My Hot Roommate

TRAP! │Chapter 8 │

            AGHAST SEEING HIM, my feet cannot hold any much longer of my weight. Not to mention my insides falling apart. I control my breath and pause everything in an attempt to wake up from this another abiding dream. How exquisite terrible it is to meet this dreadful fate? He is like peckish prey, and I am his alluring bait.

            Grandnanna must be mistaken to see Liam as her grandson. I am not trying to hurt her feelings, but it is already scientifically evidenced that her eyesight becomes poorer and poorer. This ugly little footling piece of horny humanoid species wearing undoubted rags from filthy junks, of all crazy people in this world, cannot, and better should not be, Grandnanna’s grandson. Or otherwise, everything will never be the same as before it was.

            Yet reality surrounds me. I can feel the second hand of my watch moving from my wrist as this undazzling silence stare between us lasts forever. How can Grandnanna have a grandson like Liam? How could Liam never visit Grandnanna here before? And what is he really up to here?

            I already know the answer to the last question: Liam is here because he’s following me to try and seduce me. Gabriel told me in the communal bathroom. But how did he know that I live here? Is this a sort of coincidence? Is he really and no other matters to do here than visiting Grandnanna? Because I never told anyone about my home address, including Gabriel and Dylan, the whole week.

            “Lou Lou?” Grandnanna emerges from the gate. The sun makes a very bright light reflection on her glasses, and I see her eyes close a little more closely because of it. The wrinkles on her face are noticeable, like every strand of her ageing white hair. And her smile as she calls me with the nickname I love from her makes me return it to her. “Your back? Oh! I missed you so much, like how I was pining for my grandson, Booboo.”

            Booboo. I recall. I can use his childhood nickname to give Liam agony.

            She hurries closer to me, and I hug and kiss her on the cheek, asking afterwards a peek from Liam on the gator, “Grandnanna? Is Booboo’s real name Liam, by any chance?”

            “Why, yes!” she exclaims surprisingly. Liam, I am so sure, hears it. “Didn’t I tell you that?”

            I am absolutely sure that she did not. All times from before, she calls her grandson Booboo. Or maybe she did at least once, and I just have forgotten about it. Now I am not sure. I stare at her eyes, giving this as my answer to her. She gets it.

            We walk together to the gator. It did not even take a minute. Grandnanna’s feet is a lot stronger than mine’s. Until now, I cannot believe Liam is her grandson. “Here. Louie, this is my grandson, Liam. And Liam, this Louie, my second grandson.”

            The introduction with our names are actually not needed, nor even wanted. We, clearly, especially I, know each other. And we made so many fights already. For once in my life, just now, I loath Grandnanna’s voice.

            Liam smiles at me beautifully. Not evilly this time. But I did not dare to smile at him back. Today is Sunday, and I am supposed to be off with my roommate. How should I smile at him back when it is him that gives me wrath? An imbecile who has an intense like and lust for this imbecile would do such a thing. I, nonetheless, do not happen to be one of them.

            “Now, now, hurry along! Stalls don’t stand forever on the dockside!” Grandnanna cries out after a moment. I stand and watch her walk and close her redwood gate. I keep my feet rigid on the ground, staring at it.

            Silence with fresh air – that gets polluted by Liam’s breathe. I stand still.

            Liam ogles at me for a long moment which gives me prickle. Yet, following this iring moment, he speaks for the first time in this day, “You heard my grandma, roommate. Stalls don’t stand forever, do they?”

            “They do, numbskull, only if you let them! What are you doing here?!”

                 My irritation bursts out suddenly. I turn around at the utility vehicle and starts to walk fast away. A second after, I hear the gator’s engine revs and is coming closer to me. And it annoys me more.

                 I keep strolling, and Liam is driving his gator slowly right beside me, expecting me to get into his dumb vehicle choice. Its noise drives me mad even more. Why did not he just stayed in our dormitory room and watched much porn on his bed as he could? I swear, now that we are outside of the campus, I could hurt him badly. And by doing it, I violate no campus rules and will receive no punishment, but instead, a great relief from my insides.

                 Or, on second thought, keep this obnoxious dummy beside me.

                 “Hop on, roommate! You’ll love it. Promise, this is fun!” he shouts at me because of the running engine of the gator. I am not sure, but he looks sexy with a cowboy hat. The sunlight reflects on his unclothe skin like it is made of glass.

                 Hearing the word roommate for the second time when we are not at our dorm irritates me more, “Do you realize that this is a stupid farm vehicle? You can’t drive this on streets, especially on highways! Plus, we’ll never make it there in time! I hope your skull is thinking, dunce!”

                 “My skull will never think because its job is to protect my brain!”

                 “Now it should be the one who’s thinking because you just lost the capacity of your brain to develop and think!”

                 “But no matter how I tried it, my skull will never do such things. It meant to protect something valuable!”

                 “Your brain isn’t valuable at all! Find something that is and use it!”

                 “And that is why I want you to hop on. You are my valuable brain to protect. Come on! Otherwise, I’ll lose you too.”

                 “What in the name of devil are you talking about?!”

                 “Did you mean you aren’t that valuable to protect? I feel sorry for it.”

                 “Enough, nuts!” I stop and face him in complete annoyance. I can feel my anger circulating with my blood. Every inch of my heating body wants this man to push on the trail tracks with an incoming train. “How are we going to pass the highway with this ridiculous wheeled thing?”

                 “Ughh, this is street legal,” Liam also stops the engine of the gator, making another smile. It is creepy. “Haven’t you notice the side and rearview mirrors, speedometer or even the plate number? This gator’s retrofitted and can now be lawfully use on public lands. I don’t expect you to believe me, but I swear, it really does.”

                 I look at him stiffly. The shadow of his hat, and so does the gator’s roof, covers and protects his eyes from the sunlight. He never skips a second to look away from my unfriendly eyes. Liam is telling the truth. Afterwards, I open the doors and get inside.

                 The very first thing I notice, which perplex me, is his feet. It is bare! Then I question myself, “Is this how a certified empty-headed behave?” I mean, this might be the dumbest scheme I have ever seen.

                 Then he energetically says when I succeed in closing the doors, “And, in case you missed it, I retitled this gator.”

                 “Oh, please. Don’t tell me or even drop a single word regarding this trifling codswallop of yours,” I reply with pure impassive, undesiring to hear another word from Liam’s mouth. I ignore the ebullience.

                 But he still answers with, again, exhilaration, “Roommate, you are riding the Greeny Gator TWO POINT O!”

                 “Gree – grisly – what?” I ask in disbelief, hearing him shouting while pronouncing the 2.0 with utmost glee.

                 “No, not grisly. You’re too harsh. It’s Greeny Gator 2.0.”

                 “Well, don’t repeat it!” I partially raise my voice in his total dumbness.

                 He acts gasping, mouthing O, looking at me bewilderedly, “What?! You don’t like it?”

                 “REPULSIVE, TO BE HONEST! NOW DRIVE!” I am clenching my fist patiently, come nonchalantly, and tries to speak softly, “Didn’t your grandma said that stalls don’t stand forever?”

                 “They do, only if you let them.” I cannot believe he copied my words earlier and spoke them even more kindly. I am very distress by it. Liam begins on driving this thing, at last.

                 I fall in silence for a moment and respond after a great sigh, “You aren’t the merchant. Consequently, they don’t stand forever. Only the merchants can decide to keep the stall standing or not. Unless you become a fish merchant.”

                 “Oh, Why do I didn’t think of that before?”

                 “Simple. Because you’re vacuous!”

                 “That hurts. Oh! I almost forgot,” he says in a normal voice, then stops the gator out of the blue, taking the two helmets from the rear and handing me the other one.  “We use this for safety. And it is a part of the law when this was registered.”

                 I did not talk anymore. I wear the stupid helmet and relax on my seat, imagining the driver as someone else. The dockside market is close range. It will take us less than an hour to arrive. I take a quick look at my watch. 08:24 a.m.

                 Nothing is interesting when we hit the highway. I watch the cars outside with my irritated face. One by one, each of the passing car’s drivers will look at me with their abominating hideous confused faces, and there is nothing much more I can do than look at them tediously. Don’t they know that UTV or ATV can be used on the road unless under registration and improved?

                 Why, I cannot blame their stupid stupefied surface faces. Of all good and more convenient vehicles, I do not know why this dumbhead driver of this galloping gator pick this moronic means of tedious transport. Probably, unknowing San Diego for years, he might be thinking this whole place is farmland: no hard rock hotels, towering buildings, or thousands of revving.

                 Pathetic Liam. I pity him.

                 And, finally, there I see it from afar – the fishing boats and the sea. A few of them are already on the dock, while others are still roaming the surface of the sea. And, of course, the hundreds of people on the market, busy examining and buying the fresh fishes from the stalls. Each of them carries a variety of small containers.

                 While this driver looks for a parking space, I am astonished by his silence on the road. He utters nothing more after he gives me the helmet that is now torturing me because of its tightness in my head. Until when he sights a free space, talking with his excited voice, “I got it. You don’t like the name of this gator, right?”

                 Oh, sweet pineapples. So all that silence on the road has actually had a reason? What a shame I brought to myself for thinking that he was actually living like a decent person. I did not dare to talk.

                 My silence did not bother him from talking. He still has his excited voice when he says out loud, like declaring an important announcement, “I’ll take that as a yes. And now, I came up with another much better name that will surely you’ll love. With my humble heart and kind self, I will be re-retitling this gator – ”

                 Make this stop, dimwit. You’re embarrassing my confidence to hold my head high. I speak to my mind before he actually says the new name of his stupid gator.

                 “…Greeny Gator 2.0 á la Louie!”

                 I nearly choke with my own breathe by the words with a French accent that comes in my ears. Horribly and stunningly, I gasp out a question.

                 “What?!”

                 “Isn’t the origin of your name French?”

                 I step out of the gator in my irritation without leaving a word to him. The unpleasant, fishy odour mixes with these neanderthals’ murmuring voices in the dockside market. Some are shouting.

                 I join the hundred of seafood customers on the sidewalks, then to the stalls. Liam, as I notice at the very first, is not beside me, which confuse me. But I did not pay any attention to him. Who will? Horny neanderthals, of course!  If he gets lost, then I will be elated.

                 Of so many stalls in this dockside market, there is one particular stall our family has going into ever since – the Fisher’s Fresh Fish and Seafood stall. The stall owner and the seller, named John Fisher, is our favourite stall to order fish. As his regular customer, he has been giving us discounts wholeheartedly.

                 His stall’s location is near the pier, which gives the customer a  great view of the fishing boats on the sea while waiting in a daunting line. I enjoy that view whenever I, or with my family, comes here. Yet, now, there will be no chance to enjoy anything as I am with Liam, who shockingly grabs my shoulder from behind.

                 “Hey! My feet are aching.”

                 I feel the exhausting pain in his voice, along with the market noise. I look down at his feet – bare – and suddenly feel immense joy over this imbecile’s imbecility. What a great fondness to see him in physical torture? Without the think of helping him, I ask him in the eye.

                 “How does it affect my concern?”

                 “You’re too cruel!” I am stunned by his voice. He is serious when he looks back at me and says, “I said I can’t take it.”

                 “Why, if it is not your naked body I always see in our dorm room, it is your barefoot in public!” 

                 Then I process my last words. I say it quite loud, and now I can feel every eye around points at me. My whole nerves stop, and my blood runs backwards. My heart is pounding loud. Loud enough for Liam to hear it. I feel mortified, thinking that people around us think Liam and I are doing something in our room. Would this get any worse?

                 Irritation and humiliation.

                 I catch Liam’s mocking smile, looks into my eyes, and says, “I really can’t take it. Let’s go back, or buy me something to cover my feet, please.”

                 “Oh, I know what something to put on on your feet?!”

                 “What?”

                 “Suffer!” I left him standing with his unshoed feet. The eyes are not around us anymore. It seems like it only lasted a second.

                 I walk and pass many stalls with my ire and degradation. And annoyance. The undesired smell of dead fish in the market is fresh. And after short minutes, the right and favourite stall is finally affronted me.

                 I look at the vendor, who is counting his sales in his little pocket register and who give it back at me, excitingly voice out, “Oh, there you are!”

                 His double chin moves along with his mouth as he speaks. John Fisher is a beefy man, and never went change, ever since I was a kid. There are tons of fish scales on his long gloves when he raises them to me. Then, I reply happily and a bit louder than usual because of the noises, “Sorry, I made here late.”

                 “It’s alright, kiddo! Your mom’s order has been move to me pub to keep it clean and fresh. My manager is there to assist you.” I notice more fish scales on his face.

                 “Does that include our neighbour’s order?”

                 “Yes. Just show up in me pub!”

                 “Thanks!” I respond with a smile. After his pleasing nod, I walk out. Not a long moment from there, I remember Liam. Where is he?  

                 It is not hard to catch him even from afar. Once I take a glimpse of his brown cowboy hat or sees a man barefoot, I am definitely sure it is him. But there is none after many turns. While this will consume a lot of time, I have no choice but to go and wait in the gator he named with my name on it.

                 My effort to look for him in the market is useless. When I arrive at where the gator is, the imbecile is there! He is sitting on the solid concrete with his back leaning on one of the rear tires of the gator, looking like a beggar begging for change. His head is on his right knee. And when he hears my footsteps, he angrily says.

                 “I told you my feet is burning! Why you wouldn’t listen?”

                 “Why should I care?” I speak at him with the same voice. I am not trying to make a joke. I mean what I say.

                 “You should be. Or else, who would help you with the containers?” At this moment, he has a point. Yet, I want to see him suffer more. Today will only be the chance to pay him back from those iring days with him in the room. “Speaking of it, where are they?”

                 “We’re too late that they move it to another place for safety and to keep it fresh,” I retort.

                 Liam stands up, “No way! I can’t go any farther anymore.”

                 “We have to, and you have no choice.”

                 “No, I can’t!”

                 “See?!” I remark the question to let him see how foolish he is. “If you have just stayed in that dormitory, then you wouldn’t be in this predicament situation. And more of it, I’ll be happy this Sunday. The only day I can escape the trap that my father and your mother put me into!”