CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: Rattletrap Ray

"I'm phonin' ‘bout the #apartment," said a gruff voice, anxiously.  "Is it still 'vailable?"

"Yes."

"When can I look round?  C'n I come now?"

"Don't you want to hear about it, first?"

"Says in the paper it's got three bedrooms, right?"

"Yes.  It also –"

"So, c'n I come look at it?"

"Um, it'll take me about half-an-hour to get there.  It's number fifty-one Manson Street.  Do you know where that is?"

"Yeah, I know.  See you in a half-hour, then."

"What's your name?" I asked quickly before the caller hung up, since he sounded as if he was in a great hurry.

"Ray Molinard," he rasped and slammed the phone down in my ear.

I grabbed the car keys and headed for Schemmerhorn, arriving at the #house to find a large, mud-brown, run-down rattletrap of a station wagon parked outside. It had a distinct list to the left.  When I pulled up behind it, all four doors opened, and a man and three children erupted from the car.  The leftward list remained.

"Hey, I'm Ray," said the man in the same urgently harried manner as on the phone, earlier. 

I took one look at him, and my heart sank. 

He was tall and burly, and his skin was a dirty brown – either from a tan or from not bathing for a month, I couldn’t quite tell.  Since it was winter, I suspected the latter, though a few tentative sniffs in his direction did not reveal any unwashed body odor.  However, the lank, dark brown hair that hung down his back in a straggling ponytail had obviously not seen shampoo for quite a while.  It looked as if you could wring the grease out of it.  His clothes had also seen better days and looked as if they had not seen the inside of a washing machine for quite a while, nor the children's clothes, judging by the multitude of stains on the fronts of their sweatshirts.

"Stacy, maybe they're just poor and don't have money for laundry," I reminded myself.  "Imagine if you couldn't afford to pay for hot water or to wash your clothes?"

Ray's children were two girls and a boy, ranging in age from about eight to eleven years old.  They all had long, glossy, black hair and dark eyes and were quite exotic-looking.

The eldest girl came up to me and plaintively asked, "Are you going to be our new #landlord?"

"We'll see," I said with a smile and led them up the stairs to the apartment. 

When I opened the door at the top, the children instantly disappeared into various rooms to explore, calling excitedly to one another. 

Ray quickly walked from room to room, barely looking at anything. 

Once in the kitchen, he turned to me and said, "So you're asking four-fifty, is that right?"

On the spur of the moment, I said, "No, the rent is actually four seventy-five," implying that the amount listed in the newspaper ad was an error.

"Well, that's okay," Ray said, seemingly unfazed by the increase.  "Social Services will pay that much ‘cause I got four kids.  My oldest girl, Jenny, is in a children's home.  I had to put her there 'cause she kept tryin' to run away."

The fact that Ray had cared enough to put his daughter into therapy couldn't help moving him up a couple of notches in my estimation.

"Well, Ray," I said, "my last #tenant was a real slob.  I had to have the place fumigated for cockroaches.  I finally got rid of them, so I wouldn't want to see any here again."

"Oh, no, I hate them things," Ray agreed.  "I don't want none a them, neither."

"So you’d keep the place clean and tidy?"

"Oh yeah."  Ray nodded vigorously.  "The girls help with the dishes, you know, and –"

"Yes, the children.  I've got a fussy tenant downstairs, who really wouldn’t appreciate hearing a lot of noise above her head from rowdy kids."

"No, no, I'll keep 'em quiet," Ray said, earnestly.  "They can get a bit wild sometimes, but if you get any complaints, you just tell me."

"Can you give me any references?" I asked.  "Why are you moving, anyway?"

"Well, my landlord and me, we don't get on too good, and he keeps comin' in my place without tellin' me.  He wants to rent it out to some other people he knows, so he'll be glad I'm goin'.  You can call him for a #reference, if you like."

"Okay, good.  You can give me the number when you fill out this application." 

I handed Ray a #rental application and a pen, and he filled it out in laborious capital letters. 

I eyed him furtively as he concentrated on his task.  I had grave doubts about renting to Ray.  His whole air and appearance was one of low-down, dirty sleaze.  No matter how much he might promise to keep the place clean and control his kids, that could be just talk.

Just then, the three children joined us.

"It's nice here," the boy said, flicking a shock of shiny, black hair off of his forehead.

"Can we live here, Dad?" the older girl asked.

Her younger sister came to stand next to me, gazing up at me soulfully with huge, dark eyes. 

"We're half Red Indian and half French." she announced.

"Yeah, my wife was an American Indian," Ray put in.  "I'm mostly French, though."

"Oh," I said. 

The three children stood around, looking at us.

"Our mother died," the boy volunteered then, his mischievous dimples disappearing for a brief moment, hair drooping in his eyes again.

"Oh, no.  Really?  I'm sorry."

"Yeah.  Few years ago, now," said Ray.  "I'm on disability ‘cause I got a bad heart, so I stay home with the kids."

"Are there any kids living downstairs?" asked the youngest daughter.

"Yes," I answered.  "The lady downstairs has two children, just about your age.  If you come and live here, maybe you can be friends."

"Hooray!" whooped the boy, and dashed off to the front of the apartment, his sisters running along behind.

"Um, could you fill out a landlord statement for Social Services, just in case we do move in?" Ray asked, pulling a crumpled form from his pocket and smoothing it out on the counter.

I quickly filled in the form, dodging a spatter of grease spots. 

"Well, I think that's it for now, Ray," I said.  "I'll call your landlord tonight and let you know, okay?"

"Please do it soon," Ray urged.  "I really have to get out of that place." 

With difficulty, he collected his reluctant children from the balcony, loaded them into the station wagon, and rattled off down the street.

On the drive home, my mind churned with indecision. 

Should I? 

Shouldn't I? 

In my heart, I knew the answer should be a resounding no.  But Ray was the first taker in two months, and I really needed to rent out the apartment soon. 

After supper, I dialed the number for Ray’s landlord.

" ‘ello?" a man shouted into the phone.  I could hear a television blaring in the background. 

"Wait just a minute, please.  Hey!  Turn that thing down!" he yelled, and the television sound grew somewhat muted. 

"Right, now, who d'you want?"

"I'm looking for Ray Molinard's landlord," I ventured.

"Yup, that's me.  What can I do for you?"

"Ray's interested in renting my apartment and gave me your phone number.  Could you give me a reference for him?"

"Oh, yeah.  Well . . . Ray's okay."

"Did you have any problems with him?"

"Noooo.  Well, yeah, we had some arguin' about the recyclin'.  Ray wouldn't sort things into the recyclin' bins properly.  But, you know . . . little things like that.  Nothing major or nuth’n."

"What about the children?"

"They're just kids, you know?"

"Yes.  Well, it's rather short notice.  Would you be comfortable with Ray moving out now?  I mean, not getting his rent for next month?"

"Oh, tha’s okay.  I got some other folks wanting to move in, anyhow.  Ray can move out any time he wants to."

"Okay, then.  Thanks very much.  Goodbye."

I decided I would #rent the apartment to Ray, albeit on a six-month trial at first.  I hung up the phone and made a note to myself to call the #Department of #Social #Services in the morning to let them know about the change in landlord and to arrange for them send February's voucher to me instead.  I also had to call Mr. Catcher to come and write up the #security #agreement.  Unfortunately, he proved to be booked solid until March 2nd.

When I called Ray to tell him he could take the apartment, he was very pleased to hear the news.

"But you've got to do the recycling bit," I warned him, and he promised me he would.  As the first of the month was a Tuesday, I also told Ray I would give him the keys on the evening of Friday the 28th, so he could move in over the weekend, for which he was profoundly grateful.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO: A Carpet of Cockroaches

I arranged to show the #apartment to the man and his wife on Saturday afternoon.  I was going to be there anyhow, cleaning and tidying, ready for painting.

As I opened the front door of 51 Manson Street, the familiar smell of rotting garbage wafted out.  Clearly, the first order of the day was to open all of the windows, which I did.  When I reached the halfway mark between the dining room and the kitchen, I stopped short in disgust.  The entire floor of the hallway, bathroom and kitchen was covered by a veritable carpet of dead #cockroaches.  The sinks and counter tops were similarly covered. 

I’d never seen anything like it!

The #pest control people had obviously come again after Natasha moved out.  I’d given Miz James a key to let them in.  The first time they were there, Natasha must have swept up the result.  Surely, even she couldn’t have lived with a solid carpet of dead cockroaches.

The odd ceiling panel had been moved aside in the kitchen and bathroom, and it looked as if the roaches had dropped through the holes in the ceilings, en masse, once the smoke of the bomb reached them.

I checked my watch.  Half an hour before the couple was due to arrive to look at the apartment.  I was just plugging in the vacuum cleaner to vacuum up the bugs, when the doorbell rang. 

Oh no!  They were early!

I went downstairs to let the couple in.  They had a little boy with them, about eight or nine years old.  As we walked up the stairs, I tried to warn them about the carpet of bugs, but no amount of forewarning could  prepare anyone for such a revolting sight.

When the wife saw the beginnings of the cockroach carpet, she recoiled somewhat forcibly and hastily backed away. 

"Um, I think I'll leave you to it," she told her husband in a faint voice.  With an embarrassed half-smile at me, she retreated down the stairs.

Her husband – who was not in possession of such delicate sensibilities as his wife – scratched at his sandy beard and looked around.  The little boy carefully tiptoed into the kitchen, trying unsuccessfully to step between the bugs, bent double as he peered at the cockroaches in morbid fascination.

As I showed Sandy Beard around the apartment, we sounded as if we were walking on Cornflakes.  Cockroaches crunched underfoot, every step we took.

"It's pretty awful, isn't it?" I admitted ruefully.  "This is why I evicted my tenant.  The pest control company have come twice, and they're due to come once more to finish up.  The cockroaches are all dead, though . . ."

"Hey, this one's still alive!" shouted the little boy at that moment.  He pointed to where a cockroach lay on its back, feebly waving its legs.

". . . or dying," I quickly added. 

“Hey, here's another one!" yelled the darling child with glee.  "It's walking!"

Sure enough it was, albeit very slowly. 

I hastily stepped on it.  Scrunch! 

"Now it's not.  Come.  I'll show you the rest of the apartment."

I quickly took Sandy Beard through the back bedrooms and didn’t linger for more than a moment at the doorway to the bathroom.  The bathtub had a furry, black ring around it, and the disgusting toilet, its bowl spattered with brown spots and reeking of urine, was a sight best left unseen by a potential tenant. 

I hustled the two into the front half of the apartment where only a few cockroaches were in evidence. 

Sandy Beard looked around the dining room and living room with a non-committal expression on his face, perking up slightly when he spied the small room leading off of the living room. 

"This would be good for an office," he said.  "I work at G.P.  You know . . . General Power?   I often bring instruments home to work on, so it would be nice to have an apartment closer to work.  This seems like a nice neighborhood."

I said nothing to disillusion him of this notion. 

"They're very delicate, though . . . the instruments, I mean," Sandy Beard continued.  "I couldn't take the risk of any #bugs getting into them."

"Oh, that wouldn't be a worry," I assured him airily.  "You can see the problem's been taken care of . . . especially after the pest control people have come a third time."  I fervently hoped the little boy would keep quiet.

Sandy Beard scratched his chin again.

"I was just about to vacuum," I told him.  "Why don't I do that, and maybe your wife would like to come up again when all the bugs are gone?  It'll just take me a moment."

"Okay," he said.  "I'll ask her."

He went downstairs with his son, and I quickly vacuumed up thousands of cockroaches.  Yuck!  I probably filled a whole vacuum-cleaner bag full of them.   By the time Sandy Beard came back, minus small boy, I had just about finished.

"My wife says she doesn’t need to come up, but we'll talk about it and be in touch," he promised.  "Thank you."

"Okay," I said.  "Call me either way, won't you?"

"Oh, sure," the man said, but I knew he wouldn't.  

I cleaned and scrubbed the rest of that afternoon and the next.  Allen came by and performed his oven-cleaning routine.  He was getting very practiced at it. 

I bought some paint, and Wim showed me how to use a roller.  I actually quite enjoyed it, especially filling in with the roller after doing all the edges with a brush.  Being a novice at painting, I was very painstaking and finicky about it, and it took me hours to complete the job.  A couple of years later, I would be slapping on the paint in half the time, but for now it was still all new to me – an entire, empty apartment, all mine, to do with whatever I liked.  I still had visions of renting the house to happy, decent, Leave-it-to-Beaver kinds of families.  Sure, I'd had a couple of bad breaks so far, but hope springs eternal, right?

Over the next few weeks, Wim, Allen, and I got the place looking pretty decent. Unfortunately, however, no one seemed interested in viewing it.  Apparently people didn’t usually move house in December.

Actually, one person did show some interest.  He was a friend of the next door neighbors, Shirley and Jerry, and his name was Bryan.  He’d been helping Jerry install some windows, and he came upstairs when Wim and I were in the midst of painting and repairing.

"Heard this was vacant," he said, looking around.  He was a tall-ish, slim young man with a pretty face and a shock of long, chestnut curls any girl would die for.  Quite a sexy dude. 

"My girlfriend and me, we need a new place,” he went on.  “Don't know if I can afford one yet, though.  How much you chargin'?"

"Four twenty-five," Wim told him.  He didn’t know I’d decided to try renting the apartment for four seventy-five.

I gave Wim a surreptitious nudge in the ribs.  "No, I'm asking four seventy-five," I whispered.  "Same as downstairs."

"Hm."  Bryan shook his head.  "Nope.  Don't think I can afford fourt twenty-five.  Nice place, though.  Maybe next time, if I get this job I'm goin' for.  See ya."  

He thumped off down the stairs.

Having the house to herself, with no tenants living overhead to irritate her, Miz James remained silent for a couple of months, except for calling to complain that the City had declared Manson Street a snow-disaster area. She just needed an opportunity to moan about something. 

Luckily for me, as well as stating in the #lease that the first-floor #tenant was responsible for mowing the lawn, I had included a clause that the tenant was also responsible for clearing the sidewalk of snow.  Otherwise, Miz James would no doubt be calling Wim every other minute to make a trip out to Schemmerhorn for a few shovels' full of snow.

With only one #rent coming in each month, and more going out in #mortgage payments, I was beginning to feel slightly desperate.  I kept the advertisement in the paper every week and even dropped the rent to $450.00, but there was still no interest.

Finally, during the last week in January, someone did call.