CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE: Debts and Debtors or "Just Pay the Frickin' Rent Already!"

It seemed like I was never going to hear from Charmayne regarding my judgment against her.  I sent the Sheriff the Transcript of Judgment form I’d obtained from the County Clerk, along with an  Income Execution for garnishing Charmayne's wages, and a check for the Sheriff’s fee of $22.75. 

About a month later, I was reading a notice from Greatest Pest Control about a $1.07 increase in their monthly maintenance fee, when Giselle called to report that the walls in the second bedroom were now beginning to crack.  An overworked Wim added it to his list.

By this time, my house had been on the market eight months, and I’d only received one measly inquiry which never amounted to anything. 

Giselle managed to find a job, and shortly afterwards Social Services sent me a notice that they were terminating her #rental assistance. 

“Great,” I muttered, remembering what had happened when they'd terminated Charmayne’s assistance: goodbye #security #deposit!  Giselle took over paying her own #rent, and although the money orders always arrived late, at least they arrived!

It had been a while since I’d sent Charmayne’s Income Execution to the Sheriff, so I gave him a call.  The Sheriff's office informed me that they’d been unable to serve it because Charmayne was on disability. 

When had they been planning on telling me that?

If I were to ever get anywhere with Charmayne, it seemed I needed to take a circuitous route. Working in a lawyer's office helped me figure it out.  The plan was to serve Charmayne with an Information Subpoena.  She would almost certainly ignore it as she had ignored everything else.  I would then serve a Summons upon her to appear in Court to explain her default.  If she failed to show up in Court, I could get a warrant issued for her arrest. 

These measures might sound rather severe and over the top, but I’d got the hell in and was determined to make her pay.  The Information Subpoena demanded Charmayne's current address and bank account information. It also asked about pending lawsuits and identification of attorneys.  I mailed the subpoena to the Sheriff and settled down to wait.  I knew it could take a while.

Finally, on November 15th, the Sheriff's Department very enterprisingly discovered that Charmayne had moved to a new address.  They served the Information Subpoena upon her and notified me of the address. A month went by with no response from Charmayne.  Being otherwise occupied with preparations for Christmas and visiting relatives, I didn’t have time to follow up on it just then.

Another dismal report arrived from Wally the #realtor.  The market was about the same.  In fact, #properties seemed to be selling for a little less.        

He called me at the end of November. “It’s bin three months.  You wanna renew?”

‘Will it cost me another hundred and fifty?” I asked.

“Nope.  From now on, renewals are free.  You wanna drop another five thousand to forty-nine-nine?”

“Sure, whatever.  Go ahead.”

                                                              * * * * * * *

            It had been a while and I'd seen neither hide nor hair of Diane. However, in October, November, and December, the Department of Social Services had been sending me notices that they were either terminating or reducing her rental payments.  These had been quickly followed by more notices stating that she had been reinstated.  Clearly, something was going on with Diane’s case but at least #D.S.S. was still sending me the full rent.

In January, however, Social Services paid only $300.00 of Diane’s rent. I had the feeling this did not bode well for the future.  Indeed, I soon received another notice advising me that, as of February first, D.S.S. would be closing Diane's case, once and for all.  

Goodbye security deposit. Yet again. 

Without much hope,  I wrote Diane a letter, asking her to pay the balance of January's rent.

February was fast approaching, and Diane still hadn’t responded to my letter. I sent her a second letter requesting the rent and asking her to get in touch with me.  On February 9th, I sent a third letter, advising her that if she didn’t pay up by February 16th, I would have to serve eviction papers on her.  I sent Giselle a copy of the letter in the hope that she might have some influence over her errant cousin.  Maybe it worked because Diane called soon afterwards. She told me her sister had just died and that she would try to pay me the balance of her rent as soon as she could.  

Funny ... Giselle never mentioned anything about a cousin dying.

Meanwhile, I had to do something about Charmayne.  I asked one of the lawyers at work for advice.  

"I believe my #tenant has a personal injury lawsuit on the go," I told him.  "Is there some way I can put a #lien on any #settlement she might receive?"

Friendly Lawyer scratched his chin, thoughtfully.  "Hm, let me think.  Yes, I think you can serve her lawyer with a Restraining Notice to Garnishee.  Then, if she receives a settlement check, your judgment and his fees will come out of that first before she gets any money."

"Okay," I nodded.  "I've got some of those forms."

"First, you need to look in the file at the court house to see what papers have been filed," Friendly Lawyer reminded me.

"Will do.  Thanks." 

That evening, I drafted a letter to the Schemmerhorn County Clerk, asking if there was any action on file brought by Charmayne Brown.  A few days later, the answer came back.  Yes, there was an action pending but the Clerk’s Office required $5.00 to make copies for me.  I duly sent the money and received a copy of the Summons and Complaint.  Charmayne and another girl were suing the driver and the manufacturer of the car for personal injury damages caused by the motor vehicle accident.  

Great.  Now I had something to go on.   

I called the attorney listed for the plaintiff, Charmayne Brown.  A woman answered the phone. 

"Can I speak to Mr. Pecker?"

"He's not in at the moment.  Can I help you with something?"

"I'm calling about Brown vs. Monster Bins Motors." 

"Where are you calling from?" 

I gave her the name of my employer, thinking it might get me a bit further. You know. Like in a legal-secretary-buddy-network-we're-all-in-this-funny-law-business-together kind of thing.  I did add, however, that this matter was personal. 

"Can you tell me the name of the attorney for the defendant?" I asked.

Sounding somewhat suspicious, the woman gave me the name of some outfit located south of St. Albans.

"And the co-defendants?" I asked.

"Why, you are," the woman answered, sounding surprised that I didn’t know this. 

"Oh … um … okay.  Well, this is a very large firm. It's probably in another department."  I thanked her quickly and hung up.

"Gawd," as Diane would say.  Now what should I do?  I had a feeling that my firm wouldn’t be able to help me now – conflict of interest, and all that.  When I told Friendly Lawyer what I’d learned, he was surprised too.  Ours was a very large firm, though, employing more than twenty attorneys.

"Sorry I can't help you," he said, ruefully.  "You'll have to handle it on your own."

"I hate to serve my own employer with a restraining notice," I said. "They might fire me. Maybe I could just go after the defendant and leave the co-defendants alone?” 

"I think you can go ahead,” said Friendly Lawyer. “Don’t worry about being fired. You can't help it that you work here.  It ‘s just a conflict of interest if I help you. You're not allowed to peek in the file, of course."

"Of course."

"If the action just started,” he continued, “there'll be depositions and discovery going on. You know how long those can take.  I’d say you've got some time."

* * * * * * *

Around the middle of February, Wally called and told me that another realtor had a client who was expressing interest in the house. “I’ll call you when I have more info,” he said.

The next day he called back.  “Sorry, they decided the house was too small.  The client has three grandchildren and a sister living with her.”

I sighed. “I’m beginning to think I’m never going to sell this damn place.”

“You might want to consider . . .” Wally began.

“I know, I know … dropping it another five thousand.  If nothing happens by the end of March, why don’t we make it forty-five?  Sounds like a nice round figure.”

                                                             * * * * * * * *

I still had not heard from Diane, and since she still didn’t have a phone, I called Giselle.  She told me that Diane had found a job at the same place where she herself was working.  She also told me Social Services shouldn't have cut her off from rental assistance, since she had four children to support. Giselle had only two.  She promised to tell Diane to phone me as soon as possible. 

“Of course she didn't,” I reported to Allen, later that Friday evening, “but after I served her with a three-day eviction notice, she did send me a money order for three hundred dollars and promised to pay more soon.”

We were on our way to the skating rink where Allen played ice hockey with a team from the local university’s Biology Department.  This left me several hours in which to amuse myself before going to the rink to watch him play the last half-hour or so.  Usually, I went to see a movie that Allen didn’t care to see — horror or suspense – at the old, run-down theater complex where Allen and I had seen Wayne’s World on our first date. The air conditioning sometimes didn’t work, and you never knew which seats were going to be covered with plastic because the roof had leaked. All the movies had been playing on the circuit for a while before ending up at the old complex, and the film was sometimes rather scratched as a result. But, they only cost $2.99, which suited my stingy pocket just fine.  Afterwards, I’d go to my nearby gym, or go to the gym first and then see the movie if the timing worked out that way.

That Friday I saw the 6:35 p.m. showing of Deep Impact and thoroughly enjoyed it.  Another movie I wanted to see was starting soon after Deep Impact ended, and I was tempted to make it a double-feature and forget about working out. I dutifully got into my car and pointed it in the direction of the gym. Once I got there, I’d feel virtuous at having resisted temptation.  When I realized my gym shorts weren’t in my bag, it didn’t take me long to decide that this must be an omen.  Obviously I was meant to return to the theater. With good intentions of making it to the gym the next day, I watched Disturbing Behavior about a wicked psychiatrist implanting things in rebellious teenagers’ brains to make them “good.”

Afterwards, I went to the ice rink to watch the last of the hockey game.  I should really go at the beginning if I wanted to catch Allen making enthusiastic saves and goals.  By the last half-hour, he was usually so tired, he could hardly drag himself around the ice. 

Seated on the top row of the uncomfortable metal bleachers beneath a feeble heat lamp, I couldn’t help wondering at how much the team had improved.  Of course, there were the young guys who’d played hockey in school and were good and fast, but the rest of the players were a mix of students and professors, most of whom had never played hockey before until forming the Lab Rats league. 

Indeed, when they first started playing a year-and-a-half ago, they were pretty awful.  Half of them couldn’t skate forwards very well, so skating backwards was out of the question.  Instead, some of them would skate forwards while looking over their shoulder at the approaching puck, then swipe vigorously at it as it slid past them. Half the time the puck would sail on by, untouched, and the skater would land on his or her butt on the ice.  Being a college-hockey fan, and thus used to a higher level of play, I found it very funny watching this lot and was reduced to giggles a lot of the time.  I guess they would have laughed too if they’d had occasion to observe my geriatric ballet classes.

                                                                * * * * * *

March arrived but Diane’s rent did not.  As the middle of the month approached, I sent her a letter requesting the rent for March and reminding her of her promise to pay more for January and February.  

She didn’t respond.  

At the end of March, I asked Friendly Lawyer to sign an official-looking letter on the firm's letterhead, demanding rent pursuant to Real Property Action and Proceeding Law, Section 711(2).  Then I served another three-day #eviction notice on her via process server. 

When I spoke to Giselle about it, she claimed that Diane could definitely afford the rent because she was now receiving monthly disability checks for one of her children.

            I’d had enough.  Just pay the frickin’ rent already!

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE: Delayed Diane / Delivery Dilemma

I returned to work a few days after my sister's death, needing to keep busy and to escape my dismal thoughts.  Also, the dismal life of being a #landlord had to go on.  After another week  without hide nor hair of Diane, Wim stopped by Manson Street to investigate. He returned to report that Diane had still not moved into the upstairs #apartment.

I called Giselle to find out what was going on.

"Her #landlord made a huge fuss about getting less than a month's notice," Giselle explained, "so she ain't able to move in til next month.  She one mad mama. She she all packed."

Nice of her to let me know! Bummer!  Another month of no #rent for the upstairs apartment!

Meanwhile, Mr. Catcher inspected the apartment with Wim, and exclaimed over how good it looked.  “After all the filth and decay, the scummy #tenants and landlords I see day in and day out,” he apparently opined to my Dutch stepfather, "a decent landlord taking pride in her building like Anastasia does is a pleasant treat.”

Ron, Wim's #building #inspector buddy, had already inspected the place a few days previously and pronounced it fit for human #habitation. I therefore delivered the duly-issued #rental #certificate to the Department of Social Services, attention Mrs. Shoebox, Diane’s #caseworker. With it, I included a description of Diane’s unhealthy rat problem.

* * * * * * * *

That night, I had another delivery to make. In hindsight, it turned into quite a humorous event which I recorded later in my journal:

“English Girl on a Mission.” 

9:30 p.m.  Last-minute, grade-dependent poetry assignment delivery must be made to professor Josh.  Tell Allen to take a turn.  We're lost.  Spooky country roads winding back and forth, doubling back on themselves like sinuous, tree-shrouded eels.  We want to go left; the road bends right.  After twenty minutes, we finally emerge a few blocks farther on from where we started. Well, at least the scenery's nice from what we can see of it in the gloom.

It's getting late.  By the time we get to Prof’s house, it’s 10:00 p.m. - not really the done thing, knocking on people’s doors at this time of night.  A dim light glows in the living room window, but there's no sign of life, no cars in the driveway. 

Knock on the door, anyway.  No answer. 

Back up the driveway to the street.  Open mailbox to insert large envelope, but it's already occupied. The flag is up.  Don’t like to risk mailmen taking my envelope along with Josh’s mail.  Don't want to fail this assignment. Consider taking Josh's mail and posting it someplace else, but I'm pretty sure that's a federal offense.  Don’t want to upset Josh, who’ll wonder where his mail’s gone.

Head back down the driveway to the house.  Leave the envelope in the doorway. 

No doormat with which to weigh it down. 

Stones?  Driveway’s covered in ‘em.  Only thing is, they’re embedded. 

Crazy British girl on hands and knees in professor’s driveway, attempting to pry out large pebbles with her fingernails. 

No luck.

 Ah hah! -- a few un-embedded pebbles!  

Prop envelope on little ledge next to front door with said pebbles to prevent it from sliding off. Place a plant pot or two in front for good measure.  Don’t know how long Josh is going to be gone. Who knows? It's not beyond the realm of possibility that a hurricane or some other natural disaster could be brewing somewhere out there in the expectant air of the night.

Leave the vicinity at 10:20 p.m., hoping Prof. Josh finds the envelope before wind or rain can find it first. Gotta get that grade!

CHAPTER THIRTY: Indoor Incendiaries

YEAR THREE

House Account:  $2,123.00

Mortgage: $549.38

Saturday, July 2nd.  Wim and my mother had driven to JFK airport to pick up Frederica, who was coming from South Africa to stay for a few months.  She was bringing with her a five-year-old boy called Shane.  His mother, Frederica’s neighbor, had recently died, and Frederica had adopted Shane.   

While I hung out at home waiting for them to arrive, Shirley phoned.

"I thought you'd like to know that Mamie moved out last night.  She's gone to Florida."

I was taken aback. "Oh. Nice of her to tell me!  Thanks, Shirley."

Frederica arrived later that afternoon.  We took one look at each other and burst into tears.  It was so lovely to see her again.  

Shane was adorable.  He was small and blond with a spiky haircut and an impish little face.  I soon discovered that his mischievous looks matched his nature, but for now he was being a perfect little gentleman, meeting his auntie for the first time.  Andrea and Bronwyn took to their cute little cousin at once and dragged him off to explore the house and grounds.

I gave Frederica a humongous hug.  “How are you, Frederica?”

She hugged me back just as hard.  “I’m fine.  Doing much better since I had the op a year ago.”

The operation she was speaking of was major bypass surgery to take some strain off of her failing liver.  She had been suffering from chronic active hepatitis since she was 10 years old.  For some reason her immune system mistakenly identified her liver as an enemy and was constantly trying to destroy it. 

I looked doubtfully at her puffy calves and ankles.

“Yeah, that’s one side effect,” Frederica admitted.  “Water retention.  I have to take water pills all the time and get vitamin K shots regularly.  I’ve got three sizes of clothes because I never know when I’m going to be thin or fat from the Cortisone.  I don’t need to take my medicine all the time, now, though.  Just when I feel I need to.”

“So, do you think you could be growing out of the hepatitis at last?”

“Maybe.  I’m in my mid twenties, so I’m a bit old, but it could happen.”

“I’ve got so much news to tell you,” I told Frederica as she unpacked her case.  “Like about this house I own?  Mummy says I’m a slumlord, but it’s my tenants who are the slummy ones.  They’re so bad, it’s hard not to look like I’m a #slumlord.  It’s horrible, Frederica.  Don’t ever become a #landlord, no matter how much they pay you! 

"Anyway, what about you?  How’s your business going and stuff?  What are you up to these days?   We’ve got to catch up, you know?  It’s been a few years.” 

“My screen printing business is pretty slow, right now.  It’s hard to keep it going when so many times I just don’t have the energy, or I’m sick with something.  I’m really looking forward to having a good rest for three months, lying out on the deck in my thong, helping Mummy  . . . .”

Mummy came in just them. “Come sit down in the living room, Ferge.  I’ll rub your legs for you, and we can talk about my summer camp.”  She cared for some nine- to twelve-year olds during the Summer vacation and was looking forward to planning arts and crafts and theatrical skits with Frederica.  

Andrea and Bronwyn with Shane in tow, gathered round eagerly to hear what activities were in store for them.  Auntie Frederica was a favorite of theirs.  It was she who had instituted the candy tin during her last visit nearly three years ago.

Over dinner, I told Wim the news about Mamie moving out.  He wasn’t too surprised.  We'd suspected that Mamie might be doing a moonlight flit one of these days. At least I'd already received July's rent from Social Services.  Now I had the rest of the month to fix up the place for August.

Wim and I went over to Schemmerhorn the next day to inspect the #apartment.  The first thing we saw was that Mamie had never replaced the upstairs front door.  Bryan had kicked it in during one of his rages.  Next we noticed that the gas heater in the dining room was disconnected.  What’s more, the ceilings in that room and the adjoining living room - which last time I looked had been painted white - were now a delightful shade of sooty black!

Giselle came upstairs at that moment and informed me that there had been a recent fire in the apartment.  The electric company had disconnected the gas heater and the pipe that went up from it into the wall.  When something major happens like that, you'd think the tenant would let the landlord know about it, wouldn't you?

As if the lounge and dining room ceilings weren’t bad enough, the ceiling of the little room leading off of the lounge was even worse.  It was so black that no white showed at all.  Cobwebs hung ominously everywhere, coated in grease.  All we could think of was that Bryan and Mamie must have indulged in indoor barbecues – and greasy ones, at that!  It was the only way the ceiling could have got that way.

A walk through the rest of the apartment revealed more #damage.  All in all, there were three broken windows, three broken doors, a broken kitchen cabinet drawer and door, two missing light fixtures, two missing smoke alarms, missing switch plate, missing towel rack, broken toilet tank lid, and filthy walls throughout.  

Not surprisingly, there were no door keys in sight.

I turned slowly on my heel, surveying the damage with dismay. 

Wim bustled about taking notes. "You'd better get Catcher in here quickly, so I can start work."

I nodded and gloomily descended the stairs to the porch.  

Shirley was waiting there, wringing her hands and looking apologetic.

"I'm really sorry 'bout this, Stacy.  I mean, especially since I was the one who recommended Bryan and Mamie in the first place.  She didn't used to be like this, believe me.  She just got into a bad crowd, lately."

"You weren't to know," I told her.  "She was a good tenant for the most part but she still owes me a month's rent from last September, plus some from October."

Shirley looked surprised.  "You knew she got a check for fourteen thousand dollars in February, didn't you?"

"No!" I exclaimed.  "From where?"

"I don't know.  All I know is, she got this check and we cashed it at our bank for her 'cause she didn't have a checking account."

"Oh," I pondered.  "Maybe it was from Bryan.  She did take him to Court for beating her up."

"All's I know is, Mamie went through that money in a matter of weeks."

"And I saw none of it!  She told me in February she'd pay me the money she owed me as soon as she got her tax refund, and that's the last I heard from her.  If I'd known she'd just got fourteen thousand dollars, I'd have been a bit more persistent." 

I trudged back upstairs to clean the stove top and kitchen sink while Wim pottered about.

On Monday, I called Mr. Catcher.

"Hi," he said, remembering me.  "Sure, I'd be glad to come over to the apartment.  Hmm, let's see        . . ."  

I could hear him paging through his diary.

Unfortunately, he was only free in a couple of weeks. Wim wouldn't be able to start work on #repairs until after that.  

However, I could still advertise and show people around the apartment.  

I called the Schemmerhorn Gazette and put an ad in the paper, keeping the #rent at $475.00.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT: Beauty and the Boxer

I was about to bid Miz James farewell, when we heard a tremendous crash from upstairs and the raised, angry tones of Bryan berating Mamie about something.  The verbal barrage went on for quite a while, interspersed with more thuds, thumps and crashes.  It sounded as if all hell were breaking loose up there.

"Does this happen a lot," I asked Miz James who didn’t seem fazed by the noise..

She raised an eyebrow.  "Uh, huh.  He has a temper, that Bryan.  I dunno how Mamie takes it."

            The third week in August, several people called to inquire about the apartment.  I told three of them that I would be at the house that Sunday between ten o'clock and two o'clock.  I duly arrived at the house on Sunday morning and sat on the front porch in one of Miz James's garden chairs to await the prospective tenants.

No one came. 

The ever-present Miz James, however, kept me well regaled with all the doings of the neighborhood until I could have screamed.  Bryan periodically exercised his lungs upstairs, throwing around his weight and God knew what else besides.  During a break in the yelling up above, I tentatively rang the doorbell.  Mamie answered the door with what looked like the beginnings of a black eye.  She came out to sit with us for a while.

"You can't go on like this, girl" Miz James told her, and for once I agreed with her. 

"I know," Mamie said.  "I'm going to give him the shove one of these days."

Finally, close to two o'clock, just as I was getting ready to leave, two young women walked up the street to the house.  One of them introduced herself as Giselle.  With light, coffee-colored skin and delicate features, she was quite a beauty.

Giselle introduced the other woman as her sister Barbara and told me that just herself, her two children and her dog would be living in the apartment.  I remembered my mother had taken a call from a woman who had seemed very anxious to know if I rented to people with dogs.  I didn’t see why not.  If it was a choice between having a #tenant with a dog – in this case, a boxer – or no tenant, the tenant with dog won hands down.

I showed Giselle around the #apartment, and she liked it very much.  She seemed calm and collected and also told me she was quite handy around the house.  She wouldn’t need to call me for minor things, such as a leaky faucet or a blocked toilet. 

“Who will paying the rent and the security deposit?” I asked.

“The Department of Social Services will handle the security and pay part of the rent.  I’ll pay the balance,” Giselle said.  “I get disability payments for my son, too, so don’t worry, I can afford the #rent.  Can you fill out the landlord statement, in case I get the apartment?”

“Okay, and here’s an application form for you to fill out too.”

After Giselle had filled out the application and left, I turned to Miz James. "Well, she seems okay."

"Ah, ha!  You see?  There you go already," Miz James remarked.  "Taking the first person that comes along.  That's not the way to be a #landlord."

"I know," I admitted, "but she did seem nice, all the same."

That night, I called the phone number for Giselle’s landlord, which she had written down on the application.  Her current landlord gave her a good reference, which included positive words like "clean" and "respectable."  I phoned Giselle afterwards to tell her she could have the apartment, dog and all.  She promised to deliver the landlord statement to Social Services the next day.

The following morning at work, I arranged with the #building #inspector and Mr. Catcher to inspect the downstairs apartment for the #security #deposit and #rental #certificate.  They certainly were getting a lot of business from this particular landlord.  Wim resigned himself to another trip to Schemmerhorn, but at least I had managed to coordinate the appointments with the building inspector and Mr. Catcher for the same time, so that Wim would only have to make one trip.

            Miz James moved out the last weekend of August.  This was fine by me because it gave me a couple of days to get the apartment ready for Giselle.  The day she left, I handed her a $475 dollar check for the security deposit.  She had been a good tenant overall, and the apartment was in good condition. 

Once she’d departed, however, and I had a chance to really look around at a year’s worth of wear and tear, I was disappointed at how much painting had to be done.  I spent the next three nights painting the worst rooms and touching up others.  At least Miz James had done a thorough job of cleaning – the stove and refrigerator didn’t need any work, and the semi-gloss kitchen walls had been scrubbed clean of grease.

The same weekend that Miz James moved out, someone vandalized the graveyard behind 51 Manson Street.  

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX: The Flimsy Fence

YEAR TWO

House Account:  $1,338.00

#Mortgage:  $513.48 - $547.29

The letter had little effect on Ray's children's behavior, but Miz James was somewhat mollified when Wim erected a fence so that only she, Princess and Desmond could use the back yard.  She grumbled a bit when Ray asked her if he could host a barbecue in the back yard for visiting friends and family on Memorial Day, but as she wasn't going to be home that day, she grudgingly agreed.

The fence wasn’t anything special: just wire chain-link with posts every few feet.  In no time, it was drooping tiredly between its supports as the neighboring children on the right side of the house – with whom Ray's kids seemed to be very friendly – yanked and leaned on it with a vengeance.

The owner of the next-door house, where said children resided on the second floor, was in the process of gutting the first-floor #apartment in order to #renovate it.  As a result, an alarming heap of trash and rubble was fast accumulating in the alleyway between the two #properties.  Miz James gleefully reported that "them kids" were playing in it and strewing garbage left, right and center.  This fact was borne out when I received a violation notice from the #Code #Enforcement #Bureau ordering me to clean up the mess in 72 hours, or else.  It wasn't even my mess! 

Indignantly, Wim and I went up to Manson Street and piled the mess onto the #renovating #landlord's side of the alley.  Then I wrote a stern letter to Ray, telling him to stop his children strewing trash all over the place.

The rumblings of discontent kept sounding from Miz James until they finally came to a head.  Ray had been living upstairs for five months when Miz James called one night to report that "them kids" had stolen her son's bicycle from her side of the basement, and that she had called the police.  The bike was found a little while later but, nonetheless, the fact remained that Ray and co. had violated their shared access to the basement. 

Thanking my lucky stars that I had only given him a six-month #lease, I wrote to Ray to tell him I would not be extending it and that I wanted him out of the apartment by the end of the month.  I heard not one word of argument from him.  Maybe he was used to being #evicted.

No sooner had I given Ray a month's notice, than Shirley telephoned from next door.  Her buddy Miz James had informed her that Ray was moving out, for which she was undeniably very grateful.  Shirley told me that her friend Bryan was once again interested in renting the place.  Apparently, his job was going well, and he could now afford the #rent; especially since the Department of Social Services had approved his girlfriend Mamie for partial rental assistance.

"Have Bryan call me," I told Shirley.  "It would be nice not to have to advertise and try to find a decent tenant.  He's a friend of yours, so I guess that's a pretty good reference, right?"

"Right," Shirley agreed.  "It'll be him and Mamie and their two young children.  I'll tell him to call you."

Bryan telephoned that afternoon.  "So, I hear you're looking for an upstairs #tenant again.  I'm still interested."

"Yes, I heard,” I said.  “By the way, why do you want to move, and when?"

"Soon as possible.  We’re living underneath Mamie's sister at her mom's right now.  Too close to family is like, you know . . ."

"I get the picture.  How about rent and #security?  The rent is four-seventy-five, as you know . . ."

"Social Services will pay most of it," Bryan told me,  "but we want to pay the security deposit ourselves, rather than do it through D.S.S."

"Okay," I agreed – stupidly, as it later turned out.  "When can we meet to sign the lease?"

We arranged that I would go over to their apartment in Schemmerhorn that evening. I found it quite easily.  Mamie, the girlfriend, turned out to be a pale, thin slip of a girl with a shy smile.  Whilst they perused lease, I looked around.  The room was neat and tidy and looked clean.  The two toddlers were nicely dressed.  All in all, it seemed as if Bryan and Mamie would be good tenants.

The next day I called the building inspector to inspect the upstairs apartment for the rental certificate.  Then I called Mr. Catcher to come and determine how much D.S.S. would pay for any repairs that needed doing.  Unfortunately, his next available appointment was not until the middle of August.

Meanwhile, downstairs, Miz James's lease was due to expire at the end of August.  Always diligent, she called me towards the end of July.

“Can I stay a little longer?” she asked, “I’m planning on buying a house within the next few months.”

I would be sorry to lose her – she wasn’t a bad #tenant – but I had to tell her I really didn’t want to look for a new tenant in the winter.   I knew from experience that not many people moved at that time of year.  Of course, the Jacuzzi was a good selling point, but I figured it would be easier to find a tenant in the late summer or fall.    I determined to place an advertisement in the Schemmerhorn Gazette, listing the apartment’s features and keeping the rent at four seventy-five per month.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE: Racial Relations

I arrived at the Manson Street house slightly early on Friday the 28th, but the rattletrap was already waiting for me, loaded to the gunnels with boxes, bags, and children.  It seemed to groan beneath the weight of several mattresses tied onto its roof, and the leftward list was more pronounced than ever.

Ray and children erupted from the car and eagerly watched me unlock the door.  We went upstairs, and after a quick look round I handed the keys to Ray and left them to it.

By February 22nd, I still hadn’t received a rental voucher from the Department of Social Services.  I heaved a gusty sigh when I heard that Ray’s case worker was none other than Mrs. Planet.  She must have moved up to the “M” section of the alphabet.

"Did you send in a rental certificate?" Mrs. Planet asked, when I finally reached her.

"Nooooo."

"Gotta have a #rental certificate from the City," she announced in a rather triumphant-sounding tone, "before we can send out vouchers for rent."

"What is a rental certificate, how do I get one, and from which department?" I asked.  "And how come D.S.S. didn't tell me they needed one before this?"

"Dunno.  Probably because you never had a new D.S.S. tenant before?  But call the building inspector. Send us a rental certificate, and we'll send you a voucher for the #rent."

I called the Schemmerhorn building inspector’s office.  It was much easier getting through to their ofices than to the caseworkers at D.S.S.

"Sure," they said.  "Come in, pay a ten-dollar fee for each #apartment you want inspected, fill out a form, and we'll call you to set up an appointment."

I asked if they could mail me the form to fill out and I would mail it back to them with a check. 

On hearing this request, the friendliness slipped slightly.  This was most irregular.  They didn’t normally do that.

I explained that I worked in St. Albans and couldn’t make it to Schemmerhorn during office hours.

Well . . . in that case . . . they supposed they could.

The form arrived two days later.  I filled it out and mailed it back with a check for $10.00.

The #building #inspector – not Mr. Bray this time, but an equally young-sounding, go-ahead man by the name of Ron – called a couple of days later.  I made an appointment for him to meet Wim at the #house the following week.  Unfortunately, this appointment had to be scheduled for the day after Mr. Catcher was inspecting the apartment for the #security #agreement.  Wim would be making two trips to Schemmerhorn, but it couldn’t be helped.

The #inspection by Mr. Catcher went off without a hitch.  The apartment was clean and safe.  As for Ron, the building inspector, Wim and he got on like a house on fire.  Recognizing kindred spirits in each other, they no doubt had fun discussing building techniques and #codes.  I sent the resulting rental certificate to Mrs. Planet at the Department of Social Services, poste haste.

It took about one month for Miz James to start complaining about Ray.

"That #tenant of yours!" she puffed into the telephone.  "I was hoping it was going to stop after a while, but it hasn't."

"What hasn’t?" I asked.

"His kids make fun of my kids all the time, callin' them racial names an' stuff.  Every time they go out, they have to hear it from them kids.  They're always outside, cussin' and messin' up the yard.  I wan' a fence put up so my keeds can be in the yard by theirselves."

Coincidentally, just that past weekend, I had taken a class on ethics-in-the-workplace and watched a dated but very interesting video documentary about an experiment in discrimination.  At an all-white school in an all-white town in the South- or Mid-West – I don’t remember which – the pupils had literally never encountered a black person, and one of the teachers decided that her class of ten-year-olds could benefit from experiencing first-hand what it was like to be discriminated against. 

At first, the children thought it sounded like a fun exercise, but they soon realized it was anything but.

The teacher sorted her students into two groups: the blue-eyed group and the brown-eyed group.  The first day, the blue-eyed children were informed that they were superior to the brown-eyed ones and that brown-eyed people were stupid and lazy.  Unlike the blue-eyed children, the brown-eyed children weren’t allowed to have seconds at lunch or to play for an extra five minutes at recess.  Any mistakes the brown-eyed children made in their lessons were pointed out to the blue-eyed children and ridiculed.  They were also made to wear collars so as to be easily identified as brown-eyed children from a distance, so that the blue-eyed children could easily avoid them.

It was amazing how quickly the blue-eyed children turned into utterly hateful, spiteful creatures.  They were soon taunting the brown-eyed children and making their lives a misery.  Several fights broke out in the playground.

On the next day, the roles were reversed.  The brown-eyed group was now superior to the blue-eyed group.  While taking some joy in now being the favored ones, the brown-eyed children were not as horrid to the now be-collared blue-eyed children as the blue-eyed children had been to them.  This was obviously because the brown-eyed children remembered what it had felt like to be discriminated against themselves. 

Another interesting point was that performance scores in reading and logic were better when the children were deemed superior than when they were considered inferior, thus proving that self-image can affect performance.

Anyway . . . "I'm sorry to hear you're having some trouble with Ray's kids," I told Miz James.  "I'll certainly write a letter to him today about the racial remarks.  Also, I'll talk to Wim about putting a fence up in the back yard.  I guess that would be a good idea, anyway."

"Okay," Miz James said in a grudging manner.  "But tha’s not all."

"Oh?"

"Those kids of Ray's . . . they take up the whole front porch.  I come home an' have to climb over them to get to my front door.  It's not right when a person can’t even make it to their own front door without fallin’ over people.  Maybe you should think about putting up a fence dividing the front porch, too."

This was a bit much.  "I don’t know about that,” I said, “but, as I said, I'll speak to Wim."

"And," Miz James continued, "the older daughter . . . Jennie?  She's real trouble.  Comes home on the weekends and raises all kinds a hell.  She's like fourteen goin' on twenty, that one, if you know what ah mean?"

I tried to sound soothing and understanding, but was finding this increasingly more difficult to do.  

“I'm sorry to hear that, Ms. James.  She's a problem child, you know?  She’s run away from home a few times.  That's why she has to live in a children's home."

"Tha’s all very well."  Miz James sighed heavily into the phone.  "But she's trouble an' I don't see why we should have to put up with it."

I broke in as she paused for breath.  "I will write to Ray and try to set him straight.  If the #racial remarks don't stop, maybe you could sue.”

"Humph."  Miz James didn’t sound at all mollified.  “An’ another thing before you go.  The water heater downstairs is leaking.”

Fantastic.  What did those run?  A few hundred dollars?  I added it to Wim’s to-do list.

Miz James finally let me go. 

With a sigh, I hung up the phone and started working on a letter to Ray.