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Rent is Theft, part 3

Read from the beginning here, read the previous chapter here.

Note: My MC is a Filipina trans woman and I am not. If you have any advice on that or anything else, hit me up.

***

This time when we went out, I put on a knit beret and my puffy black faux fur coat, and took an umbrella. With her clothes cleaned, she looked about thirty percent less homeless. It was a start, and I felt a bit more confident leading her through the lobby.

She pointed the way and we went to a place I'd never noticed before, despite walking down the street past it on several occasions. Now I knew why there were often homeless folks smoking on that stretch of sidewalk.

It was a rented section of old storefront, in a neighborhood where old anything had become very rare. Apparently, it had a place for homeless people to shower, and provided amenities like toothpaste, toilet paper, and feminine products. When possible, they'd also give food, though it was far from a meal.

That day it was business as usual for the regulars, but I didn't belong there. Sunglasses a must. The buildings between the storefront and the sun were tall, the whole place in a cold windy shadow. I didn't pop the umbrella, just catching a few glistening drops on my shades. More hung in the fake fur like trembling rhinestones that winked out of existence when their surface tension failed. The ones in her hair were similar. A dark man with short hair and one of those marshmallow-smelling cigarettes smiled at us as we walked past. Smiled back.

Inside, my eyes had to strain to adjust and I felt the contact lenses on them, but I wouldn't take the shades off. Look cool, Courtney. Momi looked straight at the door volunteer a way she hadn't looked at me since the other day when she was trying to take my attention off her dude. Was she trying to keep attention off of me?

"Hey, I don't need a shower today, just need some stuff."

"Yeah, go right ahead."

Going ahead meant a line. We were as close as possible to a wall lined with low narrow tables full of cardboard boxes. Fluorescents hung clumsily from the low filthy drop ceiling. Momi glanced at me and back down. She stood close to me but facing out, like American Gothic. We both tried not to look like we were noticing anyone in particular.

Some people were trying to be affable, having loud, slightly desperate-sounding conversations. Others looked like they were sitting on the kind of rage and sorrow that could best be expressed with a knife. Others - to me - looked like they were utterly blank. I knew they had minds though, and it was easy to guess they were just making like Momi and me but more successfully. There was bench back near the door where four rumpled people sat with cellphones tight in their hands, wires trailing to a power strip below.

The other direction, our line advanced. The electric glow was a little more intense behind the counter at the end, like we were nearing an underwhelming heaven. The wall behind looked like it broke apart into sheetrock and lumber as it neared the warped plastic boundary of the drop tiles. Below that silhouetted heads labored. Affable desperation got a little louder as we neared, then we were upon them.

"Good day and god bless, how are you doing?" "OK, uh, yeah" "Hohoho, that's good, the standard toiletries for two?" "Yeah" "And sign here, sweety, doesn't this rain just make the city shine?" "Yeah" Someone else gave each of us a brown paper bag full of goods. "We got the good paper today, but just one roll each. Still that's nice." "Yeah" "Have a blessed day, sugar!" "You too"

A dirty guy in a frayed jester hat bumped into me and I bumped into my new friend. Hello there. We walked out with our goods and heard, "Momi."

We froze in our tracks and turned the heads back slow. A woman with lank straw blonde hair long and splayed over her oversized fatigue jacket like a shawl, she was back lit by a random patch of bright sun that made the random drops of rain look like a magic spell. "How's Walter?"

I fake smiled and Momi stepped in front of me. It occurred to me she probably used her size to protect people from the pit bull man all the time. "Oh, you know Walter."

Lady didn't move, still in dripping light of the spell. Clearly, she was an illusion. "That I do. Girl, you are joined at the hip. Almost didn't recognize you without him."

"Uh huh. I gotta go, Brenda."

"Uh huh."

We left the illusion and headed back to the apartments.

***

We stepped into another one. The main difference between one and the next was the view, and the extent to which sunlight hit or missed it at different times of the day. This one was the shadiest one yet, with tall office buildings blocking direct sun. The layout was a mirror of my own - nothing remarkable, new, spare. It smelled very faintly like a new car.

Two things really gave this one a very different feel from my own. One, facing the opposite cardinal direction meant the light was falling completely different outside of midday. Two, the view was obstructed by those office buildings.

I never actually used my view for what it was intended - looking down at the city below, the water beyond, feeling important. It was just the portal to the uninterrupted sky. Here, that sky was shot through with monoliths. You couldn't see the bottom or the top of them unless you stepped right to the window, giving the feeling they could extend endlessly up and down.

Momi worked her sneakered feet across the floor, sat unceremoniously in the clone of my couch that anchored the living room. She bunched her coat around like a blanket. "I'm tired. I'll take this one."

"Rah!" I did a short running jump over the back of the couch and landed next to her like a bird of prey. "You should be having fun, girl! I mean, y'know... Breaking the law."

After the initial start, she didn't seem impressed with my foolery, and I curled into a ball opposite her own. "OK." She felt the need to explain, "You know, just in case. I don't wanna be havin' fun and then go out to jail, with people saying mean stuff to me."

"No, I get it." I inhaled deeply and blew it off to the side, let my head sink. "Why this one?"

"It's closest to you, and the elevator."

I nodded and smiled. "OK. It's yours." I reached out and dropped the keys into her hand. She held them between her hands, closed her eyes, and put them into her coat pocket. "Let's move you in."

***

I worked the spam out onto a paper towel intact, knocked it on its side, cut it into little strips. A third went into a plastic bag, the rest into a hot frying pan.

I just gave it a few minutes before dropping it back onto a paper towel. The water nearby reached a boil, I emptied two ramen packs and some green onions into it and scooped the eggs out with a spoon before replacing the lid.

I suck at peeling eggs. I ran cool water over them to keep my fingers from being burned while I was at it. The clumsy numb digits managed to push off all the dinosaur shell & back into the ramen they went. A pork flavor pack here, stirred with my egg removin' spoon, used the lid to hold in noodles while I poured excess water out in the sink, added the spam back in.

Usually there's just one bowl out. I had to go into a seldom used low cupboard and pull out a cardboard box to get one more. Compulsive check that the stove or water was still on. With the food loaded and precariously balanced on my arm, I stepped out into the hall. I locked the door and slipped the key into my bathrobe pocket, then walked down a little way to Momi's.

My knock was weak as the bowls had me off balance. But after a moment, I heard her walking to the door. It was very quiet through the well-sealed new door. After the motion of the locks, she opened up. "Oh, dinner! It looks too good."

"Thank you." I handed her a bowl and we went in.

She led me to the dining table near the kitchenish part of the room. All this furniture was the same as in my apartment, a testament to how little I had that was actually mine. The tall chairs were halfway to bar stool dimensions. Our toes could touch the floor if we felt like it, but instead we both rested them over a crossbar.

"Oh, what about drinks? You want anything?"

She shook her head. "Don't get up. The broth is enough, the food isn't dry."

"Heh, but the broth won't get you buzzed. I have too much wine and some liquors."

She smiled but clearly had some big feelings about the subject. "Maybe later."

We ate some. The silence was overwhelming. Every slurp or building noise was its own precious center of attention. "You need to get some music in here. I have an old set of really buff headphones and an mp3 player I don't use anymore, you could use them like tinny speakers when they aren't on your head."

"Why don't you use the headphones?"

"The foam cover is all blistered. It gets black plastic flakes on your ear."

"Mm."

She had the heavy vertical blinds drawn, but it was obvious the world outside those windows would be very dark. The indirect lights warmed her skin a delicate orange at the edges, but her face was shadow.

I wasn't an artist, but on a date at the art museum years ago I'd learned about how skin had very different reflective properties from the other elements our artificial environments because its partial translucence and the more. It stuck with me - ever since I'd occasionally been trapped by the beauty of human skin.

She was alive in a world of unliving elements. I felt bad for the way our world is so racist against the things that make people distinct. Her native features were strong. There's an invisible line extending down from the inside corner of the eye, according to white art standards the nose isn't supposed to go past that. The wings of her nose stepped proudly over that boundary, as did mine to a more timid extent.

She slurped at some noodles and glanced at me awkwardly. I ate some more so she wouldn't be the only one making embarrassing noises. We definitely needed music.

"So," I said, "Maybe we should get to know each other some. We're partners in crime now."

Her face did an uncomfortable but cute dance. "What? No, you are the crimes master and I'm just along for the ride."

"Hahaha, it isn't like that, really."

"What? How can you say that? You basically kidnapped me."

"No, see, I had just one idea. Getting the keys remade like that. I don't even know what to do next, but since you're here with me, and we're helping watch other now, we're partners."

Again the dance of expressions. Amusement, incredulity. "Um, I don't see it."

"I mean you're just as likely as me to come up with a plan that gets us out of some trouble, just as likely to be the person that does something amazing."

"You think you're really cool, huh?"

I thought about it. Maybe I was getting a big head, even while on another noisy level I was in a raw panic. "Maybe, but that means now you're really cool too."

She went a little red and waved her head dismissively. "You're a real weirdo, Courtney."

"Thanks, Momi. ...Hm, I guess that wasn't meant as a compliment. It's hard for me to not take it that way though, because I always like weirdos the best. I used to hang out with computer guys and stoners at my school. What were you like in high school?"

"...Nothing. I was just me. I didn't know anybody good."

I tried to wave away the pain with a swipe of a hand. "Pssh, nobody is any good in high school. I'm sure I have a very selective memory for my weirdos. Anyway, it sounds like you didn't have a chance to be you, or something. I think, maybe everyone needs to find a way to be comfortable with their self. So... What would you like to do, if you could do anything? How would you get fun out of life?"

She looked at the blinds. "I don't know... I'd make it so Walter was OK, so--"

"I'm not talking about magic wishes, or what you want for other people. I'm talking about you. You have any music you like? You like to dance? You ever make art? Any place you'd like to see before you die? Stuff like that."

She was quiet.

"I'm sorry. I just don't think it's any good to dwell on crappy stuff. You'll have plenty of time to do that when you're trying to sleep tonight. I want you to be OK, and that isn't going to help."

She was still quiet. I could feel my face burn.

"...So, oh, sorry, really. What music do you like?"

She finally looked back, out of the corner of her eye. "Don't make fun."

Big smile from me. "Promise. I bet I don't even recognize the names. I'm old and moldy."

"OK, I kinda like anything, but especially Beyoncé and Lady Gaga. I don't like songs that are too angry or gross."

"Now see, that's perfectly normal nowadays, isn't it? Why did you think I'd make fun? I like lady singers too, but they're kinda different."

"Heehee, yeah, I think I heard them on your headphones. What is that?"

"I'm from a different time, you know? Do you know what grunge music was?"

"Like Nirvana?"

"That's right. I listen to stuff like that. And sometimes other things too. But I admit, it can be angry and gross."

She laughed. "It's OK, because you can't understand the words, right? I meant songs where people talk about gross sex stuff or are mean."

"Hm, what's mean? The singers I like are usually angry about people who abuse or exploit others, and are mean about it. But that's pretty reasonable, I think."

"I don't know what I mean."

"No, take your time. I'm sure you do."

"...OK, just when guys are being real angry or mean about girls I think. Like talking about pimping or beating them and stuff."

"Yeah, that's cool. Hey... I think I do have a song you might like, by Queen Latifah. Oh, I want to get my music."

"Mm, OK."

"Should I get some wine too?"

"Yeah, just a little bit."

I brought two bottles and played her "U.N.I.T.Y." and felt guilty as ever about it not really being for me. She got black flakes on her earlobes and I didn't say anything.

***

I was coming home from work again. I was coming into the building and to sit in the office, crying. My fingers were too long. I felt like a Conrad Veidt character.

Niko Whiskers came to me and knelt on the ground, holding up a cardboard box as a sacrificial offering. The shivering insect in the manager box was useless, so I accepted the offering, shook off my tears, and walked out of the fishbowl up, over, and down Niko's back.

Leaning in the elevator I looked down at the box. It was flapping, unsealed. I could glimpse the contents, dull silvery grey, and knew it was a mass of razors.

Why was I crying? I couldn't stay here. Another place that didn't want me. I wanted to turn the box upside down over my head and shake it out. But no.

There was somebody with me. She wouldn't like that. So we went to her apartment, but it wasn't hers yet. We had to let her in.

"Oh, that's what this box is for." We took razors into our fingers. It was bare blades, but at least they had a blunt side to grip.

I started at the top of the door. I slipped the blade in easily enough, but getting it to touch the membrane - that was a trick. It kept wanting to hit a groove to the side and slip through without harm.

No, cutting was what we needed. I snagged the membrane and began to cut. It was a very faint proprioceptive sensation - the resistance so slight and smooth. But after just a few inches, it slipped away. I tried to get a grip on the blade to continue the work, but only pushed it through the crack to the other side of the door.

So I picked up another, and the number we had made sense. Momi was just losing her first one through the crack. I shrugged and passed her another one.

At last, fingers raw, we finished our work. I opened the door, and as it unsealed, we saw the tatters of the membrane dangling like some unappealing contents of a fruit. Our feet rustled through a pile of fallen razors like leaves.

The apartment smelled like the inside of a pumpkin or a latex glove. The city outside was roiling blue mist, the metal and glass monoliths across the way beamed spotlights that worked through the room, disappeared, and returned. I kicked off my shoes and closed the heavy blinds as quickly as I could.

I turned to see her. She was locking the door, over and over again. "You're OK," I said. Still, I had to pull her away from the door gently.

We turned on enough lights to ignore the strobe from outside and settled into the couch. We were at opposite ends facing each other, legs tangled.

"You're OK," I said. She nodded too eagerly. We waited and looked around with our eyes, but remained facing each other. Maybe we weren't OK.

"I'm warm. The couch is too warm," she said. I wasn't feeling it. But as she adjusted in her seat, I noticed the couch looked strangely puffed and red where her body had been touching it. Glancing down to the ground, I saw that the flooring where she had walked was bubbled and red in roughly foot shaped spots trailing back to the door. But it was only her feet, her body that provoked this.

I looked around more wildly. Something was wrong. Was it just us? The strobe outside made slivers of light rise and fall, over and over. Momi shifted in her seat again and I saw the couch split like dry skin. Blood started to pool and the thought of it touching her disgusted me terribly.

I jumped to my feet and pulled her off the couch. "Let's get you to bed."

I tugged her toward the bedroom. Looking behind, I could see the bubbling again where her feet tread. Don't betray us, bed. I whipped the blanket off to reveal cool white sheets, grey-blue in the dark. She climbed into the bed.

I put the blanket over her and lay down on top of it, an arm around the back of her pillow. "Let's get some sleep, yes?" The prospect of sleep felt as appealing as food when hungry - like a drug I'd been denied, but I couldn't tonight. Not while things were wrong.

She relaxed into the bedding and was asleep too quickly. I looked around, fearing where the next betrayal would come from. The walls began to bead with an unknown moisture. I noticed it was taking more shape, massing into green gobs. The ceiling looked like it was coming closer, but then I realized it was the bed's surface rising to meet it. The sheet below her swelled and seeped like an abscess, the blanket looked like a scab. Her face was peaceful and human, framed by glamorously full black hair sparkling in the darkness.

I knew the bed was full of pus, I knew we would fall into it and be ruined. The walls were swelling now too, and I couldn't fucking stand it anymore.

Wake up.

***

I woke up wedged into some pillows, recognized the feeling of a half-assed clothing-as-blanket situation. My feet were jammed between cushions for warmth, my bathrobe pulled over my torso and up around my chin, head smashed in those tweedy cushions getting grainy impressions no doubt. I felt too cold to move and a category three hangover sealed the deal.

My first thought on waking up those early days of the situation was always, "What am I forgetting?" I probably needed to be implementing some clever scheme to head off the next chance of discovery, and pondering that gave me another excuse to avoid moving. The apartment here was much darker in the morning than on my side of the building, especially with the blinds still drawn.

Then she opened them. I groaned as I dragged myself upright into one corner of the couch. We definitely looked out of place in here, my old audio equipment marring the intended emptiness of the perfectly clean coffee table, the two of us dressed to snooze. She was wearing the same clothes I'd washed the day before, but with no shoes and a sheet pulled over her shoulders instead of the coat. Her hair was a fright wig and her face shy and miserable.

"What's the matter, Momi?"

"I messed up. I'm in here, breaking the law, and he's... He's out there, I know he's scared and alone."

I resisted the urge to get hot about that. The fucking bastard may well have been scared, that was possible. "Mm, I hope ... I hope when you wake up some more, you'll feel different."

She looked at me with trembling lights in her eyes. "I'm wide awake."

I didn't know what to say so I asked. "What can I do? What can I do? I ... I'm having enough tr-- I don't know what to think, to say, I'm just... Are you hung over? I am."

She wiped away the tears but more were coming already. "You drank most of it." The last word came apart into sobs.

I rolled my bowling ball head closer, and reached out tentatively. "Do you need..? Should I..?" She couldn't make words. I rubbed her arm. She jumped just a bit, but the sobbing was unabated.

I moved closer and put my arms around her, brushed the hair aside so I could speak without a mouthful of it. "Momi, Momi, whatever you want or need, anything I can do at all. If you want to go back to him, OK, we'll see about it, hell I don't know, I'm so sorry." She smelled like stale laundry and human salt and heat. Our mingled breath became uncomfortable in a moment, but maybe the oxygen deprivation would be calming.

"Really," I said, "I don't know you and you don't know me. We're just people who met at a bus stop, you don't owe me anything, I'll do anything to make you feel OK now, ugh." Well, then I was crying too. Useless.

But she didn't shy away, and I hoped my bony embrace felt safe. I held her and we cried for a while. She finally slowed to labored breaths and wet, quiet groans, her face making my shoulder warm and damp.

"Uh, h-hey, kiddo. You, uh, what do you... what do you want to do?"

She rubbed her face on my bathrobe and answered tiny. "Nothing."

***

Read the next part here.

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