Blue Smoke

brush the taste of over-partying out of his mouth, then force something into his stomach he hoped would stay there. He pulled on ripped sweats and started shoveling out his living room.
    He made piles of laundry. Who knew he had so many clothes? He stripped the revolting sheets off the bed and considered just burning them. But in the end, his frugal nature had him using them as a sack forthe rest of the clothes and towels. From the looks of it, he decided he’d be spending a good chunk of his Sunday in the Laundromat.
    But for now, he pulled out the rattiest of his towels, ripped it into pieces and used one to clear the dust off the crate table. He’d made the piece, damn good work, and look how he was treating it.
    He dug out his spare sheets and one whiff had them going in the laundry pile.
    He hit the kitchen, discovered he actually did have dish detergent and an unopened bottle of Mr. Clean. He loaded bags with trash, found it wasn’t a dead rat stinking up the place but some really ancient sweet-and-sour pork. He dumped detergent in the sink. Dumped more. The dishes looked pretty grungy.
    He stood, legs spread like a gunslinger’s, and washed dishes in an ocean of suds.
    By the time he’d scrubbed counters off so he had a place to pile the dishes once they were clean, he was feeling almost normal.
    Since he was in the groove, he emptied out his refrigerator, scrubbed it down. He opened the stove, found a pizza box containing what might have been, at one time in the dim past, the remains of a Hawaiian pizza.
    “God, you’re a pig.”
    He wondered where he could rent a Hazmat suit before tackling the bathroom.
    Nearly four hours after he’d crawled out of bed, he had two bundles of laundry stuffed in the plastic hamper he’d been using as a catch-all, three Hefty bags of trash and garbage that defied description and a clean apartment.
    It was a righteous man who hauled the trash out to the dumpster.
    Upstairs, he stripped off the sweats, added them to the laundry, then pulled on his cleanest jeans and least offensive T-shirt.
    He gathered the change he’d found in the bed, under the bed, in his single chair and out of various pockets. He put on the sunglasses he thought he’d lost weeks before, grabbed his keys.
    Someone knocked just as he was about to haul up the laundry basket.
    Brad walked in when he opened the door.

    “Hey. I tried to call . . .” He trailed off, gaped. “What the hell! Did I walk into an alternate universe?”
    “Did some housekeeping.”
    “Some? Dude, a human could actually live here. You have a chair.”
    “I’ve always had a chair. It was just buried. I’m heading to the Laundromat if you want to hang out. Sometimes hot chicks do laundry.”
    “Maybe. Listen, I tried to call you a couple hours ago, kept getting a busy signal.”
    “I must’ve knocked the phone off the hook last night. What’s up?”
    “Heavy shit.” Brad walked into the kitchen, stood dazed a moment, then got a Coke out of the fridge. “There was a fire at Mandy’s place last night.”
    “Fire? Jesus, what kind of fire? She okay?”
    “She’s okay. Really shaken up. She came over to Cammie’s. I just left there. I figured she needed to chill, you know? It’s been on the news.”
    “Haven’t turned the TV on. I cleaned to Black Sabbath. It kept me focused. How bad was the fire?”
    “Major bad.” Brad dropped down in the chair. “Started in an apartment upstairs. They’re saying it looks like smoking in bed.” He ran a hand over his face, sliding his fingers under his glasses to press them against his eyes.
    “Jesus, Bo, a guy died. I mean he burned up, along with most of his place. Lost a lot of the second floor, part of the third. Mandy got out, and they let her in to get some of her stuff, but she’s a wreck. It was the guy in the tie. Ah, Josh. Remember, the guy from upstairs?”
    “God, he’s dead ?” Bo sank down on the sofa.
    “It was bad. Mandy could hardly talk about it. The guy died, and there are a couple others in the hospital with burns or smoke inhalation. She said it must’ve started right after you dropped her off. She was still up, watching some tube when she heard people screaming, and smoke alarms going off.”
    “He was going to a wedding,” Bo murmured. “And he couldn’t get his tie right.”
    “Now he’s dead.” Brad took a long drink from the can of Coke. “Makes you think, makes you realize how short the trip can be.”

    “Yeah.” Bo got