Monty’s front door was unlocked. I barely leaned on it as I padded all my pockets, looking for my keys. When it swung wide, I fell into the house. I half expected to find Monty laughing as I stumbled on my feet, but the hall was empty.
Though I’d eaten my fill of toxic burger, the hollow feeling settling in my stomach wasn’t totally related to the poor food choice. Coming home to an empty house was just wrong. My breath hitched in my throat. Had I really thought of Monty’s as home? That had to stop. Like now. Seemed like I was giving up on Mom or befriending the enemy. No matter how Monty had begun to grow on me.
This wasn’t home.
And it never could be.
I flicked on the light and scanned the living room. An utter disaster. If I didn’t know better, I’d have thought someone broke in and trashed the place, but this was how Monty lived.
Shabby chic with a side of slob.
It appeared Monty’s little shack had been overlooked by the unscrupulous, but there would be a face-smacking lecture on home security when he got in. Really, in this day and age you couldn’t go around leaving your front door open, especially on a Saturday night in the dead of February.
I slammed the door and flipped the lock, rolling my shoulders against the tension threatening to setup shop in my neck. The old bastard was way too trusting, or oblivious to the slow decline of the neighborhood. Mom would never have been able to afford a house anywhere else in town. One of her proudest moments was buying our bungalow, tarnished only by Monty’s close proximity.
And now I was living with the old coot.
I pushed aside heavy velvet drapes, and waved to Grace from the large window. I was inside. Safe. She honked her horn and drove away. Good thing she hadn’t known or Grace would have insisted on doing a sweep through all the rooms.
Which I did, my pulse racing ever so slightly as I locked the back door.
I headed down to my basement hideout. Thankfully, no one skulked in the shadows. The house was clear. This time.
Who would make sure Monty’s was safe when I left? I probably wouldn’t see him again after Mom was back on her feet and I went home.
The idea of some future lack of Monty made that hollowness in my gut expand into a deep pit of angst. Or maybe I was getting an ulcer. How superfantastic.
I kicked off my boots and made for my bed. At least things were in order down here. Things were in their place. My things. My place. Since the basement was unfinished, I had sectioned off a room-sized area by stapling tie-dyed sheets to the exposed wood beams in the ceiling. An old fridge served as my dresser, clothes folded neatly on the wire racks. Stacked milk crates of all colors formed makeshift bookshelves, loaded with a combination of schoolbooks and trashy romance novels I bought at a garage sale.
I dive-bombed my bed, a bouncy pull-out couch, and instantly regretted it. The mattress was thinner than a panty liner and my hip connected with the bar that spanned the width of the couch. I rolled around until the pain faded, springs poking willy-nilly into my body despite the buffer of several comforters.
I turned on one of a dozen or so old boomboxes lining the floor. Monty kept finding them in his garage. “I know how you young people like your music,” he’d say and hand me another.
He had no concept of iPods and their strange smallness. To him, the bigger the better – the easier to fix. Monty used to be an electrician with his own shop. He had loads of appliances and God-knows-what kicking around.
I tried to stay awake until Monty showed, but the radio static lulled me to sleep.
The next morning I walked into the living room, ready to give Monty a piece of my mind, but all thoughts of lecturing him about stranger danger and keeping the house locked up fled when I stood in the entranceway. I asked, “Who’s the bitch?”
The female in question scrambled from her somewhat compromising position – flat on her back on the brown shag carpet, legs spread wide – to face me on all fours.
Monty sat on the couch watching TV; he’d been rubbing her bare belly with his foot. He put on his slipper and introduced us. “This here’s Mona.” The fingers he ran down her sleek neck had a slight tremor. “I was hoping you two would get acquainted. She’s been hiding in my room, too scared to show herself until today.”
I held out my hand, and looked directly into doe-brown eyes glazed with residual pleasure. Mona leaned forward, her tongue hanging out ever so slightly, and opened her mouth as if to speak.
Then she bit me.
“Call her off,” I exclaimed, aiming a low kick at the foot high, two-foot wide Beagle trying to consume my hand.
I missed. She took another chomp. “Rotten little…oww…”
My wails sparked her interest. She disengaged her jaws and threw her head back, howling.
Monty laughed and added his own yips, inciting Mona to produce increasingly higher pitches so it sounded like she was being gutted alive – which wasn’t such a bad idea. In the end, I cleaned and bandaged my perforated hand in the time it took for them to get bored with the whole barking at the moon thing.
After they settled down I said, “I can’t believe I’ve been here for weeks and haven’t heard Mona the Orgasmically Loud Dog.” Mona lay at Monty’s feet, panting rapidly. Her breathing grew labored. I grew concerned. “Is she okay?”
“She’s fine. Just hungry. If I don’t feed her every few hours she gets fractious. Who’s a hungry bear, now?” Monty cooed to the gasping dog.
He talked to her like mom talked to me last week at the hospital. Yikes, they were more alike than they knew. Mona resumed her position, moaning in ecstasy, perhaps how she got her name in the first place, with Monty’s woolen-sock-clad foot rubbing her belly.
“I’m going out for a bit.” I said. “Can I borrow one of your jackets?” Monty had a bewildering array of winter stuff stashed in the porch closet. Most were items he’d picked up from fallen comrades – guys who bit it at the old folks home. He was crazy frugal.
“Take what you need,” he said. “Didn’t cost me a thing.” He glanced at the clock above the fireplace. “It’s awful early to be out. And cold. You need a ride somewhere?”
“No. I’m walking. It’s not far.” I pilfered a knee length military style navy jacket. It was huge on me. I added a few cardigans underneath for extra bulk.
“Your mother call this week?”
“No.” I wished he would stop with the questions. Sweat dampened my armpits. The wool cardigans itched.
“You going to visit her?”
I shrugged. It was my scheduled day to drop by but I hadn’t decided if I was ready for the inevitable emotional wringer waiting beyond the hospital doors. Last visit with Mom ended with me shoving my boob at the nearest hottie. Who knew what treats were in store this time?
“Wanna talk about anything? School? Your mother? Boys? Your mother?”
“Not really.”
Monty reddened. “God damn! I hate this parenting crap.”
I decided enough was enough and slammed him with a few questions of my own. “Want to tell me where you were last night? And why you left the doors open?”
Monty took out his teeth, gave me a gummer grin, which could have meant anything, and popped the dentures back in his gob.
“This isn’t exactly a posh area of town, Monty. You’re an old fart, an easy target. Next time, lock’er up before you decide to go see the strippers, or whatever you were doing until all hours.”
He turned away as dramatically as he could while still rubbing Mona and keeping his butt firmly planted on the couch. He grabbed the remote and flicked through channels. “Just get your skinny ass home by dark.”
One more question from him and I might have buckled. One more crinkle of those tired old eyes and I might have blurted out the whole sordid mess – the list, the photo, the elevator, the groping. Instead, I left M&M to their black and white movies and belly rubs.
I set off for the restaurant, and the guy I couldn’t get out of my head.