Page 30 - WTP VOl. XI #1

The Stranger Inside (continued from preceding page) do about him. He surely overheard, yet he stayed. A
few days later, Mitch finally managed to confront him.
But in his discomfort, Mitch overcompensated for his unassertive nature. It was as if some invisible line normally held him back, but once he crossed it he be- came a different person. He ended up screaming ob- scenities at Billy, throwing his few belongings down onto the sidewalk, barely resisting the urge to throw Billy himself down there. Then the rage subsided and he was again the self he knew.
Cleaning the apartment the next morning, he and Becca had found a stack of money beneath a pil-
low on the sofa. Becca, who handled their finances, claimed that they had come up inexplicably short recently and that this must be their money. She said Billy had probably stolen it but hadn’t been able to grab it unnoticed during the previous night’s chaos. Mitch was convinced it was Billy’s money, either ac- cidentally lost or left there as unspoken payment for services rendered in his time of need. He wanted to return it. But even if he had been assertive enough to defy Becca, there was nothing to do: Billy had left no forwarding address or other contact information. They lost touch with him, never seeing him again until—maybe—tonight.
That was the last time they had hosted anyone over- night. Of course shortly afterward, Becca learned that she was pregnant, and Emily’s birth would have concluded their days of letting friends crash on the sofa regardless of how things had ended with Billy. Still, the memory of that last night, and the discovery of the money afterward, made Mitch felt guilty.
~
But the memory of that night also made him wary about letting people into his home, especially late at night.
“Look, I’m sorry,” he said. “But it seems like you’ve changed, and I can’t—”
“Ah, fuckit, man!” The man gestured as if shoving away something rotten, then bent and picked up the cage. “You sure ain’t changed! Same tight-ass that kicked me outta that shithole on Second Avenue, back in the day.”
Later, Mitch would wonder why he had then unlocked the screen door. Guilt over his behavior when he evicted Billy a decade earlier? Guilt over starting to turn the man away just now, amplified by the man’s
contempt toward him for doing so? This new evi- dence that the man really was Billy, since he knew about the incident at the Second Avenue apartment?
Whatever the reason, Mitch opened the door. The man scuttled inside, cage in hand. Mitch held his breath at the odor the man left in his wake, fouling the sweet-summer-night air.
“Nice place, compadre,” the man said, looking around as he entered the living room. “Lotsa ’spensive shit.” He set the hamster cage down carefully, fiddling with something on its underside first. He removed his Stetson with a flourish and then sat on the sofa, smil- ing and comfortably interlocking his hands behind his head, elbows out.
“Thanks,” Mitch muttered, weighted down by the sense of having screwed up. Years ago Becca had saved him from possibly winding up like this man; now he needed to protect Becca, and above all Emily, from this man and his kind. The moment he let the man in, Mitch began trying to figure out how to get him out again.
“You got anythin’ to eat?”
“Sure,” Mitch said. Almost against his will, he shuffled off toward the kitchen.
“No s’prise you’re doin’ well,” the man continued. “Once you stopped gettin’ high you was always—” the man held his hands beside his eyes to imitate blinkers— “straight ahead, eyes on the prize. Protes- tant work ethic, makin’ America great.” He laughed, starting with a wheeze and ending with a coughing fit.
“Thanks,” Mitch said, although he knew he was being mocked rather than praised. He wanted to avoid ar- guments, wanted to keep things quiet, not wake the others in the house.
But as Mitch had walked away from him toward the kitchen, the man had gotten louder. Mitch hoped
that Emily, in the upstairs bedroom, might somehow sleep through this. But the bedroom he shared with Becca adjoined the living room. With a sinking feel- ing he realized that she could probably hear the man, perhaps smell him as well. And if she hadn’t heard clearly at first, she could use Alexa to catch every detail. Mitch wondered what she must be thinking.
He cut a few slices of the homemade bread Becca had baked earlier that evening and put them on a plate,
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