his tears with Joshuaâs underwear, as if the actual problem were that heâd been caught crying. He batted the billowing curtains apart and slipped out like a true ninja and the former marine that he was. Stagger, it might be pertinent to mention, was Joshuaâs landlord and downstairs neighbor.
The room was cold as a morgue. His prostate hurt like hell, but Joshua sat down on his bed, puffing out vapor, and stared at the boxer shorts array on the floor as if it contained a message that needed to be urgently decoded. His heart was galloping toward a heart attack, his brain away from comprehension. He let out a primally inarticulate scream at the still-billowing curtains and went over to shut the window. He kicked up the boxer shorts arrangement. The heart was pounding, the prostate collapse imminent, but Joshua lay down on the bed to look up at the motionlessly indifferent ceiling fan.
A siren wailed down the street, reminding Joshua that time sometimes did flow forward on its way to consequences. He did wish the police to come by, but that was all he was going to do about it. In the mind there is no free will, but the mind is determined to will this or that by a cause that is also determined by another, and this again by another, and so on to infinity. He wouldâve watched the ceiling to infinity, had his bladder not started leaking.
When the going gets tough, the tough might find comfort in the smallest of pleasures: Joshuaâs urine stream was thick and steady with relief.
When Joshua had signed the lease the previous summer, Stagger had appeared as stolid and reliable, his cut-off denim jacket notwithstanding, as one would expect from a marine whoâd proudly served his country. But soon after moving in, Joshua could occasionally hear Guns Nâ Roses blasting from downstairs, accompanied by the sound of things being smashed and Staggerâs screaming âWatch it bring you to your kneesâ and such in unison with Axl Rose. More than once, the party would go on for an entire night. The following morning Stagger would come up to apologize and ascribe his appetite for destruction to his alleged Desert Storm trauma. It made him act crazy, heâd said. It hadnât always been clear to Joshua whether that was a concealed threat or a way to invite pity and forgiveness. Either way, Joshua hoped his continued understanding would keep the rent low. As a way of additional reconciliation, Stagger had offered to show him his samurai sword, so sharp, heâd said, it could slice a running dog in half and both halves would still jump at the same time to catch the Frisbee.
He was moving out of this fucking place, Joshua decided, come the weekend. He should have already moved out for the Guns Nâ Roses abuse alone. Above the toilet hung an inexplicable reproduction of a foxhunt painting: red coats and black bubble caps and tall horses and a few clouds bumbling forth over a composed Victorian landscape. Joshua heard his front door clicking, whereupon something shifted in the corner where the fox was frozen in her escape, her future forever foreclosed. The voice Joshua instantly identified as Staggerâs said: âWhatâs going on in here?â
In a lightning move, Joshua turned, swinging the dick in his trembling hand to sprayâfrom right to leftâthe upright toilet seat, the toilet paper roll next to it, A Spinoza Reader , and a basket full of magazines, until heâstill emitting spurts onto his own thighâfaced Stagger, who stood akimbo under the hallway light, his face calm and composed to the sharp point of insanity.
âEverything okay, Jonjo?â Stagger lowered his gaze to grin at Joshuaâs trickling dick.
Joshua broke out of the bathroom, bouncing off Staggerâs flank to fly through the front door, conveniently unclosed. He raced down the stairs, not stopping until he found himself in the middle of Magnolia, where he finally returned his penis to
Amira Rain, Simply Shifters