That hot day last june.
Rick Bass was a drug addict, and the uncommonly clement weather that hot day last june brought him down his metal staircase before lunch. Living in the top half of an empty house was a strange and vacuous existence and the sight of a girl raving out the orange carpet from the flat below was exciting to him, guessing about her he walked neigh bounced through the alley and burst out into the sun.
Lex was 17 and excited to be alone in the world and in possession of a door key, the flat was manky and there was the constant risk that the junkie above would burn the place down in the night but this did little to dampen the excitement that comes of quitting home and owning a rover metro.
Having no money and no job naturally seems to lend itself to sitting outside on hot metal steps, we had red indentations across our bare backs but we were too lazy to move. Your eyes were always wild but you made good pizza. You taught me to shoot a catapult, taught me how the ammo had to be circular, I bought you 50 sherbet balls from the shop on the corner, we peppered them down the alley at the street light and the kids. We tried all kinds of round sweets, we were pioneers. No more picking up ball bearings, we were invincible. You taught me to play poker and to drink a pint in one, I made you get a hair cut, your mum and dad were posh like mine...we laughed and we wrote our jokes in that policeman's notebook, you never told me where you got that. You played Tom Waits all night long and smoked all the time, my bed was underneath yours I used to lay there and wait for you to plummet through the ceiling in a pile of embers fallen asleep again with a fag on. You gave me poetry.
You never borrowed money from me, you never stole from me but my friends always wanted you to. When you didn't come with friday food I knew you were dead, I slept beneath you for three nights. Your cold body above me, your stella glass was on the wall. I shouted through your letterbox, I hated you smoking but I offered to get you fags like that would make you not be dead. I sat on the steps, James hated you and he sat with me. We stared at your filthy door, we willed your toilet to flush. The chilli plant died, I couldn't keep it alive. James said maybe you were out, but I knew you were in there pale and cold.
After 5 days I rang the landlord, he didn't come for 2 hours. I waited for him on the front wall, he arrived in his big merc we used to laugh at him for having 30 houses. I stood on the road and talked to him and his wife, thats when I heard your door slam, I heard you go out. When I ran through the house you'd gone, when we unlocked your door you were not dead you were just gone away. I fell in the alley trying to follow you, I have a scar on my knee.
You left our joke book, so I filled it. I went to university like we promised not to do, I read english - I got a first.
I bribed a bent mortgage broker and bought houses to rent to people like us.
I defected.
Bless you Rick Bass for that hot day in June when you shook my hand, bless you for never shagging me.
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