Jaeba and That Bastard From 404
Les was sitting at his kitchen table in his single room apartment off of Stengal Boulevard tapping his fingers on the wood to the rhythm of the music coming from his stereo. It was final exams week at Hensford and Les, having two of his finals the next morning, was studying the surface of his kitchen table while listening to Philip Glass’s “Knee 1” song on repeat. After the second run-through he had heard a banging on his ceiling followed by some muffled shouts coming from the neighbor who lived just above him. Now on his seventh run-through Les could hear thumping on his ceiling and both of his sidewalls and thought it amusing as it only added to the “Knee 1” each time he played it.
Just as the song was ending for the ninth time, Les heard a knocking at his door. Waiting until the end of the song, Les turned the music down and walked over to the door that had been being beaten for the past couple of minutes. Les opened the door to find an employee of the apartment complex standing before him in a plain white shirt, a pair of blue and white-checkered briefs, and some old beaten slippers, “Listen mac, just what in the hell do you think you’re doing? You do know that it’s two o’clock in the damn morning right?” said the apartment employee, pointing his finger to the middle of Les’s chest, “Keep it down will ya? Some of us here would like to actually wake up for our exams tomorrow instead of being kept up all night by you and your lousy taste in music.” Les leaned his left shoulder on the doorframe and opened the door wider by extending his right arm fully, “I don’t know what you’re talking about, mac, the only kind of music I play in here is the classic kind of music. The classic kind of music that bastards like you won’t ever hear unless it’s pounding through your walls at night. I’ll turn it down, but only because I’m getting a little tired of it myself.” Les stood up straight and started to close the door, but the apartment employee stuck his foot in the gap between the door and the frame, “You’re a real bastard, Leslie, you know that? West City boy or not, you’re a real bastard.” Les looked down at the mans slipper in his doorway and then back up at the mans face, “It’s ‘Les,’” he said as he pushed the mans slipper back and shut the door all the way.
Walking back to his kitchen table, Les grabbed the Daily Hensford that he had gotten on campus earlier that day from the Union Plaza off of his bed and sat down at his chair again. Les hated the Daily Hensford because e thought it had nothing to do with anything important at all and was full of grammatical and spelling errors because the students who wrote it were all too busy finding other terrible stories to proofread their ghastly work. No matter how bad the DH was, though, Les would always pick one up and read the headlines of the stories and then throw it away just in case of the off chance it contained a story that was actually worth reading about. Sometimes if there was an interesting story Les would read it and then promptly write to the editor a letter that contained all of the spelling and grammatical errors that he had found. On one such instance Les received a letter back from the editor that simply said:
To: Leslie Shepard
Stop sending in your corrections. They are almost always wrong themselves.
DH Editor
As Les was looking through the headlines of the DH, he read a headline that said “ACTIVITY SCHEDULE RELEASED FOR FAMILY WEEKEND” and under it there was a list of activities that Hensford had arranged for students to take their families to when they came to visit over the weekend. Les hadn’t told his family about the weekend, and he didn’t plan on it. Even if he did want his whole family to visit, he didn’t have anywhere to house them and all of the activities Hensford had planned seemed childish. The only activity that seemed like any kind of fun was the “Sibling Brawl” that was to take place all day Saturday at Kline Park just outside of campus. It was an event where students could take their siblings to the park and they could put on cushioned sumo wrestling outfits and wrestle each other on a mat. Les read it over two or three times and then tossed it towards the kitchen trashcan, overshooting it and watching it fall between the trashcan and the wall. Les got up and walked over to the trashcan and flipped the light switch off and then felt his way with his foot to his bed and laid down, fully dressed, on top of his covers.
After Les had lain down for a while bouncing his foot that was hanging over the end of his bed to “Knee 1” he suddenly stood up and walked over to the phone that was hanging just behind the kitchen table. After slapping the wall a couple of times in failed attempts to find the phone, Les finally took the phone from its hook and sat at the table. Les felt around the phone for the layout of the buttons and then dialed his home number. After about eight rings the phone finally went silent, “H-hello? Who is it? What do you-“
“Dacey, how are you. It’s Les.” After some shuffling from the other end the voice came back,
“I’m tired, Les. I just woke up. What else would I be. Why in the hell did you call so late?”
“I don’t know, Dace. I guess I was just thinking about a lot of stuff and I wanted to check up on my little brother. How is school and everything?”
“It’s great, Les, really. Did you seriously only call to talk, It’s,” there was a slight moment of pause, “it’s almost three in the morning, Les. Why can’t you call back tomorrow or something—really. I’ve got tests at school tomorrow and if I don’t do well on them, dad won’t let me play for the school’s basketball team. Oh, I made the team by the way.”
“Dace, that’s great—really, that’s really good news! And you’re what, a sophomore only?”
“Yeah. Mom was pretty excited when I came home and told her after the last day of tryouts. I don’t mean to be short Les, I really don’t—but could we just catch up tomorrow?”
“Alright, alright. I’ll call you tomorrow after I get out of class or something, alright? Goodnight, Dace.”
“Goodnight, Les.”
After the phone had been hung up on the other side, Les sat at his kitchen table making circles with the edge of the phone on the wooden surface of the table. Les was deep in thought when three notes from the phone broke his concentration, “If you would like to make a call, please hang—“ Les hung the phone up and then took it off and dialed his home number again. Another eight rings and the phone went silent again, “Les, what the hell man. I thought you were going to—“
“I know, I know. I lied, Dace. I really did call you earlier to talk to you about something—I swear.”
“Well what is it then? Could ya hurry, though—I really am tired.”
“Alright, I’ll try and hurry for you, Dace.”
There was a slight moment of silence as Les was waiting for a reply from Dacey, but after a couple of seconds Les started off, “Do you remember when I wanted to go see that movie with some friends and my girl at the time and mom wouldn’t let me go unless I took you along? I think it was—oh hell, I can’t remember the name of the movie. But I ended up taking you with me and I was real sore about it, I don’t know why, it might have been because you were so much younger or something, I dunno. And when we got to the theatre there was a big row of empty seats that we all took, but it ended up that we were one short and you were the last one in line so you had no seat. Do you remember? Anyway well—“ Dacey interrupted, “Yeah, I remember that. ‘Thanks For All The Fish’ I think is what the movie was.” Les excitedly responded, “Yes, that was it! That was the movie. I can’t believe I forgot the damn name like that. Well anyways, remember how you had to sit on the stairs right next to our aisle for the whole movie because we couldn’t find any extra spots?” Dacey seemed a little more awake with his response, “Yeah, it was a packed house that night. It was worth it though, that movie was great.”
“Yeah, well look Dace, I called you because there were some extra spots. You didn’t see them because you were looking at us when I was looking around, but I remember there were. There were two open seats just a couple of rows below us, but I didn’t want to leave my friends, so I told you to sit on the steps right next to the aisle. I felt bad about it though, Dace, I really did. I didn’t even enjoy the movie really because the whole time I was thinking about you sitting by yourself on the steps, stretching your neck trying to see the whole screen, and not even having anybody to laugh with. And what made things worse is when we were all walking out, you and I were the only ones who even liked the damn thing. I just feel like the worst big brother about it because good brothers sit next to their brothers in movies so they have someone to laugh with, you know what I mean? And I tried to make up for it by taking you to see another movie the next weekend, but the movie we went to see hadn’t even come out yet, so we just picked a random movie to go see. And even though it made me feel a little better, I can’t ever go to the movies without thinking of that night when you had no one to laugh with. I was just thinking about it tonight for some reason—about how much of a bastard I was to you and I thought that calling you would help me sleep a little better, you know?”
“Yeah, Les, I know. I saw those seats before I even sat down on the stairs. They would have been too close anyway. But you know, I think about the time we went to the theatre for the movie that wasn’t even out yet every time I go to the theatre. That was the first time we went to a movie with just the two of us, and I thought that was a better movie than the one we had gone to the previous weekend with your friends. Look, Les, I’m glad you told me—but that happened years ago so don’t keep yourself up thinking about it; you’re not a bastard. Now I’ve really got to get some sleep—and so do you—I have practice tomorrow pretty early. I’ll give you a call sometime tomorrow alright?” Les replied, “Yeah, you’re right, Dace. I’m sorry to keep you up. Call me around five tomorrow if you want. Goodnight, Dace.” Standing up from the desk chair that used to be Les when he was home, Dacey replied, “Don’t worry about it, Les. I’ll call you then. Goodnight.”
After Les hung the phone back on the wall, he went over to his stereo, knocking over his un-opened backpack and turned on “Knee 1” to the second highest notch on the volume knob and pushed the “Repeat” button. He stumbled his way over his backpack again as he walked towards the front door of his apartment. Once he got to the door, he sat down on the floor and stared at the line of light coming through the crack below his door from the hallway outside. “I am a bastard.” He thought to himself as the walls began bumping again. A few minutes later his door started to rattle in its lock as the knocks on the door seemed to keep time with Les’s music.