying jag. Keith put his arm around Kevin’s shoulders and said, “I’m sorry, bro. It’s just weird. That’s all. We’re friends, right? Straight guys don’t usually bathe each other.”

  Kevin brushed Keith’s arm away. “I just hate it. I hate showers.”

  “You could just stop. I really don’t want this to come between us.”

  Kevin looked lost in thought.

  They went to Wild Times.

  They drank two pitchers of beer on the party patio and watched several of John Wad’s product reviews on Kevin’s phone.

  They stayed until the bartender threatened to call the cops.

  Keith said he did not feel safe driving. He was tired and very intoxicated.

  Kevin tried to urinate on him.

  A cop showed up.

  They had to spend the night in jail.

  When they got out of jail and returned to the penthouse, things deteriorated. Kevin made a series of enormous messes and expected Keith to clean them up. Keith usually did. He didn’t have any place