Possession

It was old and it was falling apart. Rips appeared on just about every corner, the wood was scratched, and stains adorned the cushions, but it was the only place he had ever been able to comfortably sleep. He had a bed, of course, made up with hospital corners and untouched since the last time he brought a girl home three months ago.

He remembers buying the thing at a flea market off of Houston, and how it was the one item that he needed and could afford, but not the one he wanted. He wanted the big Cigar Indian or the big plastic chair shaped like a hand or the myriad of subway signs or the cage holding a plastic Bruce Lee dressed up like he was in Game of Death. He needed the couch. He bought the couch. He longed for space and disposable income.

There are four near-equal length tears along the left arm from a girl far too young for him clawing whatever she could reach in the throes of passion. He got it far worse than the couch. An alternate trashcan, complete with bag, sits to the side of the right arm; placed there after a night of too much bourbon and not enough food and left there as both a reminder and a precaution. It sits equidistant from the television and the bathroom in the perfect setting for putting on a movie or taking a piss.

His girlfriend hated the couch. She sat on it once and sidled up next to him; she put her arm around him like it was home, but it never was. She sat in chairs after that, and he always noticed. When they fucked on the couch she was always on top and complained about the way the upholstery always made those kinds of marks on her legs where it pressed into her and made indentations. He had them all down his back almost every day and always appreciated them. When he slept there for several nights in a row they would make a full pattern on his back that he found more beautiful for words. "Who needs a fucking tattoo?" he would ask his next girlfriend while staring at the patterns in the mirror. This was the girl who always suggested he get some ink, and always looked longingly at the boys who had sleeves. She left him for one of those boys some months later.

When he enters the apartment he doesn't see any of that. He sees a ghost of a time past. He sees a girl he used to know at a time that was anything other than ideal. He uttered the most sincere apology of his life, entered his room, and closed the door. When he comes home drunk and alone he puts on a movie about which he cares nothing, sits, and drifts off into dreams, knowing he is in a place where he has done the right thing at least once in his life, and it comforts him more than any bed he has ever known.