Josephine Skinny Jeans: Chapter 3

It's possible I was having an acid flashback or some kind of semi-conscious when I opened the door of #3. I keep telling myself that. I heard clanging and what sounded like two voices murmuring to each other, so I crept into the living room all quiet and grabbed the steel bat I always keep propped behind the couch. You know, the just in case you need to trap a dynamic burglaring duo inside your apartment 'til the cops arrive or you decide they deserve some blunt force trauma bat. Followed a trail of coral paint splatters to my kitchen for some reason, and I quickly learned what that reason was.

Lee was standing over the counter, his naked hairy flat ass facing in my direction. His arms and what I could see of his side and upper body were covered in what looked like the orangey house paint he had insisted we redo the bathroom with. His frame was obscuring what was unmistakeably the upper half of a female made of wood- I could see its forehead and carven blonde locks of hair peeking out over his shoulder. I cleared my throat very loudly.

My roommate jerked around towards me, wooly irish chest hairs plastered down with paint over his nipples, huge fuckin' silly grin on his face.

“I'm on mushrooms!” He bellowed. 

The figurehead was now in plain view, and adorned with painstakingly detailed areolas and a thicket of strawberry-blonde pubic hair. Its protruding nipples appeared to have been whittled erect. Lee took an aggressive swig from a cup of water, then spat it out immediately all over the counter (it was the muddy swill cup he used to clean his brushes in). 

“I haff a splinter on my tongue,” he slurred, extending it towards me. It was bleeding profusely.

“Shit man, were you sucking on that thing's tits?”

My roommate turned up the Dead and began to headbang ever so gently to the crunchy jam band blaring from the speakers instead of answering me. His fluffy moustache wafted through the air like the aroma of a home-cooked meal after years of being away. I put some coffee on. After a few minutes Lee skulked off to his room as briskly as a wasted degenerate possible could skulk buck naked and covered with paint, leaving me alone with Our Lady of the Sharpened Nips. He was very quiet for a long time. When the brew was finished percolating I poured myself a large cup of black and diluted it with whatever was left of the Jameson, which was actually a lot more Jameson than I thought. I took my treat and crashed down in the squashy armchair in front of my computer, and against my better judgement began to scour the internet for the bar girl who made me feel like a hooker. Turns out we had a friend in common: Libby. They were both listed as members of the Sacred Heart Academy of Hempstead Class of '01. Rich little private school girl grown up slithery white dress pool table slut, spinning off in her sporty yet affordable wheels while I stood there still hard in the parking lot. And next to a picture of her face lit up and shady in all the most mysterious places under a neon sign, a face wearing big sunglasses under cover of nightfall while an unlit cigarette dangles forlorn from peach lips, there's her last name: Campanion. Fucking ha.

I drained the last of the spiked blend, craining my head and shooting it down the back of my throat like a pelican eating fish. The last spicy dregs barely passed my gullet before I choked painfully as wild mixture of impossible noises detonated across the apartment.

“BLAAAGHH!!! OOUNNAAAHH!!!!” 

It blared anguished and gutteral like six deaf guys taking on a rhino with their bare hands. Then quiet again. I mad-dashed for Lee's bedroom, tried to shove through the door but couldn't 'cause his lanky frame was slumped against it. Finally wedged it open enough to squeeze through, and first thing I saw was bone. Bone and a shitload of blood, pooling out from a jagged maw below his shoulder, and he was writhing in it dazedly/ He had a hacksaw in his slackened grip.

“CHRIST, man, oh FUCK, Jesus, how much did you take? What the FUCK did you do to yourself??”

Lee's pupils were as big as saucers, but he was struggling to keep his eyes open.

“I wanna be wood,” he moaned tragically over and over, “I wannt be wood...”

I dug through his laundry and snatched up a pair of skidmarked boxers, which I struggled one-handed to pull up over his ass while simultaneously dialing 911 with my other hand.

“Yeah, uh, Myrtle Ave. Number 113. My roommate slashed through his bicep bad. I can see bone. And, ugh, tendons, I'm pretty sure those are tendons. He's passing out. Thank you.”

I stayed on the line 'til I heard the sirens from Woodhull, circled the block twice before slowing to a crawl in front of the building. Lee had been heavily unconscious for almost 10 minutes by then, but he was breathing like an emphysemic wildebeast and he definitely still had a pulse because the blood was still pumping out of him. Not like I just let him lay there gushing out onto the floor, though. There were no sheets on Lee's bed so I bound his shoulder up with some black mesh curtains a previous tenant must have left in the living room closet. There was a big dead roach being eaten by three little roaches wrapped up inside it. They bolted as soon as I put the curtains down next to Lee, probably to find a new home in his grungy shithole of a room. Lucky them, they'll live like kings forever in that place.

I let the EMTs in downstairs and searched for my wallet and keys while they strapped Lee to the gurney. He groaned softly. I found my valuables in a neat pile next to my laptop, but when I shoved them into my pockets I noticed something that filled me with cold lava: in the panic brought about by my roommate thinking he was a wooden mannequin I must have accidently clicked my mousepad, requesting to be the online companion of one Josephine Campanion. A measly hour after our 15 minutes of impromptou car sex and I'd given her incontrovertible evidence that I was an extremely efficient stalker. Fuck.