TROUBL

Jason, at the computer, inspected typing that was appearing across the monitor. Keying backspace, the letter “n” was removed; it left two vowels standing by themselves. Jacob was putting his spine on his mattress. Three feet from the ceiling, he crossed arms over his heart and watched eight-legged bugs protrude out the ceiling’s light fixture. “You came from the library?” he asked.
“No.”
“Where you comin’ from?”
“Jessy’s.”
“Oh,” surprise was locked on his tone. He reshaped his body position, “What’s up wit’ her?”
“Nothin’,” Jason said without turning towards the conversation. Keyboard chatter misplaced itself as he bent down at bound pages on the floor. Jason put the book on the desk. With a brown collage of burn spots, it held a lot in its arms–compact discs, pencils and pens, a Webster’s Book, pictures, papers, time keepers, packs for backs, dirty clothes, and money without homes. He opened it, scanned pages with his fingers and started to key once again.
Walking through the hallway, Grace nearly hit Maurice as she left the bathroom. Sweat beads condensed on her frame, and towels covered her head to toe. She smothered her back against the wall and let him pass. Thinking to herself, Grace retraced her steps. She wiped down the foggy mirror, latched the bathroom passage, and listened to the ceiling fan hum.
“You got it?” Jason kept doing what he was doing, and Jacob descended to the floor. “Damn,” he spoke under breath. Through the screen, “What’s up Rip?”
He stepped in, “Shit.”
“Where you comin’ from?”
“Home.” He shadowed Jacob to his room. Taking a yellow cushion from under Jason’s bunk, Rip sat next to the sliding closet.
At the desk, Jacob sifted about various materials. He stood upright and watched air. “Watch out,” he told his brother, sliding out a drawer. Jacob took some money, a coat, and began to move.
“Damn, it ain’t snowin’,” Rip said from his seat. Jason started to laugh.
“Fuck ya’ll,” Jacob said with a smile over his face. Putting his mid-finger up, he let go of his coat and walked out in an over shirt with sleeves.
“Maurice? Maurice?” she doubled called for him. Sprawled on his stomach, he laid his head as if it were not breathing. His feet were still covered with shoes, and his hat was lazy on his head. “Maurice? Maurice? Mau…” He switched his body a bit. A non-decodable mutter left from his lips, muffling in the bed pillow. “Maurice. Move,” Grace called. His jacket was one-half on. It was nudged by his wife. Giving in, she unrolled the towel over her body, leaving it under Maurice’s left leg and freeing hair to leave towards her mid-back.
Her fingers sank into an indentation in the closet’s circular handle. Moving one end along tiny wheels, Grace adjusted eyes to vivid clothes that appeared in deep blues and grays beneath the closet’s unlit setting. Reaching to the bottom, she tried to decipher muddled signatures of shoe lines. Neatly stacked in the corner by her unworn things, there were fifty or so boxes. Women’s footwear, from high to no heals, took Grace’s entire half of the closet.
Under a garage overhang, dented by a timber collision, Jacob and Rip chatted against a home’s front drop. A gray vehicle broke the facade, exposing points of disgust that went inside. Molded floors, webs of spiders, decaying support beams, and an occasional rat played in the lacked abundance of decadence.
“What’s up?”
A black woman in black flip-flops met his path. “Le’ me get some?”
“Some of wha’?”
“You kno’,” she rubbed her lips with her tongue.
Jacob met eyes with Rip. He was acknowledging a teenage female. She shook Rip’s palm and slid down the street. “Rip?”
“Yeah,” he replied, moving away from the hydrant in a quick fashion.
“Who is she?”
“I ‘on’t know,” he said while laughing.
“Come on. Ya’ll done seen me before. Give me–”
“–A’right,” Jacob said in a low voice. He reached inside the gray vehicle’s back seat and took a drop out a plastic bundle pouch. Exchanging a hand, the woman left, clutching a tube-like glass within her left palm.
“Mommy,” Rip spoke from the mangled and contorted trunk.
“Yeah,” Jacob started to laugh. Just above, a cloud rotated. A sunbeam gave a slight puddle an illuminated surface like a mirror or fine polished glass. It scorched Jacob’s look, causing his eye lids to cringe.
From his position, the parallel street dragged long and far. The divide, a concrete bending curb, trapped trees and ground rock dust. The station for gas was thick, cars and bodies congregated around it. Three stray felines trotted by Rip’s sight. Two dogs succeeded, one in fuller height than the other. He threw a piece symbol at the blue box driving pass, connecting eyes with the driver. “Dude?”
“Yeah?” Jacob sparked a black and mild cigar.
“Man…”
“What?” Jacob spoke inside curiosity, putting the black lighter into his pocket. “There you go,” he pointed exhaled smoke. A woman was coming at them.
“Wha’ you need?”
“One,” Rip moved off the trunk and slid his forearm through the back window. Shaking her palm, he returned to his position and she raced up the concrete walk.