Recently I got my only house plant. I’m not sure what exactly it is, and it’s only moderately athsteticly pleasing, but to me it is the bee’s knees. (it may be a sign that I’m getting too attached to my current tenuous housing situation but that’s a whole other blog post) I’ve been doing my best for my little leafy friend, and regularly open my blinds so he can eat up delicious sunlight.
In addition to this, I have been getting more and more comfortable with my questionable neighborhood. So this Sunday, uhh yesterday at this point, two days ago by the time I will post this, I got home from work and just left the blinds open, while I drew some pictures of a pensive frog leaping into the water. I had just got done drawing his questioning eye balls peeping out from a bed of ripples, when a jarring set of knocks resounded through my window. My eyelids were heavy at this point. It was shortly after bar close, and a figure stood outside my window gesturing to me dramatically, comically. I couldn’t see her well; I could see her well enuff to know it was a woman, but not much more than that. The thought occurred that “this must be one of my friends come to visit”. Who else would pound on my window and flail like a psychotic?
The figure gestured toward the door, and I left my apartment and walked in to the lobby, to find someone decidedly, not my friend, on the other side of the glass door. I cautiously opened the door a crack and poked my head through. A woman in her late forties was standing there, controlling her drunken sway; she could not however control the smell of cheap whisky hanging off her like a coat.
“Can I use your bathroom?”
“Uhhh…” I look in the direction of the now closed cozy and the casino a short distance away.
“They won’t let me into the casino.”
“My god” I think “what kind of behavior do you have to perpetrate to not be allowed into a casino? Gambling loves drunks” I almost didn’t let her in, but I remembered two things. I’m a big guy, and this is a little drunken lady, stocky and experienced but little, and (thing two) I am half god. I can take her, if need be, and she was being essentially polite, so I pivoted on one foot and swung the door open.
Once inside the apartment I direct her to the bathroom, and she heads for it, in the mean time I begin to reconsider my decision, and even briefly search for something to brandish at her. But talk myself down from wielding my hammer ominously, when she get’s out of the toilet. It’s not long before she comes out.
“Do you live here alone?”
“Yes”
“My name is Diane”
“Hi I’m Michael.” When Diane takes my hand she squeezes it once in a handshake, and another quick grasp after we finish the shake, in a maneuver that I could only interpret as an attempt at seduction. This close to Diane, the cheap whiskey is almost overwhelming, and I begin to feel drunk, and I’m not ashamed to admit it, a little scared. Not for my physical well being, as I still feel like I have a handle on that issue, but for some much less tangible reason.
“Would you like some company tonight?” she asks me.
“No, thank you”
“Really?”
“I’m fine” It’s difficult to continue to be polite at this point, but things are getting real surreal real fast.
“well could I have some money to help me get back to west Duluth?”
“I don’t have any” I say, and I don’t. I had just that morning scrounged every large coin currency left in my house, to buy coffee. I did manage a handful of nickels for her, and then with her weighed down with five pounds of a dollar fifty, I expected her to leave. I eyed the hammer, which was now very nearby.
“Can I just stay here?”
“No”
“Can’t I?”
“No” I didn’t offer any explanations, I didn’t say anything but “No” and she left. If I had said anything but “No” I think I could have easily been guilted into letting her stay, and sleeping cuddled up to my hammer all night.
Looks like Coleus blumei.
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I just want to warn you, that that plant will outlive you my friend.
Nothing outlives the Benchy.
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