For a time, I lived with Rob in a Mexican neighborhood. In our one-bedroom there was a monotonous and nondescript grayness. The place faded into the poorly lit, boxy corners and out of one's memory until as a place of my former residency it barely registers.
He called the neighbors Mesicans after an Eazy-E song he'd heard as a child.
I slept on a couch in the living room and he charged me a slight rent for the privilege of warm, indoor surroundings. I brought nothing but a bag of clothes and companionship and planned on staying only until I found a job. I lived around his television and duct-taped lounge chair and under the various beer flags and Miller girl posters that covered the walls like so many props for a poorly budgeted movie about teen sex.
Wednesday mornings he'd start banging on the wall about 6:15.
"Lettie!" he'd yell. "I'll give you 500 million bucks if you move my car."
"Move it your damn self."
"You can use it this weekend if you move it."
"You shoulda done it last night."
"Lettie!" he'd yell. "Do me the favor. I'll buy a six-pack of whatever you want if you move it."
Sometimes he'd talk me into it, and I'd ruin any future chances of sleep by going out into the cool, dirty air.
His car, a two-door that he'd dropped $500 on, was broken into on several occasions, leaving a hole where the trunk lock used to be. When a finger was inserted properly, it could be opened by hitting an internal latch. The driver's-side door was busted, so you had to enter on the passenger side. The crazy drunk that slept on the lawn in front of our building watched my ass as I climbed in over the right-hand seat to get behind the wheel.
Afterward, I'd lie on the couch, bang the wall a few times to piss Rob off, and try to sleep.
Boulevard traffic leaked through the sliding glass doors by my bed, which rattled when buses rolled by. I could look up and out the window and see a slash of sky, white with the flat morning clouds.
I could hear the old woman next door call her dog, who had died several months before.
"Angie! Angie, move over, I'm coming."
The rent was cheap and he never complained-not about spoiled food in the fridge, a build-up of dishes in the sink, stray hair in the shower, nothing. In the morning he ate small doughnuts that came in packages of six. At night he ate string cheese.
The building owner, an older gay man from Baja, lusted after him and left us avocados and chilies. I'd make guacamole and Rob would walk to the corner store for chips and beer. We'd watch the ball game or a movie, eat, and get slightly drunk.
One night, I went to a party to see a man I was in love with who had moved out of the city several years before. I sat next to him for several hours at a table on a patio drinking vodka straight from a Dixie cup and later from the bottle, which I shared with a girl that he soon took to bed, leaving me on the patio in between two empty chairs. I left, drunk and defeated and depressed.
In front of our building sat an old Mustang with our neighbor's daughter and her boyfriend inside.
I went into the apartment and straight into his room and into his bed. I crawled into his tangled sheets, pulling and pushing his leg away, and at last grabbed his crotch. He mumbled that I was drunk, but then got hard and stuck it in. We didn't kiss, he was quickly done, and I slept on my couch, my skirt still hiked up.
His neighbor threw a fiesta for her ten-year-old-an overly friendly, slightly overweight boy who endured the men who came and went, suitcases in hand, but not without visible damage. We were invited, possibly because we were kind to the child when he stood in the front doorway with a stuffed dog he would shake as he barked at passersby.
Rob said he would go because Mesicans are the best cooks-those fucking tamales, man.
There were no tamales but there were chips and salsa, and for lunch some stewed chicken with rice and beans and tortillas, followed by cake and ice cream.
The birthday guests were an odd collection like a deli sampler platter, like classmates obligated to attend.
I blindfolded the piñata hitters and clapped and handed out party favors and collected rubbish in a crackling black plastic bag.
"His father," the mother told me, nodding at her son as we stuffed paper plates into the bag, "is dead in Juarez."
"I'm sorry."
"Ah, he should be dead. I did not want this child."
"Oh," I said uncomfortably.
"His father-como se dice-I did not want him, you know, in that way."
"Oh. I am so sorry."
"Yes," she replied. "He is American, my son. An American boy."
I'd started eating pills that kept me up much of the night. I was told by the friend of a friend who gave me the Ziploc baggie with about two-fingers worth that they would help with my problem. There was no dosage recommendation or warning sign, so I took a few at a time a few times a day and smoked more cigarettes than usual and tried to drink two or more shots of whiskey around 11 p.m., when I should have been going to bed but clearly would not be sleeping. I figured this regimen would terminate whatever was growing rapidly inside of me.
Late Tuesday night Rob informed me that a tire was flat on his car. I was wrapping the toe of a sneaker in duct tape.
"When did that happen?"
"Well, obviously fairly recently since I fucking drove it yesterday and it was fine," he said, heading for the phone.
"Do you need help fixing it?" I asked. "We can just put the spare on. No problem."
"I'm calling Eddie, he'll help me."
"Let's fix it now," I said. "Look, I'm all done with my shoe." I put the repaired item back on and shoved my foot in the air at him to illustrate my point.
"Eddie will help me," he repeated, dialing the number.
At 1:30 in the morning, a girl sobbed miserably in the courtyard until someone banged on the wall to stop her.
At 3 a.m., a man entered the apartment through a side window. He wore a strange, high-necked jacket that looked as though it had come from a prop house. I lay frozen on the couch until his back was turned and then bolted for Rob's room.
"There's a man in the apartment. He just came in the side window," I whispered.
He lazily looked at me.
"When was the last time you slept?"
"Tuesday. No. Last week. I-shit, fuck you, man-there's a man in there."
"At a certain point your hallucinations start to bother those around you, too," he murmured into his quilt, and I, determined to win this one, slunk back out to the room. The man was still there, standing by the wall in his strange jacket.
I began to scream, "Help. No! It hurts! Help!" I thrashed around the floor, hitting my head on a side table in the process. Rob ran out and turned on the lights. Someone upstairs banged on the floor.
I pointed at him. "He's right here! Don't you see him?"
Rob looked around, scratched his head, and told me to get out of his apartment.
When he went back to bed, I gathered my toothbrush and my pills and a jar of his peanut butter in a plastic bag and, still in my pajamas but with his blanket wrapped around my shoulders, left.
I also took his television. It proved to be bulky and in only a block it became too much. I tried resting it on my hip and it dug into my flesh. I carried it with both hands in front of me (losing the blanket), but my forearms began to burn, and I finally set the unwieldy item on the curb and continued without it.
The night was cool. When I hit the Boulevard, it looked so much wider than I remembered. Streetlights shot up at regular intervals and unleashed their yellow light on the asphalt. Cars sailed by. A transvestite sat on the bus bench across the street. I waved at her. She waved me back and stood up, waiting for the traffic to thin so she could cross.
I fled, walking down the block to a liquor store, then around to the alley behind. A dirty hose coiled in an oily puddle. I turned it on. I took a handful of pills. I sat down and lit a cigarette.
I pressed my hands into my stomach and told the swiftly multiplying cells deep within that if they knew what was good for them, they'd stop.

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