Remembering Raimondo (Complete)

Pictureless Frame

 He couldn't finish his sentence. He was drunk. There was a scratch on his face. His knuckles had marks on them and his shirt was stained. He wiped sweat off of his forehead and fell face down into my apartment.

Great.

Now what am I supposed to do?

I closed the door and knelt down beside him. I nudged him once. Nothing.

“Hey,” I nudged him harder.

After a few more nudges I realized that he was knocked out and decided to drag him onto the couch. It took longer than I thought. But by the time I did manage to get him on the couch, his shirt no longer covered the top half of his body. Lets just say that I have zero experience in how to take a man's sleeping mass from point A to point B. Not to forget that Raimondo's huge compared to my small frame, and consequently not that light.

I watched him as he breathed in and out softly. Chest rising with each breath. His abs as perfectly toned as a sculpture. Suddenly I felt the urge to touch him and feel if he was real. A figure this perfect had to be a painting. His dark brown hair covered half of his face. I never realized how long his hair was until this moment and I am a complete sucker for long hair in a man.

After watching him for forever, I finally mustered the courage to remove my eyes from his body, find a blanket and cover his sleeping form. All I had was my blanket and the apartment was awfully cold. I covered him taking one last peek at his frame.

“What now?” I asked his sleeping figure.

Remembering the money he threw in my face I went to collect it from the floor. But I only found one hundred and fifty. I opened the door and found the rest of the money in the hall. I stood up and counted to make sure it was all of it when I noticed Raimondo's apartment door was cracked open. I looked back into my apartment. He's out, big time. I closed my apartment door and tiptoed into his room closing the door behind me.

“Mmm, this sure as hell smells a lot better than my apartment.”

I flicked on the lights and was taken aback by what I saw.

All over the walls were pictures of people, and underneath each picture was a name. His bed was in the middle of the sitting room and above his bed was a massive picture of himself. Beneath the picture read “Raimondo Recchia, This Is Who You Are.”

Conceited much?

I made my way towards the pictures. He had everyone's picture!

Amira Sabbagh was written under Amira's picture.

Tony Recchia, under the manager's photo.

He had Ema's picture and her sister's.

There were other pictures but I didn't notice any of the faces. There was an empty frame and beneath it read, Audrie Hawthorn. In the picture-less frame my room number was written in Raimondo's beautiful script.

Weird.

I went towards his bed. Small broken bed. I wouldn't even call it a bed, it was a couple of mattresses stacked above each other.

Hey at least he had a nightstand. I picked up the folded yellow paper from beside the alarm clock. The phone suddenly rang and it scared me shitless.

“Damn phone.”

It kept ringing until the answering machine answered.

“Hey Ray, I'm comin' over in a few. Cook dinner or something 'cause bro I am starving.” A man spoke from the other end of the line.

He was gay. I knew it. Well... I mean, how else do you explain another man coming to eat dinner with him in the middle of the night? Whoever this man is, he's about to “come in a few.”

Quickly, I pulled out my new phone, took several pictures of the letter so I could read it later, grabbed Raimondo's covers and went back to my apartment locking his door after me.