Henry had been talking all summer about the French girls. “Talented,” “broad-minded,” “pink,” were his words. They’d moved into the apartment above and he was certain: they were having sex parties.
“Lesbians,” he said, going through the kitchen for an ashtray. Outright pleasuring himself, no, but breathing in a way that didn’t leave me entirely comfortable. “They’re taking over . . . the world.”
“Yeah, maybe.”
He found the ceramic one shaped like stoned Goofy. “I’d be a great lesbian,” he said, ashing in its mouth. He leaned back and closed his eyes. Blew smoke in the air, picturing what had to be a scene simple and crude enough to fit inside his cup-shaped skull. “Right?”
I told him he’d be a great lesbian. I didn’t have time for some big debate. I had work. The most thankless, tedious, insignificant kind that took great preparation. For mine was a holy mission. It was the ultimate satisfaction to waste the second half of life, after getting the message with the first.
I put on my jacket. Henry continued staring at the ceiling, tapping his Bluetooth, loudly brainstorming ways to shrink “squatter’s rights” with his lawyer while waiting for the noises to start again. He’d established a schedule: 8:45 a.m., 12:15 p.m., then three quick consecutive sessions at 5:30 p.m., 7:30 p.m., and 9:30 p.m. And here it was, the first Riverdance of Hell. Ba-bang, ba-ba-bang! Notably enthusiastic today. I put on my shoes. Henry raised his eyebrows like See?
“Well, I’ll leave you to it,” I said, snubbing my cigarette, saving the last sixth in my front shirt pocket. “I have to get going.”
“Shh! This is the part with the oil!” he said, imagination leaking from the safety of its container, losing all shape and sense. He tapped. “No, not you, Karl.”
I left.
Like everyone else, I’d moved to the city to become a writer. Unlike everyone else, I was not aiming for anything as useless as knowledge or art or prestige or success—though I’d take money, that would speed things up. I wanted only one precious little stone: humiliation. Absolute, preferably.
With absolute humiliation—something quite possible to achieve as a writer—I’d have no choice but to make enemies of all humanity. A group that, starting in childhood, had provoked my incurable desperation. My need to be liked.
Over the years it had weaved itself into everything. My voice, which I’d always feared was pitched too high and therefore caused others to assume I was effeminate. My skinniness. The size of my cock. The memory of the Colombian boy seared me still. That day in the locker room, him so proud to pull out that monster. Was he part animal? Why had God cursed me?
No one event had led to my conclusion. But I felt it out there. Underneath all the pathetic politeness, and compromises, a shimmering black subterranea. If hell was other people, then alone was heaven.
I’d done my part. Lost the muse of my life; Lydia had smartly stayed in Kansas. Upon landing in LaGuardia, I’d promptly gone and got myself addicted to heroin. (A quick call to my old friend, Kristo.) Spent all my money. The money that was supposed to give me room to sit and write without worry. Worry meaning bosses. Or jobs.
In my position, a person might have wanted to win the lottery. Wanted, but not needed. My wanted had turned into needed. In fact, at this point, it was imperative I win the lottery. I owed many morally ambiguous types a lot of money. My habit had become monstrous, and presumptuously—in truth, moronically—I’d put faith in my ability to make money. Relied on credit. Now I knew it was not recommended to rely on credit with morally ambiguous types, mostly drug dealers. Or else you might find yourself needing to win the lottery. Taking jobs both impossible and underpaid. To buy more lottery tickets. And heroin, to get through said jobs. And more heroin, so you were high enough to believe you can win the lottery, which was also not recommended.
If it was to happen for me, becoming so humiliated that I had no choice but to find the gumption (a word I despised) to take on all the world and write something shameful enough that shame could never again touch me, I needed the streets to swell with dinge and debt and scams and herpes.
But New York didn’t seem to be New York anymore. New York was Kansas. Clean and safe and I was worried about all the changes Eric Adams had been making. For good, apparently. I waved at the homeless man lying in his spot, playing some cookie game on his phone. He waved back. A group of volunteers in matching shirts came over and lifted him to his feet, gave him a bag with fruit and sandwiches, signed him up for the housing lottery. He wanted to sleep. He was done hoping, but they just wouldn’t leave him alone. Hope, you stupid asshole! He stumbled off, cursing, and everyone hugged. Everyone a painter, or actor, or if they were truly pitiful, a comedian.
I turned down Wooster, hurried past yet another horrid new luxury building standing proud for I don’t know what. It blew me a kiss of AC, opening its automatic doors and releasing a woman. Attractive, stylish. Clicking out in flagpole heels.
I was just as automatic in reciting a prayer: O Great Landlord, mayor Adams, let me grab this woman by the arm, to explain my situation; let her understand, and find me quite charming; let her see my genius and seriousness and decide to take me in so I may finally, finally forget about Lydia. Amen.
I’d become a human chair for this woman. Anything to never go back to that unnatural den I shared with Henry.
I started following her, even though I was late. Nothing suspicious. I kept my distance. Anyway, it was merely research to see if God had given up on me completely. I’d been sending up quite the docket of prayers. She crossed the street at Prince, went down in the subway. I maintained a healthy pace. Around the electronic kiosk. Beyond the benches. We stopped and stood at the track together, waiting for the R uptown.
What should I say? I said to myself. Probably best to just come out with it. Tell her Henry was possibly the worst roommate alive for such a serious, brilliant writer as me, trying to stay focused. I could tell her: For the past three months I’ve been subjected to nightly unloadings. Forced to nod “yes” every few seconds as he hoovers Everests of cocaine. Then sermonizes. Or screams into his Bluetooth about why he is indeed special and successful and not, like his realty-demon father says, a “retarded slacker.” And did I mention he’s a deviant? He brings a new girl home every week—and they always have friends. He invites these friends over and pays them to perform whatever his puppy dog mind finds shiny that day. And by Christ, they perform. And if I want to continue “leeching off his generosity,” I must, as he demands, participate. I know it’s been said that with enough shame, one becomes shameless. But not if you like it! They eat gummy bears out our asses. He plays incest porn in the harsh light of day. I’m starting to think that I may be defective. For enjoying this. He doesn’t even need a roommate! In fact, owns the place, and many other places, but chooses to cohabitate. For he cannot bear to be alone with his undying insecurities for more than one episode of Property Brothers, which I believe is just incest porn dressed up for prime time.
Listen! Look at me here. Let me kiss you so that you may discover the black, unsearched penetralia of my soul. You’re beautiful, so I know I can hate you. Only someone as beautiful as you could properly humiliate. I’ll suck your toes. I’m weak. And stupid. I don’t know what I’m doing, or what this even is anymore. Is another junkie anti-hero possible in 2024? No. We’ve given up on all that. For “important writing.” And aesthetics. And a thousand writers will die this year not knowing a thing about the flesh. I’ll suck between your toes. It’s my duty to continue, down the hole, but I need you to give me shelter and get me away from four-hour pitches about house-flipping schemes. I’m weak. I will house flip.
“What are you doing?” the woman said, suddenly snapping and looking right at me.
I put my hand to my chest.
“Yes, you! You fucking pervert!”
I turned and ran back upstairs.
No, I didn’t blame myself for being driven to these strange pitiful acts. Not entirely. Sweating. Breathing through the mouth. A howling twenty-pound dong in my pants. Every woman, for one reason or another—a hairstyle, a perfume, a twitching ankle bone if I was in really bad shape—reminded me of Lydia.
I remembered her there in the doorway, wearing that short green Jacquemus dress (a final knife to haunt me later). The sputtering cab ready to take us to the airport. “No,” she said, shaking her head. The fantasy was over. New York City was for people with talent. Connections. There was no hope for my dream working out.
But my dream was alive. And I made sure she knew that, once a week, calling in the morning or the beginning of the night. First the bar, then the call. Hope came in flashes. When she sometimes took the calls, maybe out of boredom or gluttony, then quickly made it clear she would’ve preferred my updates via card. So she could prepare, dull herself, and respond coolly. (Not that she’d admit this.) Douse me in her usual measured indifference. Because when I called, I didn’t whine or blame. It was only bragging.
Dinners with agents. Parties with all the big players on the scene. (A downtown scene overrun with doomsday perfumers, authenticity sociopaths, sanpaku-eyed activists, social-climbing action painters who mostly made T-shirts of the Unabomber doing “soy-boy” face, and writers who wanted the sole body of their work to be interviews in Interview magazine.)
I’d come out here and made it and had great glittering developments to report. Lying is the precursor to great writing, so it was all practice.
Finally, I arrived at the building.
The goddamn building.
This job at the call center was essentially humiliation training. Phone sales, the godless trade, allowed people the courage to say what they truly felt. Which was apparently a lot. I was an exceptionally repulsive creature. Miserable. With a bland, slightly womanish voice. How did I live with myself? It was a service I provided. I called them, they told me ways to end my life. Which I’ll admit, I mulled over. (Nothing fancy, maybe just an extra three or four bags added to my daily dose.) Dead writers did have the tendency to get famous quickly. But, in the end, I stayed with the living. It felt nice to inspire such cruel creative boldness. Meant the plan was working. I didn’t know how to hang myself with my dick, mechanically, but I was willing to hear out the idea for its imagination alone.
Also, I had a good little scam going.
In this specific breed of phones sales, we called up blue-collar workers and sold them listings. These listings were supposed to be tied to physical locations so we could drive them appropriate local leads from our “website.” (The loosest of terms being applied; it was more digital napkin scrawled with misspellings.) But these people drove all over. They were plumbers, electricians, HVAC installers and repairmen. Restricting their territories to some formality of an office was worthless.
Recently, I found a woman. A person I truly respected. She was a plumber in her mid-fifties who’d worked her whole life in the male-dominated industry and therefore understood futility. Contempt didn’t cover it. When she got my call that day, she said nothing. No insult. Instead, she knew the worst she could do was simply let me go on living, continuing my decay as a salesman. She knew what enough time on this earth could do to a defiant soul.
“You’re a natural salesman, son,” she’d said that day. “You were born for this.”
Since she clearly wanted to help me succeed in escaping respect, I offered her a deal. I told her about the loophole I’d found in our system: prepaid credit cards.
“I have something for you,” I’d said.
When you’re rich, I told her, the line always starts at your back. We could show those small-minded men. But she wasn’t rich, she told me. She was a plumber. Was I slow? I told her I wasn’t slow, no more than anyone. Maybe I just liked helping bums. Wyoming was big. And yes, usually it would require an active line of credit to secure each location. But prepaid cards had no account holder or account attached. They worked to activate the system, but left collections with nothing to chase. And my commission for the original sale? We’d split that. We’d sign up each location as a separate business, giving her a massive field of leads ahead of her poor male rivals. A win-win. I was practically a feminist. All she had to do was give me addresses.
Quickly, it had gotten out of hand.
For the past three weeks, she’d called daily to add another. I’d tried to cover my tracks by printing out a draft of my novel (this also saved me on paper costs), making it look as if the sale needed reams and reams of research to further close, but it was getting confusing. My boss, Leslie (male), was giddy. He was thinking about the optics. The plumber, Leslie (female), was a woman. A woman plumber? And a multi-loc? Leslie (male), my boss, was going to be the first manager to deliver on the company’s inclusivity initiative. Not to mention he’d be getting a bonus.
The Leslies were burying me. How about 2342 Oak Lake Road? Is she a national account? How about 3662 Goldenrod Lane? Another research packet? 435 Redwood Court? How many offices does she have? They were burying me in enthusiasm. The story took more work than my book, which I marked up at my desk, which I was marking up now, as Leslie (male) walked over to me, to speak about Leslie (female).
“I have good news,” Leslie (male) said, resting his elbow on my cubicle.
“Good news?”
“Yes, the C-suite is in from LA.”
“From LA?”
“Yes. I’ve been telling them about your success. You’re our top salesman—sorry, top salesperson—this month. They want you to deliver a speech today for all the branches.”
“A speech?”
“Stop repeating me, Tiago. Yes, a speech. You’re doing so well they want to know your secret. Just tell them exactly what you’ve been doing, that’s all.”
So today was to be my last working here.
It was for the best. Success would only trap me. I didn’t want to be a natural salesperson. I wanted laziness and humiliation. Heroic laziness, as Lafargue said in his book (which I was using as a personal guide), required maximum effort. I waited until Leslie had walked away to the point he was again harmless, and wrote my resignation letter.
Dear Leslie Ono,
What do you know about prepaid credit cards?
All the best,
Tiago Barber, Top Salesperson
When I finally got home, Henry was gone.
This was a rare moment.
I could masturbate the whole afternoon.
Collecting my accoutrement (sock), I went and sat on the couch and assumed position. I consulted Henry’s notes. Five thirty, yes. Right on time, the noises arrived. I leaned back and stared at the ceiling.
It wasn’t that I believed Henry exactly, that there were wild women of sexual abandon living above. That he’d identified through bumps and bangs they were from France. I did not believe French women were known to bump or bang in any nationally specific way. But if I was to one day find someone to help me forget my obsession for Lydia, I’d need something to help ease me back in. Clumsy Frenchwomen would do. Want is unsightly. I’d not slept with anyone in a long, long while, and it would be easy to rip something off.
Footsteps—so at least they had the parts for those. I pictured two smooth, small, glowing sets of pedicured toes. Took it slow. The noises started giving me more. Bam, bum, a picture in my head. I closed my eyes tight. These were not just two lesbians, but two women madly in love. I could hear it all. Them forced to do whatever it took to make it in a city of stingy ugly backward Johns. Ba-bang.
They liked sequins and Joni Mitchell. Them two, against the world. Bang, bam, t-tap. And now there was a third. A nervous, timid lurching from behind the two—a first-timer. They took this John-boy and told him to wait in the kitchen while they went and slipped into something comfortable. Ba-bang, bum, bum. They disappeared into the bedroom. John-boy stood silent, directly above me if my calculations were correct. He soaked up the layout of the room around him. A small pink plant. A poster of Agnes Martin’s 2015 exhibition at the Tate. A very large knife.
He gulped. When he heard the women giggling deviously in the other room, he started to question what exactly he’d walked into. What path he was walking down. Women. It was serrated, the knife. Women who hated men. And shiny, the knife. Were they back there poking fun at a collection of severed peni? The anteater hoods, the wimpy twigs, and of course, the chodes? (Somehow, I knew this man was choded and self-conscious about it.) Making room for one more? He looked at the door. Maybe he should just go back to how things were. A normal life. He had a wife and a family and shouldn’t be here.
I was jerking myself raw, a deep warmth rising in my gut.
We both sweated, me and John-boy, in our own ways.
The two women in the bedroom stared into each other’s eyes. In preparation. They did what they had to do to survive. And while morals were easy to make concessions on, taste was harder. That always hurt. They thought about men. How cheap and predictable their fantasies were. How stupid they looked naked. They were all so afraid to lose their power, yet also afraid of what they had to do to keep it. Like Saturn eating his child, they stared upon the women, whose bodies they used and discarded, in horror.
Bam, bum, bum.
When the women returned, the man trembled in fear and excitement. They weren’t naked, but close. He could barely glance at their devastating bodies. The soft slopes delicately draped in skimpy robes of silk. Blue and purple. Could he handle them? Did women cut off dicks in blue and purple silk? They moved with entrancing carnality, completely given in to filthy appetite, without humility or embarrassment, and before he knew it they were taking each other in their arms, kissing, on the mouth, the cheek, one now moving down the taut fibers of the other’s neck, to her twitching precious bone in the collar, to the breasts, oh, the breasts, pink nipples engorged, nearly purring. Now to the soft down of the navel. Now the pelvis, lifting, to help, the hair coarse and sopping wet. Labia split with a tongue, webbed with milky filament . . .
I’d faded away completely. My cock was going to be in bad shape if this didn’t conclude in a hurry. I could hear them changing positions, backs arching, hair being pulled. I hadn’t been this excited in months. Was I a lunatic? One of Merle’s, clutching my bonneted log as God looked down and laughed? Was it all in my head? No. This was something. A sign. Here, close to the bottom of darkness, I’d at last been given focus. And inspiration.
Now came the screaming. I saw nipple clamps and oils. Ropes. And what were those? Were they? My Christ! They were devouring this man! A dream had been delivered unto him, possibly because of me and my lustful praying. This was what I needed. This was the prowess that women of perfect leisure could show me, and I wasn’t there! What had I done! I had to do something. I heard slamming and moaning and could see their thighs and asses gyrating wildly. Now that I really listened, it was beyond doubt: they’d invited many more than just this man. Four? Six? No. More like twenty. The fight wasn’t fair. This John-boy was being bombarded with puss. They were going to kill him!
I rose. There was only one decent thing for me to do. Get up there and help. Split the load, so to say. Bum, bam, bum! The assholes! I’d forgotten about those. I had to go now. It wasn’t just because I was horny, this was noble. They were slurping and sucking him inside out. These beautiful, generous, sexually advanced women.
I started up the stairs, no less than a tintinnabulum ripping through my boxers.
I got to the door.
Stood there a moment.
Listening to the Dark Arts in full swing.
This was vile medieval wonderful stuff. Women coordinating as a team, conjuring Sappho. This man was the offering. A helpless goat. I started to knock, but then looked down and noticed my cock had gone limp. I’d done too much heroin. It was hanging sad out the front. The poor guy was a bit intimidated and needed help. This was my initiation. My new road, if I was to one day keep up with a muse that could show me the truth of leisure and pleasure and laziness. If I was to be of any use here, I’d need to work him back into presentable proportions.
I started to jack, gripping his neck, giving him confidence. This is the Lord’s work, pal: you and me. He wanted a sniff. I rubbed his nose against the door.
Bam, bum!
A beast came over me. I put my mouth against the door, kissing and sucking the peephole. A hard cute nub. A stiff metallic nipple. I got it all wet. I mashed the head of my prick against the door’s cold metal and worked him into a frenzy and I was ready. I lifted my hand to knock.
The door swung open.
It was no orgy. There were no women. Only a solitary, bearded, bellied old man.
“Why are you at my door?” he asked. He was big. In a teal paisley kimono. He looked down at me, then farther down, then back up quickly. “What the fuck?” His face twisted from confusion to anger.
“I’m a writer,” I said—the only thing in my shock I could produce.
The man gripped my arm. “No. You’re a little pervert. And I’m calling the cops!” He was a strong old fucker.
“Please, no! I’m just a writer! I was just—please let go!” I jerked (the other kind) and thrashed, but it was no use. “You’re twisting my arm, you monkey! My writing arm! Now let go!” When it was obvious I wasn’t going anywhere, I settled.
Seeing us holding hands there, the TV must have gotten jealous. It let out a long deep moan, strange sounds in a language familiar yet foreign. It wasn’t French. Henry was wrong. Through the ceiling, the enunciations must have distorted what was now distinctly Japanese. I glanced over his shoulder to see, and yes: it was porno. Cranked up loud. The good stuff.
“Are those cartoons?” I asked. A blue-skinned elven woman squirmed as hordes of festering tentacles slithered toward her hole. She exploded in a trill of ecstasy.
His face started reddening. He knew. He turned to look behind, but he knew. His kimono flayed open. Now it was both our dicks. Sticking out, facing off against each other. They touched noses. He noticed this, turned white from disgust.
I was lucky. I’d received so much embarrassment recently that this couldn’t faze me. He was consumed, but to me it was Wednesday. He reached down to close everything, forgot what he was doing. Let go. I was free.
I turned and ran to the stairs. With my pants still down, it was more tripping than anything of form, and I came barreling wildly through the front door. Henry was home.
“Well, hello there,” he said. “What’s the problem with you?” He was smiling.
This was it. God had finally given up and was closing all paths. I looked at Henry smiling there, and knew it would be the last time. I had to leave. Without a word, I started packing. Shoes. Socks. More socks. It was considerate of the devil to make me so lazy and unlucky. I had almost nothing. Shirt. Glove. Literally, one single glove. Five pairs of underwear. A duffel bag. A few books (especially Lafargue) and my wallet and pillow. It all went in the bag. I left my copy of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People Henry had gifted me, and my yoga-mat bed. I heard the man banging at the door.
“Tiago?” Henry poked his head in my room. Still smiling. “What’s going on? Who’s this guy outside?”
“Call Kristo!” I screamed. “Call him and tell him I’ll do another!”
“Are you sure, man?” he asked. “After last time?
“Get out here, you fucking pervert!” kimono man’s voice came through loud and clear. “If you don’t, I’ll make sure the next time you take your cock out, it looks like baby Tetsuo!”
“Like what?” Confusion pinched Henry’s face up and to the left, as if the answer might be there.
“Just set it up!”
I had everything packed. I opened the window and looked down. Three stories. The banging intensified. I hung my leg over the sill. I could see Henry resisting, but his body was almost moving itself. He glanced at me sheepishly. I shook my head: no. He shrugged and turned and went toward my doom.
He opened the door. “He what? Really, man? Tiago did?”
“Yes! So where is he! I’m going to fucking smash that weird little fag’s teeth in!”
I jumped.
Getting up and dusting off, my right ankle throbbed with an alarming sour heat. My middle finger on the left hand was severely broken. My knee clicked. But it didn’t matter. There was no going back. Only forward into something worse and therefore vaguely more true. No job. No den with Henry. My humiliation, my way. Giving up was refreshing.
The man stuck his head out the window. “I’ll fucking kill you! Come up here, you fuck!”
Behind him, Henry threw his palms in the air.
I waved to them both. Flung my bag over my shoulder and turned and strolled away. I wanted to leave them with a cool, calm image. For when I got famous.
When I was around the corner, I started sprinting. 
Garth Miró is a writer living in New York City. His work has appeared in Southwest Review, The Creative Independent, Litro, X-R-A-Y, Sundog Lit, and Maudlin House, among others. His debut novella The Vacation is out now through Expat Press. He works as a handyman.
Illustration: Josh Burwell