The
house was full of fucked-up people. The landlord lived seven minutes away. A
girl moved in, wanting the excitement, a house with seven wild roommates. But
it was bad. One tenant killed somebody in his room. She listened to the
beaten-to-death guest choke on his own blood on the other side of the wall. Now
she hears the noise he made all the time. She listened to the police interview
a couple of other tenants outside, heard this through her window. She moved
back in with dad. For old dad, she thought, what couldn’t be measured on a
gauge—pounds per square inch, mileage, fluid ounces—could hardly be said to
exist at all. So it was with all her trauma—she felt alone, and she hungers to
make the sound of death herself.
