FREON
Basic bitches have dark secrets
— So, Annie, what do you do for fun?
Annie, a cute brunette, had petite facial features that would always net her a spirit animal comparison, ironically, with a ferret, illegal in California.
—That’s the question you ask when you just arrived at a restaurant on a first date. You gauge each other against your respective profile pictures. After the initial evaluation you may order a glass of wine or go straight for a mixed drink depending on the first impression. The conversation is stagnant so you resort to the magic Catch-All question. ‘Sooo Annie, what DO YOU DO for fun?’ You make this out to be slower and deliberate with the intention to appear more interested. You eye fuck the person in front of you, and you want to know. WhAt Do THeyDO fOR Fun? And then she replies with something conventionally acceptable, yet bland, yet promising. ‘Ooh, I love Christmas and cooking pasta. I love sunsets and hanging with my girlfriends. I love animals and travel.’
But she didn’t say any of that.
And they weren’t even in a restaurant, if that matters. They were in his bed. Morning traffic has just picked up. They were sort of cuddling under the sheets. The booming trucks on the freeway added in to the hostile environment of an impending situationship. Nestled into each other with deliberate force they experienced sort of a fake intimacy. The best comparison would be to making a small talk. There’s an ease and certain freedom in this social construct that creates an illusion of closeness that is just that — an illusion — because you haven’t had a chance to get to know each other yet. Just like that, hooking up on a first night is a modern day etiquette that does not guarantee anything. Not even the next day text.
— So, what do you do for fun? He looked at her, semi-interested.
He already figured her out, or so he thought. Like a casting agent looking at headshots. Verdict: Basic bitch.
Monday.
It was over 100 degrees in Sherman Oaks. It was September in the Valley. The heatwave took no hostages, and the constant buzz of AC’s was omnipresent. State officials issued an emergency request for people to not overload the power grid with unnecessary activities, like charging their electric vehicles. The irony of ‘future is electric’.
She looked entirely forgettable as she picked up her double skinny frap with two pumps of sugar at the Starbucks counter. Basic bitch, you say. And she was, in many ways. People would approach her at parties, ask her name and forget it within seconds. “Annie,” she would say only to be referenced later as “Annabelle,” or “Angelica,” or “Allison”. She looked forward to fall colors and shared a standard set of a girl’s likes and wants, plus an unhealthy allegiance to LGBTQ+ (it seemed “fetch”), with the others of her kind.
“She was OK,” her date summarized the date to his co-worker buddies at lunch. “This salad is disgusting.” “Did you tell her you aren’t looking?” “That’s the thing, if I said that I wouldn’t be completely honest, because I am looking just not for her. She’s got nice body, though. Very nice.” “Are you gonna introduce her?” “God, no, giving her wrong ideas would be a huge disservice and God knows, I’m not a douche. I’m a nice guy. She’s otherwise a very nice girl” “But?” “But, alas, a basic bitch.”
Tuesday.
She walked into Home Depot, puffy face, and all.
“Excuse me, I’m looking for concrete blocks.” She was grateful for a helpful guy in the parking lot to have helped her put these four heavy little tombstones in her trunk.
“I got’ em,” happy and excited she texted M. Her text was met with a hurtful wall of silence. She was slightly taken aback, but still celebrating.
“What is this?” He came home from a long hard day at work. The bed was lifted onto the four concrete blocks, like four little tombs at each corner of their Baroque queen sized bed with bedding and pillows. The whole setup was dangerously sagging in the center. She took great pride in this, after pulling a great amount of effort to make it happen. It looked grotesque, it looked like a fucking cemetery. She complained he does not appreciate her efforts.
“I can’t sleep like that,” he got up after 40 minutes of trying “the new bed”. “We will break the bed. It is concaved. It is making noises.”
The worst part, it did not help. The vibration continued.
Wednesday.
She slept 2 hours tops for the past 2 weeks. Sitting in the therapist chair, she explained:
— We moved.
— Didn’t you just move?
— Why yes, we did. However, there were certain external factors.
— No, I’m sorry but if you say that it is your second apartment with the “external” issues, it is highly unlikely. It’s not the apartment. It’s you.
She was skeptical.
“But for now, I will give you…”
“Xanax,” she winked inappropriately pointing at him with a revolver hand gesture.
“…Xanax”
She broke into the psychotic laughter, and pretend shot him, before getting kicked out of the therapist office for inappropriate behavior.
So there she sat on her own couch, Xanax-less. Surrounded by the spilled pills of Melatonin that were absolutely useless and unable to combat the vibrations. On that first night 2 months ago she woke up at 2am and decided to not go to sleep. The AC cables installed incorrectly rummaged the entire penthouse, and she was sensitive to it. He was able to sleep through it while she sat like an owl ogling in the dark awaken every 15 minutes, unable to catch a break, when the second wave of vibrations hit when the other AC unit came on. Vibrations seemed to roll through the floor, penetrate the carpet, pillows and walls. Since then, they moved. It was a different apartment, but the same vibrations persisted that she now felt in her entire body. She thought she was going crazy. Doc suggested that it’s a psychosomatic manifestation of anxiety surrounding bed time and her sleep issues. Cool. She looked at the side of their bed peeking through the bedroom doorway. There was a gigantic stain on the carpet underneath the bed frame that the landlord did not bother to clean. It was gross. The walls were closing in on her. There was nowhere to go. It was getting dark. She felt the waves of vomit rolling up in her stomach.
Thursday.
“M’am,” a CVS employee pestered her as she tried to scan her purchases at the CVS self-checkout. He looked at her bare stomach. She happened to wear shorts, a crop top with the rainbow on it, and a cheap pair of BOGO sandals from TJ Maxx. Within seconds a scornful look appeared on his weathered face. A white girl that is hell bent on her looks and dating. What is she scanning? A pack of condoms and a red velvet cake? Most importantly, what is she not scanning? He was pretty sure he caught her mid-stealing. The disgust found its way in the tone of his voice, “M’am.” “Stay away,” she snapped. “Your checkout is chicken shit!” “M’am,” he was adamant about calling her that. “I can help you scan.”
“No,” she shielded her items from him. “Don’t come close!” “Wow, a real world Karen,” he thought, scornfully. “Wow, I am acting like a Karen,” she thought, bewildered, but would not let on.
“M’am,” he continued. “I need to come and see that the items checked out.” Her face flushed for being talked down like that and for being treated like a drugstore thief.
She stepped back. “Happy now?”
He picked up a big shaded bottle. Melatonin, GABA supplement, and some obscure “Deep Sleep” drops. He looked directly in her face. He saw the earth-colored skin, red eyes, devoid of expression, and stepped back, like he saw a movie monster.
“Back off,” she grabbed her items and walked out.
“Jajaja,” CVS employee said shaking off the uncomfortable feeling. It felt like he just looked into abyss. Her lizard eyes after three consecutive nights without sleep did seem inhuman.
The supplements didn’t help, though.
Friday.
It was windy on top. She opened the emergency door leading to the roof.
“Tenants strictly prohibited on the roof.”
She mangled a piece of paper from the management that she found earlier taped to her door, and stuck it deep into her pocket. “From now on all tenants are disallowed from going on the roof. Alarm will sound.” She turned on her phone flashlight. Bullshit. She made her way through the labyrinth of roof equipment, alarm did not sound.
There it was. A tall dark grey cube with rounded corners, revving up like a small airplane, isolated only by four thin cracked rubber pads mounted on two rugged pieces of wood. Shaking and stirring the freon lines that disappeared in the wall of her condo. The vibration started at its core when freon like an evil heart of the AC pumping through the whole structure and down the walls drowning her condo in that low frequency noise that could be heard and worst *felt* everywhere throughout her house. Worse at night. All day everyday, in the 81 degree weather in Sherman Oaks.
She put down her little assortment of tools, some left over from the previous relationships, some that she proudly got on her own to perform small miscellaneous tasks around the house, and started to work.
Two security guys lit up their cigarettes, staring off in the partial view of the Valley surrounding them. Even the breeze was hot and felt gross against their faces, when the property manager texted earlier “Bill, AC is not working again”. “A tenant who destroys a-cons…” said Bill. “Is it some sort of a joke?”
“No idea.”
She took out the hammer and started pounding at it, eventually using scissors to try cut the freon line.
“Bet, it’s that bitch!” Two shadows leaped out of the pool of darkness and darted off in her direction. “Gotchu!” Her flip flops were getting cut in half on the emergency ladder. She was running away forgetting the scissors and other tools throughout the grotesque asymmetrical whimsical and ugly landscape of the roof of the penthouses of the aging Valley building built in 60s, with its ugly ass architecture and absolutely zero symmetry — an every person with OCD’s nightmare.
She ran into the apartment and held her breath, sitting on the floor that was not vibrating for a change. “ I did it, babe. It’s dead. Haha,” she texted his number and received no response. Shards of glass everywhere, the wine glass that he smashed on the floor before he left. And her four sad concrete tombs from Home Depot in their formerly cosy bedroom.
The text message came a bit later. “I can’t do this anymore, sorry” “I’m not coming back.” “Just like the other couple”, she thought, holding a shard of broken glass in her hand. There was something weird about the couple dynamics, when they just came over to rent this place. She wondered if there was something off about that place, but they proceeded with the lease anyway.
Sunday.
— So, what do you do for fun? he asked.
She laid on her back feeling the familiar waves of vibrations whether this new guy’s place had an AC problem, or it was her own psychosomatic anxiety symptom triggering a panic attack — she was too tired to try to decipher it. She rolled over, but the vibrations moved over, too. She got up on her elbows, struggling with the overwhelming panic. Why did she feel the vibrations if her back was not on the sheets. She struggled to shake it off, but the vibrations stayed remarkably in place. In her body. Inside.
She looked in his direction with her dead, red eyes and replied, “Christmas and cooking pasta. I love sunsets and hanging with my girlfriends. I love animals and travel,” she delivered her conventionally accepted blurb.
But he wouldn’t even listen. He only let out a tiny snore, fast asleep.
She felt tears rolling down her cheeks. It was coming. There was no one looking out for her. She felt a gush of vomit up her throat. The world froze, and everything froze, and they both froze, too, smashed into each other in unnatural positions. Cosy street lights got replaced with depressive void. In the silence the familiar noise of AC was revving up.
She laid there, sleepless, on a rock hard bed that seemed more like a tomb. She stared at the ceiling readying herself for more endless hours of this, with a complacency and resignation that seemed heartbreaking. Waiting for the morning. There was no escape.
Insomniac.
***
Follow for more short stories. Clap if you are an insomnia survivor, too. XO, Marina
