10.1%

It was one of those Mondays where you have an awful ketamine hangover from eleven into the evening. One of those Mondays where you wished you had a job. But I was up, at least. Even if I hadn’t left the bed, I’d been awake for a couple hours. I was thinking. Just thinking. Lying in bed, smoking Olivia’s cigarettes and thinking. I needed to get some new art done soon. Another shoot or something. I hadn’t done a shoot in months. All my assignments I’d been copying from old portfolios, and my art Instagram was starting to bleed followers.

It was hard to get inspired in my position, though. And art shouldn’t have been my priority anyways. I actually did need to get a job. It was March, and there was only one month left on me and Olivia’s lease. After that, I would have to head out on my own and probably start paying a lot more rent. No one online would want to split a studio with me, I imagined. Dad had started getting weird about helping out, too. I hadn’t been cut-off yet, but he’d been texting me a bunch about how we should call soon and chat about my “graduation game-plan.” He really didn’t get it. At least Mom still seemed like she was in my corner.

I stubbed out my cig and sat up. It was probably time I did get out of bed. I stretched and cracked my back and started fixing the sheets. Everything had to look flat in case Olivia came back randomly. The bed was technically hers since we broke up. I was supposed to be sleeping on the couch, but she was back in New York for reading week and it didn’t make sense I should murder my back on that fucking thing just so she could keep her resting space Elliot-free. It’s not like we weren’t still having sex all the time anyways. Good sex, too. Like, toxic sex. I didn’t even know why she wanted to leave for the week, to be honest. I hoped she wasn’t seeing anyone else back home. That would be messed up.

In the bathroom, I sat on the toilet for fifteen minutes and scrolled around on my phone. Twitter back to where I could last remember scrolling then Instagram, and then back one more time. Heather had a story up from last night under the bridge where you could see me in the background. I was posing really casual but my outfit looked awesome. It was perfect. I reacted a “100” emoji and flushed the toilet.

I shaved and then spent a couple seconds just staring at myself. The hair at my temples wasn’t doing great, but it looked like my moustache had started to get thicker. My nose-ring was healing really nice, too. I looked sexy, honestly. I grabbed my phone real quick and took a photo in the mirror where I was shirtless but you could just see me from the shoulders up and I looked really dead-eyed and manic. In Lightroom, I deep fried the colors and then exported the whole thing to Instagram, where I wrote “on my patrick bateman shit” and hit “Share.” I hadn’t posted anything in like a week, so it was perfect timing

A craving. More cigarettes. God damn. Olivia always said cigs were less addictive than vaping, but she was a hundred percent wrong. I’d been using my Juul for at least a month before I started doing it every day. Meanwhile, it had taken me less than 72 hours to starting fiending over silver light slims or whatever it was she smoked.

I swept back into the room and zeroed in on the nightstand. I thought I’d lost the pack for a second, but it fell out from under one of Olivia’s sketchbooks when I started digging around. “Thank god,” I thought and shoved my fingers into the cardboard. My face dropped. We were out of cigs. Olivia had left two whole packs unopened before she’d left and I’d destroyed both of them. She was gonna kill me.

**

It was cold as shit outside. I only had to walk like two blocks to the dep, but my ears were already stinging. I loved this city, but sometimes I hated it too. Winter was never like this in Burlington, and you didn’t have to pay an extra 20 cents every time you wanted a beer.

“I should get a beer, actually,” I thought. I added it to the list. Cigs, first and foremost, hopefully the kind that Olivia smoked if I could remember. Cigs, then beer, more toilet paper, mold spray — and something else. I stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. What the hell else was I supposed to get? I thought I should probably try and steal some cheese or something. There was barely any food left in the place. And then,

“Help!”

All of a sudden. An old, raspy voice. Some kind of thick accent. I couldn’t tell where it was coming from, either. Didn’t look like anybody else was in the street.

“Hello, please, young man! Help!”

It was coming from above, I realized. A window, on the third floor just a couple units down the street. There was a tiny old guy leaning out and waving really fast at me. He had the most scrunched up face I’d ever seen. Like a plastic bag grocery bag you’d been keeping under the sink for a couple months. It was impossible to tell where he was supposed to be from, too. He looked more like an elf than a human.

“Hey!” I jogged over, “Hi, sir. Are you, uh, okay?”

“No,” said the guy. “I need help.” He pointed down dramatically and made his eyes really wide. “You help me.”

“Yeah,” I said, “You- Are you in trouble? Do you need me to call you an ambulance or-”

“No, no, no.” The guy sounded pissed off. He disappeared back into the apartment, and I thought I heard him shuffle a bunch of glass and metal around. A second later, he reappeared. “This,” he said, “here.”

The old guy held a bottle of something out his window and then dropped it. Glass exploded everywhere before I could react, but I dove back anyways.

“What the fuck, dude?” I said. The guy just nodded downward.

“Sorry. This.”

I followed his gaze. In the snow, I saw the bottle he’d dropped was one of those Labatt Bleue beers with like a 10.1% ABV. One of those beers you only buy if you’re in high-school or completely broke and looking to get destroyed. I’d had a bunch myself in first year but I mostly drank White Claws now.

“Two of these,” he said. “I need you help me. Two.” He held out two fingers slowly and dramatically and then reached into his pants and dropped something else from the window. This thing didn’t explode. It was a credit card, actually. Ancient, with all the front plastic completely peeled off, and from some company I’d never heard of. I picked the card out of the snow and read the front. The old guy’s name was “Wojciech Wilinski,” apparently.

“Well,” I said, “I mean-”

“Promise,” said Wojciech, and I saw he was staring me directly in the eyes. It was piercing, even from all the way above where he was. I considered his ask. I didn’t like helping people, and I felt too much like shit to want to do anything but the bare essentials. But this guy had just given me his credit card. He was already running the show. It’s not like I could just leave the thing in the street and bounce. And I was going to the dep anyways.

I pulled a smile at Woj.

“Two Molsons? Ten percent?” He nodded vigorously. “Alright, man,” I said, “just hold on a minute. I’ll be right back.”

The old guy looked like he was about to cry.

**

They didn’t have mold spray at the dep. They had everything else, though, including the crazy Molsons and a PBR for me. Everything except cheese. I always forgot my dep was one of those barely-legal ones that only sold beer and cigs. My best option for food was some loose watermelon candy or a pepperoni.

The guy at the counter was watching Thai soap operas on an iPad. He had one Airpod in, and when I pulled up it took him a second to even notice me.

“Hi,” I said, “all this and then, uh-” I tried to peek around him and signal that I was looking where they kept the cigarettes. “Two packs of, uh, Belmont Silver Large King Sizes?” My eyes shut hard rattling off Olivia’s cigs like I was doing a spelling bee.

“Okay,” said the guy. I was right. Score. I laid my debit card next to Wojciech’s on the counter.

“And I’ll put everything on this one, and, uh, these,” I pushed the Molsons into their own corner, “on the other card. The red one.”

“Okay,” the guy rang up my stuff, “Forty five sixty two.”

“Forty-five sixty two?” I almost laughed out loud. “For real?”

“Yes,” the guy said. “Your cigarettes.” I was fucked up. I knew they taxed cigs hard in Quebec, but I didn’t know they were that expensive. I wasn’t sure I even had twenty bucks in my account left, much less forty. Olivia must have been fucking rich in secret or something. God dammit. I wished we’d hadn’t agreed to split rent equally that whole year.

“Okay, sorry. I’ll have the, uh, Silver regulars then please.” The guy grabbed two new boxes of cigs and scanned them.

“Forty one thirty eight.”

“Fuck me,” I thought. I looked at Wojciech’s card. Considered my options. It was unlikely I would ever see the old guy again. There were four hundred deps around, and I was gonna move soon anyways. Worst case scenario, it wasn’t like he could ever physically chase me. And what were the chances he was even paying attention to his credit card bill? He was probably on some kind of cozy pension. He was handing the thing out in the street, for god’s sake. I bit my lip. Someone else got in line behind me. “Actually, can you put the cigs on this other card?” I said, “Like, with the beer?”

**

Woj looked overjoyed to see me. Or maybe just his beer. He’d come down to the first floor and set up shop on the stoop. I could see now he was wearing a bathrobe and some Hello Kitty pyjama pants.

“I am so happy!” he said, first thing. “You- you-” He paused, like he was trying to remember a word. “You are?”

“Elliott,” I said, “but call me El. Or Slimehustler.” That was my Instagram. I met a guy at a party once who introduced himself with his Twitter, and I was trying it out. Still felt weird.

“Elliott!” Woj smiled wide enough I could see every shade of grey in his mouth and then reached for the bottles like a needy baby. “How much, card? Not expense?”

“Just ten bucks,” I lied. I pulled the card real careful from my pocket so it wouldn’t dislodge the cigs and handed it over. Woj put it loose in his own pocket and then slotted the bottles in his bathrobe. I wondered if he had an actual wallet somewhere. Or clothes.

Woj nodded and gave me a little salute, and then started back up the stairs to his place. The situation was unclear. I stood still for a moment, wondering if this was it or if I should stay waiting and expect some kind of reward. There was a chance he had a loonie for me or something. But disaster struck before I could ask.

Halfway to his door, Woj slipped or caught his foot or some shit and fell straight forward. The bottles went flying. One went straight down, and the other arced somehow and headed directly toward me. I didn’t even think. Next thing I knew, I was in the air too. It was like a movie, everything moving in slow motion, Wojciech wailing pitched-down in the back of my mind. I pulled the arcing bottle to my chest like a football and then slid through the snow on my ass and caught the second one. THUD, SKRSHH, THUD. Success. I was in shock. Sports had never been my thing at any point, and so this was probably the most impressive athletic achievement of my life. I hoped my jeans were okay. They were thrifted Issey, and I probably shouldn’t have been wearing them in the snow anyways.

I figured Woj would be cheering me on here, but he was barely making any sound. Just sort of a low groan. Hadn’t moved at all either.

“Woj?” I said, “Buddy? You alright?”

“No.” He paused for a really long time. “Hurt.”

“Maybe we should call someone, bud. You might have osteo- uh, you could have just broken something.” Wojciech ignored this.

“Where is beer?” he said.

“Safe and sound,” I clinked the bottles together. “Could have been a lot worse, but you know I got you. Why don’t we-”

“Good,” he said, “Just help please. Come.”

I climbed the stairs and stood over Wojciech. He took the bottles from me right away and hugged them tight. He looked weak. Not that he looked strong or anything before, but it almost felt like his life was in my hands now. “Grandpa child,” I thought, and made a note to use that as a caption later. Wojciech snorted loudly, spat. He tried to stand up again, but fell, and woulda gone all the way down the stairs if I hadn’t caught him by the nape of his bathrobe.

“Hokayy,” I said, “Hold on, hold on, hold on. Let’s figure something out here. Let’s uh,” and then, seeing no other option, I picked Wojciech up. His whole body crumpled like a stack of garbage bags into my arms. “How’s that?” The old guy grunted in approval. “Awesome,” I said.

We went on up the stairs like that for what felt like forever. It was only a dozen or so steps, but the whole moment was completely quiet. Woj wasn’t saying anything, and aside from my own breathing, all I could hear was wind and construction workers shouting from the next block. It was meditative, like a sound sculpture. Wojciech was light as hell, too. And carrying him filled me with a sense of responsibility I hadn’t felt in years. For some reason, I cared more about getting this weird old guy and his liquor home safely than I’d cared about, school, or my photography, or things with Olivia. The meaning of this was unclear. If I ever had the money for therapy again, I’d probably bring it up first thing.

Wojciech seemed like he was asleep or something the whole climb. He hugged the bottles like a lifejacket and snored gently. Maybe he was asleep. Old people were good at micro-napping like that. Either way, I nudged him gently when we got to the door and let him crawl back up on his feet.

“Your place?” I said, “You good?”

“Yes, yes,” Wojciech blinked real slow. He examined the bottles, turning them around like he was afraid they’d sprung a leak or something. When he was satisfied, he looked up at me and smiled. It wasn’t the grin from before, but more of a wise, gentle kind of look. Like he was proud of me. It was a face I could almost imagine dad making. “You,” he said, “You, Elliott, thank you.”

“Hey man, it’s no problem-” I started, but Woj grabbed my arm.

“Listen to me, Elliot,” he said, “You listen?”

“Uh-”

“Good,” Woj said. He grabbed my other arm. “Your life? Very good. Very nice.” He pointed to the ground and shrugged. “Now? Today? I do not know. Next month? Maybe no.” He waved his hand off to the side, gesturing like a traffic cop, and then grabbed both my arms again and looked me in the eyes. I wasn’t sure what was happening. “But soon? One day? Many days perhaps? Beautiful life.”

“Thank you, sir,” I chuckled a little, nervous.

“I do not lie,” Wojciech said. “Why you laugh?” He poked my chest. “Do not laugh. Special, you. Your heart. I promise you.” And then he was off. Woj let me go and shuffled to his door, opening it just a crack. Something smelled like smoke from inside, but I couldn’t place what it was. Incense, maybe.

Figuring that speech was the reward I’d been expecting, I turned and started to walk down, but Woj stopped me one last time.

“Elliott!” he said. “Do you believe? Do you promise?”

“Believe what?” I thought. That I was special? That my life was going to be beautiful? Obviously, on some level, I thought that. But it’s not like I had an honest plan for it or anything.

“Yeah,” I said. I tried to sound real solemn. “I believe you, my friend. I promise. Thank you.”

Wojciech did the grin again.

“Very good,” he said, and then disappeared inside. The door slammed weirdly hard, and I got one last whiff of the smoke smell.

**

At the bottom of the stairs, I stood still on the sidewalk for a second. I wasn’t sure what had just happened. What the hell kind of guy was Woj supposed to be? Did this man have a family? Was he psychic? Was it some massive cosmic hint for me that I wound up meeting him today? I’d gotten a lot of speeches from randoms since I moved to Montreal. Olivia always joked I was a magnet for crazy people, but most of these folks were easy to ignore. Wojciech was different. There was something magical about the old guy. I hadn’t taken anything specific from him, but our talk had left me feeling warm and inspired for some reason. Like I’d just had a really nice dream. Or taken an Adderall.

Adderall. Stimulants. Shit. The cigs. In all this, I’d forgotten about the cigs. Shitshitshit. I took a pack out and stared at it for a second, let my eyes blur on the black greasy heart on the label. I felt awful now. Why did I do that? Did Woj know I’d stolen from him? He had to know, somehow. Had I just failed some kind of test? I wanted to apologize. I wanted to run back up the stairs and tell him I was sorry and that I’d etransfer him the forty bucks in a couple weeks. But I saw nothing in his window. It was shut now, and the lights were off. He was probably passed out.

“Fuck” I thought. But my options were limited now. Woj and I would probably never meet again. I peeled the plastic off the pack and dropped it, took two cigs. The air felt warmer all of a sudden. I’d convince Olivia we smoked them before she left.