Free Chimpanzee by Darin Bradley Page A

from every bank that owns a property on this tour. Short sale offers are guaranteed a response within fourteen days, and the banks are prepared to accept up to 40% losses, should appraisal values not match asking price. Several inspection firms are also partnered in this pyramid. Ready to go.
    The bungalow sits at the top of a hill in a mixed neighborhood. There are tenement apartments and rent-controlled houses about a mile away. But that no longer means what it used to mean.
    It is a red brick house with white trim. It boasts a study with original windows and molding. Bookshelves.
    Sireen looks forward. She is five houses ahead, in the guidebook.

    We tour our lives together in these houses. It is a fast and easy way to spend the early part of the day. Living ahead of oneself in a place one doesn’t—could—own. The selling points of our futures together, in these places, appear in clean, bold font in our guide. WINTER VIEWS OF THE MOUNTAINS . Sireen in her bare feet—pads of feminine skin against the STAINED CONCRETE . She wears one of my shirts, taking a break for a glass of water from the CUSTOM FILTRATION SYSTEM . She brines Thanksgiving turkeysovernight in a five-gallon bucket that we keep in the MUDROOM, OR SOLARIUM . Will keep. She grades papers in her study, wearing sweat pants and faded alma mater T-shirts. She complains about her committee, a fully fluted glass of pinot in one hand, her anger in the other.
    She spins past the ORIGINAL WAINSCOTING in this one, past the CONDITIONED PLASTER in that, her face alight with tenure. Publication. A new course approval. Travel funds.
    I see her dirty fingers in these HANGING FLOWERBEDS —her domestic anger between the REFURBISHED BALUSTERS , upstairs. I am on my knees in this half-bath, sick from too much eggnog. It speckles my dark turtleneck. Winks in the lights of our Christmas tree.
    A baby cries somewhere.

    There are two houses left on the tour, but this one is only three blocks from where we live, so we’re done. We’ve seen enough. We hide in a pass-through closet while everyone else vacates the premises. We are having a good time, skipping out. In grad school, after we’d started dating, we would cut classes to meet for shots of house whiskey at the campus bar. We would kiss it from each other’s lips, like drinking bitters to remedy some discomfort caused, really, by drinking too much. When I could, I would press the bulb of my upper lip against her teeth, when that smile climbed. Because I could. We would spend our student loan disbursements on cigarettes and small gifts. She likes chocolate.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  I liked how it made her bounce around the room, when she’d had some. I gave her a box, and we each ate one before taking our shots.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  Oh, Ben, she said. It’s disgusting.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  I chased her around the billiards table, just to be obnoxious, and she could barely speak for all the breathing and grinning.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  You ruined chocolate, she said.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â  And whiskey, I said.
    We hold hands down this hallway—a ranch-style. Long and bricked and endless. Quiet walls. The master bedroom is carpeted.
    â€œWhat do you think?” she says.
    â€œI love you.”
    â€œAbout the house, ass.” She slaps. She laughs through white teeth.
    â€œIt’s fine.”
    In the bedroom, the light is pale dark.
    â€œI like it.”
    I can see black walnut leaves through the blinds. Someone else’s household dust is still upon the sill. Sireen’s hips are strong against mine. The gears and schedules of her flesh. Conception thinks her.