Dirt

50 Cheeseburgers

    I nearly landed on my face as I scrambled off of the bed and began scouring the floor for my clothes which had each seemed to have taken to different filth stained corners of the room. I had to abandon my search after I had found my sweatpants in fear that my companions might assume Trevor had murdered me once again and harbour even more contempt for me than they already did. I wrapped my torso in the yellowed blanket before stumbling towards the door, tripping over the legs of my own sweatpants much to the amusement of Trevor.
    I only allowed my head to poke through the door and hid the rest of my body behind it so as though they would not discover I wasn’t wearing my shirt; a useless gesture considering the conclusions they had likely already drawn from the man who had carelessly decided to answer the door in his birthday suit.
    Quinn and Jade appeared as scandalized as I had pictured them to be, both staring at me wide-eyed with eyebrows at odd angles and filled with scrutiny. I didn’t quite know what to say to them, at the moment all I could do was stare back with just as much disgust and wondering why on earth they had decided to come find me if they had never once cared about me for a second in their lives.
    “What are you doing here?” Quinn asked me in a horrified whisper which lead me to believe that she was far too disturbed to begin another one of her rants where she would proceed to judge me in every aspect of my life.
    Despite my anxieties I couldn’t help but feel the urge to smile, and I instantly suppressed it. “Where else was I supposed to go?”
    And there it was, the glare of eternal judgement that arose on her face and that had arisen there many times before, “Gee, I don’t know, maybe decide to fucking apologize and come back to us? You’re a selfish piece of shit do you know that? Are Jade and I the only two people who actually care about our friendship?” Her voice threatened to become background noise as she rambled about the numerous flaws in my personality.
    I stood there idly, expression blank with boredom at the things I had heard a thousand times before. “And another thing,” she continued before her voice fell to a whisper again, “Are you high?”
    I informed her that I may be experiencing the aftereffect of some drug but that I could hardly consider myself high. “Are you… not wearing a shirt?” Was the next question on my table as it appeared I had leaned too far out of the doorway and given myself away. So I informed her that no I was not in fact wearing a shirt. Finally she asked the question I had been anticipating, “Were you having sex with this psychopath?” silently gesturing with her eyes towards the man who was now rummaging through the fridge behind me.
    “As a matter of fact, yes I was, do you have a problem with that? Because if you do, frankly, I don’t give a shit.” The words left my mouth tainted with a tone of anger I had never used before, they filled me with pride.
    If you told me there was a facial expression capable of appearing more appalled than the one that arose on Quinn’s face I wouldn’t have believed you. I had an inkling that it was my disregard of her opinion rather than the fact that I had revealed to her that I had just slept with a psychopath that caused this rise in emotion in her.
    There was a standstill between us as we each needed to properly process what I had said to her. I suppose Trevor could no loner contain himself because he once again burst forth in the same unfiltered laughs, contagious laughs that I simply could not immunize myself from, and soon I too was laughing.
    “You fucking bitch.” She stated slowly, eyes still wide and mouth agape with distaste for my sudden acquisition of a spine, “You are actually the most pitiful excuse for a human being in existence.”
    “No, that would be me, sweetheart.” Trevor cackled from behind me, “Now if you wouldn’t mind getting the fuck off my property before I give in to my overwhelming desire to slaughter the two of you.” At this I laughed even harder, feeling my abdomen ache as I hadn’t laughed this much in what seemed to me to be years.
    The look of disapproval I got from my ex-companions was actually quite rewarding, and observing their body language as the vacated the premises was equally if not more rewarding, backs hunched and arms crossed. It alleviated all the heaviness that had accumulated in my chest for God knows how long, I knew I was finally freed of their company.
    “Honestly, tell me how someone like you ends up in a crowd of sorry cunts like those.” Trevor was now peering out of the bent blinds of his trailer window at the two of them leaving like a house cat stalking its unattainable prey.
    Once I managed to quiet my hysteria I cleared my throat, “I’m asking myself the same question. I mean, you meet people, you talk to people, those people call you their friend, the whole process is torture, really.”
    “Well maybe once I rub off on you enough you’ll be able to turn people off by just looking at them. I mean, I bone you once and you’ve already told your friends to go fuck themselves. As a teacher I’d say I’m doing pretty well for myself.” Trevor smiled to himself before stating, “Let’s go grab something to eat I’m fucking famished.”
    All of this I could agree to, especially the part about being hungry; apparently having a something of a small overdose can make you work up quite the appetite. I was beginning to believe that all of the things I had been fretting over could all be blamed on my ex-companions, and though I knew in my heart not everything that had happened thus far in my life was their fault I took great pleasure in believing it true.
    The two of us collected our clothes, and I returned to the garage momentarily to rescue my duffle bag from the monsoon of water the forgotten hose had created. Upon my return to the trailer Trevor handed me another beer and mockingly inquired if I felt like another hit of speed before we headed out, having taken another two himself.
    We took to the roads with beer in hand and listened to punk rock noise on the radio as Trevor cursed at fellow drivers and threatened to run them off the highway. Where he drove me was Paleto Bay, a small town in the northern region of Los Santos, a quaint little area near the water where the air smelt of sea salt and rotten fish.
    As we pulled into the drive through of a fast-food restaurant Trevor asked, “So what do ladies like to eat? You know, I’m mostly partial to road kill and the stuff that grows in my fridge but I guess I can make an exception for you, considering you’re a guest in my home.”
    I managed to keep a straight face as I replied, “Ladies like cheeseburgers. Giving a lady a cheeseburger is essentially a marriage proposal; give a lady a cheeseburger and she’ll wait on your every need.” I had to give in and crack a smile by the end of my lecture.
    “Ah, I see, I see. I’m learning a lot from you Nora, it’s a God damn shame I didn’t know that earlier though, my dream has always been to be surrounded by a hoard of meat-thirsty women.” We pulled up to the intercom surrounded by pictures of french fries and soda and 2 for 1 specials.
    The sluggish voice that asked us, “May I take your order?” sounded as if it had just taken a shot of morphine to be able to get through another menial day of minimum wage labour in a dead end job they so despised. I imagined it as a genderless mass of collected objects such as lottery tickets and childhood toys, of course wearing the mandatory fast-food headset.
    Trevor leaned out of the car window so that his face was but a few inches away from the speaker, an odd mannerism I made sure to take note of, “Yes, hi, I’d like 50 cheeseburgers.” He blurted out loudly, possibly causing irreparable damage to the eardrums of the person, or mass, at the other end.
    There was a static filled silence before the voice replied, “Excuse me, sir?”
    “Are you deaf or just a fucking imbecile? I said I’d like to place an order of 50 cheeseburgers.” He spoke slowly through clenched teeth.
    There was yet another short silence before the voice hesitantly questioned, “15?”
    “No not 15! Fucking 50!” Trevor yelled back, grappling at the intercom box as if it would allow the employee to feel his wrath; the entire time this incident was unfolding I sat with head in my hands shaking with giggles and in absolute hysterics.
    “Please advance to the second window sir.” The voice replied, seemingly unfazed at such a blatant display of anger, leading me to further my belief that they had in fact taken some sort of sedative before coming in to work, and that yes, they were also in fact made up of a collection of inanimate objects.