Sam and Deena B.S.F (Before Sarah Fier)

Simon Kalivoda Part 1

I got home around 2 AM after dropping Sam off at her house. After she left, I was driving through her neighborhood back to the main road, and all the houses looked so serious. Ever since I was a kid, houses have looked like faces to me and each house looked different and had a different vibe than the others. I used to pretend I was friends with these houses or, like, the houses were friends with each other. It's like how little kids think the moon's following them when they're in the car. I could just imagine, these houses rising from the ground and, like, moving around like they're humans, it's sounds crazy but I think it's so cool. All of Sam's neighbor's houses looked like serious, old men and they looked like they'd play poker on Sundays while drinking hard liquor. I wonder if animals make up shit like this in their heads with humans. Like do they imagine us sniffing each other's butts like dogs since that's all they know? There are so many unanswered questions out there in the world. I find it fascinating.

I got home and put Ma's key's back in her hand bag, and pull out my check from my pocket. I stick it on top of the overdue bills on the table. I turn around and see Timothy in the kitchen, chugging a can of beer. He grabs another beer in the fridge and tosses it to me.

"Think fast!" He said, but I caught it with ease. I toss the can right back to him though.

"I'm good. I have shit to do tomorrow." I said to him. I plop down on the couch to find Chuck, wrapped up tight in his monster truck blanket. I turn the TV off so he doesn't wake up.

"Like what? Aren't you off tomorrow?" Timothy asked.

"Yeah, I gotta get a gift for Kate. It's her Secret Santa thingy."

"But Mom said--"

"I know what she said, but I can't get out of this dude. Kate's like, super fixed on this thing, it's our tradition. I can't not do it, you know."

"You need cash? I can look in my pockets for some." Timmy pats down his pants, but I wave him off.

"Nah, it's cool, don't worry about it, it's fine. I'll figure something out." I look back to Chuck and tuck him in more.

"The kid's beat, huh?" I asked Timmy.

"Yeah, poor dude had to watch all the toy commercials in tears. Felt bad for him."

I pat Chuck's head and get up. I maneuver Chuck into my arms from the couch, still wrapped like a burrito and I bring him to his room. I lay him down in his bed, a bed that used to be mine, and before that Timothy's. I see my name carved into the tarnished, wood bed frame and finish tucking Chuck into bed. I turn off his light and close his door.

Dad built that bed for us. He built it for Timothy initially, but after he got too big the bed moved onto me. And then once I got too big, it was like destiny that Chuck was there to inherit the bed next.

I've been told Dad made the bed out of scrap wood he found behind The Corner. When Ma waited tables there, he would sit in the dining area and one day he stumbled upon all the scrap wood and took it home, thinking he could make something out of it. Timmy was one then, and even though the bed at the time was like twenty times bigger than him, they used it as his bed until he was, like, eight and I needed a new crib. I was six years old, sleeping in my parents' tiny ass room, in a crib that my legs couldn't stretch in. Then I graduated to Timmy's bed and we shared a room for a few years. I had that bed until I was ten. I could just picture, Deena, Kate, and me squeezing into that freaking, plywood bed whenever we had sleepovers at my house, which was almost never because Dad was always around and he didn't like having people over, but when he wasn't, we'd have those sleepovers and they were the best. Kate and I would stack on top of Deena, and even though it bugged her that we were packed in like sardines, it made us closer. Literally. And then Ma and Dad had Chuck, and Chuck has had the bed since. Fond memories I have from that bed.