7/22
At a male friend’s duplex home, a bunch of friends gather to discuss the Great Gatsby. It’s an awkward situation, to talk about this book when I am pretty sure we aren’t a book club of any sort. After a conversation marked with many long silences, we all give up on the book, and decide to watch a movie. “Upstairs,” the house owner says, “upstairs, past the bathroom door.”
I duck into the bathroom, only to find a room of people I have never met. I know they are not the family of this friend, or of anyone else. They are all somewhat sickly looking and pale, with a massive sheen of sweat. As soon as I enter I go to leave, but the door is gone, and I am stuck with these people.
Carefully, I extract my hand towards one of them who looks the least dangerous. “Hello,” I say. “My name is Alexandra. How do you do?”
One of these gruff people, a man in a wifebeater with squinty eyes, takes my hand and grasps it too hard. “Yep,” he says, and no more. I do not know what to make of that, or if I should even introduce myself to everyone else, so I just wave uncomfortably to the rest of the room, and most of the occupants choose to ignore me. All of the seats in the room look like toliets and I sit down on one, and try to start conversation.
And then the door reappears, and as I jump up to run out, Reks and Sassy come in and shut the door behind them, and it’s gone again, but at least this door-opening has made a couch appear mysteriously and brought me normal people to talk to. We sit down together on the couch and make chit-chat, as the creepy hicks talk about which of their wives has the best rack, and I hope that our host finds us.
And eventually, he does, but not before we plot of ways to rip apart the walls. But soon the door opens and he peers in and waves us out. We walk briskly through the door and he slams it behind us.
“What the fuck was that?” I say. Rekha hits him on the shoulder, and not playfully.
“Oh, I just pay them to stay there.”
“Pay them for what?”
“It’s kind of funny when you get trapped in there.”
The three of us exchange a look as he walks back upstairs. It isn’t funny.
