Earlier That Day
It was eleven-thirty in the morning. Edward Julian Watson always woke up on Saturdays, at eleven-thirty in the morning.
Edward Julian Watson was in a white bedroom.
It was Edward Julian Watson’s bedroom.
Edward Julian Watson had a elbow-ache because he was on the bed, in his white room, and it was a white room because Edward Julian Watson had not painted it. He rubbed his elbow and that is when he noticed he was wearing the same clothes that he had on the night before. Then, he noticed his watch on the pillow beside him.
Edward Julian Watson could taste the grit on his teeth, soured salsa and hamburger.
“I have to go,” Edward Julian Watson said, out loud.
“Okay,” his body answered him, weary and aching as he upped himself onto his carpeted floor.
Edward Julian Watson always met Bob for lunch, at noon, on Saturdays.
Becki was running through the downtown streets, the same streets she walked everyday to work. They sky was grey and there were bricks everywhere; the building material of a downtown. Trees reached to the skies. She looked down to make sure her white sneakers were still laced. Not that Becki was much of a runner. She would run, only when she woke-up feeling groogy. Only on weekends.
Becki hated running.
But she did love the things she saw on her run, including the outdoor display of lovely and bright red apples, stuck in-between the lemons and the lettuce, at Mr. McGregor’s grocery store.
“These apples are of the lovliest red, Mr. McGregor,” Becki said to him, when she purchased three of the bright pieces of fruit, and as Mr. McGregor placed them into a clear plastic bag for her.
These lovely and bright red apples helped Becki fall, when she dropped them, not too long after she started running again.
Flat-legged, landing on the sidewalk, Becki grabbed at her ankle, when she heard a voice in front of her question, “Becki? Oh, my God. Are you okay?”
“I think it is my ankle,” she said. “These apples tripped me.”
“I will save you from those evil apples!” Bob said. “We can take refuge from them in my apartment. It is right here, right above Jenson’s, where the brown door is.”
And when Becki smiled at him, Bob just jumped right over to her and hoisted her right up over his shoulder.
She was so unprepared for such, she could not help but laugh.
“Bob, put me down,” she asked.
And of course, Bob did not put her down, instead carrying her over and through the brown door and up his green stairwell, to his apartment, with the green couch.
And because when Bob, who lacked the skills of the caveman that she called him, went to place her onto his green couch, Bob did not mean to bounce her onto it with such sloppiness. Or have her ankle bounced off the his white tiled floor.
“Becki-“, he said.
“It is okay,” she said, and nodded at him.
“I will get you some ice,” he said.
Okay. Thank you, Bob,” Becki replied.
Bob flipped on his stereo, on the way through, to his kitchen
Wohoh, Black Betty, bam-e-lam
Wohoh, Black Betty, bam-e-lam
Black Betty had a baby, bam-e-lam
Black Betty had a baby, bam-e-lam…
came through the speakers and it was not Ram Jam singing.
The knock on the door startled Becki, but the door actually opening startled her more.
“Holy fuck, Bob, I have been waiting for like ten minutes down-” Edward Julain Watson stopped, when he noticed Becki, on the couch, apparently keeping Bob occupied.