Roommates

              When they refused Bradley’s dorm change, the office told him: “Wait one more semester and your roommate starts to grow on you.  You’ll see.”

But he was seeing Nayla—a beautiful, serene, Hindu goddess Bradley courted since freshman year.  And damn if Leon hadn’t ruined that, too.

              “Dot or feather?” Leon asked after Bradley invited her over the first night.  Nayla coming out of the bathroom in her pajamas, eight-o’clock-morning-classes looming.  Leon stops her in the hall on his way for another beer, poking his thumb to his forehead and fluttering his fingers like a headrest turkey. 

“I asked Brads,” Leon says, jabbing his acne-pocked brow with one thumb in the kindergarten gesture that means Cowboys and Indians.  “And he says you’re one of Gandhi’s people.”  Then Leon grinned his beer-dripping, donkey smile that meant he’d said something rude and that’s supposed to make it even funnier. 

              Nayla stormed back to the bedroom, grabbed her stuff, and told Bradley on her way out:  “I know you don’t get to choose your room assignment, but you can be goddamn sure I’ll choose mine.”

              And, hearing the slamming door, Bradley finally decided to kill his roommate. 

The next morning, staring at the mildew between the shower floor and drumming through the Org-Chem notes in his head, Bradley focused on the darkening tile.  Leon’s only responsibility in the dorm, the only thing Bradley refused to clean, was the twenty-square-foot bathroom they shared, which now looked closer to a closet-sized Petri dish.  A mold battlefield.   

              Bradley staring at the live bacteria, knowing it would never get cleaned, wondering how hard it might be to break off a few pieces of bathroom-tile and ram them up Leon’s pipes. 

              “Honey, I’m home.” Leon back from class.  Heading straight for the fridge and Bradley’s last beer.

              The green tile.  Christ—black tile in some places.  It’d take a jackhammer to clean some of this mess.

              “That girl last night sure was a cutie.  Even fer an immigrant.”

              No point mentioning Nayla’s grandparents were naturalized. 

              Gulp.  Gulp-gulp.  . . . A bellowing burp. 

              Bradley drying off, dressing and sprinting through the dorm. 

“What?  You leavin?” Leon desperate.  “Thought we were gonna play some X-Box . . .”

The chem-lab a quarter mile away and never too close. 

* * *

Leon, two weeks later, jerking off in the shower.

              Bradley could always hear him at it, making as much noise as possible; grunting and moaning and screaming as if in some sublime, water-board torture.

              I’m sitting right here in the next room for crissake.    

              Distantly under the shower noise, after the grunting subsided, Bradley heard Leon moan: “Dude, I thought you were gonna clean the tub.”  Leon chuckling.  “Sorry ‘bout the empty bleach bottle.  Dared Sean to dye his freakin hair the other day.  Hilarious, man.”

              Bradley finally grinning from his seat on the couch.   

              The moldy faucet knobs squeaking as Leon turned off the shower and Bradley heard him grab the last clean towel off the rack.  Bradley smiling wide enough to show teeth now, though Leon would never see it.     

              “—took you so long in here the other day, Brads?  Bathroom still looks terrible.”

              Turning up the volume on the Discovery Channel.

              “—need to get some more shampoo, man—”

              TV loud enough you could hear it down the hall.

              “The fu—”

              Phone vibrating across the end-table and Bradley grabbed it, the display reading NAYLA.  Pressing the button to answer, Brad had to talk over the roaring television. 

              “—dude, there’s something wrong with the floor—”

              “Hey, sweetheart.”

              “Dude!”

              “Just the TV.”

“Dude, it’s, like, moving . . .”

              “Yeah, I feel terrible.  I shouldn’t have asked you over here in the first place.  I’m really sorry.”

              “Oh my god, dude, it’s, like, ON ME!”

              “No, it’s my fault.  He’s a jerk and I should have said something before.”

              “Jesus, Brads.  This stuff is . . . Oh, GOD—”

              “Can I take you out tonight to apologize?”

              “OHMYGOD! MY FEET, MAN! MY LEGS! MY NU—” ‘

              “After, huh?”

              “CHRIST, BRADLEY! IT’S SOME KINDA—”

              “Yeah, I think I could bring over some flowers.”

              “ITSGOTMEBRADOHCHRISTYOUGOTTABRADPLEASEITHURTS—”

              “Nah, just Leon being an ass.  And let’s stay at your place after dinner, if that’s all right . . . my dorm is a mess.”

Matt Jenkins' publishing credits include various publications and contest awards, notably the Grand Prize in the www.oncewritten.com Midnight hour Fiction contest. The $500 award helped repair the truck with which he drives to work and school.  He considers literary bios to be the highest form of artistic masturbation, and often confuses poor social skills as cool, J.D Salinger eccentricity. He lives in Colorado and Tennessee and should always be writing more."