I was still thinking about the letter. Given what Harry said, it made sense that I'd mention Excelsior. Still, I had no idea who Summer would be. It made me wonder why I would spend most of my time at some wacky themed bar. There were a lot of things that weren't adding up, but for some reason, I felt that I would operate best if I wiped my memory. I couldn't imagine what I knew that I wanted to forget. Harry and Stu—they seemed like good friends. Even if they weren't real, I'd have a tough time abandoning them to go somewhere else completely. So far, this world felt fine. It seemed safe here, even if the conditions were a bit gross.
Harry was lying back on the couch. His eyes were open, looking up at the ceiling. There was a certain peace about him, and in some ways I felt envious of it. It seemed that everything in his world was completely in balance, that he didn't have a single thing to worry about. He could just sit there on that couch with no shirt on and let the world fly by for hours. I didn't know much about myself, but I knew even from the brief time I had been awake that whatever peace he had, I didn't have it.
"Harry, we should go to Excelsior," I said.
He sat up and stretched his arms out wide. "Oh yeah?" he said mid-stretch. He yawned and scratched his beard. "Even with total amnesia, you still can't let go of that damn place." He stood up and twisted his back. "Alright then, let's bounce." He jogged up the stairs to his room.
I slowly stood up from the couch. That purple vapor was still there, swishing around the room like waves of light. Even in parts of the room where the sunlight touched, the vapor was translucent around it. I saw Harry bounce his way down the stairs. He was wearing a wrinkled coffee-brown T-shirt that had a crudely drawn picture of an anthropomorphic mushroom smirking. Below the picture of the mushroom was the phrase "I'm a Fun-Guy" in an even cruder font. In his hand was a set of car keys. The keychain had a few knickknacks on it, including a small blue glass eye and a small rubber license plate that said "KEEPITKEWL" on it. Harry walked up to the front door next to the stairs and opened it. "You got your stuff?" he asked. "Wallet, phone, all that?"
I felt the outside of my pockets and felt my phone and wallet in them. "Yeah, let's get going."
We both walked out the front door and closed it behind us. The apartment complex itself was small—only a few units in the whole building. We were on the second floor, and a set of black metal stairs was in front of us. We made our way down the stairs. At the front of the building, there was a small parking lot with a few cars parked in it. Harry started walking toward his car: an old beat-up sedan with several dents in it. It was painted bright orange like a pumpkin. I made my way to the passenger seat and saw a large decal on the door. It was a psychedelic drawing of a bong. On top of it were the words "Oates Custom Glass," and the bottom said "We'll put you on your ass!" There was a phone number below that.
I opened the passenger door and was immediately hit with an intense smell of body odor, worse than the one in my room. On the seat there were a few loose plastic bags and some aluminum cans. Harry slid into the driver's seat and smacked all of it onto the floor. I got inside and Harry put the key in the ignition. The car had trouble starting, and Harry kept turning the key in the ignition. "Usually get it on the fourth try," he said. On the fourth turn in the ignition, the engine gurgled a bit but started running. "Fuckin' thing sucks, man. Can't even get over sixty on this used-up hoe."
Harry put the car in gear and peeled out of the parking lot. Based on his driving, it was probably a good thing he couldn't speed.
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