by Elwood Weebs
Three of us in a one bedroom – Alaska, Vegas, Rust Belt. All living in the shadow of Humprey’s Peak.
Alaska brought like twenty pounds of salmon he caught himself. Frozen and carried three thousand miles.
He grilled our first night together. It was unlike any salmon I’d had.
Just gamey.
Gamey as fuck.
I struggled through three bites, Vegas never made it past a nibble.
We only had this small refrigerator, about the equivalent to the size of two minifridges.
The gamey salmon filled the freezer, spilled over to the fridge.
The entire apartment stunk, mild at first, but always building.
Alaska wouldn’t throw it out, and we wouldn’t eat it.
Alaska had a Mexican girlfriend who stayed over all the time and cooked tamales.
Vegas had a friend who didn’t do shit but sleep on our salvation army pull out sofa bed for five, six nights at a time. He always talked about how much weight he’d gained, and kept to a strict diet of canned tuna.
He didn’t like the salmon either.
Five of us – count em – one, two, three, four, five – in this four hundred square foot space that reeked of fresh(ish) salmon, tamales, canned tuna, and body odors from all over North America.
I’ll tell you, all those aromas will kill your morale.
It was inescapable.
It stuck to my clothes.
Formed a film coating my skin.
Seeped through my pores and into my nightmares.
And I caught everyone fucking, all in the same day.
Alaska and his girlfriend when I stopped home for lunch, Vegas and his friend when I got home that night.
Doggy-style, both times.
Alaska ignored/was ignorant of the smells, but Vegas couldn’t stand it.
It was walk-in-the-door-and-let-out-an-“Oooof” bad.
One day, Vegas and I came in together and let out identical “Oooofs” that said everything that needed to be said.
We filled paper bags with salmon and carried them to a dumpster down the block.
When Alaska came asking about his special Alaskan salmon, we both swore that it was not us, but his girlfriend that threw the fish away.
We said we’d witnessed the whole thing, that she swore us to secrecy.
Well, they got into a blowout fight.
Trust was broken.
And our apartment, in the shadow of Humprey’s Peak, no longer smelled.
Alaska moved out first, Vegas a few months later.
The only thing I missed were the tamales.
Elwood rambles through the rust belt hills with the fatboys. Some people call him Slim, some call him Automatic. No matter about names, he’s often in the middle of a sticky situation. You might find him on Twitter @dntcallmeelwood