Permanent Adhesives (7 page)

“Really?”

“Yeah, for people who want to read it on their phones or electronic reader things.”

“Interesting.”

“You don’t have to like me. Just let me somehow make it up to you.”

Hmmm, I thought looking out onto our street; a one way lined with tall trees that left the whole block in the shade. Our block actually looked pretty with the old trees. A good portion missing their leaves, but a few still dressed in gold and reds and browns.

I glanced over at Elias. He sucked on his lip and raised his eyebrows. My rage was no longer at a rolling boil, just maybe a medium bubbly one. “Fine.”

“Good. Do you really hate me?” Elias asked.

“No,” I sighed. “But I’m still mad.”

“God, I swear, I really am sorry,” Elias said, reaching down and picking at a loose piece of rubber on his shoe.

“Okay, enough already.”

“I feel like an ass.”

“That’s cuz you are.”

“Yeah.” Elias stopped picking at his shoe. “I really mean it though. I’m sorry.”

“Okay, okay,” I said. “Didn’t I say enough already? I’ll let you make it up to me, but you are a bastard, you know that?”

Elias clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth and nodded his head yes. “Yeah.”

“And you look like crap.”

Elias smirked. “I have to go to work, but we’ll meet up later.”

“Okay,” I said. “You work a lot?”

Elias shrugged.

“All right, gotta go and work on my comic.”

Elias stood up and shoved his hands into the pockets of his hoodie. “I’ll be back later.”

“I’ll be here.”

“Bye.”

I watched Elias go back across to his building. After a bit, I saw him pop out on his bike and ride off down the street. Was I letting him off the hook too easily? I kind of knew where he was coming from, and I did beat him up. Maybe he would be able to help me move
The Society of Prodigious Superbness
to the next level.

I was on the couch dozing when I heard a knocking on the front door. I groggily got up and answered it. It was Elias. “Hey,” he said, looking at the ground.

I motioned him inside. “What time is it?” I asked, noticing it was dark out.

“I dunno,” Elias said, chewing on a fingernail. “Like seven or something, I got caught up with work.”

“I was just napping anyways.”

“So, do want to just hang here and talk about your comic stuff or go somewhere, uh…?”

“My mom and sister will probably be home soon, so we can go to The Nugget or something.”

“Okay, cool. First can we swing by my place, so I can pick up a couple of things? Cuz I just came over here to make sure we were still on and stuff.”

“All right.” I nodded, grabbed my ski vest, and we headed across the street into the cool night air, ending up at the building where Elias lived and also my dad. It was weird. I’d never been that close to it before. I always walked on my side of the street. I felt like I couldn’t cross the street, all the dangers lied on the other side and yet there I was. Elias opened the front door, and we walked through the makeshift front porch, which was piled high with watered stained moldy, old cardboard boxes, and into the living room.

“So, welcome to my humble abode,” he said, waving me inside with a twirl of his hand. “Life styles of the rich and famous.”

“Close,” I said. “We don’t have what would qualify as spectacular living quarters either.” I looked around the room. The walls were yellow and dirt stained. They probably went years since they were painted with a fresh coat of white. On one side of the room was an old, worn couch with water mills and hay bales on it, done in shades of brown and next to it was a pile of newspaper ads and empty beer cans. Across from the couch was one of those ancient TVs, one of those cumbersome wooden ones that sat on the ground that was like five hundred years old. I wondered if it actually worked. Besides the TV was a green and yellow folding lawn chair. There was a very musty smell about the place. I looked down at the carpet I stood on. It was so worn that it was like a flat almost hard surface with large tan and gray stains on it. I doubted they had a vacuum because there was a smorgasbord of little paper flecks and lint and odd crumbs dancing on top of the carpet.

“Just give me a sec,” Elias said, biting his lip and bobbing his head.

“Okay,” I said. All the while, thinking, oh God, what if my dad showed up? It almost felt wrong being in that apartment.

Elias headed out of the front room. I ended up following him, out of curiosity, through a very tiny kitchen and into what at one time was probably a back porch, but seemed to have served itself as his bedroom. I stood in his bedroom doorway (that held no door) as he dug for his stuff. His room, if you could call it that, was a narrow space with a mattress in one corner and a large pile of clothes next to it, and it felt like there was a draft in there. I looked, and on the right-hand side of the space was the backdoor. Elias grabbed a yellow notebook off his bed and shoved it inside his messenger bag that was slung across his body. He nodded, like signaling his mission was accomplished, and I turned and started walking towards the front. He followed. That’s when we heard a jangling sound about the backdoor. I think both our guts sank.

The backdoor burst open and Elias’s mom came in wearing a long, lavender, puffy winter coat. I nearly fell over when I saw who was coming in behind her. I’m pretty sure I stood there with my mouth hanging open. It wasn’t my dad who followed Elias’s mom in; it was Logan. I wasn’t sure how to react. I was hoping he wouldn’t realize who I was because it had been a couple of years since I’d seen him last. Logan was an old friend of my dad’s. He always had a very creepy presence about him. He had this light-brown hair that was overly puffy at the top and a thin mustache that ran across the top of his lip. He was tall and sickly skinny and had these long, creepy, knobby fingers. I remembered him always standing inappropriately too close when he would talk to me when I was younger. My skin crawled just thinking about him, and there he was in Elias’ home.

Elias’ mom and Logan made their way into the kitchen before they realized somebody else was there besides Elias. His mom looked at me like she was studying my face for some reason. She then yelled out, “What in the hell is she doing here?” She reeked of booze.

Logan then also looked at me. “Holy hot totties!” he exclaimed. “Where did you find her at?” It was like Elias brought home some scraggly little puppy he found in the alley or something. “Oh my God Molly, give me a hug,” Logan said, holding out his arms.

I couldn’t move. I just stood there with my mouth hanging open. I decided to shake my head back and forth for no.

“Ah, c’mon.”

“We’re leaving,” Elias said, trying to get us out of there.

“Where ya going with her?” his mom asked.

“We have to go work on a school assignment.”

“You still do school work? I figured you failed out by now,” Elias’s mom said to him while stripping out of her coat. Logan helped her pull it off. It all seemed so creepy. Being there in that situation just felt wrong. Why was I there? Why was I in my dad’s choice of residence? I should have been across the street safe in my apartment. Not there, in that apartment, exposed to the elements my family had been trying to avoid.

Ignoring his mother, Elias grabbed my arm. “Let’s go.”

“Good idea,” I said, following him through their living room that seemed to have lacked any light. Actually, the whole apartment was very dark. We got outside and the chilly air felt refreshing, hopefully washing me of the creepy feeling that was clung to my skin. Elias and I stood on the sidewalk looking at each other.

“That was way unexpected,” I muttered, playing with the zipper on my vest.

“I’m sorry,” Elias said, biting his bottom lip.

“For what?”

“Life in general I guess.” Elias’ lip pouted out, and he blinked at me.

I sighed. My anger towards him was ebbing away. “To The Nugget?”

Elias nodded.

“Even though I don’t think I can focus now,” I said in a tone dripping with melancholy.

Elias sighed. “Yeah, I don’t know what’s with that dude. He always gives me these skeevy looks.”

“That’s because he’s a perv. And your mom…”

“Is the root of all that is evil in this world?”

I smiled at him. His mom definitely wouldn’t qualify as affable; pretty sure she was nowhere close to winning mother of the year.

The Nugget smelled of grease, but not a real gross grease, like grease from corned beef hash. Elias held a sugar packet in front of his face and intently read the small print on it. I flicked at it with my fingers. He put it down on the table and sighed and then started ripping off one of his nails with his teeth.

I slapped his hand. “Stop that, will you?”

Elias then started drumming his fingers from his other hand on the table. I stared at him trying to use my mind powers to stop him from being so twitchy. It didn’t work. After he drummed the table, he made those darn clicking noises with his tongue, scratched his head, and pulled at his hair at the top of his neck. I sat there studying him. He didn’t even realize I was staring. He was too busy in his pattern of twitches. He continued with the fidgeting. I think it was unconscious. He was making me want to fidget.

“What you gonna get?” I asked, hopefully distracting him from his own nervousness.

“I think I’ll just get coffee.”

I got coffee also and a plate of hash browns. I knew that would be my dinner for the night. The waitress came, filled up our coffee cups, and I waited for my food.

Elias chewed on a nail. “So?”

“Yeah,” I said, like him asking
so
was an actual sentence.

“I just…” he said, trailing off.

I lifted an eyebrow encouraging him to go on.

“I feel like an idiot sitting here with you.”

“Why?”

“Cuz, I acted like such an ass.”

I smiled at him.

“Seriously,” he said. “I dunno, I tend to forget that other people’s lives are just as miserable as mine, if not even more, so sometimes I act like an ass.”

“So my life is miserable?”

“No, yes, I dunno, parts maybe. You most certainly don’t want them aired to the public.”

I wasn’t sure if I should have been offended or not, but then once again, he was kind of right.

“But like you said, there are plenty who have more misery in their lives than you.”

“Even if so, I still have a right to wallow in my own,” Elias said, then letting out a sigh.

“And it seems while you do, you take it out on others?”

“Yeah, so sorry.” He shifted in his seat and wiped his hands over his mouth. “I dunno know why I’m telling you this. You probably will think I’m a nut job, even though you probably do already.”

I shook my head. “Not a total nut job.”

“Even though I think no matter who you are, you have the right to wallow in your own misery. You’re entitled, even if there are others who out rank you in life suckiness.”

“Like how?” I asked while looking around the restaurant. Rose colored booths with frosted glass partitions between them was the majority of the seating, but there was also a long bar with stools. That’s where mostly trucker looking dudes sat, always calling the waitresses things like
sweet cheeks
. A chandelier that looked like it was from several decades ago filled the ceiling space in the middle of the restaurant.

“Like, you shouldn’t feel guilty for feeling like shit even though there’s somebody out there with some awful illness or living on the street. Like, these celebrities, it’s all over the news like it’s so shocking if they have a breakdown or accidentally OD cuz they’re trying to numb some pain. Even though they’re rich and famous they’re still entitled to feel whatever emotions they might have.”

“So, are you somehow now trying to justify what you did?”

He cracked a half-smile.

“Are you really that miserable?”

“Nah, sometimes I just get in these bitchy ruts, and then you came along while I’m in one and it just screwed with my head.”

“So, it’s really my own fault then isn’t it?”

“Exactly,” he said with a devilish grin.

I pointed my finger at him intent on saying something.

“But I really am sorry.”

I took a deep breath. “Oh cheese and rice, as I said before we even sat down here, enough already.”

He clicked his tongue in response. “Hey, I got some ideas.” He totally switched topics and flipped open his messenger bag which occupied the booth next to him. Out of it he produced the spiral notebook he plucked from his bed.

“What’s that?”

“Where I wrote my ideas.”

“Ideas?” I asked and then smiled at the waitress who came to refill our coffees. Our waitress was older, like in her fifties or something and had all these little wrinkles around her mouth. I bet she was a smoker. Her hair was pulled back into this long, tight ponytail with little coarse gray hairs sticking out. When we first walked in she gave Elias an odd look after she saw his face.