Volume One: The Road Out
Chapter Two
Verse Two: The Chorus and the Magpie
Harley's landlady could be heard walking above them. The floors creaked with each step, and the old house seemed to flex with each footfall. Harley looked up reflexively each time the creaks announced that the landlady's movement through the house. The landlady was a widow, Marion knew this. And Marion knew that the rent for Harley's basement suite was very low, even accounting for the fact that the suite did not include laundry and had only a shower and not a bathtub.
Harley clasped his hands behind him, letting Marion know how concerned the situation had made his friend. Harley's father worked as an accountant and his mother worked a claims investigator for an insurance firm. Harley's parents had trained Harley that everything needed to be in neat little lines and carefully documented, that any error could be fatal. Harley had not internalized this as thoroughly as they had hoped. Despite this deviance from his parent's teachings, Marion had always trusted Harley to be the reliable one, the steady and methodical one. Harley didn't yell, didn't fly off the handle, didn't jump at shadows, didn't get drunk and take an inflatable moose to prom. Marion did that stuff, and Harley still pulled Marion's fat out of the fire.
"I'm sorry to do this to you. I feel like a colossal screw up. And I'm starting to think I really do have something wrong with my brain."
"You're problem is that you're too nice and don't know how to compromise your standards. That's a tough combination." Harley said in his usual level voice, the kind of voice you would use to speak to panicking toddler.
"You're the one who's too nice. How many times are you going to help me after I screw things up?"
"All of them." Harley said, "Who collected pop cans all summer so I could afford to go on the exchange program to Greece? Who cleaned up the Chemistry lab after I blew up the fume hood, so I didn't have to stay behind and miss the basketball quarter finals? Who skipped class to run to the flower shop to buy flowers for Amy when I found she was allergic to the flowers I'd already bought? You've helped me just as often as I've helped you. We're best friends and that's what you do."
Marion looked away and wiped his eyes before turning back.
"Thanks. That means a lot to me."
"We're friends. Night and Day. That's not going to change. I've got your back. The challenge here is my landlady."
"I don't really know her, except that she's kind of a funny old lady."
"Mrs. Critchwood is a suspicious lady who doesn't rent to loud renters and doesn't trust quiet renters. She doesn't work and needs to rent out the basement suite to make enough money to get by, but she doesn't like doing that."
"Why doesn't she like quiet renters?" Marion asked.
"She thinks they're up to something. She thinks everyone is up to something."
"She'd really have a problem with me crashing at your place while I get back on my feet?"
"She has a problem with Amy staying the night. Although that's partially because she has a problem with us 'being sinful in the eyes of the almighty' or something equally old fashioned. So yeah. She has a problem with everything."
"So I just stay out of sight in the mornings. I come over a fair amount already. How would she know if I'm staying here if she doesn't see me before noon?"
"She comes and goes at all hours, so it won't be easy. She's on long-term disability from her job, I don't know what for- she just says it's something you can't see."
Harley walked back and forth as he spoke, closing his eyes frequently to concentrate.
"I don't think she sleeps much, and she's up awfully early. She gardens a lot, which is going to make sneaking in and out difficult. You'll need a job as quick as possible, so you need to be handing out resumes. But you'll have to check if she's outside. If she's in the house, she likes to sit in the living room. I see her staring out the window all the time when I come home, so use the back yard to avoid being seen. But don't do that around noon or dinner time, she'll be in the kitchen then."
"You make this sound like a James Bond movie."
"It basically will be. The rent is really good here and I don't want to lose this place, but she's completely unhinged and that complicates things."
As Marion listened to Harley, he heard the door open and looked to see Amy closing the door behind her as she entered. Amy was Harley's girlfriend, she stood about five feet tall and was a tiny faerie like girl who seemed vulnerable to even the slightest breeze. Her face scrunched as though she had eaten a whole grapefruit when she saw Marion.
"The freak is here, I see. I thought we were alone tonight." She said as she dropped her tote bag in the entry way and kicked off her fur lined boots, "What was your plan for dinner? Are we sharing our dinner with the loonie?"
Harley turned to face Amy as he answered, "I hadn't taken the time to think about dinner. Marion's in a pickle and I've been helping him. He needs a place to stay for a while."
Amy narrowed her eyes and Harley began to pace again in response.
"And where is he going to stay?" Amy asked, her voice rising in tone and volume as she spoke.
"He's been evicted from his place." Harley said, “His landlord is a jerk and so is his boss. So he got fired and evicted as a result of a kind of ludicrous pile of bad luck and weird coincidences. I mean this is the sort of thing in a story that makes you think the author is out of ideas and so he's just going to play go. You either laugh or cry. So he has no job and no home right now. So he needs a place to stay. And he's my best friend, so I'm letting him sleep on the couch while he gets things sorted." Harley maintained his usual tone as he spoke although as he continued to speak he began to speed up, his words starting to bump into each other on the way out.
Amy shook her head and continued to scrunch her face up. "The loonie has moved in with you? He was bad enough when he just visited occasionally. You are not getting laid while he's around to listen and enjoy himself."
"I can go for a walk." Marion offered.
"That's a good idea," Amy said, squaring her feet and placing her hands on her shoulders, "Take your junk with you and find a park bench. That's about your standard, right?"
"Hey." Harley said, his voice just a hair above it's normal calm level, "Marion is my best friend. It's not appropriate to talk to him like that."
"Come on guys," Marion said, "Don't fight. Let's not follow the script to every crummy romantic comedy ever made."
"Do you hear him insulting me?" Amy's voice rose to a shrill edge.
"That wasn't an insult. He doesn't want us to fight. I don't want us to fight." Harley kept his voice even as he spoke, but he was still pacing.
"He's the cause of the fight, so he doesn't get a say in what happens in this house." Amy thrust an index finger to the ground for emphasis as she spoke.
"I've known him since we were little. I've known him longer than I've known anybody but my family. He's my best friend."
"He's a loonie and screw up and now he's a mooch." As Amy spoke, Harley kept looking up at his ceiling in short little glances. His eyes would flick upward and then return to looking at Amy as she spoke. "I can talk about him how I like, and you don't get to tell what to do."
"I'm not telling you what to do." Marion said, he voice perfectly level, "I am pointing out that you are being mean to my best friend after he has had maybe the worst day of his life. And I am pointing out that such behaviour isn't very nice."
"Tough. Weaklings are nice and the world walks all over them. It's walking over you right now and apparently sleeping on your couch. Marion is a loonie who needs to be put in an asylum- and if you want to let your place be that asylum then that's just proof at how much he manipulates you.
"Maybe I should just go." Marion said.
"Best idea you've ever had." Amy answered.
"You aren't going." Harley said to Marion. Then he turned and spoke to Amy again, "You would honestly let him sleep on a park bench? Do you think that's the decent thing to do?"
"The decent thing wouldn't be for him to barge into your home and your life like this. He just needs to go. In fact, I not going to spend time here when that loonie is still in the building. Either he sleeps here or I do, not both. You can decide who's more important to you. But if he's not gone soon, I'm going to let Mrs. Witch Lady upstairs know that Marion is here. Then we'll see what's decent."
Amy then turned around and stuffed her feet back in her boots and stormed out. She slammed the door very loudly on the way out an Harley flinched and looked up to the ceiling again.
There was a long moment of silence in which to the two friends stared at the door.
"Well that didn't go well." Harley finally said in to the silence.
"She forgot her tote bag." Marion said.
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