Arturo passed Miriam on the stairs and noted aloud that she looked radiant in that dress. Miriam rolled her eyes and spit on the landing ahead of her.
"Queer," Arturo called after her.
"Pussy!" She responded.
And their exchange reverberated in the space for a moment before breaking apart into that stairwell silence that beats down doors.
Arturo let himself into their apartment. You'll be singing a different tune at dinner time, he thought to himself. He set his keys on the little table near the door with the phone and notepad on it. Continuing through the hallway and into his bedroom, he began to whistle a nondescript melody, interspersing it with Yes, Miriam, you'll be singing a different tune, la, la, la.
They had a disagreement in the early morning about the mess piling up in the basin for dirty dishes beneath the sink. Miriam was a lesbian, and Arturo attributed her willingness to hold onto her anger and her grudges to this inescapable fact. He imagined a long history of daily injustices and barely audible whisperings about her, but the truth was he had no supporting evidence for this theory. Miriam was quite private about her early account, even in her most drunk and voluble of moods.
Arturo took a flying leap onto his bed and let his body bounce into position diagonally across it. He removed a cigarette from the soft pack in his front shirt pocket and lit it, rolling onto his back.

Sal

I used to wonder about my neighbor, Sal. All 400 lbs of him. 400 lbs sounds like a lot, until you've seen it as something other than exaggeration, then you realize it's much more than a lot, it's monumental. It's size, it's true assertion of humanity's ability to exist in a physical space. Watching Sal move from one point to another: It was like looking into a possible future. One where one day you wake up and say to yourself, "Oh well. Who gives a fuck?" Then you mayonnaise and chocolate yourself into a walking mass of gelatinous flesh.
Sal always wore tiny white sneakers. And knee-length mesh shorts. And t-shirts with lifelike pictures of endangered animals on them. It seemed to be his uniform. The look was nicely rounded out by a wavy garnish of obnoxious orange hair. He had a unique look, for sure. And I used to wonder about why he never tried to mix up the elements of his dress. Then I realized it: What need is there to try to fix the only marginally fixable? It was the combination that worked for him, and he stuck to it. I admired him for that. He never felt the need to experiment with anything silly, like, for instance, pants, or shirts without endangered animals on them. That sort of knowledge of self, or at least attention to the inescapable fact that he would look ridiculous in almost anything he wore, so why not keep it consistent, is the reason I get up in the morning. I strive for that kind of clarity.
I get dressed in the morning and pose disapprovingly in front of the mirror through at least four or five different outfits. I take several things into account: what look did I go for yesterday? before that? what was the cumulative effect of my outfits last week? what is it shaping up to be this week? should I save this shirt until casual Friday? etc.
I wish I had the equivalent of Sal's white sneakers/mesh shorts/endangered animals t-shirt approach at my disposal. Unfortunately, I'm much too second-guessing for that. It drives me wild.
Sal.
What does he wonder about?
Does he feel a kinship with the animals he presents to the world emblazoned across his ample chest? Does he feel himself a specimen on the verge of extinction? Does he think he's a sea-turtle? What a mystery this fat-ass is to me. It's positively mind-boggling.