Concrete - 6. Home Sweet Home

“Here we are,” Gordon said, pushing the door open and letting Adam inside. “Welcome home!”

Adam walked into the tiny front room and gasped. “Wow.” There were pizza boxes, empty two liters, and other trash all over the place. An overflowing ashtray was on the coffee table, surrounded by old bottles of beer. The place was a total mess.

Worse yet, Gordon was totally oblivious.

“Hey there, girl,” Gordon said as a yellow cat darted into the room. He picked the cat up and hugged her close. “I’d like to introduce you to our new housemate. Lucy, this is Adam. Adam, Lucy.”

“Uh…” Adam blinked at the cat in surprise. “I didn’t know you had cats.”

“I’ve got two more. I hope you’re not allergic,” Gordon said, frowning. “You’re allergic, aren’t you.”

“No,” Adam said. “But my mom is. And she’s allergic to dogs, too. I’ve never had a pet.”

“That’s crazy,” Gordon said, coming closer. “Well, my cats are really nice, so you don’t have to worry.” He stepped into Adam’s personal space, and Adam took the hint. He pet the cat. “Before you know it, you’ll be the best of friends. I’m sure of it.”

“I just hope she doesn’t scratch me,” Adam said, rubbing the cat behind the ears. “My mom says they have razor sharp claws.”

“Oh, Lucy won’t scratch you. She’s a good girl,” Gordon cooed. “Aren’t you, Lucy?”

The cat meowed in agreement and Adam smiled.

“Come on.” Gordon moved to the back hall. “Let me show you where you’re staying.”

Adam followed the older man at a slower pace. He was overwhelmed by the trash in the front room; he was seriously nervous about what the spare room would look like. The hall was dark and narrow, and Adam was already starting to feel claustrophobic.

“First door on the left is the bathroom,” Gordon said, and Adam peeked into the dirty little room, then hurried out of it. “Next door is my room,” Gordon said, and luckily, the entrance was covered by a large red and blue mural of a moon and a sun. Adam was spared the view of another dirty room. “It’s a little messy, I’ll admit, but your room is clean,” Gordon said, then shouldered into the last door at the end of the hall.

“A little messy?” Adam said. “Try a lot. This place is different than I imagined.”

Gordon frowned, and the cat jumped out of his arms and ran between Adam’s legs. “Different? What do you mean?”

Adam looked around the last room. It was small with one window against the back wall, and a tiny closet across from it. There was a mattress in the corner covered with pillows and nothing else. There was no trash, but the room smelled like cats. And it was a very pungent smell. “I guess I was just expecting it to be cleaner,” he said finally, wrinkling his nose. “This room is okay, but it smells like cat pee.”

“That’s because I used to keep the litter box in the closet,” Gordon said, planting his hands on his hips. “I thought you’d be glad you didn’t have to deal with it.”

“I am glad, but that doesn’t take away the smell.”

“Well, I have vacuum powder and a vacuum in the laundry room,” Gordon said. “You could try to suck out the smell.”

“I think I’ll give it a try at some point,” Adam said, then set his bag on the bed. “I’m sorry. It’s…nice.”

Gordon gave him a long, measured look. “Are you hungry? I could order breakfast.”

“I could eat,” Adam said.

Gordon took his phone out and started messing with the screen. “There’s a place around the corner that does these amazing breakfast sandwiches.”

A breakfast sandwich sounded all right. Adam let him order in silence.

“There. Two coffees, two sandwiches, and two orders of the potato rounds.”

“Sounds good,” Adam said as another cat, a black one, came into the room and headed for the closet. “Oh, hi Kitty.”

“Artemis! No!” Gordon went for the cat and grabbed him up quick. “We don’t mess in here anymore. We do that in my room now. In the nice litter box I set up.” He led the cat to the door, then tossed him out. “Try to keep your door closed until the cats realize this isn’t their room anymore. It’s going to take about a month.”

“Oh. All right.” Adam awkwardly pushed his hair out of his face. “Sorry for intruding.”

“They’ll get used to it,” Gordon said, then he turned back and looked head on at Adam. “You’re so beautiful… I can’t believe you’re here.”

“Er… thanks.”

“Can I get a picture of you?” Gordon asked, gesturing to his phone. “Something to mark the occasion?”

Adam shifted uncomfortably. “A… a picture?”

“Nothing elaborate,” Gordon said. “Maybe you could take your shirt off like you did for your profile pic? Then you could get on the bed and give me that winning smile…

“Um, I don’t know, Gordon…”

“Oh come on,” Gordon snapped. “I’ve already seen you shirtless on the dating site. Just climb on the bed like you’re at home.”

Nervous, Adam started to move toward the bed when there was a loud knock at the door.

“Goddammit,” Gordon muttered, then he slipped his phone into his pocket. “I’ve got to deal with this first. Hang tight.”

“Is that the food already?” Adam asked, confused.

“No. That’s just one of my customers,” Gordon said as he turned to exit the room. “I mentioned I’d be back sometime on Sunday. This fuck must really be jonesing.”

The door shut partway, so Adam couldn’t see the end of the hall, but he listened to the brief conversation in the front room. It sounded like Gordon had invited the man inside, but the voices were too low for Adam to make out

Suddenly, Gordon approached down the hall again and ducked under the curtain to his room. He didn’t seem to realize he’d left the door partway open, and that Adam was watching him. Adam waited in silence, hoping to catch sight of the new product Gordon was selling.

Sure enough, Gordon emerged from the room with a tiny baggie in his hand. There was something white in the corner, and from Adam’s bad knowledge of drugs, he thought maybe it was cocaine.

Overwhelmed, Adam moved to sit on the edge of the mattress. He put his head in his hands and started to cry.

This place was much worse than he’d imagined. Maybe if it’d been clean, it’d be halfway liveable, but it wasn’t, and Adam felt like gagging as the smell of cat piss wafted through the room.

“Oh no. Why are you crying?” Gordon asked from the door and, surprised, Adam looked up with tears streaming down his face. Gordon stood in the doorway with his arms crossed. He looked concerned. “Is it because I asked you to take a picture?”

Slowly, Adam nodded. That hadn’t been the only reason, but it was a good enough explanation.

“Wow, I didn’t mean to make you cry,” Gordon said. “We’ll do it some other time.”

Adam swallowed down his nerves, then asked, “What drugs are you selling?”

Gordon raised an eyebrow. “Weed and now crack. Didn’t I tell you?”

Adam’s eyes widened. “I told Jamie you might ask him to transport drugs. He said no, immediately, but I promised him it’d be okay… that was before I knew you were selling crack cocaine though!”

“What did you think I was selling?” Gordon laughed. “Since I started, I’ve been making big bucks. And I’m only selling to the neighbors!”

“I just thought you were selling a new strain of marijuana!” Adam cried. “It’s almost legal in Ohio. I thought maybe you could start a real business or something!”

“No,” Gordon chuckled. “Way too many hoops to jump through to own a real business. I’ll just keep to my own and sell on the streets.”

“But that’s dangerous!”

Gordon shrugged him off. “Did you really tell Jamie I was going to ask him to drive? I’d love to have him on my team.”

“Yes. I really told him,” Adam snapped. “But, like I said, he was adamant not to get into it again. He said he got in enough trouble last time.”

“I’ll talk to him,” Gordon said. “I’m sure I can convince him… After all, money talks.”

Adam frowned a little. “You do that.”

“So, we’ve got twenty minutes until the food arrives,” Gordon said, smirking. “What should we do with ourselves?”

“How about we start picking up?” Adam said at once. “That’d make me feel a lot more at home, if we could clean out the trash?”

“What trash?”

Adam got off the bed and grabbed Gordon’s arm. He led him down the hall and back into the front room and pointed. “This trash. The whole room is overflowing with it.”

“Twenty minutes isn’t enough to tackle all this,” Gordon laughed. “No, come on. Let’s smoke first.”

Adam crossed his arms. “I don’t want to.”

“That’s not true. You said you’d always wanted to try some Mary Jane,” Gordon said, moving to the desk and retrieving a little box. He flipped the lid off and Adam realized it contained bundles of green bud and rolling papers. “Let loose a little. You’re parents aren’t here. We can get high before we start cleaning. Nobody’s going to punish us.”

“You promise we’ll clean after breakfast?” Adam asked. That was most important to him at the moment. He wanted this place spotless before he went to bed tonight.

“Sure. I’ll help you clean out the trash,” Gordon said, taking a seat on the gray, lumpy couch. “It’ll be fun. I haven’t cleaned since I moved in.” He started to break up one of the little bundles of weed and Adam watched with curiosity. “This is the good shit. You’re really going to enjoy it. You’ll probably clean better, too.”

“I doubt that. I’m a really good cleaner when I’m sober.”

“Just wait and see,” Gordon said, laughing, then he added the bud to one of the papers, and sealed it with his tongue. “Come sit with me,” he said, and Adam rounded the couch and sat to his right.

“Are you sure this is safe?” Adam asked. “It isn’t laced with anything? It’s just weed, right?”

“Of course,” Gordon said, then he set the box on the coffee table and grabbed a lighter from next to the ashtray. “Nothing but pure weed in this house.” He lit the joint and smoked it greedily. “Whew. I was looking forward to this. Just a few days off makes me nervous.”

Adam frowned. “I thought you said it wasn’t addictive.”

“It isn’t. But it’s such a nice feeling, you miss it sometimes,” Gordon said, then he held up the joint for Adam to try. “Just draw it in slow. It’ll probably make you cough, but try to relax and let it in.”

Against his better judgement, Adam took the joint in his first two fingers, then put it between his lips.

“Go on. Puff.”

Adam took a draw. The smoke hit the back of his throat, hard, but he managed to hold onto it.

“That’s it. Just hold onto it for a minute, then let it go.”

Adam did as Gordon suggested. He coughed a bit when he was releasing it, but he considered the weird experience a success. He handed the joint back. “Now what?”

“You wait for it to hit you. It should happen any second now.”

When Gordon was done speaking, Adam took an assessment of himself. He felt nice. Everything felt lighter. The once dark, trash filled room seemed brighter and bursting with opportunity.

“Do you feel it?” Gordon smirked.

“Yes. Oh, it is a nice feeling.”

Gordon put the blunt out in the ashtray. “That’s probably enough for now. I think you got it.”

“Oh, I know I got it,” Adam said, laughing. “I feel so much better now.”

“Try not to get addicted to the feeling. I dare ya,” Gordon joked, then there was a knock at the door, and he checked his phone. “That’s the food,” he said, then got up to answer it.

Adam watched wide eyed over his shoulder as another transaction took place on the porch. It was just an exchange of food, but he couldn’t be sure of it.

“You’ve got to try this sandwich,” Gordon said, coming back to the couch when the delivery guy was gone. “You’re going to think you died and went to heaven.”

“You didn’t give that guy any crack, did you?”

“No,” Gordon snorted as he unwrapped the food on the table. “Not everyone who comes to the door gets some of my merch. Only the lucky ones.”

“Oh.”

“Besides, that was a college kid. I would have pegged him as a pot head.”

Adam giggled. “You profile people like that?”

“I have to.” Gordon handed Adam a delicious bagel sandwich with eggs, sausage and cheese. “Business is pretty scarce when you don’t have a means of transportation. I picked out every customer I have by hand.”

“Sounds like a hard job,” Adam said, then he took a bite of his sandwich. “Oh my God, yum!”

“I told you it was good,” Gordon said, beaming.

The subject of drugs drifted away as they ate their breakfast. The potato rounds were good, too, as was the coffee. It wasn’t a normal black coffee, it had some kind of pumpkin sweetener in it.

They smoked again when they were done, then Adam bounced up, happy and energetic, and asked for some trash bags.

“Let’s take out the trash first, then once the floor is visible, we can vacuum.”

“Ugh, that sounds like so much work,” Gordon groaned. “Are you sure you don’t just want to watch a movie?”

“You promised we’d clean after breakfast,” Adam reminded him. “Come on. Get me some trash bags and we can start bagging every thing up.”

Gordon complained under his breath, but he got up to fetch a box of trash bags from the laundry room next to the kitchen.

Adam got started at once. He grabbed handfuls of trash, burger wrappers, gas station cups, empty beer bottles, and stuffed them in the bags. He lined them all up near the door and soon, the bags were nearly blocking the hall.

Gordon helped a little, but within the first hour, two different people knocked on the door and he had to pause to get them white powder.

“I’m not normally this busy,” Gordon said after the second guy left. “It’s just because I was gone all weekend. It should calm down soon enough.”

Adam didn’t care anymore. He was deep in the cleaning mode. “Just help me carry these bags outside. Where does the trash go?”

Gordon showed him the space at the end of the drive for trash and helped carry the bags out. There were eleven of them. Filled to bursting.

They’d just finished with the trash when a little blonde girl rode up on a bike. “Hi. I’m Harper,” she said, kicking her legs out and parking her bike in the gravel drive. “I just got a new bike.”

“Oh. Wow. That’s a cool bike, Harper,” Adam said, but he couldn’t help peeking over her shoulder for any sign of Jamie. “Where’s your dad?”

Harper looked back down the road and pointed. “He’s right there.”

Jamie smiled and waved, then jogged to catch up with his daughter. “Hey.”

Adam beamed at him. “Hey.”

Gordon dramatically wiped his brow. “We just finished cleaning out the front room. How’s your morning been.”

Jamie raised an eyebrow in surprise.

“We’re hardly finished,” Adam said. “We still need to sweep and dust. Then we can do laundry and wash dishes. Then we can—”

“I get the point,” Jamie snorted. “The house is a mess. I’ve seen it.”

“Dad,” Harper pulled on Jamie’s wrist. “Can I ride around while you talk?”

“Sure. But keep close,” Jamie said. “You’re not wearing the damned helmet, so I want to avoid any spills.”

“I won’t fall, dad,” Harper said, pedaling to the end of the drive. “I’m a great bike rider.”

Jamie watched the girl ride through the trailers with a smile. “We just got back from Walmart.”

“Bicycle shopping?” Gordon asked.

Jamie nodded. “That was the first one she saw. Two hundred dollars… I’m glad I had the money.”

“Aww, that’s adorable. I’m glad I could help,” Gordon cooed. “I was thinking about asking you to do another job for me. You interested in earning some money?”

“I am if the job is right,” Jamie drawled. “What did you have in mind.”

Adam looked between the two men. He wanted this to work out, so he felt maybe he should let them talk in peace.

“I’m going to go grab the vacuum,” he said, nodding back toward the house, and Gordon waved him off. Adam took one last look at the handsome Jamie, dappled in afternoon sunlight, before he scurried back inside and got out the giant vacuum cleaner.

He plugged it in and started sweeping around the couch. He snuck peeks out the window as he worked, at the two men talking at the end of the drive. It was an animated conversation. Gordon waved his arms, then slammed his fist into his hand. He was adamant about something, and Jamie listened with a calculating expression.

Adam remembered he was supposed to text Jamie once he got settled. He thought about sending him a message as the conversation in the driveway ended and the two men shook hands.

He smiled. Well, it looked like they’d come to some sort of agreement.

Adam was halfway finished with the living room when Gordon came back into the house. He gestured for Adam to turn off the machine, and Adam shut it off at once.

“Well, I’m going to buy a car tomorrow,” Gordon announced. “It’s the only way Jamie will run drugs for me.”

“That’s a good idea,” Adam said. “Then we won’t have to worry about Jamie’s mom.”

“Right.”

“I need some clothes and some other things from the store, too,” Adam said. “Could I come out with you guys?”

“Sure. Of course,” Gordon said, moving into the kitchen and grabbing the mop. “We’ll stop at Walmart and you can get anything you want.”

Adam cringed a little, thinking about Walmart clothes, but he decided he’d just have to put up with it. “Okay.”

“So, I just push this around until it’s clean?” Gordon asked, playing with the mop head.

“You should let me sweep up the cat hair before you try, but that’s basically it.”

Gordon made a face and let the mop drop back into the corner.

“So, Jamie had to leave?” Adam asked. “He should have come in to see our work.”

“He had to go. Harper wanted to ride into the woods,” Gordon said, then he grabbed another trash bag and moved down the hall. “I guess I’d better get started on the bathroom. Come get me if someone knocks on the door.”

When he was alone, Adam pulled out his new phone and took a picture of the front room. He sent it to Jamie with a message attached.

I wish I’d gotten a before picture, but I’m sure you can see the difference.

Adam went back to sweeping after that. He got out the nozzle end and worked around the corners and under the table. He wasn’t sure if it was the weed making him so meticulous, but he liked the feeling.

When he was finished, he checked his phone for a reply.

That looks incredible, Jamie said.

Adam blushed. Thanks. We’re just getting started.

I’m sorry you have to do all that, but I’m sure it’ll be worth it when it’s done, Jamie said.

Yeah…

So how are you doing otherwise. Did Gordon get you breakfast?

Yes, Adam said, and he shared some weed with me, too. It’s pretty nice.

Wow. I didn’t think you’d be open to smoking.

Yeah, I’ve always wanted to try, Adam said coolly. It’s different than I imagined. Everything is turning out to be very different than I imagined…

Jamie picked up on Adam’s discontent immediately. What happened? Did Gordon come on to you?

He wanted to take a picture of me… shirtless, Adam said, blushing as he admitted it. It made me really uncomfortable.

There was a brief pause, and Adam moved the vacuum into the kitchen. He got out the nozzle and started sweeping up the food particles and cat hair. When he felt his phone buzz in his pocket, he checked it without turning off the machine.

That’s fucked, Jamie said. I’m going to talk to him about it. He shouldn’t be making you uncomfortable.

No, you don’t have to talk to him…

I want to, Jamie said. I don’t want you to feel that way again.

Adam resigned himself to it. He hoped it happened soon, at least, so he wouldn’t have to get naked for Gordon’s camera…

Suddenly, Jamie sent a picture. It was of his daughter, standing on her bike with trees all around her. We’re back in the woods, he said. Sorry, I had to abandon you, but I don’t like bringing Harper into Gordon’s house.

I don’t blame you, Adam laughed. But maybe you’ll be able to once I’m done.

Maybe.

Well, I’d better get back to it then, Adam said, beaming. I really want you guys to come visit me.

I’ll probably see you tomorrow. Gordon made a deal with me I couldn’t refuse.

He told me about it, Adam typed. We don’t have to talk about it in text. I’ll just see you in the morning.

I’ll be over after Harper gets on the bus, so it’ll be early.

That’s all right, Adam said. I don’t mind getting up early.

Good. Because Harper’s always up at the crack of dawn. Jamie sent a laughing emoji.

Adam sent one back.

Talk later, Jamie said, then Adam slid his phone back into his pocket and got back to work, smiling.