An Economic Melodrama

It was the 80's. I was reading a lot of Raymond Carver.


      “I can't pay the rent” she said.
      I'd been sitting at the kitchen table, drinking a beer, before Deb came in.
      “Um” I swallowed. “When do you get paid?”
      “Next Friday. Where did you get the beer?”
      “Fridge”
      I watched her bend in the trapezoid of light flowing out of the open refrigerator door. She looked thin. The fruit in the crisper looked pretty rotten.
      “What happened to the TV?”
      Deb was looking for a bottle opener. “Finally threw it away. I was going deaf from having to turn the volume so high over the static.”
      “Use your teeth”
      “What?”
      “How I opened mine”
      “No, I found it.” She came back into the kitchen, her longneck smoking just like the advertisements on Monday Night Football. She took her pocketbook off the table and lit a cigarette. Ultralights. Sounds like airplanes. I fidget with the matchbook. It was from some bar on the North Side. O'Flannery's. There was a phone number written on the inside cover. I closed the flap.
      Deb went to the other side of the room, by the sink, and ashed on a pile of dirty glasses.
      “Been to Jimmy's Bar lately?”
      “Every Thursday night. It's work.”
      The tobacco embers hissed in the dregs of a wine glass.
      “You always hated doing the dishes”
      “Still do”
      I went to the refrigerator. I took the fourth of the six pack I had brought. Then I looked around in the crisper, searching for the least rotten apple. I found one, on the bottom, not quite so bad as the rest. I opened my beer and went back into the kitchen.
      It was awkward, silent. Deb smoked.
      “So Deb, how have you been?”
      “Okay. Fucking job sucks. I don't know. What have you been up to?”
      “The usual, I guess. Wanna go out and have a drink someplace?”
      She looked at my hand. “You've already got one.”
      “Oh yeah, I forgot.”
      Deb lit another cigarette.
      “What I really came over here tonight … well … I need a place to stay for a while.”
      “Can you help me with the rent?”
      “Yeah, I think so. Play a few more bars.”
      “Old habits die hard.”