paul

The following story contains strong use of language. If this sort of thing bothers you, then I’d click on something else before scrolling too far down. Thank you and please enjoy!

***

            “Listen, asshole, just do your share of the dishes!”

            I’ve learned to keep calm when other people lose it. That’s what my dad always taught me about winning. The one that loses control first has already lost. There’s no need to shout because Paul is a loser. I knew that when I first moved in.

            “I’ll do them,” I say.

            “You said that last night,” says Paul. “You say it every night, and every morning when I get my coffee, there’s a huge fucking pile of dishes in the sink. Do the fucking dishes, man!”

            I’ve never seen Paul like this. Ten minutes ago, I was scraping my potpie from the pan and and shoveling gooey chunks of chicken and gravy breading into my mouth, doing what I do every night. When I was done, I placed the crusty pan on the pile of dirty dishes in the sink. It fell off the top, clanged on the kitchen floor, but I rearranged the pile so the pan would stay put. And now this.

            “I will, God,” I scoffed. And I don’t see what the hurry was. We’ve had this pile of dishes for the past two weeks. He didn’t say anything then, but all the sudden it’s a problem.

            “It’s embarrassing,” he says.

            I try not to laugh. I get it now. He’s bitching about Katie, the girl he had over for the first time last night. She saw the pile in the sink and Paul tried to explain why it was my fault, that I had promised to do them before she showed up. When he brought her inside, I could see him turn shades of pink, just pissed that I lied to him. Hey, if he wanted dishes done for a girl he invited over, he should have done them himself. And as far as I could tell, without Paul whining about the dishes, he wouldn’t have had anything to talk to this girl about. So, really, I was doing him a favor. 

            I’m not sure how he got a girl like Katie to even come over at all; she’s about ten floors higher than Paul will ever get to.

            Paul steps towards me. “Do them. Now. Do them right now!”

            I know what he’s trying to do; he’s trying to stand tall, for consequences and whatnot. It won’t work. I’ve known guys like Paul since I was a kid. Why do you think I’m his roommate? He was desperate, I knew that, and so I pay a fourth what I should owe. I was even able to cosign; God, he was desperate. Kind of funny, actually.

            And I laugh at him now, “Dude, get out of my face.”

            He steps closer. “No.”

            This is my cue; Paul is trying to speak my language, the language of real men. I stand up, turn my neck so it cracks, and look over him. He’s angry but like a sick animal—harmless and desperate. “You’re not going to do anything. Sit down.”

            That’s the other thing my dad taught me: tell them what they will do. You dictate the terms and they’ll follow. Most people that get upset are followers, and they’ll get back in line if you show that you’re stronger. I’ve seen Paul huff and puff around the apartment before, but nothing to bother about. He just fumes and leaves for a while. You can’t take on other people’s problems. I didn’t need my dad to teach me that one.

            Paul steps back, bowing his head. “Last chance, do the dishes,” he says much quieter, almost a whisper. He looks like he might cry.

            “Ask me nicely and maybe I will,” I tell him.

            “I wasn’t asking you to,” he says. It’s an ultimatum.

            I can’t help but snort a laugh out my nose. “Or what? Kick me out?”

            He doesn’t answer, keeps his head low.

            “Dude, you’re so dumb,” I say. “We co-signed. I own half the apartment. You can’t kick me out.”

            “Fine.”

            Paul steps past me, which isn’t good. He might leave, try something with the landlord, maybe find a loophole to scrape me off the contract. Squirrely guys like Paul are good at that kind of stuff. I have to change the subject, make him stay put. “Why don’t you get Katie to do the dishes? She looks like the kind of girl that’s good in the kitchen.”

            Paul’s a liberal, I knew that had to hurt.

            “I didn’t think of that,” he says with a smile. “Maybe I’ll ask her next time.”

            “What?”

            He brushes past me towards the kitchen and starts arranging the crusty pots and pans on the countertop. “It’s fine. I’ll do them,” he says.

            He had to be messing with me, but I couldn’t figure out how. He starts doing the dishes, like he always ends up doing them, but it didn’t feel the same. “Good. It was probably your turn anyway.”

            “Probably,” he says with a shrug.

            Something is wrong. The lights are the same, but Paul seems cast in shadow, like one of the ceiling lights burnt out. Paul is the kind of person who will crack if you keep pressing him. He can’t ignore being beaten on forever, even if he can’t do anything about it. “It’s your turn to clean the bathroom, too. You said it was my week, but if you got this wrong, you’re definitely wrong about that.”

            “Yup, I’ll clean the bathroom.”

            Eerily, the lights flicker.

            “Good. And vacuum the hallway. I’m sick of stepping on crumbs.”

            “I should,” he volunteers. “I can hear you sneak around at night, they’re so crunchy on the fibers.”

            The lights flicker again.

            Ever stare down a hallway and think you’ll see two twin girls holding hands? That’s what it is like with Paul. He turns on the faucet. Hot water steams in the sink as he grabs the nearest pan.

            I can’t take it anymore. “What is this? You’re just going to stand there and agree to whatever I say?”

            “Oh, just for a little while longer. A few hours, maybe. Depends.”

            “Depends on what?”

            He shuts off the water and looks at me. “Depends on when you go to bed tonight. I’m going to kill you in your sleep.”

            He says it so meekly, like all of his lame jokes. “Dude, that’s the unfunniest thing you’ve ever said, and we’re talking about you here.”

            He smiles. “Yup,” and turns back on the faucet, scrubbing at petrified crumbs clinging to pans with molecular fusion. “Hey, want to play games after this? I lost my controller, but maybe we can share. Haven’t gone online in a while.”

            “You mean play some games before you kill me later?”

            He shrugs. “Or whatever you want to do until then.”

            “Right. Why do you want to kill me, exactly? It’s not like you have a lot going for yourself. Maybe you’re thinking you should kill yourself instead. Is that what you mean?”

            He rinses a plate in the already muddy sink water. “No, I meant I’m going to kill you. You’re just a pathetic and unreasonable human being that deserves to be erased from existence.”

            I debate punching the back of his head and through his nasal cavity but restrain myself. As my dad taught me, it’s about control. “Ok, I’ll play along. And how will you kill me? You can’t even do ten pushups; are you going to smother me with a wet towel?”

            He pauses scrubbing and wrinkles his brow, considering. “There’s all kinds of options, I guess. Assuming you lock your door tonight, I’ll grab my spare key that came with the apartment, unlock it at an hour I feel you’ve grown weak with trying to stay awake, take a steak knife – there are more hidden around the apartment, don’t try to hide them from me – and I’ll stab you in the heart. Or cut your neck off with a pizza cutter. Something like that. Have a preference?”

            “Dude, that’s fucked up,” I say with a laugh. Paul was supposed to laugh back, but he doesn’t. He smiles. “You’ve really thought this through?”

            “Sure.”

            “And all because I didn’t do the dishes?”

            Paul doesn’t answer; he just scrubs away.

            “Fine, I’ll do them,” I say, bumping him aside. “If you’re going to be such a bitch about it, I’ll go ahead and—Hey!” Paul stabs my forearm with a pair of scissors. Blood is running down my wrist and fingers like a faucet. “What the fuck!”

            “No, I said I would do dishes,” he says calmly. “You’re off the hook.”

            “I’m calling the cops,” I say, pulling out my phone. I begin dialing but my cut arm is shaking so terribly that I slowly type: 9-1-…

            It felt like there was suddenly a hot coal embedded in my rib cage. I look down and Paul is grabbing hold of a steak knife handle, the blade is entirely lodged in my side. I feel the hot spread of blood as it seeps from the wound. I gasp and every breath is agony. I can’t speak, I can’t move. He twists the handle and the world is flashing white. He takes my phone, saying something I can barely hear like, You won’t be needing that, and tossing it on the floor.

            “Why?” I ask without drawing in air.

            “Because I hate that there are people like you,” Paul says. “I hate that you think the world should bow down before you because you lack the decency to conceal being an asshole like the rest of us. The question you should be asking is, ‘Why shouldn’t I kill you?’ Because what you don’t see is what a pathetic waste of space you are on this planet. Killing you would make the world an objectively better place.”

            “You…can’t…. just…. kill people,” I manage to say in quick bursts.

            “Sure I can. People kill each other all the time. I made a decision to murder someone I think despicable for the greater good. I’m the good guy here. You’re a delusional fuck-o that can’t even do his share of the dishes.”

            “I said I’d do them,” I try to say. I’m not even sure if I made sound.

            “With a knife in your ribs, you’ll do them?” Paul asks.

            I nod, frantically.

            “Ok,” he says, steering me with the joystick handle of the knife. He parks me in front of the running faucet. I want to take soap and splash it on the wound because I know for certain it was a dirty steak knife Paul stabbed me with. I’m thinking of blood loss, of infection, and suddenly my knee buckles beneath me. Paul grips the knife and I’m brought back to life by another burst of razor-sharp pain. 

            “Can you really not finish them?” Paul asks belittlingly. “Is that too much to ask?”

            The pizza pan I’ve been using to cook potpies with is obscenely crusted. I scrub with all my ability, my vision fading white every few seconds.

            “Credit where credit is due,” Paul says. “Dishes are never fun, but to do it with a knife in your side…can’t be much easier. Not with the messes you make.”

            Paul laughs. He looks at me like I should join. “It’s a little funny, even if it’s coming from someone like me. Right?” I try to mouth “I’m sorry,” but I nearly faint.

            He starts humming to pass the time and I start crying. I can’t take much more of the pain. I know I’m soon to bleed out. The least I can do is take Paul down with me, that asshole. I reach for a knife to clean, Paul sees but does nothing to stop me. I dip it into the sudsy water and quickly thrust the blade into Paul’s chest. He looks at it, smiles, and says, “It doesn’t work that way,” He plucks the knife from the wound and hails it over my head, ready to strike.

            I look at the hole I just put in his chest. “You’re not even bleeding,” I manage to say.

            Paul sighs, dropping the free knife on the kitchen floor. “Why would I bleed?”

            Suddenly, I don’t feel a knife wedged in my ribcage. I can breath normally again. “What is this?” I demand. I pull the knife from my ribs, ready to kick the shit out of Paul.

            “You tell me,” he says. “It’s not like I want to be here.”

            “I’m not dying?”

            “Oh, very probably,” Paul tells me. “But you wouldn’t know it. People like you don’t notice much of anything. You’ll forget it, won’t care, and go on being the same asshole that can’t do a single dish to help out.”

            That’s all I needed to hear. “That’s right, bitch” I say, throwing a fist. Even if Paul is a dream, the satisfaction of landing a fist against the side of his face feels real.

            He stumbles backwards from the blow and I chase after. I throw the heaviest punch I’ve ever attempted. It whiffs through Paul’s head like a specter.

            “Ow!” shrieks a woman’s voice. 

            I’m on my knees, sinking into the soft linen of my bedsheets. My fist is extended, and Katie is holding her eye, shaking with both surprise and anger.

            “What the fuck was that for?” she demands.

            “Shhh!” I hush, but she’s already rolling out of bed, getting dressed. “Where are you going?”

            “I’m not staying here,” she says, pressing her eye while pulling up her jeans. “You just punched me!”

            “It was a dream, I was dreaming!” I hiss, but it’s no use. Katie is out my bedroom door and I hear an audible, “Ew,” as she steps down the hallway.

            Crunch, crunch, crunch.

            The front door slams and she’s out of the apartment.

            I swear and my ankle bumps into something hard and plastic under the sheets. I rummage around until I drag it out. It’s an extra controller I’ve been hiding from Paul whenever he wants to play online. It was stabbing me in the ribs the entire time.

            I walk out into the living room and sit at the kitchen table. I hear the bathroom door creak open as I stare over the parking lot outside our apartment window; the sun is just coming up. Paul emerges from the hallway, fully dressed, khakis and a tucked in blue button up. He steps past me, heading straight for the coffee pot. “Did you just leave the apartment? I thought I heard the front door.”

            “No,” I lie, thinking fast. “Maybe it was Katie. Did she stay over last night?” I say, massaging my ribcage. The pain feels sharp, not very much like a bruise.

            “No, she had to leave last night. Apparently she has to wake up early for work,” says Paul, concealing a smile. “We didn’t kiss, but I think there was something there between us. We might hang out again next week, whenever she’s free. She didn’t know, yet.”

            I don’t reply. The pain in my side feels hot like a coal.

            Paul pours his coffee from the pot, sighing over the sight in the kitchen sink. “Hey man, are you going to do dishes today?”

            “Yeah, I’ll get to it,” I say.

            He steps towards me. “Today, man. I’m not fucking around. It was embarrassing with Katie last night. I’m tired of dishes piling up.”

            I stand up, cocking a fist back like I’m ready to punch his face in. “I’ll do them when I fucking please!”

            He shakes his head, gathers his backpack with his work laptop, and storms out the door, but not before firing off a passive, “Asshole,” on the way out.

            I’m left alone. I start to nod because I know I’m right. 

            And I walk to the kitchen sink to turn on the faucet.

            I’m still nodding because I don’t believe in stupid dreams. 

            And I scrub at the petrified crusty remains on our lone pizza pan.

            I keep nodding, even when the tears come. 

            And it’s because I’m no loser, not like Paul is.

            I nod as I scrub the steak knife clean.