CHAPTER SIXTEEN: Miz James, if you Please, has Fleas

I stood holding the phone, not sure I had heard my #tenant correctly. 

"Miz James, you've got what!" I asked.  "Fleas?"

"Yes.  The Child Protective women came over to check the place out -- to see if it's okay for the kids, you know? -- and the #fleas bit them."

For some reason, I found this highly amusing, though I didn’t let on to Miz James.  My parents had found fleas when they'd first moved into their #rented house.  The problem had been quite bad but easily solved with an insecticide "bomb" and a few carpet powderings.

Wim and I went over to Manson Street the next day, armed with a bomb and a couple of canisters of flea powder.  Miz James was ready for us and had transformed her #apartment into an alien landscape.  Sheets, blankets, tablecloths, and towels covered every item of furniture, stereo and fish tank.  All closet doors and drawers were firmly shut.

I handed Miz James the powder to apply a few hours later, when it was safe to return to the apartment.  Wim set the bomb down in the hallway at the halfway mark and pulled the tab.  It began to sputter and smoke as we ran for the door.

"Hope that'll do the trick," I said to Miz James, once we were outside.  "Don't go back in until the stated time, will you?  A phone call that you're in the hospital with de-fogging poisoning is the last thing I need."

"Sure," Miz James nodded eagerly.  "I ain't going in there til tonight, long after it's s'posed to be safe.  Don't you worry."

She called again a couple of days later.  The situation had definitely improved but she was still seeing a few fleas hopping around.

I went back to Manson Street that evening with some cans of spray.  The problem was that Miz James had laid carpet on top of the #flea-infested carpet in the children’s room and then put heavy bunk beds on top of that. 

I just had to do the best I could, thoroughly wetting the carpet with the spray cans in the hope that the fumes would penetrate to the carpet beneath.  I also sprayed nooks and crannies and furniture for good measure.  I didn’t want any fleas jumping for safety onto the couch.

Life at Manson Street remained blissfully uneventful for the next couple of weeks.  The end of September was approaching and, with it, the end of Natasha's #lease term.  I didn’t really want to tell her to move out, what with three kids and all.  I had just received a cursory statement from the Department of Social Services stating that Natasha's #rent was henceforth being reduced by $3.10.  Why bother? 

I intended to increase her rent by $25.00, which meant she would need to come up with an additional $28.10 a month.  I figured she could afford it, judging by the imposing entertainment center that graced her living room and the large, tasseled, Persian-type rug that covered a majority of said floor space.

I was about to write to Natasha to ask her if she wanted to renew her lease, when Miz James called to complain about loud music coming from Natasha's apartment.

"She keeps it cranked up 'til about three in the morning," she complained breathlessly into the phone.  "On a Sunday night, too!  My kids have to go to school in the morning and they can't sleep with all that noise going on. 

"Also, Natasha's friends keep coming by and banging on her door, real hard.  I think her doorbell ain't working ’cause they hammer on the door.  And then, if she don' answer, they climb up over the balcony.  You gotta do something, Stacie!"

"I'll be sure to write to Natasha first thing in the morning," I promised when Miz James paused for breath.

"I mean," Miz James carried on, "if she could keep the noise to the weekends, I wouldn't mind so much.  But week days?  Oh, no, we can't have that!"

"No," I agreed.  "As I said, I'll write to Natasha."

I wrote to her the next day.  The noise problem didn’t seem too difficult to fix.  I would just ask her to turn it down, and Wim could fix the doorbell.

Natasha did not respond to my letter. 

I knew she’d been away for a few days but when the neighbors informed me that she was back in town, I paid her a visit.  I was pleased to see that the apartment looked totally different from when I’d last seen it.  It was now clean and tidy.

Natasha was short and stocky, with plump, brown, shiny cheeks, sleepy eyes like her brother, and an insolent mouth that she kept pursed with the corners turned down, giving her a prissy expression.  I didn’t take to her, and she looked the type who didn’t give a hoot about anything or anyone but herself.  No doubt, my written requests to keep her dear brother away from the premises and the music turned down had not endeared her to me any.

I found her about to sit down at her glass dining-room table with a friend.  Boxes of fragrant Chinese food steamed gently before them. 

Natasha grimaced at the rent increase but seemed quite willing to pay the difference.  She signed the new lease, while I admired the octagonal fish tank.

"Thanks," I said when she handed the forms back.  "Where are your kids, by the way?"

"They're not here," Natasha answered rather obviously.  She picked up her fork with an expectant raise of her tweezed eyebrows and volunteered no further information.

I took the hint, told her I admired her tasteful furnishings, and took my leave.

No sooner had Natasha signed her new lease than Miz James began complaining again.  She phoned me several times to moan about the noise and to report that people were coming and going at all hours of the day and night. 

Next-door neighbors, Shirley and Jerry, complained about Natasha, too.

"She's either practicing prostitution or drug dealing," Shirley remarked to me one day when I stopped by.  "Why else would she have such a continual stream of traffic going in and out?  Even when she's not there, it still goes on. Oh, and Johnny's been back again, you know."

"Crap," I groaned.  "He's trouble . . . and speak of the devil!"  For who should suddenly appear from the alley, but Johnny? 

He took one look at us and took off down the street at top speed.

"The cops told you not to come back here again, Johnny!" I screamed after him in my best fishwife shriek.

The shriek produced a flustered Miz James, who had evidently struck up a friendship with Shirley as a fellow victim of Natasha's nonsense.  The two of them were enthusiastically discussing decibels as I drove away.

That night, the partners-in-misfortune both called the cops on Natasha, then called me.  The noise level was so loud, I could hear the music clearly through the phone from where I stood in the open doorway to my parents' bedroom. 

It was two a.m.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN: Brother Johnny's Back!

Twenty-five minutes later, Wim and I arrived at 51 Manson Street, and at the same time so did a police car.  Two #cops emerged and dubiously eyed the dented door of the upstairs #apartment then proceeded to add to the dents by hammering on it with great enthusiasm, demanding entry.

A Puerto Rican-looking youth leaned over the balcony and yelled, "Who's there?  Whaddaya want?"

"Police," one of the cops yelled back.  "Open up."

Blaring music ceased abruptly, and we heard a rumble of conversation.  After a few minutes feet thumped down the stairs, and the door opened to reveal the same Puerto Rican wearing a torn pair of shorts and nothing else.

He looked us over from insolent, heavy-lidded eyes.  Judging by the strong resemblance to Natasha’s mother, this was dear brother Johnny, whom I distinctly remembered telling Natasha was not welcome.

I told the police who Johnny was, described the beating-up incident, and said that I had demanded that Johnny stay away from my property.  I was also worried that he would do more damage to the apartment and told the police as much.

"Let's take a look upstairs," the cops said, shouldering their way past Johnny.

At the top of the stairs we were met by a strong smell of beer.  Upon entering the apartment, we found out why.  The living room was littered with empty beer cans, remnants of incense sticks, and other unidentifiable bits and pieces of junk.  Items of clothing and ancient, dried food added to the mess, and ashtrays overflowed on every surface.

"Look at this place!" I gasped.  "I want Johnny out of here.  Right now!"

"And who's this?" one cop asked, going out onto the balcony where a young girl lounged in a deck chair, a cigarette in one hand.  She couldn’t be more than fourteen years old, but her eyes were going on twenty-one.

"I'm Johnny's girlfriend," she volunteered, looking a little nervous.

"Well, you're too young to hang out with a guy like that," the cop stated.  "Does your mother know where you are?"

"Uh, yeah.  What’s it to you?" 

The girl uncoiled herself from the chair and stood up.  She was just a gawky young teenager, who’d seen – and probably done – more than her years.

"I suggest you go on home," the cop said and shepherded her out the door.

Meanwhile, the other cop had been standing over Johnny while he gathered some things together and shoved his bare feet into some battered, old army boots.

"Before you go, I want the keys," I demanded.

"Don' 'ave ‘em," Johnny answered back.

"Where are theyn?"

"Dunno.  Natty's got 'em.  Door was open."

"Come on, you.  Get going."  The cop pushed Johnny towards the door.  "This lady doesn't want you round here no more, you hear?  Don't make us come again, okay?"

"Whatever." 

Johnny thumped down the stairs and out of the building, not bothering to close the street door behind him.  He whistled as he sauntered nonchalantly down the street.  Gotta keep up the cool, man.  Yeah!

The cops took a last look around and then departed, leaving Wim and I standing amidst the mess.

When we got home, I called Natasha's mother.  Her phone number was on Natasha's #rental #application.  When she answered, I told her about the state of the apartment and asked her if she could exert some authority over her darling son, Johnny.

Mrs. Fluff was very apologetic.  "I just can't do anything with that boy," she said.  "He does his own thing, you know?  I'll tell him not to go there no more, but . . ." she trailed off.

"Okay," I said, "You do that, but where is Natasha?"

"She’s, uh, away," came the vague answer, "but I'll get up there this weekend and clean the place up, I promise you."

That weekend, Allen and I paid the apartment a visit.  Mrs. Fluff had just arrived.  She looked around at the beer bottles and ashtrays and sighed. 

"I'm sorry about this.  Natasha's a good girl, you know. She's had some troubles . . . But, Johnny . . ."  She shook her head mournfully and raised her hands helplessly.

"Well, I'm glad you're here," I said.  "I see you have a key.  Can I have it, please?  You can latch the door when you leave."

 

The next thing I had to deal with was my new #tenant, Miz James, moving in downstairs, a few days after the first of the month.  This would give me some time to paint the apartment.  However, when the threesome left at the end of the month, there proved to be a lot of cleaning required.

The apartment looked different now that it was empty – or, I should say, virtually empty.  The three had very kindly left behind some moldy mattresses for me to dispose of, and all the dirt and damage was starkly revealed in the cruel light of day.  I’d really only ever seen the place in the evenings.  Electric light and twilight evidently do a lot of mellowing.

A score of little repairs awaited Wim's attention, and I gritted my teeth and started to clean.  I found damp cat litter and poop in one of the bedrooms, and the #stove and #refrigerator were filthy.  It took me several hours to scrape off the burnt-on lumps, while Allen gamely attacked the grease-caked oven.  

The bathroom wasn’t much better -- a thicker, blacker, more furry ring around a #bathtub than I had ever seen before, and there was pee and something else in the #toilet.  A final snub?

Anyway, to make a long story short, all this #cleaning, #repairing and #removing was taking time, which I was rapidly running out of.

Miz James kept calling to ask if me I had painted yet, and I kept telling her not yet.  Eventually, when it came to the point where I would have to paint throughout the night in order to get it done, I reluctantly accepted Miz James's offer of painting the place herself.  At least I would provide the paint.  I didn’t really want her doing the painting and maybe asking for a reduction in #rent in return but it seemed I now had no choice.  However, other than Miz James praising the shade of white paint I had chosen, no more was said on the subject.

Three days after she moved in, Miz James phoned me in a tizzy.

"We got #fleas!" she announced dramatically.