Doors of Love

By DesDownUnder

Copyright © 2008 By DesDownUnder. All Rights Reserved.

Chapter 3: A New Tenant.

At least I now knew their names: Eran and Bryce.

Harvey called me today. Said he would drop around with a keyboard that he found amongst his stuff when he was moving house. He thought I might like it to go with the computer he gave me last week. In truth, I think he just wanted an excuse to hang out away from his screamer of a girlfriend. She was continually on his case to smarten himself up. “Why can’t you be more like him,” she once said, pointing to me.

“Because I’m straight and he’s gay,” he told her.

Ever since then, she wouldn’t let him visit me and thoroughly turned cold when I visited them. Suited me, I didn’t like her anyway. She was one of those women who wore their boyfriend on their arm, not so much as a trophy, but more as a fashion accessory for her friends to ogle over; and Harvey was certainly worth ogling. Not that I would ever have tried to tempt him. He was a friend and I knew where his interests lay. I just thought he deserved better than a manipulating society matron for a life partner.

So there we were, sitting on the balcony of my humble second-story apartment, the late afternoon sun over Sydney Harbour, warming our beers before we could finish drinking them.

Harvey looked at me as I chuckled. “What?” he asked.

“Nothing,” I replied.

“Come on, what is it. You don’t laugh like that for no reason.”

Harvey knew me too well. What was amusing me was that he had positioned himself in his chair with his back to the Sydney Harbour, so that he looked like he was wearing the distant Sydney Opera house as a hat. It just seemed to fit on top of his head. The famous jutting sails almost seemed to be growing out his spiked, light brown hair. They sort of matched his protruding ears. Still, it was a fleeting image that soon faded as the sun sank lower towards twilight. Harvey gave a high pitched giggle as I explained the vision to him.

“You’re a mad-arse,” he said with a big grin that always endeared him to me.

I changed the subject. “When do you move in with Melissa?”

“Next weekend, unless I get a better offer.” He teased.

“Yeah, right, like I should be so cursed… or lucky. You could always move into the apartment upstairs, you know. It is vacant.”

“What, and have to listen to you surfing the naughty pics on the net all night long? Thanks, but I’ll give it a pass. Besides, the vacancy sign has been taken down. Who knows? It might be your Mr. Wonderful moving in up there.”

“Yeah. Right.” Sarcasm dripped from my mouth.

He laughed. We enjoyed the banter because we both felt safe in each other’s company.

“How are your neighbours?” I asked.

“Who?”

“The two guys in the house next to yours, you know, Twinkie and Thigh-Boy.”

“Oh, Mr. and Mr. Gay?” he said cheekily.

“Yes,” I said, “Eran and Bryce, how are they?”

“Well, I haven’t seen much of them, but I think they’re moving out. The landlord wasn’t too impressed with the damage they did to the garage door, and there is a ‘For Lease’ sign in the front yard.”

“Oh, poor kids.”

“Yeah, I felt sorry for them, especially after you stabbed one of them with your cell phone.”

”I did no such thing. He jumped on it when he read a message from the Telco about ‘footing the mobile phone’ account. How is his foot? Is he still limping?”

“I don’t think so, I don’t see much of them but I hear they have a calamity a day.”

The sun was almost gone. The street lights suddenly flickered on. Harvey drained the rest of his beer.

“Gee, I better be going, Melissa is expecting me for dinner.”

“And breakfast too, I suppose. What a waste.”

He laughed and jabbed me in the arm as he got up and headed to the door.

“See ya, mate,” he said, as he opened the door and let himself out.

I was clearing up the empty beer cans when I heard a muffled ‘ka-thomp’ followed by metallic clanging and a screech of brakes.

I looked over the edge of my balcony and could see a moving van had backed into the driveway. I was perplexed. The street was quite narrow. There was no way that big moving van could have backed into the driveway like that. Then I saw the tyre marks on the little bit of grass the real estate agent referred to as “landscaped front lawn.”

The driver had driven off the street over the footpath and the “landscaped front lawn” through the patio, knocking over the garden chairs, and had skidded the van into a backed up position on the drive. Well done!

Then I saw the driver get out of the U-Haul truck. It was Twinkie, Eran.

A familiar small Japanese car pulled up to the curb and yes, sure enough, Thigh-Boy, or I should say, Bryce, with the kangaroo thigh muscles got out. He ran towards Eran, who was already running, their arms outstretched like a hero and heroine being reunited in a moment of triumph as the sun set at the end of a movie. The only thing missing was the music. Why did I feel like this was the beginning of my end?