Would my books be published by now if I dedicated as much time to my pseudo-writing career as I do cleaning my apartment? Modern life is an interminable series of distractions. In my last moments, I can imagine thinking: God, I can’t die yet! I haven’t done the dishes!

In Tales of Ordinary Madness, Charles Bukowski wrote:

“Show me a man who lives alone and has a perpetually clean kitchen, and eight times out of nine I’ll show you a man with detestable spiritual qualities.”

That quote offended me when I first read it over twenty years ago. He has a point although I’m not sure Buk was ever in a position to be lecturing anyone about their spiritual qualities. In my own defense, I don’t live entirely alone and my kitchen is rarely tidy for long. I only clean it to fuck it up again.

After my divorce I bought the cheapest vacuum cleaner imaginable for my area rugs. A couple weeks back, the latch holding the canister of dirt to the motor snapped off. Rather than rushing out to buy a new one, I just duct taped the contraption together. Last Saturday, I had finished vacuuming when I decided to wash the filter. The Dirt Devil loses what little suction it has when the filter gets too gummed up. Predictably in hindsight, the vacuum fumbled out of my hands as I was peeling off the duct tape. Staring down in disbelief at the ugly pile of gray detritus on the rug I had just cleaned, I cursed rather loudly. God is always to blame in these moments. This moronic snafu might have been less of a disaster had I attempted this task over my hardwood floor or, better yet, the garbage can. Now I had no choice but to duct tape the piece of shit back together and vacuum the rug all over again.

Just then there was a knock at my door.

My immediate thought was that someone wanted to complain about the racket I was making. I squinted through the peephole into the hallway. A bald dude was standing outside in jeans and a T-shirt.

“Hey, how can I help you?” I asked after opening the door.

“I’m looking for Jim. It looks like he’s being evicted.”

The stranger was referring to a summons taped to the neighboring door.

“I don’t know if that guy has ever lived here. I’ve never heard or seen any sign of life from that apartment. My guess is he skipped town on his lease.”

I had a closer look at the eviction summons. The person’s name was actually James Morrison. Here I’d been living next to the Lizard King all this time and didn’t even know it.

“Well, I hope he’s all right.”

He stared at the door like his friend might be rotting inside.

“I’m certain the management company has been inside the apartment. He’s long gone. Hope you find him.”

I began to close my door.

“Hey, do you think I could use your phone?”

I rolled my eyes. The man was about 50, skinny with a buzzed head and a gray mustache. He was very tan like he worked outside. Reluctantly, I handed him my phone. The guy didn’t strike me as a physical threat, but he was becoming a pain in the ass. Someone must have been Minnesota nice and let him into the building. In my head I was calculating the fastest way to get rid of him.

“Can you dial it for me,” he requested. His knobby fingers were curled and shaking.

“Alright, what’s the number?”

“6-0-5,” he began.

I finished dialing the number and again handed him my phone.

“You can go back inside,” he said.

“You’re out of your mind if you think I’m leaving you alone with my phone!”

He left a message and I regained possession of my phone.

“Can I wait inside your place for him to call me back?”

“No, you can’t,” I said curtly.

“You got any water?”

Who could deny a man water? I quickly grabbed a can out of the fridge.

“Bubbly water all right?”

“Sure, that’s great.” He smiled in gratitude.

“605 is a South Dakota area code. I’m from South Dakota. Where you from?”

“Lower Brule.”

“Oh, yeah? I used to fish in Chamberlain a lot. You like fishing?”

He slurped deeply from the cold can. “I tried it a couple times growing up. I don’t like hurting the fish. I like eating them though. Walleye is good. I caught an 18-incher once.” The man spoke with a Lakota accent.

“They aren’t hard to catch out there.”

“My name’s Robert. My mom just died and I got kicked out of my place.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” I said. “You got any family around here?”

“I got three sisters. They live back on the rez. My sisters always argued with my mom, but I never did. I believe you shouldn’t argue with your mom. It’s not respectful.”

“It’s tough to lose a parent,” I said. “My mom’s still alive. My dad passed away quite a few years ago. It’s part of life.”

“My mom died three weeks ago. I committed a felony two-and-a-half years ago. I made it through probation almost two years. I relapsed when I found out my mom died. I lost my job. I was working with masonry.”

An idea popped into my head. I was sympathetic to the guy’s problems but I had kids to raise. It was beyond my capabilities to fix his life. I couldn’t even handle vacuuming my rug.

“You smoke?” I asked.

“Sure.”

“Let’s go outside and have a cigarette together.”

“How will I get back in?”

“Oh, I’ll let you back inside,” I said and dead-bolted my door. “Let’s have a smoke.”

We stepped into the sunshine together and I handed him an American Spirit. I lit mine and passed him my lighter.

“You ever do meth?” he asked.

I stifled a chuckle. That question was not on my bingo card. “No, I’ve always stayed away from drugs. I drink beer sometimes. You know what you’re getting into with that.”

“You like beer, huh? You ever do cocaine?”

The excited way he enunciated the word made me think he was jonesing.

“Nah, man. I can’t even handle pot. They put fentanyl in everything now. You’d be crazy to do any hard drugs nowadays. They bring that shit over here to kill people.”

“Pot makes me hallucinate,” said Robert. “I gotta get in a program for my sobriety. I tried to do it alone and that’s why I relapsed.”

“No one’s recovery is perfect,” I said. “Asking for help is a hard step, but it keeps you honest. It’s good to have someone to answer to when you’re fighting an addiction.”

“I had an account at Bank of America but I lost my card,” he said, changing the subject. “Do you think my money could still be in there? I haven’t used it in nine months.”

“If you weren’t overdrawn, the account is probably still open.”

“I could get $500 from the bank and get a room somewhere,” said Robert hopefully.

“Worth a try,” I said.

Just then Miles called. He was ready to be picked up from the bike shop.

“I have to get my son,” I said and pulled out my wallet. “You want a few bucks? It’s not much but it’s all I have on me.”

“I didn’t ask you for money,” said Robert rather testily.

“I was just offering. You seem like you’re in a bad spot and I have to be going.”

“You said you’d let me back in.”

My patience exhausted, I slapped him on the back like we were old friends.

“Yeah, I lied to you. You don’t belong in the building. Your friend doesn’t live here anymore. If I see you in there again, I’m calling the police.”

I left him standing there dumbfounded and headed in the direction of my car. I’d actually visited Lower Brule a couple times when I used to drive all over South Dakota doing courier work. Once you enter the reservation the curvy road goes from being perfect to being washed out from erosion every few yards. The Missouri River far below gets snaky and narrow, not like a lake anymore, and you can see flooded trees lining the shore. The Norwest Bank in town is a trailer with a broken sign. The place seemed depressing and deserted except for a motley pack of dogs running around. I always just dropped the tote of pharmaceuticals off at the clinic and hit the road again without talking to anybody.

I saw Robert walking briskly westward toward the light-rail station. I couldn’t imagine growing up next to a river that clean and beautiful, and to have hardly ever fished it. That’s probably where his troubles began. My father had many faults but at least he took me fishing, even if all we caught was mostly bullheads. I needed to get out with the kids on the Mississippi soon. It was warming up enough that they should be biting.

When we got back to the apartment, my son asked, “Dad, what the hell happened to your rug?”

“It’s a long story” I said and told him all about Robert. Somehow it was all his fault.