moving

by peter fontaine

    The boxes are everywhere, where everything should be, and we’re sitting on the last piece of furniture. We’ve been working since six a.m. and the July heat keeps getting worse.

    “Air-conditioner on?” I say.

   

    “Power was turned off today,” Dickey says. He was looking out the sliding glass doors at the balcony.  “Waited too long to do this, I guess.”

    “May have to wait longer,” I say. I have a rag and I’m wiping my face every five seconds. “Gus isn’t going to be here anytime soon, it looks like.”

    “Can’t wait any longer, I guess. Here, grab that end you’re sitting on.”

The move was Samantha’s idea. The couch, too. Dickey was my best friend and roommate until they met and moved in together. Seems like now the only time I see him anymore is when he’s moving, me being another set of arms, after all.

    The couch is the hardest thing. Dickey told me that Samantha had seen the couch while furniture shopping at close outs and she said she could fix this one up real nice.  “She upholstered it herself and everything,” he’d said. “She really fixed it up, but I think it’s still rotten inside.”  It had taken Gus and Dickey, with Samantha guiding them up the stairs, to get the couch in here.  Now it has to go out.

    Gus hasn’t shown yet, and we’ve got to put the couch in the truck before anything else, otherwise we’d have to unload at the new place and then come back for it this evening. We stand there looking at the couch and it just sits there.

    “It’s a monster,” I say. And it is.

    “We’ve got to put it in the truck, Gus or no Gus.  Do you want me to take the bottom half?”

    “Sure,” I say.  Dickey’s always been stronger, even stronger than Gus is. No way I could take the bottom half going down the stairs. We each get on a side and try lifting. We get it up to our waists and then my legs buckle. I don’t fall, but I drop my end.

    “Shit, fuck!” Dickey says.

    “Sorry, Dickey.”

    “Shit,” he says again.

    We try again, and this time my end slips through my fingers and almost nails me in the foot. Dickey curses again. He’s put his side down and he finally decides to sit on it. I sit on my side and look at the half-empty living room.

    “This is a shitty operation we got running here today, yes, sir.” Normally I’d say that was Dickey all over, trying to be sensible and responsible. I’m scared though, because of the sound in his voice. He slouches and hangs his head slightly. He doesn’t look at me, although I’m watching him. I know he’s pissed at me.

    “We can move it when Gus gets here.  He said he’d be here, right?”

    “I don’t know. Christ.”

    “Maybe you should try calling Gus, see if he’s coming.”

    “I can’t call him,” Dickey says.

    “Why not?”

    “I can’t call anybody. Land line’s gone too. We’re out officially today. Didn’t need the phone, so I packed it up. And Samantha has the cell. God fucking damn it!”

    Dickey is in some kind of state now.  I don’t remember ever seeing him so beat.

    “You got thirty-five cents, Dickey? I saw a payphone on my way here. I could call Gus for you. Maybe he’s on his way.”

    “Yeah, sure.” He’s angry and fishes in his pocket.

    “You’re not coming? We could grab a beer on the way back.”

    “No, I’ve got more boxes to load.”

    “What about the couch?”

    He winces, then shakes his head. “Just call Gus, and call Samantha, too. You know the numbers?”

    “Yeah,” I say.  I’m halfway to the payphone before I realize I don’t know what I’m supposed to tell her.

    When I get back I see the couch at the base of the stairs in a mutilated heap.  It looks like somebody tossed it off the balcony and then went after it with an axe for good measure.

    Dickey walks slowly down the stairs and finally stops at the heap of their couch, of Samantha’s couch.  He pulls out a cigarette and crumples the package and tosses it at the couch. I don’t say anything. I just look at the remains.

    “Did you tell her about the couch?” he says.

    I’m about to tell him that I didn’t know anything about the couch when I realize that’s not what he’s talking about at all.

Peter Fontaine is currently completing his PhD in Creative Writing at Georgia State University. He has been published previously in Rainbow Curve and Vagus Nerve.