Movie Kid

"Switch?" She called from the staircase. Eight minutes early. I'd been counting. I never miss a count, not by more than a minute. Damn kid ever hear of a watch? You're supposed to be on time for folks, its just the decent thing to do.

I jumped in the shower. "I'm in the shower."
I never could lie to the kid.

I stood there in the shower a while, my foot throbbing, it got a little banged during the jump. You think you've got a good sense of where things are, and then you don't. I usually do.

I waited for it to subside, standing in the still shower, which is a strange thing and feels kind of wrong. It felt like it ought to have been boring too, but it was good, like a vacation or getting lost in a grocery store or something.

I don't how long it'd been. I stopped counting. I never stop counting. I began to grow all itchy, one of those ithes you can't scratch, where its just there, you don't know where you feel it, you just feel it. My watch was real itchy a lot, one of those cheap aluminum jobs, so i chucked it onto the tile floor. It didn't even thud, just squished into the carpet of muck. Can't even get a good thud when you want it. It didn't make the itching stop either. I knew it wouldn't.

She knocked again, or somebody knocked again. I guess she could've left and someone else come. So, I turned, wobbly on my abused ankle, and fumbled for the faucet. The water moved through it, those pipes, with a thud, a good thud. Man, it knew what was up. I hoped she didn't hear the water come on just then. I supposed to have been in there for a while

I was crashing through the apartment the moment I barely could. I knocked over the vase and a couple of reels. Glass shattered all over the damn place.

"Hey Switch!"

She knocked.

I sprinted for a camera, I don't know which one I grabbed, it still hadn't quite worn off, which is why I was crashing around like a maniac. I filmed the carpet and the fuzzy glass, I bet it looked like something. And I wanted to know that something. I left it recording, must've been one of the older u-matics, it felt good against my face, simple and smooth, and had more of a base sound than that mosquito hum of the newer models.

"Switch?" She was sounded damn worried, in that movie kid kind of way, supposed to break your heart or something. I felt real bad about making her wait, so
I tidied up the film reels as best I cold, careful not to fingerprint them. It felt better to make them right. When they're right I'm right.

"Hey Alien"
"Hey Switch"

Her pitch matched mine damn near perfectly, like some sort of confirmation of the false fact that we got each other. I always did think that damn kid kind of got me or something. I usually get people. I didn't get her though. She smiled like she hadn't been waiting a while, but she had, she smiled like she'd been waiting a while, but at the same she hadn't been waiting a while. I don't know how she did it.

"You're taller" I remarked.
"You're stinkier"
"Yeah" Yeah, I probably was.

I guess I should've talked then to the girl, the lady, the ma'am, the whatever the damn she was that was with her, but I don't like talking to folks, seems more respectable not to. She seemed a little scary too, with one of those polyester jobs that shrink and tug and say "I bought my pale tomatoes one isle over from where I bought this tugging and talking matching polyester job I'm wearing that was shelved between a boy's bathing suit with the last decade's cartoon characters on it and a Monopoly game with instructions printed in Spanish. She had either eaten one too many pale tomatoes or was creating a consumer for the cartoon character bathing suit and an El Monoployo game.

The girl, lady, ma'am, whatever the damn opened her mouth at me before taking. Not really a smile, just sort unhinged her jaw in my general direction.

"Mr. Switcher, someone's been by to inspect?"

What I am, a bug?
"Yeah."
No.

"They went over the legal?"

That sentence lacks a damn subject.
"Yeah."
No.

She unhinged her jaw at me again.
She wanted to know what took so long answering the door. I wanted to tell her. I want to tell that damn kid. I couldn't tell her though, not for the sake, the well fair they say, of that damn kid.

"You're cloths are wet."

What is this, damn Jerusalem? My 'cloths' are wet, are my robes and sandals dry though?

"I took a shower."

Alien piped up.
"You take a shower with your close on?"
Pipe down kid.

"Mr. Switcher, you shower with all your clothes on?"
Careful, don't to burst out of your polyester.

"Yeah, I shower with all my clothes on."

Quick, don't think about elephants. Thinking about elephants?

Polyester left. Left me with the kid, the kid she calls "Eileen" like it hurts to talk.

"Uh..." I grabbed her bulging suitcase and put inside, next to the reels and tapes. I put the u-matic, it was the newer one, seventy-six, not new enough to hum I guess, down.

Alien looked up at me with those damn movie kid eyes of hers.

"Do you have laundry?"

"No. Just my, my, well, everything."

She shrugged and smiled her braces covered movie kid smile.
"Guess its just not dirty yet."

She's damn funny. I like this kid, always have.

"I thought we'd go to the laundry mat. I thought you'd have laundry."
"I'm sorry"
"I do laundry every month. I thought you'd have more than once a month laundry"
"I can have more than once a month laundry"
"But you don't today."
"I don't today."

"Want dinner?"
"I want dinner."

We walked over to Mr. Foo's. Alien wanted to take the camera, the film one. But I told her there's no point in filming what you can see.

Mr. Foo's smelled like rice and nail polish. I didn't eat much. Alien ate like a goat. Damn kid. Ha. Ha. Kid.

We came back, I made sure we walked real fast past the old package store, nothing a damn kid ought to see.

We sat around the apartment for a while, I figured we'd sit and chew the shit for a while, but she was just drawing something on a yellowed pad of paper she'd brought. Those damn movie kids are always drawing pictures, of elephants the color of raspberry ice cream.
I showed Alien her bedroom, next to the old desk, in the corner of the living room I'd blocked with boxes of film.

"This is cool" She said with wide movie kid eyes. When I showed her her bedroom, a corner of the living room I shoved a cot in. It was pretty private, blocked off by walls of film and tape. A couple of Time magaiznes and few issues of Rolling Stone, mostly from the eighties.

"Bye" I said, leaning over and tugging on my sneakers.
"Where are you going?"
"To work." To work, to work, doesn't the damn kid know I work?

"You're leaving?"
"Of course."

"Oh."
"I'll be back" I added.

"I know!"
She didn't know.

I pulled the rusted draw string in the doorway. The light flicked off. It was perfectly dark.
"Don't talk to strangers."

"There will strangers in the apartment?" She said, bolting her movie kid face into the doorway where I was.

No, I just didn't know what else to say to you kid.

"If there are, don't talk to them." I winked.

I heard the swooshing of blankets. I'd put the best blankets on that cot, those blankets were the best in all of Watershed Heights, I guarantee it. That kid wasn't going to have pale tomatoes smelling blankets.

Then it was starting up again. I burrowed out of the apartment quick, before it turned into a steeple chase course. I felt around for the right key to lock the door, not that one, not that one, the last one, that one.

"Switch?" She called. "Can you leave the light on?"

I was blind then.
"Why do you want to leave the light on? Aren't you going to sleep?"
"Yeah, but, sometimes when you want to fall asleep, its easier with light, like the dark is too dark, and the light is like a better dark, 'cuz you're asleep." She was twisting her words in circles. "Its like fake dark."

So I crashed around until I located the fake dark switch.

Quick, there's an elephant in the room you can't see, don't look at it.

I tapped along the sidewalk, by the time I got to the theatre it was gone. I played Citizen for the ten o'clock. No one came. They rarely do.

I have this fantasy, that if it rained dimes, slick, shiny dimes, over Watershed Heights, it'd look just like Xanadu, and we'd be none the happier, but I'd have a cool fedora like Orson.