Volume One: The Road Out
Chapter Two
Verse Two: The Chorus and the Magpie
Harley's landlady could be heard
walking above them. The floors creaked with each step, and the old
house seemed to flex with each footfall. Harley looked up reflexively
each time the creaks announced that the landlady's movement through
the house. The landlady was a widow, Marion knew this. And Marion
knew that the rent for Harley's basement suite was very low, even
accounting for the fact that the suite did not include laundry and
had only a shower and not a bathtub.
Harley clasped his hands behind him,
letting Marion know how concerned the situation had made his friend.
Harley's father worked as an accountant and his mother worked a
claims investigator for an insurance firm. Harley's parents had
trained Harley that everything needed to be in neat little lines and
carefully documented, that any error could be fatal. Harley had not
internalized this as thoroughly as they had hoped. Despite this
deviance from his parent's teachings, Marion had always trusted
Harley to be the reliable one, the steady and methodical one. Harley
didn't yell, didn't fly off the handle, didn't jump at shadows,
didn't get drunk and take an inflatable moose to prom. Marion did
that stuff, and Harley still pulled Marion's fat out of the fire.
"I'm sorry to do this to you. I
feel like a colossal screw up. And I'm starting to think I really do
have something wrong with my brain."
"You're problem is that you're too
nice and don't know how to compromise your standards. That's a tough
combination." Harley said in his usual level voice, the kind of
voice you would use to speak to panicking toddler.
"You're the one who's too nice.
How many times are you going to help me after I screw things up?"
"All of them." Harley said,
"Who collected pop cans all summer so I could afford to go on
the exchange program to Greece? Who cleaned up the Chemistry lab
after I blew up the fume hood, so I didn't have to stay behind and
miss the basketball quarter finals? Who skipped class to run to the
flower shop to buy flowers for Amy when I found she was allergic to
the flowers I'd already bought? You've helped me just as often as
I've helped you. We're best friends and that's what you do."
Marion looked away and wiped his eyes
before turning back.
"Thanks. That means a lot to me."
"We're friends. Night and Day.
That's not going to change. I've got your back. The challenge here is
my landlady."
"I don't really know her, except
that she's kind of a funny old lady."
"Mrs. Critchwood is a suspicious
lady who doesn't rent to loud renters and doesn't trust quiet
renters. She doesn't work and needs to rent out the basement suite to
make enough money to get by, but she doesn't like doing that."
"Why doesn't she like quiet
renters?" Marion asked.
"She thinks they're up to
something. She thinks everyone is up to something."
"She'd really have a problem with
me crashing at your place while I get back on my feet?"
"She has a problem with Amy
staying the night. Although that's partially because she has a
problem with us 'being sinful in the eyes of the almighty' or
something equally old fashioned. So yeah. She has a problem with
everything."
"So I just stay out of sight in
the mornings. I come over a fair amount already. How would she know
if I'm staying here if she doesn't see me before noon?"
"She comes and goes at all hours,
so it won't be easy. She's on long-term disability from her job, I
don't know what for- she just says it's something you can't see."
Harley walked back and forth as he
spoke, closing his eyes frequently to concentrate.
"I don't think she sleeps much,
and she's up awfully early. She gardens a lot, which is going to make
sneaking in and out difficult. You'll need a job as quick as
possible, so you need to be handing out resumes. But you'll have to
check if she's outside. If she's in the house, she likes to sit in
the living room. I see her staring out the window all the time when I
come home, so use the back yard to avoid being seen. But don't do
that around noon or dinner time, she'll be in the kitchen then."
"You make this sound like a James
Bond movie."
"It basically will be. The rent is
really good here and I don't want to lose this place, but she's
completely unhinged and that complicates things."
As Marion listened to Harley, he heard
the door open and looked to see Amy closing the door behind her as
she entered. Amy was Harley's girlfriend, she stood about five feet
tall and was a tiny faerie like girl who seemed vulnerable to even
the slightest breeze. Her face scrunched as though she had eaten a
whole grapefruit when she saw Marion.
"The freak is here, I see. I
thought we were alone tonight." She said as she dropped her tote
bag in the entry way and kicked off her fur lined boots, "What
was your plan for dinner? Are we sharing our dinner with the loonie?"
Harley turned to face Amy as he
answered, "I hadn't taken the time to think about dinner.
Marion's in a pickle and I've been helping him. He needs a place to
stay for a while."
Amy narrowed her eyes and Harley began
to pace again in response.
"And where is he going to stay?"
Amy asked, her voice rising in tone and volume as she spoke.
"He's been evicted from his
place." Harley said, “His landlord is a jerk and so is his
boss. So he got fired and evicted as a result of a kind of ludicrous
pile of bad luck and weird coincidences. I mean this is the sort of
thing in a story that makes you think the author is out of ideas and
so he's just going to play go. You either laugh or cry. So he has no
job and no home right now. So he needs a place to stay. And he's my
best friend, so I'm letting him sleep on the couch while he gets
things sorted." Harley maintained his usual tone as he spoke
although as he continued to speak he began to speed up, his words
starting to bump into each other on the way out.
Amy shook her head and continued to
scrunch her face up. "The loonie has moved in with you? He was
bad enough when he just visited occasionally. You are not getting
laid while he's around to listen and enjoy himself."
"I can go for a walk." Marion
offered.
"That's a good idea," Amy
said, squaring her feet and placing her hands on her shoulders, "Take
your junk with you and find a park bench. That's about your standard,
right?"
"Hey." Harley said, his voice
just a hair above it's normal calm level, "Marion is my best
friend. It's not appropriate to talk to him like that."
"Come on guys," Marion said,
"Don't fight. Let's not follow the script to every crummy
romantic comedy ever made."
"Do you hear him insulting me?"
Amy's voice rose to a shrill edge.
"That wasn't an insult. He doesn't
want us to fight. I don't want us to fight." Harley kept his
voice even as he spoke, but he was still pacing.
"He's the cause of the fight, so
he doesn't get a say in what happens in this house." Amy thrust
an index finger to the ground for emphasis as she spoke.
"I've known him since we were
little. I've known him longer than I've known anybody but my family.
He's my best friend."
"He's a loonie and screw up and
now he's a mooch." As Amy spoke, Harley kept looking up at his
ceiling in short little glances. His eyes would flick upward and then
return to looking at Amy as she spoke. "I can talk about him how
I like, and you don't get to tell what to do."
"I'm not telling you what to do."
Marion said, he voice perfectly level, "I am pointing out that
you are being mean to my best friend after he has had maybe the worst
day of his life. And I am pointing out that such behaviour isn't very
nice."
"Tough. Weaklings are nice and the
world walks all over them. It's walking over you right now and
apparently sleeping on your couch. Marion is a loonie who needs to be
put in an asylum- and if you want to let your place be that asylum
then that's just proof at how much he manipulates you.
"Maybe I should just go."
Marion said.
"Best idea you've ever had."
Amy answered.
"You aren't going." Harley
said to Marion. Then he turned and spoke to Amy again, "You
would honestly let him sleep on a park bench? Do you think that's the
decent thing to do?"
"The decent thing wouldn't be for
him to barge into your home and your life like this. He just needs to
go. In fact, I not going to spend time here when that loonie is still
in the building. Either he sleeps here or I do, not both. You can
decide who's more important to you. But if he's not gone soon, I'm
going to let Mrs. Witch Lady upstairs know that Marion is here. Then
we'll see what's decent."
Amy then turned around and stuffed her
feet back in her boots and stormed out. She slammed the door very
loudly on the way out an Harley flinched and looked up to the ceiling
again.
There was a long moment of silence in
which to the two friends stared at the door.
"Well that didn't go well."
Harley finally said in to the silence.
"She forgot her tote bag."
Marion said.
