Free Grime by K.H. Leigh Page B

pronoun that somehow makes
everything in the room look different.
    Not just magazines. His magazines.
    I fill two boxes, three, then cart them
outside. Jamie's on my heels with a bag in each hand.
    "Recyclables here, donations on that side?" I
suggest.
    "What about garbage?"
    "In the U-Haul. We're going to have to take a
couple trips to the dump before we're done."
    She swings the bags into the trailer and
follows me back inside. "We've got a system going," she tells Val.
"Want me to show you?"
    "I'll figure it out." She's already nearly
cleared her corner.
    A few minutes later Jamie groans. "Fuck."
    "What's the matter?"
    "He had a cat." She's holding the inside of
her elbow up over her mouth and nose. I walk over and see an open
litter box, overflowing with feces blackened by age, under a desk
against the wall.
    "Jesus Christ."
    "I'm not picking that up."
    "I think I saw a snow shovel in the
garage."
    With her nose wrinkled, Jamie steps over
various bits of junk strewn over the floor and heads for the
garage. Once she’s gone the silence seems heavier. Thick enough to
choke on.
    Three years, I think. That’s when I last saw
Jamie. She’d emailed to tell me she was coming to town and wanted
to see me. I’d had a brief moment of panic, unsure if she was
asking in some vague, roundabout way if she could stay at my place
- and if she was, would she be offended if I had to ask if that’s
what she meant, and if she wasn’t, would asking make her think I
wanted her to? Ben would have laughed at me and told me to calm the
fuck down, but I didn’t know him yet. I was living with Paul then,
and Paul just got annoyed with me. Such a pussy, he said. Terrified
of my own fucking sister.
    So I cleaned out the tiny room we used as an
office, just in case, and borrowed a futon from the neighbors, but
when Jamie showed up at the front door she didn’t have any bags
with her. I never did find out where she was staying, but I was
relieved it wasn’t with me and even more relieved that she never
mentioned it.
    We went out to eat at one of those trendy
places just off Santa Monica, small plates and a patio. Paul came
along, at our insistence, and it was fine. Not a life-altering
evening, not a disaster. Just fine.
    She came back the next morning, from wherever
it was she was staying, and we went hiking up Runyon Canyon, just
the two of us. We didn’t talk as much, without Paul there, but that
was fine too.
    “Mitch!”
    “What?”
    “I said, when’s the last time you were here?”
Val has already moved on to another corner. Damn, she works fast.
She looks at me with raised eyebrows.
    “Um. I dunno. 1992? ‘93, maybe?”
    “Bullshit, serious?”
    I laugh. I can’t help it.
    “What?” Val pouts. I laugh harder.
    Jamie comes back with a big aluminum shovel
in her hands, the grubby barcode sticker still wrapped around the
handle. “What’s so funny?”
    I have tears in my eyes. Actual goddamn
fucking tears. I just manage to blurt the words out between gasps.
“Val said ‘bullshit’.”
    It takes Jamie a minute to react, but when
she does she starts laughing, too. Val looks back and forth at the
two of us like we’re crazy. Not angry, just confused. Eventually
she just rolls her eyes and starts stuffing her trash bag
again.
    Jamie and I get control of ourselves after a
minute or two, when we both see the shovel and remember why she
went to get it in the first place. We look down at the pile of cat
shit.
    “How do you want to do this?”
    “I was thinking I’d stand way over there and
cheer you on.”
    I open a new bag and use some old newspapers
to pin the edge of it to the floor, then lift the other side to
open the mouth wide. Jamie grimaces as she tries to slide the scoop
under the litterbox, and it just scoots along the floor for a few
inches.
    “I don’t have any leverage.”
    I grab a stool and wedge it under the desk,
pinning the litterbox between it and the wall, until she can get
the shovel under, then I open the