At the next meeting at the Bargain Registry, we were joined by Kirsty the mortgage coordinator. Gershwin's ebullience seemed slightly diminished because he had to sit back and let her do the talking. His dark eyes flickered restlessly back and forth between us, and I could see it was difficult for him to stay mute. His plump body, filling a chair in a corner of the room, constantly twitched and shifted as his seething energy sought release. One minute he was wiping his damp brow, the next minute he was clearing his throat or fidgeting with pencils. The room fairly hummed with the vibrations emanating from his corner.
After taking down all the details of my earnings, assets, and debts, Kirsty performed some calculations and pronounced me fit for a mortgage up to $50,000. A slow hissing came from Gershwin's corner as he literally let off emotional steam. I realized this must have been a tense moment for him. If I wasn’t approved for a mortgage, he would lose a client.
He burst forth from his chair, like a black retriever at a duck shoot, straining against his leash, ready to bolt into action to retrieve a fallen bird. His Cheshire-cat grin shone out in full force. Now I was approved, the search for a house could begin in earnest.
Kirsty got up to leave, and I edged out the door with her before Gershwin could entangle me in another verbal diatribe. I didn’t feel up to it that night.
"I'll be in touch," he called after me as I got into my car.
Sure enough, a few days later, Gershwin's supremely self-confident tones oozed over the phone lines as he told me he had a property that might interest me in the City of Schemmerhorn, twenty-five minutes’ drive away.
"I know, I know," he continued quickly, before I could say a word. "You're not really keen on Schemmerhorn, but this house is in your price range, it already has tenants, and needs hardly any work."
After an endless procession of run-down properties, each with some major defect to be remedied, or requiring significant electrical upgrading, I thought I might as well take a look. We arranged to meet at the house the following evening.
I took Wim along with me, ready to spot any structural defects, damp spots, or upgrading requirements. It was a freezing February night, and the roads were icy. The fifteen-mile journey took us forty minutes of careful driving through suburban neighborhoods. All sensible bodies were inside in the warm, and the streets were deserted. A little snow sprinkled the ground, and with the lights twinkling from the windows of the houses, Manson Street appeared to be a rather pretty, typical American street.
My first impression of the house was a very favorable one. It had aluminum siding on the front, which wouldn’t need repainting every few years, and in the darkness I couldn’t make out the wooden siding on the sides that would need repainting quite soon.
Gershwin had warned the tenants that we were coming. I don’t know whether they had cleaned and tidied especially for the occasion, but the apartments didn’t look too bad. The tenants of the first-floor apartment were three young adults in their early twenties: Melissa, her boyfriend Greg, and his brother Tom. Both men sported big muscles--most likely the result of working out on the variety of weight machines that were gently dripping oil onto the beige carpet of the dining room. Melissa, on the other hand, looked malnourished with a pale complexion and long, fair hair; she could have done with some of her roommates’ bulk. The three of them sat huddled together on a couch in the living room, watching us as we moved through the apartment.
The layout was typical of a great many American two-family houses: large living room at the front, large kitchen at the back, dining room and bathroom in the middle, and three smallish bedrooms down the right-hand side. The first-floor bathroom was extra large and boasted a big whirlpool bath and mirrored wall--quite fancy and a nice feature for attracting future tenants. Lamps bathed everything in a cozy glow and hid any slight defects. Wim prowled around poking into this and that, but came up with no major faults.
Behind the house lay a small square of straggly grass and a large, new, wooden deck--another nice feature. Beyond a wire fence at the end of the yard was a large graveyard; maybe not to everyone’s taste, but at least the neighbors behind were quiet.
We went back through the apartment and said our goodbyes and thank yous to Melissa, Greg, and Tom. They didn’t seem to have moved at all and looked back at us with blank expressions, though Melissa managed a feeble smile.
Out the door and in the next we went, and up the stairs to the second floor. In response to our knock, the door was opened by a young black girl with the biggest Afro hairdo I’d ever seen. She invited us in amiably enough and then retreated to the couch--apparently the place to sit while people looked over ones home. Three young children hung around her knees, ranging in age from about three to six years old.
We followed the girl into the living room to take a look at a little square room that opened off it over the downstairs hallway. A big door led out onto a small balcony over the front porch. Wim went through to check it out.
We headed back through the living room. I assumed the young girl was Natasha Fluff, the tenant, but apparently she was a friend of hers, for at that moment Natasha was fast disappearing into a bedroom leading off of the dining room. As the door closed behind her with a definite click, we looked expectantly to the friend, but she offered no explanation.
The rest of the apartment was nicely furnished and looked clean enough. The layout was basically the same as the first floor, except for the extra room at the front, a smaller bathroom, and a larger dining room. It also had brown-painted wood floors instead of carpet. An expensive-looking flowered rug lay on the living room floor in front of a huge entertainment center that took up a large chunk of wall next to the little square room. The dining room sported an octagonal glass and bamboo dining table, and a tall, octagonal fish tank bubbled away by the window.
At the back of the kitchen was a door with stairs that led down to the basement and up to the attic that stretched the whole length of the house. Natasha used the attic for drying clothes, as evidenced by the washing lines hanging between the rafters. Wim, of course, had to check it out.
I can’t believe I forgot to mention Gershwin throughout our tour of the house. He, of course, led us from room to room, babbling on unceasingly about this and that and assuring us that this was a good buy. The entire house had apparently been recently refurbished by a guy from Long Island, who was in the business of buying old houses, doing them up, and then selling them. I think the reason I forgot to mention Gershwin was that Wim and I just tuned him out. We absorbed ourselves in looking at everything, and Gershwin's chatter was merely background noise. We only needed to grunt the occasional acknowledgment to keep him happy.
After looking over the house, I felt almost as enthusiastic as our chatty realtor. I think Wim experienced a sense of déjà vu as I prattled excitedly all the way home, though he did admit that the house seemed solid and the floors didn’t slope. We’d seen so many older houses where the floors sloped noticeably.
The next day, I called Gershwin. He answered the phone with his usual exuberance.
“Schemmerhorn is quite a bit further than I really wanted, but I think I’m interested in buying the house,” I told him. “After all, the fact that there are tenants already in residence and the good condition of the house will kind of compensate for the extra distance, I hope.”
“You bet! I’ll get right on to the seller and start the ball rolling,” Gershwin promised.
I didn't think to wonder if the fact that the house was on Manson Street might be a bad omen.
