My neighbor came by again last night. Sat down and lit a cigarette. His girlfriend wouldn’t let him smoke in his apartment so he came over here to do it. Like I said, he got me high most of the time, so I didn’t mind. He was pretty cool anyway.
So when the joint was gone he was just staring at his hands. I figured maybe he was on some mushrooms or something. He did a lot of that.

The night we met he just knocked on my door. I opened it and he came in. After the joint was gone, preceded by the usual first time smoking together “are you cool, man?” he stood up and started reaching down his pants. Now I got a little freaked out by this and almost started some shit, but lucky for him (maybe me, he was pretty big) I saw what he was doing at the last second. Turns out what he was doing was retrieving a gigantic bag of mushrooms from a stash bag he had in his crotch. I mean it was an enormous bag. It looked like a half a pound of mushrooms.
“Wanna buy some ‘shrooms?” He asked me. It was my first night in town and I knew I was in the right spot.

But this night he was just staring at his hands.
“I think I’m going to obsess about my hands.” He says.
“Why?”
“I think I should obsess about something. It’s important to me.” He looked serious, but I couldn’t be sure. “I used to have a rug, and I would obsess about the corners being straight, but I can’t do that anymore.” He was staring at my rug. I felt nervous.
“I’m going to concentrate on my hands.” This relieved me. I was very attached to my rug.
I decided to interrupt. “I’m going to start drinking more.” The cigarette I was smoking dropped ash onto my chest.
“Why?”
“I’m bored.” I brushed off the ash lazily.
“It’s as good a reason as any.”
I kept checking the refrigerator for beer when there wasn’t any there to begin with. I was pacing on the rug; keeping tabs on it just to be sure. Maybe he’d leave soon and I can stop worrying about the rug and concentrate.
I checked the fridge again.
Empty.
“Here, I wrote this for you.” He handed me a piece of paper. He was always doing that. Writing things. One or two pages at a time. It made me nervous. I thought he was fickle. It bothered me.
I liked things to stay the same.
“What the hell is this?” I didn’t even want to read it.
“I wrote it for you. It’s perfect. Read it.”
I did.
“Thanks.” I never know what to say.
“Yea.”
I started stacking things on the rug, trying to block his view. Keep his attention somewhere else. I started on the outside, at the corners.
“You should do drugs.” He said. He lit another cigarette.
“I don’t like your drugs.” I didn’t.
“So do someone else’s. It’s all the same to me. You just need to relax.”
“Maybe.” I put out my cigarette and pretended to read a book. I moved it far enough over so I could see the rug while I pretended to read.
I think he knew I was faking it. It made me nervous.
When he was done smoking he left without saying anything. I took my things back off the rug and straightened it out. I checked the refrigerator one last time before I went to sleep.