Tampa wants to give you succor

I'm sleeping on a naked matress in a blank room in a house in Tampa, under a wool sheet. It's cold and I'm fully clothed. The sheet is sweaty, somehow. The house is surrounded by a chainlink fence with weeds growing so completely through it that the fence bristles; creeper vines hang down from the trees overhead almost touching the fence, giving the impression that the house is being reclaimed.

Mostly the house only contains records, keyboards, and amps. There is a wraparound couch in the living room, a turntable, and a glass endtable appropriate only for cutting lines on. The fridge contains only beer, and there is only one towel in the bathroom in a four bedroom house. The shower has never been used. None of the mattresses have sheets, although there is a couple year out of date Mac Book in one of the rooms, incongrous in it's clean shiny lines.

At 2:30 in the morning, a caterwauling sets up outside, 'Dee! Deeee!', a woman either jilted or angered somehow, suddenly a wierd part of my pleasent dream about my wife. It comes closer, increasing in volume, but muffled by walls and the enclosed front porch. Now it's pounding on the walls, jolting me awake disoriented. It is at the window, blows to the window even louder echoing in the empty room, calling for Dee desperately and all of the attendent fun of domestic disputes is with it in my mind. This woman is bereaved, desperate sounding. Is she covered in blood? Is someone coming after her?

Burrowing and ignoring it might work, but then I'm just going to feel bad about it later. So I get up and go to the garage door. A few helloes and I'm waiting for the worst, some lover's quarrel that is going to consume my night, a slasher movie right at the beginning. In my life story, I'm the protagonist, but in any story involving an ax, I'm going to be the nice guy who goes down right at the beginning. This lady will make it through, although her number of limbs will be in question.

But no, looming out of the nighttime mist, it is only the band Hellscape, here to spend the night after their show, and unable to get in touch with any of the people who live here, all of whom have left the house to me.

Steed, the pleasant, shaved head with the blond ponytail, rotting black clothing and the iphone who lives here has told these poor, beraggled folks that they can stay here. There is a lot of black denim, and patches. The lady's name begins with 'Ch', and her dress is very short and she has a short haircut and a lot of tatooes, but I don't catch a lot more. I point out the couches, and they unload more beer in to the fridge as I retreat.

The blanket they are sharing covers up the tatooes, and their faces are waxy and childlike in sleep as I leave at daybreak.