The Devil You Know Part 14

“Hold your horses, I’m coming!” Bill M. screams from somewhere inside the apartment. Even though he tells me he was on his way, I continue to ring the bell and kick at the door. “Jesus Christ you’re going to kick it in!” Bill M. screams now directly on the other side of the door from me. There is a pause and then Bill M. speaks again, this time in a sing/song voice. “Who is it?” he chirps. “You know who it is!” I scream back at him. “Yeah, you know who it is now open the door!” David, whose frustration level is climbing, yells from behind me. “Are you selling something?” Bill M. says looking through the side window directly at us. “No, but I’m going to punch you in the fucking head the minute you open this door!” I scream in Bill M’s face “Access denied!” Bill M. says turning on his heel.

David moves me to the side and takes over the job of kicking the door and the ringing of the bell. After about 15 minutes Bill M. returns to the side of the door and looks through the glass at us. “If you calm down, I will open the door.” Bill M. says “Also you need to promise that you won’t punch in my head once I open the door!” Bill M. is switching his gaze between David and me. “I promise.” I say raising my hand. “Now swear.” Bill M. responds, a smile crossing his face. “Little Pig, I am about to burn down your god damned house any minute,” I say wanting to reach through the glass and choke him. “God, you have no sense of humor.” Bill M. says as he unlocks the door.

The minute the door is opened; I push past Bill M. and step into the living room. David, who was a few steps behind me, closes the front door. Bill M. saunters into the living room, extends one hand and leans against the wall. The living room is spotless; there is only the couch and television sitting there. “Where are my boxes?” I say looking around.

Bill M. lifts his free hand and looks at his finger nails saying nothing. I step away from him and walk into the kitchen. “Where are my mother fucking boxes?” I scream. The kitchen is just as clean and stark as the living room. I take the step up into my room, which is also empty, no boxes, no bed, no nothing.

“Oh, I paid to have the garbage taken away.” Bill M. casually says and returns to looking at his fingernails.

“Are you out of your fucking mind?” I scream taking a step towards him. “No, I am in a clear and stable mind now since I got back from my vacation.” Bill M. responds as he lifts his eyes to meet mine. David quickly steps in behind me and grabs my arm. David knows that I am about to punch the fuck out of Bill M. David whispers “It’s not worth it.”

“I’m calling the police and….”I start to say and Bill M. cuts me off “And telling them what?” Bill M’s face has now completely changed and the mask of sanity he uses to fool everyone has melted away. It is only a moment in time but it is the second time in my life that I get to see the real Bill M., the first time was when he had tried to kill me with a shovel. As soon as it appears it also disappears.

“Call the police,” Bill M. goes on “And explain how you are not on the lease and how you already moved out?” Bill M. takes one step closer to me, his nose just inches from my face. “I gave you money for next month,” I stammer. “Do you have a receipt that shows you gave it to me?” The little voice in my head tells me it is time to punch the fuck out of him.

David, who is just in as much shock as I am must have heard that little voice, because he steps forward and pins my arms to my side. “You crazy mother fucker!” I scream at Bill M. who slowly walks backwards away from me. “Blah, blah, blah,” he says making his hand mouth the words as he says them.

It was a moment in time when I am about to enter a black hole and not climb out. I am so angry that somewhere my brain flexes and the room disappears in front of me. It is at that moment that I realize I have nothing, no clothes, no books, no shoes, no underwear, no nothing. He took everything that I owned and had it thrown away, it is clear that it was planned and he knew he could get away with it.

Suddenly my brain flexes again and I am calmer than I have ever been in my life. I am scared by this new side of me that decides to take over. Bill M. sees the change in me as well and the fight goes out of his eyes. David releases me from his grip. “This is a long way from being over,” I calmly say and take a step back from Bill M.

Bill M. raises his hand again and says “Blah, blah, blah.”

To be continued……..

Geoffrey Doig-Marx holds all written and electronic rights to his writing "A Day in the Life". It can not be reprinted in part or whole without his written consent.

The Devil You Know Part 13

“That’s impossible!” I say to David grabbing back my keys. “Who would have changed this lock?” I try to put my key in the lock again and there is no way that it is going to work, it’s clearly a new lock. It’s then that I notice a few wood shavings around the lock and near the bottom of the door. “This lock is brand new and was recently installed!” I scream as David walks over and peeks into to the window. “I think someone is in there,” he says holding his hands to either side of his eyes to block out the light. I cup the window as well and look in, I can’t see anyone in there but it looks as if things have been moved around. “Mother Fucker!” I scream and walk over to the front door and begin pushing the doorbell. I can hear it ringing in the house.

 “You think that Bill M. got home early?” David asks still trying to see in the window. “Mother Fucker!” I scream again and begin pounding on the door with the hand that’s not ringing the bell. “I can see someone moving in there,” David yells at me and I begin to knock louder and then start kicking the door.

“Are Tommy and Roy home upstairs?” David asks stepping back to look up at the front of the house. He doesn’t have to ask twice before I bolt up the front steps to their house and begin ringing their doorbell. There is no answer and clearly Tommy and Roy are not home.

I stomp back down their steps and onto the sidewalk where I tell David to help me start searching for a pay phone. I find one half a block away, I drop in the change I have in my pocket and dial the police department. After explaining what happened the police tell me that “They are sending officers to my house to respond to my call.”

David and I run back to the house and sit on the front steps waiting for the police to arrive. After about ten minutes a squad car slowly crawls up the block. I jump off the steps and run into the street to flag them down.

The cops look at me like I’m crazy as I explain the whole story about living with Bill M. and how he was just in the CDPC (Capital District Psychiatric Center) and how it seems he got home earlier than planned. Well, to be honest I haven’t let them get out of the car before I start my story. The two officers just keep looking at each other while I talk. “Have you tried knocking?” one of the cops asks. “I have tried knocking, banging and ringing,” I respond feeling like I am about to get hysterical. The cop who asks me if I rang the bell climbs out of the car and heads up the walk towards the house. He begins to ring the bell “Albany Police Department,” he yells through the closed door. I am standing right behind him “I think he’s in there and he’s hiding.”I say over his shoulder. He shoots me a look and I run back to look into the window.

“Can you prove that you live here?” the second cop who is standing by the car yells out to me. “Yes, that’s all my stuff in there!” I scream back at him. “Can you prove it’s your stuff and your house?” “Do you have a lease with you?”the cop at the car yells to me. I find that this line of questioning is insane and before I can shut my mouth I tell him so.

“Break down the door!” I command the cop pointing at the door. “Can’t until you prove that you live here,” the officer by the car yells out to me. David quickly grabs my elbow and pulls me back as I take a step towards the officer, I am not thinking and this is going to get bad unless I can calm down. “Please, break down the door!” I gently command this time, again pointing at the door. “Nothing we can do until you can prove it.” The cop by the car says while he opens the driver side door of the car. I quickly explain that my landlords live upstairs and if the cops can just wait to get home they will vouch for me.  

The cop who was ringing the bell begins to walk back to the car shaking his head. “If this is a lovers spat, you two love birds will have to work this out before you call us again.” He says pausing before swinging his legs into driver’s side of the car. “Love birds?” I yell as the cop car slowly crawls away from the curb before heading down the block.

“Let’s go to my house and we can deal with this in the morning,” David says catching my arm.

I am up early and David tells me to calm down. At 9am David drives the Pontiac to my Jay Street apartment. I have not been able to sleep all night knowing that I will have to deal with this shit today. I haven’t seen Bill M. since he entered the hospital and I was hoping that I could avoid him and this situation. David pulls up to the curb and I quickly hop out of the car and run up the sidewalk. David shuts the car off and follows me, by the time he gets to me I am furiously ringing the door bell and alternately banging on the door. David pauses and starts looking in through the front window. “I can see Bill M. in there and he’s heading to the door.”

To be continued…….

Geoffrey Doig-Marx holds all written and electronic rights to his writing "A Day in the Life". It can not be reprinted in part or whole without his written consent.

The Devil You Know Part 12

I head back to David’s house, the official move in will happen tomorrow, everything is packed and ready to go. I just don’t want to think about everything that needs to get taken care of by then, I need a night off. David has made an amazing dinner but the table is set for three places. Anne is in the living room watching Entertainment Tonight, the volume is turned up so loud that Anne doesn’t hear me when I say hello or at least she doesn’t acknowledge me.

David comes out of the kitchen and places a water pitcher on the table; I lean in to kiss him. “How was cleaning?” he asks. “Ok, I guess, its money” I say. David looks in the living room and then leans in and tells me that Anne will be joining us for dinner tonight.  Recently, every meal has been with David’s aging roommate Anne. It is more than clear that she loves David and thinks of herself as more than just a roommate. David asks me to get Anne to the table, so I walk into the living room and tell her that dinner is ready; she pushes herself off the couch and shuts off the television. She says nothing to me as if I didn’t just speak.

Her feelings towards me are clear as she shakes her head and clucks whenever I open my mouth. She never comments about anything I say but always asks when I will be going back to my own apartment. David reminds her that I will be moving in tomorrow to live with them. Anne immediately clucks and shakes her head looking down at her plate. Clearly she has a good thing going and I am ruining it by being there. She can pretend she’s Mrs. David but not when I am right in front of her reminding her that she’s not. David affectionately calls her Annie.

David’s ex-boyfriend Randy lived with David and Anne, until six months ago when Randy broke up with David. I think that it destroyed him and Anne had to talk him down off a cliff. She doesn’t want that to happen again, at least that’s what David tells me, is her reason for not liking me. Randy still lives in Albany several blocks away and is working on getting a college degree in acting.  So far I have never met Randy; he’s just a voice on the phone to me. When he calls, David walks into the music room and cuddles up with the phone, he is still trying to make sense of what happened between them.

David’s house has an open door policy for friends and during the day and people just hang out there. Anne locks her door just to be “on the safe side,” and forbids anyone to go into her room ever. Anne likes to read movie magazines, she likes to knit and watch Entertainment Tonight and Wheel of Fortune at full volume, she has no friends and never goes anywhere except to work. Dinner is fine and when it’s done, Anne goes back to sitting on the couch; she will stay there for hours watching television at a deafening level. I sit next to her on the couch as she is trying to solve the puzzle on Wheel of Fortune. Making small talk I ask her what she does for work and she responds “This and that.” If I don’t talk to her, she won’t talk to me but she will tell David everything that I do when she’s around.

David signals me to join him and I follow him to the back porch to hang out. All I have to do the next day is pose for some art classes and meet David at my apartment on Jay Street around 3pm to move out. We spend the rest of this evening drinking and hanging out. I fall asleep in his arms.

The next day after I finish posing for art class I take the bus back downtown from SUNY to meet David. David’s car is sitting out in front of my apartment as I round the corner I can see him listening to the radio and smoking a cigarette. David see’s me and waves as I approach the car. He turns off the radio and opens the car door. “Ready?” he asks me. “As ready as I will ever be,” I respond.

We walk up the walkway and step under the stairs. I don’t see Roy or Tommy’s truck so I figure that they are not home yet. I pull my house key out and put it into the lock. For some reason my key won’t go in so I try it again. It still doesn’t work no matter what I do so David tries it. “Hey!” David yells after about ten minutes “It looks as if this lock has been changed.”

To be continued…….


Geoffrey Doig-Marx holds all written and electronic rights to his writing "A Day in the Life". It can not be reprinted in part or whole without his written consent. 

The Devil You Know Part 11

The shoot took place three days after my meeting with Joe Romeo. “Last chance to back out,” Joe said as I opened the door to the apartment I shared with Bill M. 

Joe had a camera, a bag and one set of lights. The photos started in the kitchen, I was asked to remove my clothes and sit on the table, sit in the chair, look out the window, glance up, reach for the cabinet, move to the bedroom, lay on the bed face up, face down, smile and to stop smiling.

David was there the whole time just out of the shot and the whole thing was very clinical there was nothing sexual about it. I had left my body and soul behind I was floating far above it all just waiting to get paid. Joe had me stand naked outside, sit in the lawn chair, and to lift my coffee “just right.” I could see Tommy standing in the upper window looking down trying to figure out if I was really standing naked in the backyard.“Smile, don’t smile and lean back, look at my eyes,” Joe said as he laid in the dirt on the patio aiming the camera at me.

The whole thing was done in two hours, I signed a release and he was gone. David made dinner for me and in the next couple of days began to brag that I had posed naked for photos and that I was the hottest boyfriend in the world. A month later Joe would sell the pictures to Blueboy and Rump Magazine and people would buy these issues and show me copies of myself naked. Then Rump did a “Best of Rump Magazine,” where pictures of my butt appeared. I was honored.

After dinner, David and I had packed my room and everything in the apartment that belonged to me, we put it in boxes that sat everywhere stacked on top of each other. My goal was to be long gone before Bill M. got home from the hospital. I told Roy and Tommy about my plan to leave before Bill M. got back and I had worked out money with Roy to give a two week buffer of money to Bill M. That’s why I did the pictures, so I could just go and live somewhere else, somewhere safe, somewhere with David.

Rumor had it that Bill M. was due back any day and no one but Roy had spoken to Bill M’s mom and he had passed the word on to me. Allegedly, Bill M. was on a much stronger prescription than he was on when he lived here and the voices have been quieted. I told Roy that I couldn't live with Bill M. anymore.

David and I put our heads together. I still needed to find a job other than my modeling for art students, that job only paid $30.00 an hour. I put the word out to friends and in two days I began the once weekly job of cleaning a house of three girls enrolled at SUNY Albany. The money was $40.00 for the job and I took it in the hopes of getting more clients.

I was greeted at the door by a brown hair girl holding a phone receiver cradled to her ear. “Yeah?” she said cupping the phone to her shoulder so the person on the other end of the phone couldn’t hear what was going on. I introduced myself and was ushered in. The cord of the phone was stretched from the kitchen, into the hallway and all the way to the front door. Not talking to me she began to mime what she wanted me to do, never stopping in her conversation to who I believe was her mother.

Looking around, I was shocked at how disgusting college students can be. Garbage was everywhere as were clothes and the kitchen seemed to be just a staging station to show off all the dirty pots and pans they had in the house.

The girls had a cat that eyed me from the counter. I could smell that had a litter box in need of a changing. On the kitchen floor in the corner sat the litter box. The cat had given up using the litter inside the box and started using the floor around the litter box to poop and pee. I saw the girls the whole time I was cleaning; they were stationed on the living room couch watching General Hospital or on the phone in the kitchen begging their parents for more money to pay a cleaning person.

Cleaning was fun and gave my mind something to do. I wore my Walkman and listened to The Pretenders. The only downside was at the end when I had to walk all three around the house and show them what I did while cleaning. The girls would run their fingers over all the surfaces and get down on their knees to make sure I had cleaned everywhere. “Hmmmmmm” said the girl with Brown hair who answered the door, holding a dusty finger in my face that she had just pulled from behind the dresser.

I was paid $40.00 in singles, fives and a ten; it took an extra thirty minutes for them to find the money they owed me. “Starting next week,” one of the girls announced to me as I was leaving, we will pay you every two weeks and then she started to close the door, I stopped and   looked at the girl. “Is there anything else?” she said cupping her hand over the phone receiver just as her roommate had to talk to me. I shook my head “no” and headed down the walk.

To be continued……. 

Geoffrey Doig-Marx holds all written and electronic rights to his writing "A Day in the Life". It can not be reprinted in part or whole without his written consent.