• Friendly Fire

    Liz and I waited in her Suburban outside of Mandy’s apartment. Rotting leaves turned to mush in the gutters and the glitter of broken glass littering the sidewalk. We looked up to Mandy’s forth floor window that was covered in a purple and black Celtic knot tapestry. If we were inside her apartment the suffocating perfume of Nag Champa incense would be burning and we would have to move numerous paintings of naked human bodies off of her couch just to take a seat, but now it must have been full of boxes overflowing with art paraphernalia, and Mandy’s paintings would have been packed up and already sent to her new Texas home.

    It was the last time we would be seeing Mandy for a long time. Over the course of the summer, she had moved into an apartment with her new boyfriend, Jim, and in the three months that they were together, they had decided to get eloped on a ranch in Texas. Jim was rich. Why wouldn’t someone, like Mandy, a poor urban waitress looking into the art business, want a man who can support her hobby? But Jim was an odd bird, the son of a Big Mac corporate man in the tobacco product business; he made a living selling blunt wraps and cigarette papers to American smoke shops, the papers usually going towards weed rather than tobacco in the end anyway. “We serve the cause of the American way,” was Jim’s father’s logo. After I read it on the back of the package I blacked it out with a sharpie. What a joke. Just like Jim.

    I hated to admit it but Mandy’s relationship with Jim was a joke. Why would a new age, save the environment and children, yoga loving hippy like Mandy marry a tobacco product salesman? I had only hung out with Jim a few times at the bars with Mandy before their engagement, so who was I to judge, but he smelled like blue cheese and wore white loafers and turtleneck sweaters. At times he would grab Mandy’s butt distastefully in front of other men and one time tried to kiss me in the woman’s bathroom at a pub.

    For weeks I was confused at his approach towards me. I’m more than overweight, work at a telemarketing service called TeleComUnity, and am constantly high. Besides that, my hair is thinning and I’m only twenty-five and sometimes can look like my mother before she died of cardiac arrest. I was a sad woman in looks and mental state. The only romance I had experienced was a redneck fiancé at the age of eighteen who went away to war and never came home. Well, at least in one piece.



    It was two weeks from the wedding, and as I rolled a joint in the front seat of Liz’s suburban I was feeling sour.

    “Honk again,” I said, reaching over to the steering wheel. Liz slapped my hand away. Her fingers were painted hooker-red and I noticed that her wedding ring was missing.

    “Where is your wedding ring?” I asked, grabbing Liz’s manicured fingers and expecting the tan line where the band should have been. She pulled back and ran her hand through her burnt, straight blond hair.

    “I’m getting it cleaned,” she said, pursing her pink lips, and glancing to her left.

    “People are usually lying when they look to their left, Liz,” I protested. “You took it off so you wouldn’t look married on our trip.”

    “No I did not.”

    “Yes you did.”

    “Seriously Benny, I would never cheat on Frank.”
    “I know you wouldn’t cheat on him, but you can still take off your ring to look single for the fun of it.”

    Liz punched me lightly in the arm and smiled like a jackal.

    “Okay,” she admitted, “you were right, but come on Benny, I’ve been married for six years now and this is our last fling with Mandy and then she will be married. You can’t be the only single one on this trip you know. This is our very last time together before she elopes with the Texas Chainsaw Massacre.”

    “Jim’s not that bad looking,” I said, “except he can’t dress and smells bad. Besides, Mandy’s coming now. Let’s not talk about Jim on this trip. I want it to be just the three of us.”

    Liz blew out a puff of air, her breath smelling of sweet peppermint gum, and pointed a long nail at the joint sitting in my lap.

    “You gonna finish that before I drive off and it falls all over the floor?”

    I lifted the rolled paper to my lips and twisted the ends shut with my mouth and tongue, tucked the baggy into the glove box, pocketed the joint among my cigarettes and finished just in time for our enlightened Mandy to slide into the back seat of the car.

    Her hair was in its usual bun on the top of her head, the tangle of her black curls cascading down her flushed cheeks and pale skin. She was wearing a slinky blue dress and combat boots and had tied an orange scarf around her head. Mandy never had to wear makeup. She was a natural grade-A hotty, as Jim once called her.

    I don’t like Jim very much.

    “It smells like weed in here” Mandy yelled, pinching the bridge of her nose with her long, graceful fingers.

    Liz and I laughed as Liz put the Subaru into first gear and sped off down the road.

    “It’s going to be even worse in a minute,” Liz chuckled, flipping her hair over her shoulder, grasping the steering wheel with a white knuckled grip, and pulled out of the complex. We left the downtown apartment flats of Spokane and headed west, towards Seattle on I-95.



    Outside of Spokane the city loomed behind us on the horizon until there was nothing but highway and rolling hills of farm country and plateaus of rock, Liz turned off the radio and slipped in a Jack Johnson CD.

    Mandy moaned from the backseat.

    “Jack Johnson? Really?”

    Liz frowned in the rearview mirror.

    “Well what would the tobacco princess like to hear?”

    Liz had spent her younger years with an alcoholic father and a mother who practiced serial monogamy, going from one a*****e to another, so Liz was poor before she married upper-middle-class Frank, even poorer than Mandy had been. Frank was a good guy, and we knew that Liz worried about appearances, but we thought that she had settled for Frank because of his good income or good enough to buy Liz a car and set her up in a house, not because he was a sweetheart and loved Liz unconditionally. We knew she loved him in her own way, but it wasn’t “I’d die for you” love.

    “Why the tude, Liz?” Mandy asked, leaning over the back of our seats, ripping out Jack Johnson and putting in a mixed CD.

    The thump thump of progressive electronica began playing over the speakers.

    “Yes,” Mandy said, swaying her arms over her head and closing her eyes. “This is what I’m talking about.”

    I cracked the window and pulled out a Winston, hoping the nicotine would help distract me from the uncomfortable feeling of knowing one of your friends is annoyed with the other and you can’t do anything about it but let it play out.

    I could feel Liz’s temper like hot soup in the car. I glanced at her and gave her a look and she turned down the music, but let it play on. This was supposed to be a weekend for Mandy, we would play nice.

    “Benny,” Mandy said from the back seat, leaning over to give me a kiss on my cheek. She smelled of Nag Champak and her lotus blossom perfume. It was overly sweet and I took a drag off my cigarette.

    “Benjamina my dear,” Mandy continued after leaving lipstick on my cheek, “this is going to be one for the books. Just you, me, and Cranky McGee over there, traveling through Washington for a kick a** night in Seattle nightclubs. Forget Spokane. Let’s make up fake names. I could be Ronda Willfare, you could be Emelia Estefan, and Liz can be Wilma Potterbaker.”

    I coughed out a laugh and looked at Liz. She was driving with concentration, slipping on a pair of face-eating sunglasses and watching the road, but I could see her lip twitch at the corner.

    “Wilma Potterbaker,” Liz snorted.



    We were twelve miles from Moses Lake when we saw the hitchhiker. We pulled over into a rest area and Mandy ran to the bathroom clutching her dress at the abdomen. Liz and I noticed that no one else was parked so we pulled the joint from my cigarette pack and lit it up while Mandy peed. We took lazy drags off of the sweet skunky smoke and leaned against the Subaru with our legs crossed over the other.

    We had passed the hitchhiker on the highway and he dragged his feet into the rest stop as we were pulling the last hits out of the joint.

    He raised his hand in solute and Liz and I saluted back, pinching paper and marijuana between our fingers and offering it to him.

    “God bless ya,” he said, taking a large drag and dropping the remaining paper to the ground for it to burn out.

    “No problem,” I said, but Liz kept to herself, looking around and through the man instead of at him.

    The hitchhiker was sweating and we could smell him even in the cooling fall breeze, but it wasn’t too unpleasant, just smelled enough like a gym that we could stand it. One time Mandy had said to hell with it when it came to hygiene and we couldn’t get her to wear deodorant when we went out. The smell reminded me of that time, but only with the hint of man in it. Mandy seemed to make it very feminine and almost sweet.



    Our hitchhiker was short, about five-foot-five with a white beard and bottleneck glasses too magnified to identify his eye color. He hunched over with the weight of his backpack, and his flannel jacket was beginning to tear around the cuffs. Mandy came out and stood with us. Her face lit up when she saw our hitchhiker.

    “Hello, who is our new friend?” she came up to the man and put her arm around his shoulders.

    “I don’t know,” I said, snapping out of a marijuana induced haze.

    “I’m Ronda Willfare,” Mandy shook hands with Heath and gestured at me, “This is my friend Emelia Estefan.”

    I shook the man’s hand. It felt oddly skinny and long, like a skeleton, but it was warm nonetheless.

    “Nice to meet you, my name is Heath.” Heath pushed his glasses to the top of his nose and sniffed.

    “And this is Wilma Potterbaker,” Mandy pointed to Liz who took the man’s hand with cold eyes and pursed lips and snorted at Mandy.

    “We better get going,” Liz said, going around the car to get inside, making a B line around Heath.

    “Wait,” Mandy said, “Where are you going to Heath?”

    “Mandy,” I whispered a warning. I knew that Liz would throw a fit if we picked up the roaming man, but Mandy ignored me and opened the back door to the Suburban and practically pushed the man inside. He grumbled a thank you and sat behind Liz who bit her lip, took a cigarette from my pocket and put the car in drive.

    “Where are you going?” Mandy asked Heath again. He mumbled something about Portland, Oregon and Liz tensed beside me.

    “Been hiking for two weeks,” he said, holding up two fingers for all of us to see.

    Mandy took the man in with delight, smiling and nodding her head, excited of the prospects of something new and exciting. Someone to try out our new names on.

    “Why Portland?” Mandy asked.

    “Brother’s there,” said Heath, rummaging through his backpack and pulling out half a bottle of whisky and taking a swig. “Haven’t seen him for thirty-two years!”

    Mandy took the offered whisky and the musky scent of alcohol wafted through the car. Heath handed the bottle over the front seat and I took a sip. Liz lifted a hand when I tried to offer it to her.

    “Driving,” she said.

    “That’s great!” Mandy continued the conversation with Heath, “a family reunion of two lost brothers. What a great story.”

    “Yessum,” Heath said, putting his bottle back into his backpack and leaning his head back into the seat for a nap. After a few minutes the minute snores of Heath purred like a kitten in the back of the car and Liz relaxed.

    “We’ll drop him off in Seattle,” Mandy whispered into the front seat, “From there he can make it to Portland on highway five and we will be alone again. Poor guy, been walking for two weeks.” With that she leaned her head back like Heath and eventually succumbed to a nap, the two free-spirits snoozing in the back of the car like children.

    “God damn it,” Liz said in a low voice as soon as Mandy had begun to match Heath’s snores.

    I put a hand on her shoulder.

    “Just pretend he’s not here in your car, being smelly, and getting drunk,” I whispered the offer, but knew it was no use with Liz.

    “He’s getting my car dirty,” she said, “What would Frank think of me picking up a hitchhiker and taking him all the way from Moses Lake to Seattle?”

    “What would Frank think if he knew you took off your wedding ring for this trip?” I asked, pointing to her naked finger.

    “That’s different. We won’t be murdered by my wedding ring missing. This guy could be a serial killer, Emelia. And what is Mandy’s deal with the name thing. We aren’t eighteen anymore. I’m married and plan on having children soon and Mandy will have to do the same with Jim eventually. Settle down and become an adult.”

    “I wouldn’t know,” I said bitterly. I had had my fare share of failed relationships over the years and many rejections, and at the age of twenty six, I was getting antsy to find someone, anyone that would take me for who and what I am. I am a twenty-six-year-old, slightly overweight, telemarketer, and that wasn’t a job where you find men.

    Liz smiled and glanced at me for a moment.

    “I’m sorry Benny,” she said warmly, taking my hand, her cigarette still burning between her fingers, “you’ll find someone one of these days and he’s gonna fall in love with you.”

    “Thanks,” I said, but was still feeling a bit sour inside.



    An hour later, after mulling over in my head about my last ex boyfriend and being silent, Mandy roused and yawned as we had pulled into Ellensburg. Heath still slept in the back quietly as we pulled into a quick stop to load up on chips and Pepsi.

    Liz pulled the keys out of the ignition, glanced at Heath for a moment as if wondering if he would steal anything if he woke up and decided to bail, then ran into the store in front of Mandy and I.

    Inside, Liz pulled Mandy to the side.

    “He gets off here, Mandy,” she said, looking tired and worn.

    Mandy frowned but nodded. “Okay,” she said, “I just felt bad you know?”

    “Do you realize that this is the last time we get to have a fling together before you move to Texas? We can’t move with you, Mandy. Let’s spend this trip together instead of picking up strange men to have interesting conversations with okay? Besides he’s been getting stinkier and stinkier the entire drive. I think he s**t his pants.”

    “Okay, I’m sorry,” Mandy said, “You’re right. I think he did.”

    Back in the car Mandy shoved a quick stop hot dog into her mouth and grumbled around bread and wiener.

    “Heath,” she shook the man whose mouth had fallen open on the drive.

    “Heath,” she repeated, ripping the dog from her mouth and saying it a bit louder.

    “Must be hard of hearing,” I said, opening Heath’s door a bit and feeling his weight push the door open, I lost balance and Heath’s body fell from the car, landing head first into the concrete. Mandy gasped, Liz was silent, and I fell to my knees to help catch the man, but was too late and he lay there unmoving, the top of his gray head broken and bleeding.

    “Go get the gas station attendant,” I yelled at Liz who stood with her mouth open, attempting to do nothing until her brain comprehended that Heath had fallen and was hurt.

    “I’m sorry Heath,” I said, pulling napkins from my pocket and holding pressure on the top of his bleeding head.

    Mandy ran around the car and knelt before Heath, putting two fingers to his neck.

    “Benny,” she said gasping, “he’s ******** dead.”

    “Dead,” I said more statement than question.

    “Dead,” I said again as Liz came out with the attendant.

    “Is everything okay?” the short bald gas clerk asked, he looked disturbed from his lounging and wasn’t happy.

    “Dead!” I screamed. “Call the police or the ambulance.”

    The gas clerk swore and ran into the station, leaving Mandy, Liz, and I to look after cold, smelly, Heath.

    I placed my two fingers below his jaw at his neck and felt no pulse, just to make sure Mandy had been wrong.

    “Dead,” I said again, my hands beginning to quiver.

    A woman who had been filling up her car ran over to us.

    “Is he okay?” she asked. She wore a red business suit with a pin on the lapel that said “My son is on the Honoroll!”

    “He’s dead,” Liz blurted, hands shoved deep in her pockets and eyes welling up with tears.

    The woman gasped and put a hand to her chest.

    “Oh my goodness,” she said, crossing herself.

    I poked Heath in the chest hard to make sure he wasn’t just unconscious or in deep sleep. He was a drunkard anyway, right?

    “Don’t poke him!” Mandy cried, tears sliding down her rosy cheeks.

    “I was just. Well, you know. I thought he might just be asleep and have a weak pulse.”

    The gas station clerk came out of the building with cordless phone still in hand.

    “Cops and ambulance are coming.”

    "Benny," Liz came and whispered into my ear. "What about the weed in the car."

    "It’s fine Liz," I snapped, "They aren't going to search the car. We didn't kill him. Besides can’t you think of anything better when we have a dead guy here?"

    Liz frowned and stepped back, doubt in her leaking eyes and abruptly turned her flaming red fingernail at Mandy.

    “This is your fault, you know. You ruined our trip and killed a homeless man in my car.”

    “I didn’t kill him,” Mandy pleaded, tears running down her face, looking at me for help. I put up my two hands as a white flag. I come in peace.

    “Both of you stop,” I said, “He probably had heart failure in the car. It’s no one’s fault.”

    Liz snarled. “No it’s Mandy’s fault. She is the one who invited him into the car in the first place.”

    “Ladies, please,” the soccer mom pleaded from the sidelines. There were sirens in the distance, but Liz’s finger never wavered.

    “Why do you have to always ruin everything? First, you decide to leave Benny and I because you’re a no good gold digger, then you bring a homeless guy into my car and he dies.” Liz started to cry. “I can’t believe you.”

    Mandy eyes burned and her tears flowed freely down her face, soaking the top of her once beautiful blue dress. Now she looked like a little kid who’s mother lets he dress herself, weeping and sobbing over black combat boots. She looked pitiful.

    “At least I never cheated on Jim,” Mandy clenched her fists and spat at Liz. Liz went pale and I had to abandon Heath’s body for a moment.

    “Liz, you didn’t,” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Liz cheated on Frank?

    Liz, her mascara bleeding down her face, turned to me and began to sob.

    “I’m sorry Benny,” Liz said,”but at least I’m not a pothead washout. At least men want me.”

    “You cheated on Frank,” I said, more than asked, the ambulance had showed up and my voice was drowned out by sirens before the paramedics burst from the meat wagon and began checking Heath’s vital signs, which weren’t there.

    Liz then turned to Mandy. “Jim tried to kiss Benny. Did you know that?”

    Mandy turned to me, her eyes red, her jaw set. “Benny?”

    “Yeah he did, Mandy, but I didn’t do anything. We didn’t do anything.”

    Mandy looked away from me as if I were melting. She was sick with me and sick with the thought that the love of her life Jim would want to kiss fat, washed-out Benjamina.

    “Whatever,” I said, annoyed and tired and feeling sick to my stomach.

    After the police showed up all three of us were questioned individually and we were left on the sidewalk, Heath’s body gone from the pavement, and in awkward silence.

    “I’m taking a bus back home,” I finally said, taking in Liz and Mandy’s sullen faces and blank expressions as shock of what had happened. A good, clean conversation wouldn’t happen and I wasn’t sure if it ever would again.

    I left Liz and Mandy by themselves, hopped on a Greyhound towards Spokane, and called in sick for a week at TeleComUnity, bought a half-ounce of herb, and sat on my couch, smoking and watching reality shows in which beautiful, overly made up women fight for an old washed out rock star. I had nightmares every night about Heath in the same reality show and Mandy and Liz and I would have to compete for his forgiveness. Sometimes he would show up in a suit, looking good and healthy and sometimes his skin would melt and I’d wake up in a pool of sweat. I wasn’t quite sure what we were asking forgiveness for from Heath, but it was a constant theme in my dreams. Maybe we were seeking forgiveness for fighting about bullshit over his cold, dead body.

    Liz and Mandy were constantly calling, but I didn’t want to talk to either of them. Liz was right; Mandy was leaving us for better pastures. Did I blame her? No. Did I blame Liz for cheating on Frank? No. Poor old Frank had it coming when he proposed to young and beautiful Liz who had dollar signs in her eyes on her wedding day besides stars or hearts, whatever you are supposed to see when you get married.



    My week off was almost done, and I had blown through a couple ounces of Mary Jane when I checked my mail. Amongst the junk there were bills, the light bill I hadn’t paid in a month, a letter from my father, asking if I was alive, and a little yellow envelope with my name and address in beautiful calligraphy.

    “To Benjamina “Emelia Estefan” York

    Inside was bright yellow cardstock covered in small, fake yellow flowers. On the cover was glued a picture of awkward Jim in a baby blue tux and beautiful Mandy in a bumblebee yellow dress. They were holding hands and looking towards the camera, their eyes alight with something I’ve never seen before. Maybe it was happiness. Maybe it was false happiness, but I was glad at that moment that Mandy had found some form or the other. Inside, in the same handwriting was the date of the wedding; “November 12th…because there won’t be snow here, and I’d like you and Liz to be my bridesmaids. I’m sorry for what happened. Love, Mandy.”

    I glanced around my apartment and noticed that it looked like a doomed hole for the insane and picked up my phone and called Liz.