Chapter 4 - Walls Have Ears

After returning to his own home on that same Saturday, complete with his pay packet, which was suppose to be spent on his big night out with the real Violet from his paintings, Harry did what he used to do every weekend. It was the same old routine, and he'd learnt it by heart, after doing it every week since he'd been married to Carol. He'd unlock the door, walk through the hallway to the lounge, slump himself down on a black leather couch, then wait for Carol to return from entertaining whoever it was, wherever it was. He always lay there, wondering which poor bastard she'd be giving something to, and if Fry was lucky tonight, it wouldn't have been him!

Harry couldn't stand his lifestyle with Carol anymore... he couldn't stand her anymore. He knew he had to do something right now, or it would be like this forever. He couldn't stomach fathering her any longer; he now had feelings for someone who could responsibly look after herself, and could love him, as he could love her.

He had to get out, leave Carol for the world to devour, it was now of never! He started packing his clothes and other stuff, and then he packed his most precious belongings, also being the only thing that he had any real love for in his entire home, the only thing he really wanted: his Violet collection. After packing, he stuck his belongings in the boot of his red hover car that he'd originally bought as a show piece for Carol. He'd come back next week for anything that remained. He then drove straight back up to his best friend's apartment.

When he got there, he told Chuck he'd made a firm strong decision to file for a divorce, for he loved the lady he had left behind much more than the one who was his wife. He needed someone to talk to, and his best friend was always there to listen. He poured out his heart, about how he had an affectionate, caring relationship with Leela, but everything for Carol had completely gone. All his emotions came out, to the only other person in the world he trusted, other than Leela. Chuck had agreed that he should go ahead with his plans. Besides, he never liked Carol much, anyway.

On Monday morning, when Fry was sober again, Leela asked him to go and have an STD test at the hospital and bring her back the results. She didn't trust him to return with them, unless she saw the proof in black-and-white - he might lie to her about his whereabouts, when he'd really just go out drinking or something. She was also very concerned about this Cool Carol, or whoever she was... or wasn't.

As she'd remembered Harry's words well, she repeated them to Fry: "Please, just to keep me from worrying about you, go and have the test done. It may be nothing at all, but it's better to be safe than sorry."

Fry did as she asked, as he was a little concerned himself, while his wife stayed at home and awaited the arrival of her lover... the builder.

Other than being totally out of his mind, falling to sleep, and not recalling Harry at all, which was quite normal for Fry, the rest of his morning was to be anything but average.

Fry was still out having his STD test done, when the builders turned up at the door. Chuck went through his typical routine of going on ahead alone, leaving the two lovers together in the hallway. "How's Fry?" Harry asked, without really that much sympathy in his voice, as he mistrusted him intensely, and didn't like him that much either.

Fry was still at the hospital when Harry had arrived to finish the work on Leela's bathroom, so she decided to explain why he wasn't around. "He had a terrible hangover, but other than that he was OK this morning. He's gone off to the hospital, to have one of those tests done. I told him about Cool Carol, and that she could be the wife of a friend of mine. It's the only way I got him to go."

Harry asked her, slightly emotionally, "Have you told him about us?"

The answer was no, but she couldn't bring herself to say it, therefore replied with, "Have you told Carol about me?"

He told her about his weekend activities. "I'm filing for divorce, and I've moved into Chuck's place permanently now.

"How about you? I want to know if you've even mentioned the slightest notion about our relationship together. Anything at all?"

The embarrassed look on Leela's face said everything, as the man who was impatient to take the other man's wife began to get a little overemotional."Do you want me to tell him when he gets back home, so he can buy a gun and shoot me where I stand... or would you like me to fix your ceiling first, and then have him kill me?" There was slight sarcasm in his voice, though it seemed he had the right to talk this way. He was madly in love with the woman who stood before him, yet he was becoming very upset with the way she pushed him aside for a man she cared much less about.

After a few seconds of silence, Harry decided to ask her the most important question on his mind: "Tell me Leela, do you still love him? Because if you do, I'll leave here and now and get another builder to take my place at the firm. If I see you everyday, knowing that I couldn't have you, it'll break my heart."

"I care for him a lot... like a good friend," she answered reluctantly, her heart breaking as speedily as his, "looking out for him whenever he needs me."

Harry was getting more upset with her every word, and felt he needed some kind of feedback for his loving. "And me... do you care a lot for me? Because I need you right now. Let's run away together somewhere... anywhere, anyplace, I really don't care, right this instant, and just forget the rest of the world exists. I took the car when I left Carol. It's sitting outside Chuck's apartment, so we can fill up the tank and leave as soon as you're ready."

He wanted her to say yes, she wanted to say yes, but as everything seemed to be speeding past her like lightning, she had to answer him with, "I'm sorry, I think we need to slow down a little, everything's just flashing before my eye so quickly. I need more time to think, to make such a responsible decision like this."

Harry knew she was right, and wondered what came over him so quickly. "No, I should be the one to apologize, I shouldn't have pressed you like that. Is there any way I could see you outside of working hours, maybe when Fry's on a play-date with Bender, perhaps we could meet at some secret place, and go on a play-date of our own?"

Her lover hadn't moved an inch from the doorway since he'd entered the apartment, and she kind of had a feeling that he might just turn around and walk out again, so she had to tell him fast, or she'd never get her perfect guy. She had to propose a quick date first though, before her husband returned home. Like the wise woman in the mirror had told her, she had to take the risk, and grab her chance, for it was now or never. "Fry'll be back any minute, but Bender'll be round here tomorrow night, at around 7pm. We could still have that big night out if you really want to?" She stood there, awaiting his reply.

"I'll pick you up at eight, and we can make plans for the Casablanca again."

"It's a date," she cheerfully told him, wanting desperately to make up to him for their previous missed date. Anyway, it was now or never, as she desperately wanted to alter the future that fate had seemingly given to her with the hapless Fry, forever dragging her down, and find a future where she felt free from the previous pains in her life.

As sure as could be, Fry had returned from the hospital with the test results: negative! Leela sat on her burgundy couch, scratching her head as she wondered how the heck Fry got the all clear. He, at least, felt very relieved, as it had never really crossed his mind before to take such a test, when he was out wetting his whistle.

Leela then asked Fry to clean Alison, as it was time to do so, while she went to the kitchen to make a snack for Fry and the builders. However, Fry just switched on the TV and began to watch the cartoons, slouching on the couch with a glass and a can of beer at his side.

Although Alison lay screaming her eyes out, soaking wet in the basket next to him, he seemed to arrive at the idea that she was her mother's problem - as most men seem to do. "Come and change the baby, Leela," he called to her, as she was still preparing the food for everybody there.

As the walls in their crummy little apartment were so thin, she'd managed to hear him, and came out as fast as she could... for the baby's sake. "Oh Fry, you're such a lazy slob!" she remarked, angrily, as she noticed him doing absolutely nothing at all.

As Fry took Leela for granted twenty-four hours a day, he didn't just use her, but also blocked his ears to anything that he didn't want to hear. "What was that?" he managed.

"You never heard a word I said, did you?" She didn't know why she'd bothered asking, as she knew the answer already... everything she said to Fry used to go into one ear and come out the other. She finally added, "I don't know why I waste my breath." Then she turned all her concentration onto their daughter.

After changing the baby, Leela sat on the couch next to Fry, to attempt to have a word with him, while he continued watching the cartoons. "Fry, don't you think that if it takes two to make a baby, then two should take care of it?"

"Should they?" he asked. Though whatever her reply was, as always, never really concerned him anyway... he only heard what he wanted to hear - what was important to him.

She tried her best, to get some sort of decent reply. "You'll be sorry one day, Fry. I'll take Alison and leave you forever if you don't get your act together, and you wouldn't like that, would you?"

Although he heard what Leela had put to him, he didn't actually believe it, so came back at her with, "Huh! You wouldn't leave me! Admit it, I'm a real swell catch.

"Amy couldn't keep her hands off me... remember how she used to follow me around all over the place. I bet she secretly didn't want Zoidberg to separate us, because she wanted me with her till eternity. And, I wouldn't be surprised if every woman I've screwed felt exactly the same way... and that includes you!"

Leela was beginning to lose her patience and temper with him, so decided to tell him exactly how she felt: about how he treated not just her, but also some of the other women in his life. "You used Amy for your own personal pleasure and enjoyment, and now you're treating me, not just as your personal slave, to do all your dirty work for you, but also as your personal bodyguard, to come and rescue you whenever you're in trouble; mostly in trouble with paying debts.

"For a start, you couldn't afford to pay for your own booze, babes and gambling on just your own wages, so you decided to take all mine too. Why didn't you marry Bender instead of me... then you could live off his wages, instead of mine!"

"You leave Bender out of this," screamed Fry. "He's the best friend I ever had!"

"You mean the best scrounger you ever had... just like a hyena!" The cyclops screamed back in anger, throwing the soiled nappy from her hand, straight into Fry's face. "I hardly ever see you eat shit... so I thought I'd better feed you. Every time I look at you, you seem to be drinking that piss on the table over there; and even that looks like something you did yourself!"

This made him even angrier than she was, so he then stood up from slouching on the couch, watching his favourite cartoons, put the soiled nappy into a small wastebin next to the TV, then walked back and picked up his glass of beer from the table in front of where he was sitting. "You're just a bossy, one-eyed bitch!" he continued, and threw the entire contents of the glass into her face, aiming for her one and only eye.

She shut her eye tightly from the stinging sensation, as her hands pressed hard against her face to guard and protect her eye. Although Alison had been changed and put back into her Moses basket still crying her eyes out, she was no concern of either Leela's or Fry's for the development of the abusive insults against each other, each awaiting for the other to back down.

The marriage row had become full-blown, continuing for over an hour, and Leela just couldn't bear his provocations any longer. She therefore strapped Alison around her body, in her baby carrier, and walked out in a huff, slamming the door behind her.

This meant Fry was alone with Harry and Chuck, as he began to scream at them, for the deafening sound of their electric drills against the ceiling. "Hey you two," he hollered loudly from the couch, where he had returned to watch his cartoons. Still extremely furious, his anger was now reflected on the two builders. "I'm trying to watch TV... stop that dentist's drill, or I'll f**king flush it down the can hole." As the builders stood on ladders and drilled in planks of wood into the ceiling, which were to also be the base of the landlady's apartment, they took no notice of a man that neither of them particularly liked anyway.

At one point, during the horrendous verbal fight that had just occurred, Harry felt that Fry would try to hurt his beautiful wife, and he wanted to run into the middle of it, to box Fry's brains out. Chuck had persuaded his friend not to though, and to just let the marriage row run its course, unless any physical violence could be heard to have been put upon her. The lover could barely listen to it sometimes, therefore he put his drill up to a much stronger setting, just to make his machine work itself into a much faster, much louder noise. This way, he could block out any of their screaming and shouting from entering into his eardrums.

They continued to chat away, loudly, as to compensate for the din of the drilling. They weren't really concentrating on anything Fry was saying to them; not that they cared! Besides, the builders had to reach a deadline by tomorrow, so whether they liked it or not - even if Fry liked it or not - they just had to continue finishing whatever was left of the ceiling. Quite a large slab of the wall had also fallen down, which also needed replacing. Most of their attention, therefore, went either to their work or the same thing they'd been talking about for the last two weeks: Leela.

As Fry was in the other room trying to watch TV, and they were making such a racket with their drills and tools, the delivery boy in the other room had suddenly become an insignificant squirt in the eyes of the workmen. They became confident to talk further about what was happening inside their own lives, and the host of the household. "Well, what did you two talk about at the the door this morning?" queried Chuck, desperate to know if there was any further development in Harry's moving home.

Harry's temper was lightening up, he had calmed down enough to answer Chuck's enquiry. "I s'pose I told her about the divorce, how Carol had been getting on my nerves for a long time, and I just couldn't take it anymore."

Fry wasn't really paying that much attention until his wife's lover added, quite loud enough to prick up his ears, "It just took somebody as wonderful as Leela to open my eyes and make me realize how blind I've been all this time. Ya know Chuck, I've never felt this way about anybody before... ever."

This made Fry jump up, quite startled. He turned the volume of the TV down, grabbed the empty pint glass, which sat on the table in front of him, and put the glass against the wall to listen to what they were saying.

"So, what's the next step?" continued Chuck, as he played the social worker. "Does the cyclops feel the same way?"

Fry stuck his ear ever closer to the glass, trying to get as much of the discussion as possible, for he too wanted to know the answer to this question.

"I don't know, but if she'd leave him, take the baby, and run away with me, then I'd know for certain."

"But, we'll be finished with this bathroom tomorrow, so you may never see her again after that," Chuck reminded his friend, just stating the obvious.

Lastly, Harry mentioned the only thing Fry needed to hear in order to satisfy his work of playing detective for the night: "As it goes, she told me she was in love with me, and we made a date to meet at the Casablanca at eight tonight."

The walls had enormous ears! Fry never thought in a million years that Leela, of all people, could possibly have an affair. Especially, not while possessing a man so perfect as himself. After all, he was a real swell catch! Why on Earth would she possibly want another man, when she had him!