Socks on the Beach

Couch Surfin' USA

My mother had always been a minimalist.

In all three homes we'd lived in, each in her name but paid for by a River Crest husband, the beige furniture and generic decorations of the professionally cleaned homes were few and far between. She found comfort in the vast expanse and her husbands (whether they were current, dead or gone) had little say in the matter. Not that any of them cared or were home enough to notice.

Sam's living room was my mother's own personal hell and I loved that about it.

I snuck curious glances around the room as she showed off her prized possession: the massive bioactive reptile enclosure which gave the room a distinctive earthy smell. It swallowed a third of the already-small and humid living room of her 'downtown' apartment, which had all of the downsides of living in an actual downtown apartment and virtually none of the upsides. According to Sam: rent was double anywhere else in town, people honked outside of her window at all hours, and sometimes it smelled like pee at the front door. It wasn't somewhere that I could imagine myself living.

But it was the most comfortable I'd felt all weekend.

I just wish that weird dinosaur would stop staring at me...

Sam's 'pet' was a hefty two-foot long iguana, allegedly plucked from a local palm tree, brought home and named Alex, a nod to the hopeful little boy in the children's book I Wanna Iguana.

She had a signed copy of the book, surrounded by a herd of miniature glass-blown animals, and an array of rocks in a large shadowbox on the wall. It was one of many areas of interest in Sam's home, including but not limited to: the license plate collection behind the television, the head of a baby-doll mounted like a trophy above the sink, and of course, the taxidermy squirrel wearing a top-hat, who had found a home on a yellow cabinet in the kitchen.

"Do you want to hold him?" Sam offered, referring to 'Alex.'

I'm not touching that thing.

"Not this time. Thank you though," I replied as genuinely as I could, trying to keep my expression neutral.

Sam laughed.

"Suit yourself! I'm about to go out on the porch to smoke. Do you want to come? You can also take some time to get settled if you'd like."

I looked around, trying to figure out if there was anything to settle. 

Before I'd arrived, Sam had placed a folded stack of red fabric: fitted sheet, sheet, and comforter on a pillow, freshly fluffed and encased. The futon that I would be sleeping on for the night was a black plasticky leather and Sam had bragged earlier that she bought it on Facebook Marketplace for twenty dollars and a handjob.

She stressed that the handjob was complimentary; he was just hot.

I nodded before following a skipping Sam outside.