Free Sweet Affliction by Anna Leventhal

a minute. We haven’t hung out in forever.”
    â€œYeah,” said Sally, “like for
ev
er.”
    Alex looked toward the house, then folded himself in front of the mildewed sofa and leaned back against Sally’s legs. She wrapped her arms around his neck and he sighed.
    â€œGet ’er done?” said Marcus.
    â€œYeah. No big deal. It’s over, at least.”
    â€œCast a cold eye on life / on death; Horseman, pass by,” Marcus said, quoting Yeats’s tombstone. Alex nodded. He looked up, then reached over and grabbed onto Marcus’s fingers. Marcus squeezed back, and their hands remained there, suspended, until Alex let go and picked up a beer by its neck.
    Marcus told Alex about Abby, the girl he liked.
    â€œShe’s in my Shakespeare class. She said her favourite part in
Hamlet
is when Hamlet says ‘Woot weep?’ to Claudius over Ophelia’s grave. She said it makes Hamlet sound like a really upset owl.”
    â€œCute,” said Alex. “Did you touch her perfect body with your mind?” This was code for thinking about someone while you masturbate. I am so going to touch that perfect body with my mind, they had said to each other a million times.
    â€œGross, Alex,” Marcus says, looking at Sally, then back to Alex. He wondered when the last time Alex got laid was.
    They all watched as the shrimp-smelling wind took a plastic bag off the porch and whipped it over into the neighbouring yard. Alex stood up and slapped at his jeans. He picked up his half-empty beer, saluted them with it, and went inside.
    â€œDo you think,” Sally said, “that by letting our garbage pile up on the balcony like this we’re just making more work for our neighbours?”
    â€œProbably,” said Marcus.
    Sally nodded and began stuffing things into other things; paper into boxes, bottles into cans and cans into bags. Later, even when he could barely stand to be around her, Marcus would remember this image, the tendons in her neck and the clomp of her rubber boots and the careless and efficient way she handled herself, the wind making a fan of her hair.
    Marcus turned to see Alex standing in the doorway. His head was tilted to one side.
    â€œHow—” said Marcus. Before he could finish Alex’s hand came out fast as a snake, whipping a projectile straight at Marcus’s head. It hit the side of his face and dropped into his lap. The impact was dull and wet, as though Alex had flung a soaked wad of cotton.
    Marcus put his hand to his jaw and looked down. In his lap was Oates, dead, his eyes and mouth open, teeth bared in a last grimace. His testicles were bluish and touching the inside seam of Marcus’s jeans. He had not gone gentle into that good night.
    â€œJesus
fuck
,” Sally said, dropping the box she held in her hands. Alex pushed past her and ran down the porch steps and through the yard, skidded on patch of wet grass, then corrected and flew past the fence. He turned down the alley and kept going. Sally took a few steps toward the fence, then turned back to Marcus.
    â€œWell that was majorly fucked,” she said.
    â€œYeah,” said Marcus, who now held the rat loosely in one hand. “Poor guy.”
    â€œHim or the rat?”
    â€œYeah,” said Marcus.
    What happened after that was mostly unremarkable. The two of them unlatched smoothly as a key leaving a lock. Marcus moved into a bachelor apartment in a different neighbourhood, one that smelled of croissants and smoked meat. Alex stayed on at the house, converting Marcus’s old room into a workshop. Marcus kept up with the house for a while; there were bonfires, there were Sunday potluck dinners. And then, eventually, there weren’t. In retrospect Marcus saw a kind of beauty in their separation, a graceful parting of ways, like a river forking in two. It was how things were meant to go. There may have been a quote about it somewhere, but Marcus