Page 11 of The Progressions

“The what?” I asked in shock. Eventually, I determined that it wasn’t actually a coffin, but instead a giant machine that did looka lot like a container for a body because it seemed like you were supposed to lie down in it (although between the moving men and me, none of us could figure out what it was meant to do). I certainly didn’t care where it went, as long as it was out of the way.

By the time I had finished sorting that out and had turned around to tell Tyler that he was absolutely not allowed to park there, he was gone. But his car was a problem I could deal with later, and luckily, Iva had been right about the landscaping company doing a bad job. The flowers that they had planted in that bed at the beginning of the summer were already very dead, so his mega-sized tires hadn’t really hurt anything.

I stayed in the parking lot to expedite and I had to give it to them: these guys were professionals and they worked fast. The other tenants were generally understanding that this had been a one-time inconvenience and accepted my offering of free t-shirts to soothe any ruffled feathers. The second truck left, and finally the third was almost empty, too. I accompanied the movers carrying the last load up to the unit so I could talk to Tyler about the fiasco he had created.

“It’s crowded in there,” one of the guys mentioned as we walked. “I’ve moved a lot of people and I’m telling you now, it’s not all going to fit when they try to unpack. It’s bad.”

It had seemed like a lot of stuff; this condo was one of our largest, but still, three trucks was more than I’d ever seen in my years working here. “It’s a four-bedroom unit,” I answered. “How bad could…”

I stopped when I got to the front door, because here was the answer to my question: it was a huge mess, horrendous chaos, confused havoc. It didn’t look like someone would be able to walk through or even that there was room for one more thing, but they squeezed in the last giant wardrobe boxes, and there was enough of a tunnel through the other boxes and stretch-wrapped furniture that I was able to enter, too.

They all looked at me without speaking and it felt like they were waiting. “We’ll divide the tip with the other guys,” the one told me, and I finally understood.

“Oh, hold on.” We’d started off fighting but they had done a good job and I thought they did deserve something, especially since I’d seen that Tyler Hennessy had recently been signed as one of the spokespeople for a German company that was marketing a new energy drink. He had plenty of money to give away, so I just had to find him.

There was another tunnel that seemed to lead to the bedroom, and I wound my way through. That room was equally crammed with the casket, boxes, chairs, dressers, and tables, but there still was not, as far as I could tell, a bed. I’d emailed Tyler when his lease began and told him that he was welcome to come, except that there were rules about moving in. I had reminded him of everything he’d agreed to in the lease (all the rules that he and Shay Galton had ignored today). Over the past week or so, I’d seen him coming and going in the parking lot, probably heading out to the Woodsmen practice facility and over to the stadium for meetings and visits with the trainers.

But without a bed, where had he been sleeping? And where was he right now?”

“Tyler?” I called. “Mr. Hennessy?”

“What?”

I followed his voice. The doors to the bathroom were still open, now because there were too many boxes in the way to close them. I made my way over, weaving around the casket and wondering again what it was and how they planned to use it. “The condo is in a lot of disarray but the movers are done and you’ll need to pay—sweet Jesus!”

Tyler Hennessy was in the big bathtub, which we’d had to replace after the last tenant moved out. It had been scratched and damaged to the point that it appeared that guy had been doing rock tumbling. Now the tub was gorgeous…and so was the new tenant lying in it. He was submerged in water and ice cubes which did nothing to disguise his present state.

He was…

“What?” he repeated.

“You’re naked!” I informed him. I looked at the ceiling but at the bottom of my field of vision, I could still see his reflection in the bathroom mirrors. I could see all of him!

“You never saw a naked guy?”

“I’ve seen plenty of naked guys,” I further informed him, which was a big stretch of the truth, but I thought did a lot to disprove my reputation of antisociality. “I’ve seen hundreds of nakedguys, but I just wasn’t expecting one right now. You need to pay those movers.”

“Shay didn’t do it?”

I didn’t know what she’d worked out with the company, but I didn’t care about that. “I mean, you have to tip the people here right now, the ones who did all the work,” I said. I knew about tipping them because I’d seen other people move in and out of these units, not because I’d been personally involved in going somewhere myself. I had lived in the same house forever and I wasn’t ever leaving, either.

“My pants are on the floor,” he remarked. “My wallet’s in the back pocket.”

“You want me to get it? Fine,” I said, and lowered my gaze. Oops! I’d lowered it directly onto the figure in the bathtub, that naked figure. His own eyes were closed and there was a huge bruise forming on his upper arm, which itself was huge so that the mark was the size of a volleyball.

“What happened?” I asked. “How did you get hurt?”

“Tough practice.” His eyes opened. “Are you getting my wallet? Go ahead and give them something.”

“Fine,” I told him, and I did fish out money and wend my way back outside, where the movers were waiting. I was generous and they were appreciative.

“That’s a shitshow in there,” one of them told me. “What are you going to do?”

“Me? Nothing. It’s not my house,” I answered, and they said they were glad for me. I was happy for myself, too, but…it really was terrible. Instead of heading to the office, I found myself entering the condo again.

“Tyler?” I called as I approached his location. “Are you still naked?”

“Do you get in the tub with your clothes on?” he asked me back, so I stayed in the bedroom and perched on a box marked “shoes.” It was also nearly casket-sized.

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