Take Me With You by Vanessa Carlisle

Author:Vanessa Carlisle [Carlisle, Vanessa]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Running Wild Press

10

Griffin’s Apartment

There was a crusted bottle of Soft Scrub and a fetid sponge, but no towel, in Griffin’s bathroom. The floor tiles were loose, and I moved one back and forth a half inch with my foot while I peed.

He lived with so many people. There were piles of confusing shapes in the hallway. Vacuum hoses? Old plastic tubes for tennis balls? Brown packing tape peeling off big boxes that could hold the belongings of someone who has been gone for years. Matted cakes of cat hair collecting inches from the base of the wall. The remnants of a taxidermy kit Griffin said he usually tried to forget.

I asked about the taxidermy box. There was a crate full of cotton, spools of light brown thread, and coils of wire in various thicknesses piled chaotically on top of it.

Griffin avoided it and kept talking about the apartment. The old manager was responsible for most of what was wrong with the space, Griffin said. He put up plywood “walls” and rented half-rooms to people who couldn’t and never did pay rent. He removed the water shutoff valve from one of the toilets, so it wouldn’t flush. That meant there was one working toilet for all eight people who lived there.

“It made some sense at the time,” Griffin said, “in my defense. Our water bill was too high and no one was home much. Most of us made a real effort to shit elsewhere.”

“Why do you have a taxidermy kit.”

He sighed. “I thought we were wasting a great opportunity by poisoning the rats.”

“Opportunity for what?”

“Re-use. Profit. I ordered a beginner’s taxidermy kit, like for squirrels or something. I watched tons of YouTube videos.”

“Did you ever do it?” I touched the box. It was thick with dust.

Griffin smiled and pointed at a series of finger-smudges on the wall just to my right. I added my smudge to the collection.

“I wanted to make a series of dioramas with the rats dressed up in doll clothes and sell them to the hipster bars on the other side of Bushwick. I really thought I’d make money. And be repurposing the rats. I got the idea from an old taxidermy manual I got at the thrift store around the corner.” Griffin pulled some masking tape from a corner of the box and peered inside. He saw what he wanted.

“And?” I asked. The story reminded me, somehow, of Nautica. Maybe because she had a collection of teeth.

“I sold three dioramas before they went out of style,” Griffin said as he opened the box, just enough to wedge his hand in and retrieve a worn maroon book with faded gold leaf lettering. “You have to read this,” he said. He backed down the hallway, dragging his hands on the sides of the wall, clicking and rustling his fingers on the thick paint. Rat sounds.

“What were the dioramas?”

One was a scene in which a mouse in a dress was laying on a divan with a tiny martini. That one was called Daisy.

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