Distortion

Chapter 6: Back in Town

When the pounding at the door started, he was already long gone. Enough so, that I moved slowly towards the front door, without concern as to what would happen. I knew who would be busting through the door. Big men with big suits and emblems. Big men with big egos and even bigger tempers. I wasn't afraid, not like I would've been if he were still in the house. They didn't want me or know me. They didn't know that I could fix the problem, just as easily as he could. I would open the door and they would scan the house from top to bottom, not finding a trace of him. Then they would leave, offering apologies and expressing minimal concern over not finding their president. They would tell me lies, feeding me information that wasn't worth a damn about how I need not worry, that all was well. Infinite lies pouring from desperate men who would grow more desperate when they realized that the man they searched for couldn't be found.

I was half-tempted to let them pound away at the door, let them think I was sleeping, taking my afternoon nap, enjoying the peace and comfort of an empty home. But I couldn't leave them out there for long, they'd think I had something to hide, that I was covering up secrets that they weren't allowed to see.

Padding through the living room, I peeked through the blinds, not quite prepared to see the mass of people surrounding my house. Not just military, but noisy neighbors and curious gossipers. The whole town was assembled on the sidewalk, awaiting whatever fiasco was about to go down. If the Germans wanted to A-Bomb us, now would be the time. We'd go down like a pile of flies, dropping one after the other until the street was lined with the bodies of people who had invaded in my life one too many times.

I must have been taking too long to look out the window. That or they got impatient. That's the only explanation that I could think of for them busting through my door. One second Harley is next to me at the window, barking as he peeks through the blinds. The next a loud crash pulls him from distraction to the next. His barking intensifies as men explode into the room, destroying both the door and its frame.

"What the fuck?" I screamed. "I was coming! Jesus! I loved that door."

I glared at the men. My maroon door that I'd spent weeks agonizing over, saving my pennies to buy that door. It was my favorite. A symbol of my hard work. The president had called me childish.

"Save your goddamn money," he'd said, as I dropped the entirety of my paycheck into a glass jar. "It's just a front door. Buy the cheap, brown one that everyone buys."

"Fuck you," I'd responded, whisking my jar off the counter and hiding it in its position on top of one of the kitchen shelves. "I love that door. It's a symbol."

"Of what? Your craziness? You could easily buy a new purse and shoes with that money. Instead you wanna waste it on a front door for a house that you aren't even at half the time?"

I pursed my lips at him, turning hard eyes to glare at his equally stubborn frame. He couldn't understand, not when I refused to explain it to him. At one point I'd hoped he'd have figured it out, been able to deduce my meaning when I said that the door was a symbol. But I'd given up on that hope. He was in fact a man and man, was he. He was stubbornly dense and unable to grasp my intended meanings behind things that were important to me.

But I'd wanted him to understand.

"I'm never at the house because I'm working to pay for the door, you know that. Maybe, if you listened more you would know that the door means more to me than just a wind-blocker and entryway to our abode."

He said nothing in response, just tilted his head, waiting for my enlightenment.

"It's symbolic of... us. Ya know?" When he said nothing, didn't even blink, I continued. "We're different from everyone else. We aren't just a cheap, brown door couple. We're more than that. We're an expensive maroon door couple. We were built to last. We're unique and beautiful, and a little crazy."