Thursday, January 31, 2013

Popcorn Lung

 photo popcornlung_zps09622e7f.jpg
                                                                 
When she told me it was over I cried a little bit and then hung up the phone and raced over to her apartment to drop off her waffle iron and her dog. We’d actually discussed it the day before, so I wasn’t completely shocked. The next day was just the end of the end I guess.

She’d broken up with me a few times before, so the waffle iron was the only thing I had left of hers. The time before she’d given back one of my DVDs and another French one that belonged to my cousin. We never watched it.

I don’t know why in the hell I took her dog for the night. Sentimentality maybe, or I just thought we’d actually get back together again the next day. Her landlord was coming over to look at the AC vents because they smelled like sewage when the guy upstairs flushed the toilet. The dog was pretty excitable, so it was best if she wasn’t there. I didn’t mind watching her really. 

We went for a walk the next morning and she squatted in the yard of a small apartment building. She’d already shit somewhere else, but I looked around to see if anyone was watching. On the basement floor of the apartment I saw an old man with pale, wiry hair staring at us from below.

He yelled something out the window about having respect. He sounded German or Yiddish, I wouldn’t have known the difference.  

“She’s just peeing…a dog’s gotta pee,” I said and dismissed his concern with a wave of my arm in the air. That must’ve incited him because then he yelled ‘fuck you’ over and over until we walked away. An old woman came up behind him and grabbed his arm but I couldn't understand what she was saying. Both sets of eyes looked like moon pies or Little Lulu eyeballs. I returned a ‘fuck you’ to him once, but felt guilty as we strolled away at a decent clip. I’ll never forget the image of that old man peering up from the basement, his face level with the dog’s ass. She really didn’t shit though. He had nothing to worry about.