Carlos

The whole place stank, to hear Carlos tell it. Roaches as big as your thumb. They'll fight you for the last chicken leg. He thought he was being funny. Which was better than him trying to be tough. Every time I went over there I wound up thinking if the place is awful why does he still live here?

This had been going on for over three years, him complaining about the apartment and the neighborhood he was forced by God to live in. Or else, why else would he be living there? He talked like this was his cross to bear. Like he was putting in the time. The penance. Paying a debt. But he loved it. Made him sag with real style. Place wasn't clean, that was true. And at least part of that was Carlos, and not God. I mean, was God supposed to wash the dishes instead of piling them in showy stacks on the arm of the sofa? So I'm not saying it was a bed of roses and hundred dollar bills, because it wasn't, but he could have moved out.

Connie had offered to give him a room, pretty reasonable, for as long as he liked. Connie was lonely and had not one but two extra rooms he was always trying to rent out. Not a bad place. Had a good-size tree in back, which he claimed produced edible fruit. But Carlos would have to leave his personal hell with the dirty dishes balanced on the arm of the sofa, so try competing with that. Plus there was Connie's sister living there. Unmarried, nothing too rough to look at, so I didn't understand where Carlos was coming from at all.

Still, every time, it was Do you believe this place? and See what I have to put up with? He was in his element, battling it out with the roaches for control of the remote every night. Maybe he thought it excused the shitty way he treated everyone.