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He continued his way through the old house. Through the family room with it’s worn leather lazy-boy and its old style, big box tv. Up another flight of stairs. By the bedrooms with their washed out wallpaper and peeling paint. Down the hall and and up a third flight of creaky stairs to yet another door. Romeo stopped there, took a deep breath and
opened it slowly.
It was dark out, but the moon was bright and there was the added illumination of the town, so it was pretty easy for him to see. Frank was sitting under the boxes, in a rickety folding chair with a beer in one hand and a cigarette in the other.
“Frank?”
Frank was facing away, looking out over the buildings, with his feet up on the roof’s ledge. “Come on out and close the door,” he said, without turning around to look.
“No way.”
“Come on. Don’t be a pussy.”
“Forget it. I got your check.”
“What check?”
“Rent. I’ll leave it on the kitchen table.”
“Just bring it here.”
“No way,” said Romeo. “I’m not coming out there.”
Just then something flew by his head. It was actually up in the sky a good twenty yards from his head, but he freaked a little nonetheless.
“Jesus!” he said, instinctively ducking down.
“They’re not going to hurt you,” said Frank. “Now come on out here and have a beer with me.”
Reluctantly, Romeo stepped out onto the roof and closed the door behind him. He crouched as he walked, keeping as low to the ground as possible, then slipped into the other rickety folding chair next to Frank.
“There you go.” Frank stubbed out his cigarette into an overflowing ashtray on the upside down milk crate he used as a table on the roof. He opened the mini cooler next to his chair, grabbed a Bud and offered it up .
“Thanks,” Romeo said, taking the beer. “Here.” He handed Frank the check.
Frank slipped the folded paper into his back pocket without even looking at it. “So where you headed?”
“Gonna meet Marco and Benny out at the Rail and then we’re going to stop at Cap’s and see what’s going on.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
“You know that’s not going to end well.”
“Probably.”
“I saw Marco this afternoon and he was pretty hopped up about it,” continued Frank.
“Yeah. But maybe…” Romeo stopped short, gasped and nearly dove out of his chair, practically knocking the beers off the milk crate as he did.
A big brown bat crawled out of the box just over Frank’s right shoulder. He had four of them, bat boxes, up on his roof, and the dozens of bats living in them came and went freely every evening. It clung to the slit in the bottom of the box for a second or two, squeaking and scratching, then it took off.
“Seriously?” asked Romeo as he regained his composure and settled back in the chair.
“What?”
“It’s creepy.”
