AZOTUSLAND chapter twenty

Jim left the theater and made sure everyone got to the parking lot safely. He noticed how beautiful River was. Long, lean...sweet.

Then he turned up the stairs. "What's the point?"

At the top floor he passed by Ops and heard a woman, Martine no doubt, moaning loudly as she was being driven with abandon.

"Good for them," he thought, then made haste to his door to give them due respect.

Once inside he saw that the small mini-kitchen was an utter disaster. It reeked of curry and there were six or seven pans , most of them burnt, in the small sink. Two empty cartons of ice cream were stacked to overflow in the trash. There was a bowl of old yogurt on the toaster quickly becoming a new life form.

He opened Manfred's door in an unhappy state only to find him with his ear to the wall using a glass.

"Stop that!" he ordered.

"Stop what Sahib?"

"Stop all of it Manfred," he said exasperated. "I do not care how you do it, but i want those dishes cleaned by tomorrow morning and no excuses."

Manfred looked sad. "But Sahib...my hands?"

Jim put his hands up to his face and rubbed hard.

"Fine., But I will find a suitible job for you tomorrow. Set your Tivo...You will need it. And give me that fucking glass!"

He shut the door .

"Fuck!"

Then he went in and turned off the lights and crawled into his unmade bed and pulled the covers up over his head.

"Fucking Manfred!" he thought. Then he relaxed and chuckled a bit. It had been 6 months since the Jennifer Connelly incident and the longer away from it he was the funnier it got.

"Many good thank-yous" he said quietly to Manfred's wall and he went back to that day to revisit.