By Dominic Rosegarden
Outside of the building is a maze. The streets here aren’t numbered, and you can’t be sure, but you think some of them are bending back in on themselves, creating loops and dead ends. Pizza has never been so challenging, but again, you’ve never been so determined. It seems that the neons are the only lights that stay out this late. The streetlights above are ineffective until you look directly into them, and then you find yourself unwittingly blinded for a few seconds. No casual watcher would be able to tell a difference by your stagger.
You’ve made yourself the king of these narrow streets, walking a crooked path essentially down the middle. Nobody else dares to wander your streets at this time of night, not even the homeless who ride their bikes with their plastic bags piled on the back. How do the homeless afford bikes? You can’t even afford a bike. More importantly, where are the cars? Not even a rogue taxi has found it’s way passed you. They’re probably afraid. You’ll kick their ass, anyway. You’ll kick any taxi’s ass. Damn straight. You want another beer.
The buildings vanish and are replaced by trees, and the street turns from pavement to cobblestone. This causes you to trip and stumble a bit, but before you can develop any theories of stumbling back in time, the stones turn back to pavement and the buildings make a comeback. You’re almost disappointed, until you regain your bearings and see an open pizza parlor dead ahead. Time travel is cool, but pizza is better. Just as you rule the narrow Village streets, pizza rules time travel. You don’t want to devalue this idea, but you’re sure that it makes much more sense now than it will in the morning.
“I knew I’d find you,” you say to the short, dark skinned young man behind the counter. He doesn’t look nearly as sure as you are. Maybe he wasn’t expecting you? He thought wrong. He thought dead wrong… ooh, a grilled chicken slice, sweet.
You sit down in the wire frame chair. Why did they even bother putting a cushion on this? You’d be more comfortable sitting on a… on a… on a… hard… rock… yeah. Your grilled chicken slice is in the oven and the young man is staring at you uncomfortably. Maybe some small talk?
“I lost my other slice to a cat.”
No response. “I guess you had to be there.”
Still nothing. Oh well, you tried to be friendly. Does this guy want to fight you? Better keep an eye on him. At least wait till you get the pizza first. You could totally kick his ass. You’ll fucking rock him.
Calm down. He still has your food.
By the time the food is out, you forget that this kid was a potential threat and manage to escape the pizza shop unscathed. You stumble back towards the apartment building, taking a brief detour back in time. In hindsight, maybe it was just Washington Square Park. Whatever. Then it’s the narrows of your kingdom for a few minutes, with the streets that are drawn back in on themselves. But wait? If homeless guy can afford a bike, how come he can’t afford a slice of pizza? Different people have different priorities, you suppose.
When you finally return to the broad front of the apartment building (after relieving yourself on the side of it), you enter the foyer and the keys take turns fumbling their way from your fingers into the lock. None of them want to work tonight. None of these keys wants to be your baby. Ugh. Why are there so many keys? Sounds like an eighties song.
You give up and throw the keys back into your pocket, carefully balancing the slice in your other hand all the while. Looking at the buttons to buzz each different apartment, you realize that you have no idea which number it is. You always just walk up the stairs until you see something you recognize, turn right, and knock on the second or third door. You’ll know it when you see it. You don’t have time for buzzers and numbers, you are a man of action. God damn the little silver buttons. There must be thousands of them. Hundreds even. This leaves you with only one option. Foregoing the advantages of opposable thumbs and general dexterity, you begin to mash all the buttons with your palm. You high five the wall a couple of times before holding your hand on as many as possible. Someone has to hear you, and sure enough, a few moments later the door besides you buzzes and you swing it open, victorious.
You knew it would be easy enough, finding the right apartment door once you got in. It’s on the floor with the broken banister and the small basket of flowers hanging on the first door. However, a new problem presents itself as the door is locked. You wonder how it is that you were chosen for all these trials tonight, plucked from the Irish graveyard without a place to piss, pizza to eat, cat to hit, time machine to drive, and now not once, but twice your reentry to the apartment has been tested. Not even the… shit… it was the ancient Greek guy… what was his name… trying to return home… ah… fuck him. Not even Rocky had this much resistance when he was going against the Russian in Rocky IV. Exactly. Nice one.
You can’t bring yourself to deal with the keys again right now, so you knock on the door as hard as possible.
“Open up. Open up, you assholes.”
You can’t hear anything stirring inside, so you turn around and lean against the door, sliding down slowly until you’re seated on the floor and place the paper plate with your pizza slice on the ground next to you. Your head leans back, banging against the door as your eyes close. You could sleep here. You’ve slept in worse. Yeah, this could work if no one answers. You reach your arm up weakly and bang one last time before letting it slack to your side.
Just before you can fall asleep, the door swings open behind you so fast that you just fall back and lay on the floor, facing the ceiling. Opening your eyes, it’s Scizone looking down on you. Fortunately, it was his apartment that you were looking for all along.
“Where the fuck were you coming from?” he mutters, rubbing his eyes.
“I went for a walk,” you say matter-of-factly, then correct yourself, “I wanted pizza. Here’s your keys.”
“These aren’t my keys… I don’t know whose these are.”
“Oh. Well, here. Take them anyway.”
You stumble to your feet and close the door behind you, following Scizone into the apartment.
“You know,” you begin, “I always have believed that if a person just keeps on opening doors and holding them for strangers, things are gonna go their way.”
Scizone isn’t buying it. “You’re not a stranger, you’re an asshole.” He stretches his arms and adds, “My head is fucking killing me.”
“Yo, did you see The Beav? He’s assed out in the tub,” you laugh.
Scizone smiles, “Yeah, I turned on the shower and he didn’t even move.”
“What a fuckbag.”
Scizone’s eyebrows scrunch together. “Where’s your pizza?”
You look around the apartment and shrug, “Dude, I don’t even know. I don’t care. I don’t even want it anymore.”
“Whatever, I’m going back to bed,” he says and disappears down the hall, closing a door behind him.
You walk around the living room with no destination. You look out the window into the alley. The cat is gone. So is the slice of pizza you forfeited earlier. But you recognize the stain of your piss on the brick exterior below you. And the smell of booze still hangs in the apartment.
Okay, bed time.
You make a point to kick Chuck on your way back to your couch. He doesn’t respond. He looks like he might be sucking his bandaged thumb. Whether this is true or not, you’re telling everyone that he was in the morning. You lay back, pull someone’s jacket over your lap and lean your head back, completely satisfied.
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