NUGGETS OF JOY

Like a buzz saw having difficulty cutting through a plank of wood, the roar sounded again. Again. Again. Silence for an anticipatory nine seconds—that ninth second, the quietest of all the seconds, as it was always quietest just before the storm.

“Hhngurh!”

Phoebe shot up in bed like she’d been loaded into an antique trebuchet and was getting launched over a castle wall at the enemy. “Oh my God! I can’t sleep with this noise!”

“Who is it? Craig next door?” Jason asked in a half-asleep, gravelly voice.

“No. I think it’s Bill downstairs.”

“It would be bad enough to hear the neighbor snoring through the wall. It’s a special brand of awful to hear snoring through the floor.”

“Not just paper-thin walls in this dump. Paper thin floors too.”

“In that case, let’s not buy anymore heavy furniture.”

“Can you turn the sound machine up?” Phoebe collapsed back into the bed and threw a pillow over her head.

Jason clicked the Volume Up button on the sound machine, but the sound of manufactured rain falling didn’t seem to get any louder. He’d probably already reached the max volume from the last time he turned it up to drown out the time when Craig decided to rearrange his furniture at 1:00 A.M.

Jason looked over at Phoebe. “OK.”

He hoped the placebo effect would be enough to help Phoebe… and himself. He checked the time. 1:41 A.M. He let out a quiet sigh and pulled a pillow over his own head as well.

Jason sat on the couch, coffee mug in hand, legs outstretched, with Zombie on his lap. Zombie purred continuously as Jason rubbed the back of his neck, sipped his dark roast, and stared out the window as the rain pelted the glass.

“Sometimes I like the rain, Zombie.” Jason said, incurring a quick eye-opening from the content Zombie. “Feels like we’re in a movie. It’s nice.”

“God damn it!”

Zombie stopped purring and his eyes opened up wider as he and Jason stared at each other.

“Oh, right.”

Moments later, Phoebe exited the bathroom in her towel. “Hot water’s out again!”

“Yeah. The rain.” Jason grabbed his phone. “I’ll call ‘em.”

Jason called the property managers to let them know that the hot water went out again. Fifth time this month. 18th time in the past three months.

“It’s every time it rains.” Jason explained with frustration.

“Oh. Every time it rains?” Suzie on the other end was dumbfounded.

“Yep. That’s what I tell you guys every time I call. Something has to be done to fix this, not temporarily, but permanently.”

“I assure you, our team is doing everything we can to remedy the situation.”

Yeah right. Is that what the worn-out script in front of you says to say?

After Jason’s ice cube shower, he joined Phoebe in the living room and had some soup with her. Soup wasn’t a normal breakfast food, but it was an ideal breakfast food when, on a 40-degree, rainy February day, the shower produced only water so frigid it may as well have been solid.

“Maybe it’s time we really start looking into getting a house again.” Jason suggested.

“Yeah, it’s not like we’re able to or anything. So, it’s a moot point.” Phoebe huffed.

“Well, then maybe we need to revisit the idea of cutting back on expenses to save faster.”

Jason chanced it, knowing this was a touchy subject that turned into an argument each of the last three times they discussed it. The discussion ping-ponged back and forth, and it started to get volatile, but Jason and Phoebe both tried to keep their cool. Jason’s point was, they weren’t happy in this shitty apartment building. They weren’t happy with apartment-living in general. It had been long enough; they were tired of dealing with loud neighbors and pipes older than any living being on the planet. They were getting close to having enough money for a down payment on a decent house, but at the rate they were going, it was going to take years to arrive there. Jason’s suggestion: why didn’t they try to cut down the estimate of three to four years to about one year? Really cut back on expenses. Cheaper foods, less going out, less luxuries, save more, really clutch the purse strings tightly so that they could arrive at their desired amount sooner, and get the hell out of there and to a much happier life.

“I’m not going to live off rice and beans, Jason.” Phoebe shook her head and checked the time.

“I suggested we incorporate cabbage as well.” Jason smirked and Phoebe laughed.

That was his queue to stop pushing. He managed to spur a laugh from her and they didn’t go down Angry Alleyway. Phoebe said she’d think about it in a way that sounded like she wasn’t really going to think about it, or at least not with an open mind. She had to leave for work, so they said goodbye and kissed. Jason checked the time, he still had an hour before he had to log on for work, so he watched a TV show while eating his soup.

The meeting was dragging on, Jason could feel his eyelids fighting him, betraying him, trying to shut out the outside world from his field of view. It would be nice to take a nap. A good work meeting always made a nap sound spectacular. It finally ended and Jason knew he needed to stand up and do something so he wouldn’t pass out right there in his living room. He eyed the kitchen from his position and saw the trash can.

Trash likely needed to be taken out.

Jason grabbed the trash bag, tied it up, and waltzed out the front door into the hallway… the motion in his legs already bringing him back to life. He shut the door behind him and glanced at the neighbors’ door across the hall. Two packages had been dropped off in front of their place, and a large trash bag was sitting next to them leaned against the wall. Jason checked to see if they had any packages in front of their place as he was awaiting the arrival of some things—some non-essential things—some tiny nuggets of happiness.

None.

Oh well.

He marched down the stairs, hearing the Harry Potter movie playing through the walls from one of the downstairs apartments. He glided through the back door into the back area where all the trash cans were, picked one out, and lifted the lid. Inside… rice.

Not a box of rice.

Not a bag with rice in it.

Loose rice.

And not a little.

A catering-tray’s-worth of loose rice, covering the bottom of the can.

“Who in the hell?” Jason tossed his neatly tied bag into the can and stomped back inside.

The rest of work was uneventful which also caused Jason to feel sleepy again. Phoebe called when she was almost home and said she needed help bringing some groceries inside to which Jason got excited because he needed another excuse to get up and walk around so he wouldn’t doze off. He zoomed out of their apartment, catching a strange musty smell on his way out of the building that only existed for a moment and then vanished. He helped Phoebe with the bags and they headed up together.

Just as they reached the top of the stairs, Phoebe sniffed loudly. “What is that smell?”

“I don’t know. I smelled that before.”

“It stinks. Is it smoke? Was someone smoking in the halls again?”

“Maybe. It sort of smells like smoke. But also sort of like—I don’t know.”

They put the groceries away, Jason finished work, and they made pasta together. Saying they made pasta together was an exaggeration. Phoebe made pasta while Jason retrieved ingredients and spices for her that she needed all while he told her about his day at work. But that was how they cooked. Jason tried cooking with Phoebe twice before and she hated it. Dinner was paired with a movie and afterwards the two got into bed.

And it was either that that was when the barking started, or that was just when they noticed it because the movie may have been drowning it out before.

“Is that the dog across the hall?” Phoebe asked.

Jason stayed quiet and craned his neck out as he listened. The shrill bark was unmistakable. “Yeah. That’s him.”

“What the hell. It’s 12:30.”

“I’m sure he’ll stop.”

Jason said he was sure because that was just a thing to say. He wasn’t actually sure. Of course not. And when it was 1:00 he became even more aware how not sure he was since the dog had continued barking intermittently the entire time. And it had still been barking on and off by 1:30… and by 2:00… and by 2:30.

“Oh my God! I can’t sleep!” Phoebe was livid. “How do they just leave the dog alone this late? Poor thing.”

Boom, boom, boom, boom.

“Well, here they finally come.” Jason groaned. “Good thing they’ve realized how to keep everyone in mind and walk quietly up the stairs.”

Phoebe snorted and although it was a laugh, it was more anger-filled than with any other emotion. The thumping of their concrete feet on the stairs was paired with their drunken laughter from a pointless night out at whatever trendy, bullshit club. Zombie stirred at Jason’s feet and looked up, disturbed by the negligence of their so-called neighbors.

Jason rubbed his head until he let it sink back into the blankets. “Don’t worry, Zombie. Go to sleep, bud.”

The door whipped open and slammed shut, causing two other dogs in the building to bark in reaction.

At least the shrill barking had stopped. Now it was just the bassy basset hound downstairs.

“Jason! Alarm!” Phoebe shook Jason’s arm and he seized out of an icy-cold nightmare.

He reached over, located his phone, and turned the alarm off… the alarm that had apparently been going off for 25 minutes.

“I feel like I didn’t sleep at all.”

“Me neither.”

“Wanna call out of work and sleep in?”

“Yes.”

“And then come up with a budgeting plan so we can finally get the hell out of here?”

Phoebe shot a look at Jason and he wondered if he’d gone too far. He evaded an argument yesterday, what was he thinking… pushing his limits now? He was the prisoner who avoided getting shanked in the yard only to head into the cafeteria and insult the skinheads.

Phoebe smiled. “Yes.”

Wow.

“But first, I want to do something I haven’t done in nearly a decade.”

“What’s that?”

“Sleep til noon.”

And so, they did. Jason, Phoebe, and Zombie all slept until the time was in the P.M. Something two-thirds of them never did.

When they woke up, the same two-thirds of them started to devise a plan while the other one-third of them lay in a bed on the floor, basking in the sun and licking himself. Jason and Phoebe were tired of this place, so they were going to do everything they could to get out immediately. Luxuries would be given up in the short-term so the immense enjoyment of a house in the long-term could be closer… so it could be within arm’s reach… so it could maybe just be in the medium-term.

It wasn’t really going to be a diet of rice and beans, but that wasn’t far off. Cabbage, potatoes, tofu, bread… these were filling and healthy foods that could help them get by. Every little cut-back was going to help in the long-term—medium-term—whichever term. Jason would often get blueberries, raspberries, and blackberries to put in his cereal, an entire army of berries, many of which went bad before they were able to be consumed. He didn’t need them all. Do away with the archers and cavalry! We only need the infantry! It would only be blueberries from here on out. He vowed to eat less avocados, buy less cookies and brownies, and he didn’t need such a bevy of beers, juices, and sodas when really, he was a guy who could get by on water and orange juice. Phoebe had a predilection for frozen foods, quick and easy. The price tags for those featured much higher numbers than the fresh foods that required preparation. She didn’t like the idea of having to spend more time making her food, especially after a long day of work, but she didn’t like the idea of living in the building made out of three-hole-punch-college-ruled even more.

Phoebe figured she could make huge amounts of food on Sundays and have plenty to pack up for lunch and reheat for dinner throughout the week. And the two were often struck by the Lazy-Kitchen-Bug, the antidote to this sickness being the variety of amazing restaurants in the area. They probably went out to eat eight times a month on average. Amazing atmosphere plus excellent food plus incredible laughs equaled a phenomenal night out—as any math major would tell you. But the same arithmetic authorities would point to the deflation of the wallet during this equation. Jason and Phoebe were going to cut down on restaurant-going significantly. Twice a month at most.

All these details and more, they figured they’d be saving money so much faster. They’d be able to get that house so much sooner. The destination was ultimate happiness, a giant mountain-full of it. They just cut out two layovers and booked a direct flight.

Now, it was just time to pack their luggage.

The two left to go for a walk and clear their heads after the enormous budgeting session. As soon as they stepped into the hall it smelled awful once again. Phoebe plugged her nose and quickened her pace to vacate the building as quickly as possible. Jason glanced at the neighbors’ door. Their packages were gone. That bag of trash—still there.

“I think it’s the neighbors’ trash that’s stinking up the hall.” Jason said as he caught up to Phoebe on the sidewalk.

“Really?”

“It’s been there since yesterday afternoon.”

“Disgusting. What could be in it that would smell that bad?”

“Something so nasty that they didn’t want it in there, stinking up their apartment.”

“So, they decided to leave it in the hall?”

“Yeah. Good thing they’ve learned the trash cans are just out back.”

Phoebe sighed and shook her head. “Only makes me feel better about our decision.”

Jason and Phoebe went to the grocery store and did their first run of cheap food purchasing. They returned home and held their breath as the stinky cloud wafting from their corner of the building smacked them in the nostrils. Before they headed in, Jason eyed the bag of trash still sitting there, and one new package that had arrived. As they cooked dinner that night, they could partially hear the shrill barking of the dog across the hall but it was mainly drowned out by the sounds of food cooking in the kitchen and the music they intentionally put on for just these purposes. They were interested in watching another episode of the intimate drama they’d been in the middle of but as the dog was still testing his own decibel levels, they decided to put on nice, loud action movie on their list. Right around the point when the main character felt down and was about to give up before his best friend gave him some inspirational words, they heard the thumping ascending the stairs. They heard the door swing open and slam shut.

“Jesus, it’s a problem if I can hear them climbing the stairs over an Alan-Silvestri-scored movie.” Phoebe shook her head.

The movie finished, the good guy won, and dinner was seasoned with excellence, making Jason and Phoebe feel as if they had eaten something else. Phoebe packed the leftovers away while Jason grabbed the trash and took it out. Instant stench in the hallway. Worse now. Worse because the paper walls of the apartment building were marinating in garbage-aroma. There sat the trash bag of their neighbors… still there. The package… gone.

“So, they’ll take their packages in but they leave their trash in the hall.” Jason said, loudly enough.

He tossed the trash out and returned to his apartment, breath held for the last 20 seconds of the journey.

It wasn’t until the next day—far into the next day—that the bag of trash had been removed. Jason guessed it was over 48 hours that it sat there. At least it was gone, and the stench—it was 90% gone.

The first few days of the new diet weren’t too bad. The food was actually delicious, and Jason even noticed a little bit of belly fat having gone the way of the dodo. Not bad. But it was the first day that Phoebe said, “Should we go out to eat?” that reality set in. They couldn’t just say yes anytime they wanted. Twice a month. That was the allotment. It was only the 8th of the month.

“Should we save it?” Jason asked.

“I guess.”

“So, what should we eat?”

Phoebe reached into the pantry and pulled out a can of black beans.

“Ugh, we just did black beans.” Jason complained.

Phoeve replaced it and pulled out a can of kidney beans.

“Better.”

“Yeah. The change from black to dark red is going to make a huge difference.” Phoebe rolled her eyes.

The next few days got harder as they were growing tired of their food. Jason missed spicing up the day with nuggets of brownies and cookies. Phoebe missed her frozen dinners. Then, there was the night that Craig next door decided to stay out late, past 1:00, past 1:30, and left his afraid-of-being-alone-dog… alone.

“It’s 1:47!” Phoebe slammed her fist into the blanket wrapped around her.

“I’m gonna text him.”

The following exchange only proved to Jason and Phoebe the suspicions that they had about Craig’s intelligence levels. Nice enough guy. But his comments of “what am I supposed to do if I want to go out?” and his “it’s not like we don’t hear everyone else’s dogs all day.” and his “it’s not my fault the walls are so thin.” really confirmed everything.

Jason typed away on his phone, irritated as he caught the current time of 2:02. “But if you have a dog that barks constantly when you’re gone, you can’t be out past midnight.”

“That’s not fair.”

“No one cares if it’s fair. It’s the truth.”

“So, I don’t get to live my life?”

“Maybe you just shouldn’t have a dog if going out is what’s most important to you.”

“I can have a dog if I want!”

“Then you should be home with your dog!!”

The next morning, Jason emailed the property management company to tell them about the disturbance. They never responded. Of course not. They never did. And they sucked. That night, Phoebe complained about their “poor people dinner” and Jason reminded her how little they slept last night, because they had an inconsiderate neighbor in an apartment building… as opposed to a house that didn’t share walls with anyone.

“You’re right. That’s worse.”

The two went out and had one of their two dinners the next night, and because they were weak—as they admitted aloud to themselves—they went out for dinner again the very next night. That was both allowed dinners for the month! The rest of March was rough. So many good movies were coming out that they were not going to see. Exquisite looking meals kept popping up on their Instagram feeds, attempting to lure them in to restaurants like sirens perched atop the jagged rocks of the ocean. Everything that cost money beckoned them in and they avoided them at all costs—at no cost—at the sake of driving down costs. But all these things, these little nuggets of happiness along the way, they’d rid their lives of them completely. So few nuggets left. Most of March’s nuggets had been had, experienced, finished. The rest of this godforsaken-31-day-month loomed like a depressing horizon in front of them.

They snapped at one another constantly. Jason tried to remind Phoebe of the horrible things in the building. The barking dogs, the snoring downstairs, the second installment of “leave-our-garbage-in-the-hall.” But the reminders didn’t pull Phoebe back to the realization that they were doing this for a bigger and better cause, they did the opposite. They made her angrier.

“Stop reminding me of this shit!”

“I’m just trying to—”

“I know what you’re trying to do! Stop!”

“Fine!”

The silent nights were uncomfortable, until there were so many of them that they became commonplace, and then that fact made it all uncomfortable again. The two couldn’t stand it anymore, and both decided to break, just a little, go enjoy a third dinner in March.

“Cutting down from eight to two, that was a big drop.” Phoebe reasoned. “I think it’s OK if we ween ourselves off little by little.”

“I agree.”

Only they went out and spent far more on a meal and drinks than they ever had. It was multiple dinners in one. And it was a late movie afterwards with popcorn and soda.

Waking up on April 1st was like waking up to a financial hangover.

“Little bump in the road. We can recover.”

April was gloomy, both in mood and in weather. April showers did not bring May flowers, they brought cold indoor showers. Phoebe grew irritated with the plumbing and Jason reminded her this was why they had to cut back, which pissed her off even more. Jason wondered to himself why he kept reminding her when he knew, in the back of his mind, it wouldn’t go well. The first dinner at a restaurant came late in April, not because they were disciplined, but because they were so upset with one another from the constant arguing. When they finally went out to dinner, it wasn’t a relief, it wasn’t a joy, it was uncomfortable. The usual nugget of happiness didn’t help the way it used to; it just highlighted the nugget-less existence they currently had.

The second dinner in April was a little better, but it was still quiet. Days in the apartment were quiet—quiet in terms of any noises that Jason and Phoebe made anyway. Noisy in terms of the sounds leaking through the walls like tsunamis of insensitivity from the neighbors.

April finished and sadly flipped the page to May. Jason and Phoebe kept at it, constantly reminding themselves of the task at hand… in their heads. Hardly any nuggets of joy. But money was getting saved. They missed so many movies they wanted to see in theaters. They ate the same dull food night in and night out. They went to the mall once just to walk around but seeing all the clothing stores just made temptation too high for both of them so they left and didn’t go back.

May came to a close and the two looked at the money they had saved versus past months. It was incredible. The strategy was working. They kept at it through June and July, saving more, but seeing the smile lines vanish from their faces and noticing the dark circles growing under their eyes. They were on their way to a house… a mountain of a nugget… but none along the way. No boulders, no small rocks, not even a pebble. They wished to reach the mountain, but they walked a flat, arid desert to get there.

Would it not be better to head for the other mountain, the one farther in the distance? The one with roads that changed from flat to bumpy to windy. The path that went on an incline and then a decline? The route that included grassy plains along the way… and the occasional forest and pond and plateau?

In August, Jason and Phoebe met up with their friends Dan and Heather for coffee… just one coffee each… because they had K-Cups at home, of course. Dan and Heather asked if they had seen any good movies lately.

“We’ve just been watching a lot of Seinfeld.” Jason admitted.

“We’ve watched some movies on Netflix.” Phoebe offered. “Like, didn’t we just watch the one with Eddie Murphy?”

“Trading Places.”

“Yeah, that was funny. And the other one that I had never seen but you’re obsessed with.”

“Billy Madison.”

“Yeah, that was funny too. I was surprised.”

Dan laughed. “Anything from this century, guys?”

“Well, yeah.” Phoebe thought for a long, few seconds. “What was that one that just came to—uh, one of the streaming services? It was new, right? The one we watched Friday.”

Jason gave a disappointed head shake. “It was new to Netflix. But Sphere isn’t new.”

“What happened?” Heather scoffed. “You guys used to be movie buffs. You never missed anything new.”

August, they saved a lot of money. September, even more.

October 1st, Dan raved about a new movie in their text thread. It was out of theaters now, but he promised it would be nominated for Oscars.

“Even the sound was incredible! It’ll be nominated for score or something.”

Phoebe and Jason looked up from their phones and at one another.

“We’ll see it once it’s streaming.” Phoebe said.

“Yeah, with our movie quality sound system in here.” Jason stared off at the wall.

“You’re doing that sarcasm thing again.”

“What sarcasm thing?”

“When you’re sarcastic.”

“So, just call it sarcasm. What the hell’s a sarcasm thing?”

“Relax, I’m telling you because you’re being a downer.”

“Of course I’m being a downer. Our life is… down.”

That was October 1st. Down. It had been said so simply and so eloquently. On October 2nd, the plan was scrapped, sold for parts, and any lingering remnants of the plan were burned to ash. Not even a whiff of the plan wafted in the air.

Jason and Phoebe’s savings did not grow at a quicker rate; they just grew slowly, if at all. Some weeks they didn’t save anything, just so they could have another nugget of joy. Another dinner at a restaurant. A trip to the theater for a promising movie. A small shopping spree at the mall. A home-cooked dinner that didn’t have a bean or legume in sight. A six-pack of beer. For fuck’s sake, a god damn soda if they felt like it.

Because Jason and Phoebe needed their nuggets of joy. Their path had been too flat, too dry, and too nugget-less for too long.

The mountain shrunk as it scuttered off in the distance, playing a game of hide-and-seek with them, and doing a damn good job of hiding far, far away.

It was alright. The mountain was still out there. It would take much longer to get to, but it was worth it, just so the journey wouldn’t be so miserable.

It was November. It rained. Jason and Phoebe took cold showers, each one laughing as they exited the bathroom with goosebump-riddled skin. They went out to a new restaurant that night. Pho. The perfect, warming meal for two frozen individuals. The place was beautifully decorated inside, a big indicator as to where the $18.00 per bowl was going.

November wouldn’t be a month of big savings. No matter. It would be a month of many nuggets.

Stephen Kramer Avitabile is a New-England-born, Los-Angeles-based writer. He writes short stories, novels, screenplays, and even dabbled in stand-up. He’s had his work appear in publications like The Fifth Di…, Clever Fox Lit, and On The High Lit. When not writing, he spends his time watching TV, movies, and sports with his partner Evelyn, guinea pig Peggy, and tortoise Joey… and also feeding any animals outside his apartment.