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“I’m talking about natural lighting,” he corrected himself. “These are basement windows, so they’re just… tiny.” He shrugged. “Must be like living in a dungeon, no?”
He was being as tactful as he could, for someone who’d brought this subject up so many times before. There were times when he’d come to collect the rent and simply drop hints. Other times when he’d get his wife to do it for him. The hints had been subtle at first, but now the people who’d bought my childhood home were abandoning all pretense. They wanted one thing, and one thing only:
For me to move out.
“So what do you plan to do with the basement once I’m gone?” I finally sighed.
The man looked at me, and I saw pity in his tired eyes. I hated pity. Pity was for the weak, and I was anything but that. Even so, he wasn’t a bad guy. He was hard-working, honest, and from what I could see from way down here, a better than average husband and father.
“Well, my wife wants her living room back,” he admitted. “We plan to finish it for the kids. Make it into a game room, or a ruckus room, or whatever it takes to give them their own space.”
“Yeah,” I muttered, remembering what it was like to be a kid in this same house. “I got it.”
He looked suddenly hopeful. “So you’ll look for a new place?”
A part of me still wanted to fight, but in my heart, I knew it was time. Past time, really.
“Sure.”
“Holy shit!” he breathed. My landlord quickly blushed. “Crap, sorry! I didn’t mean it like that. I mean…”
“I know what you mean,” I chuckled. “And it’s alright. Just give me a little time, okay? You guys have been giving me a good deal on the rent down here—“
“A damn good deal,” he agreed.
“Exactly,” I countered. “Which makes it all the more difficult for me to find something comparable. It’s going to be tough finding anything even close to this. Not that I can afford, anyway.”
He nodded some more, looking thoroughly relieved. “I completely understand. And if there’s anything we can do to help…”
“I’ll let you know,” I smiled.
He took the rent check from the counter and slipped it into his front shirt pocket. Absently, I wondered how much longer front shirt pockets were going to be a thing. Halfway to turning and leaving however, he abruptly stopped.
“Where’s your car, by the way?”
“It’s in the shop,” I said, without missing a beat.
Technically, I wasn’t lying. It was in a shop. Someone in Canada’s shop, anyway. It was just never getting out.
“Oh. Nothing serious, I hope?”
The story was long, sad, and very drawn out. Rather than garner more pity, I told another white lie.
“It’s getting an inspection.”
My landlord smiled and left, and I closed the door behind him. That left me all alone, in my dungeon with the tiny windows and the shitty lighting. Lighting my father had put up himself, with his own hands, in an effort to get rental income from this very basement apartment.
“Add one more to the list,” I sighed.
It was bad enough I’d been relying on the bus to get me in and out of town, but now I had to add something else to the list of things that sucked: my impending relocation. The move wouldn’t necessarily happen soon, but I’d need to begin looking right away if I wanted to get something decent.
And it would be even tougher looking for apartments without a car.
On top of everything my school had a show coming up, and coming up fast. One in which promising students like myself could sell select pieces of artwork to mitigate the cost of tuition. Or housing. Or driving expenses.
BZZZT!
My phone crawled almost an inch across my desk on its vibrate setting, which was apparently set to ‘overly aggressive’. I chased it down and picked it up, only to be surprised with a group text from the guys.
