Originally titled “The Joys of Communal Living,” this story was written in 1999 for my Creative Writing class taught by Marilyn Johnson. Professor Johnson was one of the editors for Pearl Literary Magazine, which published in Long Beach from 1974 to 2014. Professor Johnson enjoyed the story and requested that I submit it to Pearl, where it was accepted and published in the 2001 Annual Fiction Edition, under the title “Communal Living.”
By that point, my roommates and I had been evicted from the house we’d been sharing -- the living situation which influenced the subject of the story -- which was how I’d discovered I’d been the only one in the house to have been paying my rent; I also had graduated with my Bachelor’s degree, taken a two week cross-country roadtrip with my future bride, finished my first novel, been promoted at work, and so I cannot say for certain if I ever received my free copy of the issue.
If I did, it was lost somewhere along the way.
So, I started digging through old boxes and found my original acceptance letter, along with a copy of the story as it would appear in Pearl. Again, thank you to Professor Johnson for including that courtesy.
As I retyped the document to share here, I had to stop myself from making edits, changes, additions, and so on. It appears below as it did in 2001. The whole premise of the story was to try to capture the essence of what it was like to have college roommates, at least what it was like for me. I also wanted to try to challenge myself into writing a story using only dialogue. At the time, I thought I was being clever. Later, I realized of course that all I had done was write a radioplay.
Oh, well.
I still think it has a few laughs in it.
“Communal Living”
By Thomas Butler
“Have you tried to get him down yet?”
“Of Course. He pulled the ladder up behind him.”
“Can I assume that talking hasn’t helped matters any?”
“You assume correctly.”
“That can’t be good for the roof.”
“Three shingles came off already.”
“Damn. So, why is he up there?”
“It’s a long story.”
“Well, give me the highlights.”
“Okay, the short version: Boy meets girl. Boy falls madly in love with girl. Boy
becomes an emotional leech and scares the hell out of girl. Girl runs for her life. Boy
suffers mental collapse and climbs onto roof with a bottle . . . of what appears to be Jim
Beam. We now rejoin our program, already in progress.”
“Ouch.”
“Yeah.”
“Any other way onto the roof?”
“How high can you jump?”
“Ha. Well, then what are we supposed to do?”
“We’re doing it.”
“Ah.”
“Want a beer?”
“Sure.”
“Bottoms up.”
“So, uh, do you think he’s gonna . . . jump?”
“Not as such. Seeing how drunk he is I think it’s more likely that he’ll fall.”
“That’s kind of insensitive isn’t it?”
“It’s a one story house, how much damage can he do?”
“Good point. Is that my cooler?”
“Yeah, I filled it up after the first hour. I figure we could be out here for a while.”
“Good thinking.”
“Thank you.”
“What happened to his pants?”
“That is a mystery yet to be explained. The underwear, however, he balled up and threw
at a passing convertible.”
“I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he’s just cold.”
“Ooh. That was brutal.”
“What is that? A birthmark?”
“God, I hope so.”
“So . . . I hate to bring this one up, but have we tried the police yet?”
“Yeah, but he does live here, and he isn’t really bothering anybody, so they just said to let
him come down when he’s ready.”
“How about Sarah?”
“Yeah, I gave her a call.”
“And?”
“And, she said that this just proves her point.”
“What point is that?”
“That he is absolutely, with-out-a-doubt, a complete ape-shit loony.”
“What about Emily?”
“She agreed with Sarah.”
“Marcy?”
“Hung up as soon as I said hello.”
“His parents?”
“I don’t think that this is something that anyone would want their mother to know about,
do you?”
“Good point.”
“Maybe we should --”
“Shhh!”
“Did you catch that?”
“I could make out ‘love,’ ‘bitch,’ ‘heart,’ ‘whore,’ and a generous use of ‘fuck.’”
“Did I hear ‘coming down?’”
“I think that was ‘going down.’”
“Ah.”
“Wait, he’s moving. He’s moving . . . moving . . . sitting. Shit.”
“But not a bad idea. Wanna grab those lawn chairs?”
“Sure.”
“Can you remember him flipping out like this before?”
“Nothing this bad. With Emily he just took a long bath.”
“For two days. Then sulked for a month.”
“But it wasn’t as bad as this.”
“True.”
“Maybe he really did love her.”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe he really is hurting right now.”
“Maybe.”
“Maybe getting dumped three times in a row in less than six months snapped his mind like a dry twig.”
“I’ll take door number three, please.”
“I don’t know. I think we’re being a little too hard on him. I mean, it must take some severe emotional trauma to drive a person to such a state. I mean think of what he must be going through right now. I think that I can hear him crying even as we speak. You hear that? That is a man in pain. That is a man suffering. That is a man --”
“Snoring.”
“What?”
“He’s snoring.”
“Aw shit . . . Fuck this. I’m going inside.”
“Right behind you.”