Gabrielle Taylor's "Cockluck"
March 07, 2002
Bertram called Alexei and said, "the challenge is to see how clean I can make this place while still losing most of the damage deposit. Want to help me move today?"
"Chance of a lifetime. I'll be straight over."
"Thanks. Stop by the bar on the way, would you, and grab a couple dozen whiskey boxes. Auntie'll show you where they are. Did you meet Auntie?"
"Did I! She won't model for the new Bliss Derringer tea campaign!"
"What new campaign?"
"Precisely. Some of those whiskey boxes may not be empty. I hate to break up a family."
"Bring the young ones. A bar's no place for children."
"Long time no see," Bertram said a half hour later. "We'll start with the books. What have you been up to?"
"Nobody. This woman, Alberta, she's writing a sociology masters thesis on the effects of violent video game sex on genetically engineered tomatoes I think. She wears tight little black suits and hates me. I like that in a woman."
"She sounds horrible."
"She is horrible. Get me a drink and I'll pack your computer."
"Pack my computer and I'll get you a drink."
The entire apartment, tiny as it was, was packed and loaded into Alexei's van within a few hours.
"Packed the dishrags and the mop. Brilliant," Alexei said.
Bertram yanked his shirt over his head. "Never liked it," he said. Half-naked, he stepped into the bathtub and sloshed his shirt with pine cleaner and hot water. When he washed his bedroom walls the wallpaper peeled. When he washed the ceiling the stucco melted onto the floor. When he washed the floor the tiles lifted.
"It looks like an atomic soap bomb went off," Alexei said. "Where are you sleeping?"
"I... don't know. Judith's I guess. I didn't think about it."
"Stay at my place then. I'll drive your stuff over in the morning and help you stick it places."
Bertram put his shirt back on and dripped on the elevator floor. "For the last time."
He banged on the door to apartment 104. A greasy balding gray-haired man with a thick wobbly chin and a green and brown striped shirt answered the door with, "WHAT?"
"Moving out." Bertram held out the keys.
"You won't get a refund on your rent for this month. No notice! Supposed to give a month's notice!"
"Family trouble. I don't want a refund. I do want my cleaning deposit."
"I go look later. I mail you a cheque."
"I would appreciate it," Bertram said, wedging himself in the doorway, "if you would do it now."
"Later. Watching Survivor. If you need reference you call me, twenty five dollars, I give you good reference."
"I'll come back later for my cleaning deposit."
"Yeah, yeah. You do that."
Alexei lived in a high-rise in AltaVista, and "that bitch keeps parking in my spot!"
He parked in Visitors.
Bertram made it through the marble lobby, up the elevator, down the wine and cream carpeted hallway to Alexei's apartment, into the foyer, out of his sneakers, down to the sunken living room, onto the hunter green plush couch, and to sleep.
"Bert. Bert. Bert. Bert! Bert! Damnit Bert, I know you're awake."
"So I am," Bertram mumbled, sitting up. He rubbed his eyes and stretched. "Hey, I feel pretty good. Filthy, but good."
"You got soap all over my couch. Want some coffee?"
"Sure." Bertram padded over to the floor to ceiling windows and opened the vertical blinds and looked out at the morning Ottawa skyline. He yawned. He looked down at the parking lot. He yawned. He looked down at the parking lot.
"Alexei, where's the van?"
"...in the parking lot?"
"It's not."
Alexei handed Bertram a coffee mug covered with pink easter egg prints and picked up the phone. A while later he set it down.
"I forgot to let the desk know what I was doing so they towed me. Like I've never parked the van there before! Like they don't have my plate on file! I'm going to move. It's ridiculous."
"How bad is it?"
"Forty four bucks fine. Not so bad. Eighty six dollars towing charge. Not so good. Hundred and twenty five bucks storage charge for them keeping the van ten hours. I'll send the bill to that bitch in 806 who keeps PARKING IN MY SPOT. She does NOT seem to understand that I have TWO spots, I PAY for two spots, they're MY SPOTS! Can I drop you somewhere? Assuming my fucking car hasn't been towed too?"
"Mmm," Bertram said. "Um. My new house I guess. I'll need to borrow some clean clothes. All my stuff is in the van."
A white minivan from Dolly's Disinfecting was parked in Bertram's driveway, blocked in by a white box truck from Sanitrol. Two men in grubby white overalls hauled trash from the garage to the truck. Two men and a woman in antiseptic white coveralls with pink "Dolly's" badges hauled trash from the back French doors to the garage.
"Which one of you is Mr Brooker?" the woman asked. Her nametag read "Lucille".
"I am."
"Did you want the whole house cleaned? Two of the rooms are locked. If you want them cleaned you'll have to have them opened. Otherwise we'll need you to sign off on them."
"Locked, eh? Show me."
Bertram, Alexei and Lucille trekked through the house. Though it was still full of trash, at least now the garbage was organized, and some of it bagged.
"These two doors, sir." Both were in a hallway parallel to the living room and kitchen. One was at the far end, near the kitchen, and the other door in the middle.
Bertram took out his wallet, slid out a slim leather case, unsnapped the flap, shook out a dangling cloud of thin silver hooks, clicked one into the door lock, jiggled, unlocked.
"Ooh," Lucille said. "Just like on tee-vee. Are you a cop?"
"I'm a bartender."
"Oh."
He approached the other door. Jingle, click, open.