Small Apartments Read Online Free PDF Page A

he came in. That was a good sign. I’m not surprised he’s in bed by nine o’clock, Franklin thought. The crabby bastard is up by five every morning. He grabbed a can of Moxie cola from the refrigerator and took a long swallow. He sat down in his orange chair and looked across the street at Little 101’s window. The blinds were down and the curtains were drawn. I never asked her what her name was. Probably better that way, he thought. He was percolating with nervous energy. He rubbed the tender bump on his head and took three, long gulps of soda pop, finishing the can. Franklin got back up again and removed the ice tray from the freezer. He twisted the tray until the ice cracked then spilled the contents into a plastic grocery bag. He twisted the bag tightly around the ice, sat back in his chair at the window, and placed the bag atop the bump on his head.
    Franklin closed his eyes and replayed his conversation with Little 101. This is what Switzerland would be like, he thought. It would be this feeling every moment of every day. He wanted to blow his alphorn but the timing was imprudent.
    “I have to get up off my fetid, fat ass and get rid of Mr. Olivetti if I want to be back in this orange chair by midnight,” Franklin said conspiratorially to his sleeping hound dog.

CHAPTER
4

    T OMMY BALLS SAT at the edge of his faded, corduroy couch and inventoried the objects laid out on his coffee table: one white, plastic bucket; one serrated knife; one pair of scissors; one empty, slightly crushed, two-litre plastic soda pop bottle; one dime bag of Bobo’s Nicaraguan weed; and a cocktail napkin with a diagram of Tony’s gravity bong.
    It was 8:50 and the
Magnum, P.I
. marathon was winding down to its last three episodes. Tommy decided he had procrastinated long enough. It was time to build the bong.
    First Tommy decided to select the proper music for bong building. He laid the nylon, zippered case containing his collection of 160 CDS across his lap and began thumbing through the pages. Metallica, “Enter Sandman”: mmm, no. Jimi Hendrix, “Purple Haze”: getting warmer. “Riders on the Storm” by The Doors: almost there. Aha! Perfect. James Brown, “I Feel Good.” Tommy slid the CD out of its plastic sleeve and placed it in the player. Now for the task at hand, he thought.
    He filled the white bucket halfway with water from the bathtub. Next, he poked the knife through the soda pop bottle just above the hard plastic base and sawed it up and down a few times to get the cut-line started. He used the scissors to make a clean cut all the way around the bottle with the plastic base as a guideline. Tommy removed the white plastic screw cap and discarded it over his shoulder.
    “I’ll leave that for the cleaning lady,” Tommy said.
    He set the plastic bucket of water between his legs then packed a monster bowl of Nicaraguan weed and sparked it. He placed the bottomless soda pop bottle in the water inside the bucket. Tommy took a long drag off the pipe, bent over, and blew it into the mouth of the soda bottle then capped it with his thumb. The bottle was sitting in the water as far down as it could go. He marveled at how a cloud of the sweet smoke formed above the cold water.
    “I
feeel
nice. Sugar and spice,” sang Tommy.
    Tommy looked up at the television and smiled in anticipation of a glorious hit. Magnum and his friend, TC, were in a helicopter somewhere high above the lush, volcanic mountaintops of Hawaii.
    Tommy bent down, uncorked his thumb from the bottleneck and covered it with his mouth. He sucked the sweet smoke deep into his lungs as he slowly raised the soda pop bottle out of the water. He got halfway up through the water, then erupted into a coughing fit, spraying saliva and marijuana fog all over his coffee table. He flopped back into the old couch, still coughing sporadically, all smiles. His eyes looked like they had been rinsed in chlorine then replaced in their sockets. That was the best hit of my