I jumped out of bed and ran into the living room. Jack and Ellen were standing there screaming at each other. Jack kept calling her a bitch and Ellen was almost crying but still managing to call him a few choice things too.

When Jack saw me he pointed his finger at Ellen and said: “Look what she’s done. Look what she did to the place!”

I looked. Ellen had given it a really good cleaning. She had thrown out all the old beer cans and bottles and cleaned out the ashtrays and swept the floor. She had even washed the windowsills. And from where I stood in the living room I could see that she had done the same good job in the kitchen. That’s all she had done; but Jack was standing there like a crazy man pointing his finger at her and cursing.

“She just cleaned up,” I told him. “What’s wrong with that?”

Jack stopped cursing and just stood in the middle of the clean room and glared at both of us. Ellen had been crying hard. Some of that long brown hair of hers was stuck to her face where it was wet.

“I just thought that since this pig was leaving soon I’d just clean up some and get the smell out of here.”

“You don’t even live here,” said Jack. “You just come here to get laid. Isn’t that enough for you?”

“Now shut the fuck up!” I told him. I started to move toward him and he grabbed one of the wooden chairs from the table and lifted it high in the air. Ellen screamed and when he looked over at her I rushed him and tripped him to the floor. I had to hit him once or twice, and I really didn’t want to. But he kept trying to get up and I couldn’t take a chance on letting him. You can’t give a queer the same breaks you’d give a real man, no matter how sorry you feel for him. Finally I managed to pin him to the floor by lying on top of him and pushing both his arms down with both of mine. Ellen got the chair away from us.

“Now, what’s your trouble?” I said to him. I was breathing hard and I was ready to let him have it again if he started some more shit.

Jack went all limp under me, like a girl would after that last big moment, and I felt really uneasy lying on top of him that way. I got off and let him get up. But he only got up as far as his knees.

“What’s got into you?” I asked him.

“Nothing,” he said.

“If you wanted to raise hell couldn’t you find some better excuse than her cleaning up the place?”