Small Apartments Read online

  “You’re going to love this fucking gravity bong,” said Tony.

  “What?” shouted Tommy Balls.

  “I said Fucking Gravity Bong, baby!”

  “Yeah,” agreed Tommy Balls.

  Building the bong was Tommy Balls’ project for Tuesday, but that is not to suggest that he was up and moving around his apartment. No, he was sitting on the faded green corduroy couch his parents let him have when he moved out six months ago. Tommy moved out voluntarily—and rather theatrically—after a poorly conceived, and badly delivered, drug-induced argument with his mother about the quality of her meatloaf. There were deeper issues, of course, and the meatloaf was just a catalyst. Tommy used the opportunity to deliver a fierce monologue on what he perceived to be his parents’ shortcomings. His speech was so venomous that it made his mother dash into her bedroom crying. She spent the rest of the evening reading and scribbling notes inside the dust jackets of her Dr. Mennox books. His father, for his part, put on his hat and drove to the Knights of Columbus Hall. Within the week Tommy had put down a deposit on an apartment at 100 Garner.

  TOMMY HAD JUST finished smoking a joint and was in a pleasant state between consciousness and sleep as he stared into the television. An episode of Magnum, P.I. was on. It was twenty-four minutes into a twelve-hour marathon.

  As he gawked catatonically at the television, Tommy ran through his mind all the objects he would need to build his inaugural gravity bong. First he would need a bucket. He was pretty sure he had a bucket behind the door in the bathroom. He had a faint recollection of a white plastic bucket with one dark sock in it. Next he would need a two-litre plastic soda bottle. He would need to cut the bottom off of that, so he would also need a serrated knife and a pair of scissors. Tommy knew he had the knife, and probably the scissors, but he was positive he did not have the soda bottle. Although he consumed, on average, three cans of beer and one two-litre bottle of soda pop per day, he had just brought an entire month’s worth (ninety-eight cans and thirty-three bottles) to the recycle machine at the Open 24 Hours convenience store where he was a clerk. He’d applied the resulting $6.55 towards the purchase of a dime bag from Bobo at the pool hall on Elmwood Avenue. Securing a soda pop bottle without making a trip to the 2-4 store may pose a problem, thought Tommy.

  Finally, the gravity bong called for weed. He had plenty of that, thanks to Bobo. Tommy budgeted for two things in his life: rent and weed. I have to have weed and a place to smoke it, he reasoned. His job as a clerk at the 2-4 store on the corner of Grant Street and Forest Avenue allowed him to barely afford both.

  Bucket. Knife. Scissors. Weed … soda pop bottle.

  Tommy blinked and a glimmer of awareness, however faint, crept in behind his eyes. Tommy scratched at his orange goatee. He was positive there were no two-litre soda pop bottles within the confines of his apartment. He ran through his options. He could go purchase a two-litre beverage and purge it of its contents, but that would require him walking the three blocks to the 2-4 store. If Ruiz was working his shift down at the 2-4 store he would surely let Tommy grab a bottle off the shelf at 100% discount. If Buttmunch Artie was working, he could forget about it. What day is this, thought Tommy? Tuesday. Artie worked till six on Tuesdays. That was all beside the point, anyhow. Tommy did not want to go outside. It was his day off and he just wanted to hang out in his apartment and get high.

  Tommy Balls shook his head and smiled at the television. Magnum, P.I. was being reprimanded by Higgins, the caretaker of the Robin Masters Estate, for borrowing his camera without asking. Why do I have to live in Buffalo? Why can’t I be living for free in Hawaii like Magnum, thought Tommy.

  “Fuckin’ Higgins,” said Tommy Balls.

  Tommy got up and stretched his arms above his head until they cracked. He picked up a black, Metallica tour T-shirt from the arm of the couch, sniffed it, then pulled it over his tattooed torso. Sure enough, behind the bathroom door he found a white plastic bucket. He removed the dark sock and searched the bathroom for a good place to drape it, settling on the sink. He found a steak knife sticking out from the dirty dishes in the kitchen sink and a pair of scissors on the table under a stack of High Times and empty plastic CD cases. He gave a futile look inside the garbage can for a soda pop bottle. On top of the wet trash was a paperback self-help book entitled Am I Crazy? by Dr. Sage Mennox. Tommy Balls had received the book as a gift from his mother, a recovering sippy alcoholic and Born Again Christian. He called his mother a “sippy alcoholic” because that is what she was: a sippy here, a sippy there, all day around the house until the evening news rolled around and she was rip-roaring drunk and looking for conflict. Tommy’s mother was not out the door one minute after giving him the book when he had deposited it in the shitcan. Two years ago his mother had become a loyal and devoted follower of the TV talk show mental health guru, Dr. Mennox. Some people need desperately to follow someone, thought Tommy. His mother had been off the booze since she began devouring every book written by Dr. Mennox, and, in Tommy’s opinion, that was good. However, she was infinitely more annoying as a Christian than she ever was as a drunk. His mother was convinced that Dr. Mennox had saved her life. She had dog-eared dozens of pages in each of his books and could recite chapter and verse. She said Dr. Mennox had taught her how to be, how did she say it? Mentally fit and physically strong. He was the gatekeeper who kept her off the Road to Crazy. Tommy had seen the good doctor once on one of the daytime talk shows. He thought he seemed stiff and impersonal for a self-help guru. He did have a nice tan on his bald head, though. And his suit must have cost $3,000. He wore cufflinks, too. Tommy always paid attention to whether someone wore button-down cuffs or cufflinks. For Tommy, cufflinks were the dead giveaway that you had money.

  Tommy’s father wore cufflinks. He was a successful Orchard Park dentist who enjoyed hand-rolled cigars, Cutty Sark, and spending his evenings at the bar in the Knights of Columbus Hall. He spent most of his free time avoiding his family, which he often referred to as “The Great Failed Experiment.” Tommy’s father believed in hard work, discipline and sacrifice. He was a Navy man, enlisting at the end of the Vietnam War. He rose to the rank of Chief and, when his last enlistment ended, went to dental school nights and weekends on the GI Bill. While in school, he supported his wife and son with a factory job at Bethlehem Steel. He had recently concluded that his wife was a loon and his son Tom was the laziest sonofabitch he had ever met.

  While his son was across town searching for the implements to construct a homemade bong, former Navy Chief Tom Ballisteri, Sr. was sitting on a barstool among friends and fellow veterans at the Knights of Columbus Hall on Delaware Avenue. He raised his glass of Budweiser and offered this toast to his wife and son, “Here’s to the Great Failed Experiment.”

  Tommy Balls stood with his hands on his hips in the middle of his kitchenette. He needed a two-litre soda pop bottle but was in no mood to walk down to the 2-4 store, and even if he did, he did not want to pay for it once he got there. Maybe I can ask the fat bastard downstairs, Tommy thought. What was his name? Fred … Frank … Franklin!

  “Frankie!” shouted Tommy Balls alone in his kitchenette. “Hey, Frankie,” he said, offering up his best impression of a New Jersey Wise Guy. He knew Franklin could not hear him. “Hey, Frankie! You got any empty pop bottles you fat bastard!” Tommy started laughing at his own improvisational comedy invention. “Hey fat Frankie, give Uncle Tommy your empty soda pop bottles!”

  He decided he would go downstairs and ask Franklin if he had any soda pop bottles. But first I will watch the rest of this episode of Magnum, P.I., thought Tommy. He melted into his secondhand couch and cranked the volume on the television as loud as it could go.

  “Motherfucking Magnum, P.I.!” screamed Tommy Balls.

  CHAPTER

  3

  IF FRANKLIN HAD to choose whom to murder it would have been a coin toss between Mr. Allspice and his landlord, Mr. Olivetti. Even though Franklin thought they were both assholes, the quality of Frank
lin’s life would have improved immediately if Mr. Allspice was to suddenly disappear. Mr. Olivetti was a once-a-month problem. Mr. Allspice was a miserable bastard and an everyday pain-in-the-ass. That was a moot point now though, with a dead Mr. Olivetti sprawled out on Franklin’s kitchenette floor.

  Franklin was fat, but not stupid. He did not want to go to jail for murdering Mr. Olivetti. He had to get rid of the body. He meditated silently on his orange chair. Disposing of the body properly is where most criminals mess up and get caught. Wow, I am a criminal now, thought Franklin. I’m a wanted man. Franklin decided it would be best to brainstorm. He removed a fresh yellow legal pad from the crisper and began a list. He thought it would be fun to play Devil’s Advocate, so beside each idea he jotted down why it might not work.

  1.) Dump him in the Buffalo or Niagara River. How can I be sure I won’t be seen? The bodies always wash up eventually.

  2.) Bury him. Where? I don’t own a shovel. It’s a lot of physical labour and I am not in the best of shape.

  3.) Burn him. Again, where? Won’t the smell be too noticeable? Still, though, not the worst option.

  4.) Cut him up. Not a chance. I don’t have the stomach or the proper tools.

  5.) Make it look like suicide. Not bad. Must look convincing, though.

  6.) Car accident, ie: put him in his truck and roll him off a cliff. What cliff? I live in the city.

  Franklin saw some potential in these ideas. Maybe a combination of two or three of them would be just the ticket. He went to his window and looked west down Garner to Dewitt and then east to Grant Street. Mr. Olivetti’s tan 1994 Chevy S-10 was parked on the same side of the street, three doors down.

  Summer was ending and the days were getting shorter and cooler. Franklin knew he could expect it to be dark around 8 o’clock. He looked at his watch: 6:15. Franklin leaned over and squeezed Mr. Olivetti’s bare, left bicep. His skin was clammy and cold and his muscles were beginning to stiffen. It was just over eight hours since Franklin murdered his landlord.

  The body had to go tonight, and as far as Franklin was concerned, it could not get dark fast enough.

  It occurred to Franklin that the only dead person he had ever seen up close was his mother. In her casket she looked like a wax mannequin moulded to resemble his mother, he thought. She had, as she called it, “cancer of the noggin” and died twenty-six years ago on Franklin’s fifteenth birthday. Bernard was twenty-two years old and had just been accepted into graduate school at the University of Buffalo. Franklin could not ever recall seeing his mother healthy. She had no energy for playing the game of life; it seemed she decided early on that she was destined to lose it. He remembered placing a postcard depicting the Swiss Alps in her hand after the wake, before they sealed her casket forever. Those snow-tipped mountains were Franklin’s vision of Heaven.

  Franklin and Bernard had never known their father, not even his first name. Their mother forbade them to speak of him and they obeyed. For all Franklin knew, or cared, his father lived next door to him on Garner. It would not surprise him if his father were someone like Mr. Olivetti. Or Mr. Olivetti, himself.

  My mother’s death face was more serene than Mr. Olivetti’s, thought Franklin. The landlord’s frozen stare and garish grin unnerved Franklin. He reached down and closed Mr. Olivetti’s eyes with a sweep of his hand. He reached into Mr. Olivetti’s trouser pocket and pulled out the keys to his Chevy.

  Franklin had decided on some plans of action. He would wait until dark, carry Mr. Olivetti out to his truck and dump him in the back underneath the cap. He had not yet decided whether to roll the truck into the Niagara River with Mr. Olivetti in the driver’s seat, set the truck on fire and push it off a cliff, or choose a third option he had not yet thought of. He would have to wait and see what sort of mood he was in after dark. He sat at his table, rubbing the bump on his head and mulling his options. He noticed 101 moving around her living room in the yellow building across the street. He snatched his binoculars from the counter in the kitchenette and scurried back to his perch at the window.

  She was vacuuming. She was wearing a red cotton top with short sleeves and a low neckline. Franklin followed the smooth outline of her thin, tan legs up to her khaki shorts and delighted as her ass danced with each stroke of the vacuum. He decided that he would have her again tonight in the bubble bath after this Olivetti business was settled. He burned the image of her bouncing breasts into his mind for later reference. She was talking to someone. Who was it? Aha! Beyond the top of the couch Franklin saw her teenage daughter, Little 101. She was watching a music video on the television with her back to Franklin. He focused the binoculars. The volume bar graphic appeared on the television and crept across the screen. The mother was now yelling at her daughter. The volume bar appeared again. This time it stretched across the screen as far as it could go. The mother seized the remote from her daughter and turned off the television. Little 101 stood up. Franklin tried to steady the binoculars on her blossoming breasts. It was no use. She stormed out of the living room and he jerked the binoculars from window to window. Where did she go? thought Franklin. He returned his lecherous gaze to the living room. The mother was now gone, too. The show was over. He had hoped to kill some time until dark, watching the women across the street. It was just one more thing that did not go Franklin’s way that Tuesday.

  Franklin unfolded a blue wool blanket and laid it over Mr. Olivetti. Later, he would need to determine the most expeditious way to get his carcass down the sidewalk. It would be a good idea to move the Chevy closer to the building, he thought.

  There was a knock at the door.

  Franklin froze in place. The knock came again. Five, swift thumps at his apartment door. Should I ignore it, he wondered? Was that the smart thing to do? Aw shit. He pulled the door open until it was stopped abruptly by the security chain. Outside in the foyer stood Tommy Balls. It’s the pothead from upstairs, thought Franklin.

  “Hey Guy! It’s your upstairs neighbour, Tommy Balls,” said Tommy. He noticed Franklin was wearing only his underwear.

  “I see,” said Franklin. Don’t say too much, he cautioned himself. Speak only when spoken to.

  “Er, yeah. Do you have any, like, empty soda pop bottles? The two-litre size?”

  Franklin had a dozen of them below his sink. “No,” he answered.

  “Oh,” said Tommy. “Are you sure? I only need one. Shouldn’t you, like, check or something?”

  Don’t panic, Franklin. Stay cool. “Hold on,” said Franklin. He closed the door, ran to the sink, grabbed an empty green bottle, and dashed back to the door. Tommy Balls was startled when the door opened again and he jumped backwards.

  “Ginger ale OK?” asked Franklin.

  “Yeah, that’s fine dude,” said Tommy.

  Franklin attempted to pass the bottle through the space between the door and the wall. The bottle was too fat. Franklin jammed the bottle into the narrow opening and the plastic popped and crinkled.

  “Whoa, dude,” said Tommy. “Can’t you just open the door?”

  “No,” said Franklin. “Pull!”

  Tommy Balls did not know what to make of this corpulent recluse on the other side of the door, but with the final component to his new gravity bong just inches away, he grabbed the bottle with both hands and started pulling. Franklin pounded the bottle with his fist as it wormed through the opening. Then it reached the hard plastic base.

  “It’s stuck,” said Tommy. “Can’t you just open the frickin’ door?”

  “If you want the damn bottle, pull!” said Franklin.

  Tommy tightened his grip, gave the bottle a violent yank, and freed it from the doorway. The effort sent him three steps backwards.

  “All right then. Nice to see you,” said Franklin as he closed the door.

  “Wait!” yelled Tommy Balls. “Have you seen Mr. Olivetti today? He’s supposed to be coming over to fix my sink. It drips.”

  “Oh, I killed him,” said Franklin.

  “Mmm,
” said Tommy. “Well if you see him, tell him my sink is still dripping.”

  “Tell him yourself,” said Franklin. “He’s dead on my kitchenette floor.”

  “Ok, dude. Just tell him about the sink.”

  Tommy headed up the stairs. Franklin the Funny Fat Guy, he thought. Mr. Mirth. Put some frickin’ clothes on, Tubby. It’s not that hot outside.

  Franklin latched the door and banged his head against it, leaving it there to rest. I handled that badly, he thought. He wondered if that pothead upstairs knew what Mr. Olivetti’s Chevy truck looked like. Franklin doubted the kid had ever looked out his window. Since the day he moved in, his view of the street had been obscured by a tie-dyed bed sheet. What the hell did he want with an empty two-litre soda pop bottle, wondered Franklin?

  “You rent to some real winners,” Franklin said to Mr. Olivetti.

  Franklin’s dog, nuzzled against the dead body, was snoring.

  AFTER DARK, FRANKLIN pulled on a grey T-shirt, tan shorts and a pair of rubber-soled leather sandals. He grabbed Mr. Olivetti’s keys off the table and headed outside. He closed the doors in the breezeway silently and crept down the stone steps to the sidewalk. There were no street lamps on Garner but a three-quarter moon hung in the night sky. The lunar light illuminated the car tops that lined both sides of the street. It seemed to Franklin that there were more people out in the neighbourhood on a Tuesday than he had ever seen, but he attributed that to nerves. Franklin headed east on Garner towards Mr. Olivetti’s Chevy. His ears felt hot and the hairs on his neck tickled as he sensed the weight of someone’s stare behind him. He glanced back over his left shoulder at the building. There in his window was the puffy red face of Mr. Allspice in 2A. That nosey, hawk-eyed sonofabitch, thought Franklin. He is going to complicate matters this evening. Franklin began walking again. He reached Mr. Olivetti’s Chevy truck and was sure Mr. Allspice could not see him anymore, but he kept walking anyway. Franklin knew the old buzzard liked to take a stroll out onto the front porch whenever he suspected something foul was afoot in the neighbourhood. Franklin walked and thought. He tried to focus all his mental energy on removing the body in his kitchenette. He was still not certain which course of action was best. One thing was absolutely certain; he had to dispose of the body that night. A new day would bring new problems. And when it did, he did not want Mr. Olivetti still lying in the middle of his kitchenette. Franklin reached the end of Garner. He decided to continue north up Grant Street all the way to the Open 2-4 store. He thought a 40-ounce bottle of Old English and a Mars Bar would help settle his nerves.