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CloseBy Jessica Hutchins
I avoided looking in mirrors. I refused to feel bad about my looks - the wide bridge of my nose - the crooked mashedness of it... it wasn't any better before it was broken. My body was a tool, not a spiritual vessel. And it still worked. Even though the whole thing had started to resemble a worn-out leather oxford, when the toes have pounded the front end of the shoe so much it becomes shapeless, baggy form. You can still wear the shoe. It just doesn't look good.
I'd never relied on good looks to get by anyway. I knew I was unattractive but didn't waste time lamenting the fact. What I did in the way of grooming was merely to provide the appearance of female normalcy - I had no use for all those wiles - I was just feminine enough for people to call me a lady and forget about it: I painted my fingernails and toenails pink, kept them not too long and not too short. I wore lipstick. I curled my hair. Had a husband. Well. Had had a husband, which allowed me to say, "my husband... well, my late husband" and so have the advantage of being known to have had a husband, as any normal woman would, without the nuisance of actually having one.
My nose had been broken several times. Most recently by that floozy of a woman whom I suspected was living as an illegal roommate at the Brandon street house. That's why I made it a point to keep a portion of the house unpainted - a small section near the picture window - then return sporadically to slap some paint on one or two of the clapboards at odd hours. The "paint job" went on for 3 months, during which period I encountered the suspect 4 times on the property: twice inside the house, once on the front walk, and once in the back yard. During one of my Sunday "paint jobs", I spied the suspect emerging from the bathroom area to enter the dining room with WET HAIR and knew I'd nabbed her. Just as I had inserted her fingers between the venetian blinds to spread them for a confirmation view, this hussy, this brute, this illegal boarder, had not hesitated, but bounded - oblivious to her bathrobe falling open to reveal a booby, no less - bounded to the window and delivered a powerful upper cut through the screen to the middle of my face.
I sent the eviction notice after receiving payment for the 5-gallon bucket of paint that was spilled during my fall. But this just goes to show that being a landlord is not for the feint of heart. I've had to identify several bodies found on my properties. When the going gets tough, the tough get going. Renters are fundamentally flawed human beings. Not that I don't love them! But if you don't understand that in this day in age, if you don't own your own land, you've got nothing - if you're dumb enough not to figure that out and do something about it - go ahead, stay a renter. I've got a great place for you.
As a real estate investor, you have to be willing to take risks - that's what I would tell Brock. Go ahead and put all your eggs in one basket sometimes. That's how you win big. You learn to recognize the diamond in the rough. If it turns out to be a dud, a lump of coal, you do everything in your power to make it look just like a diamond for the next chump.
When you take risks - small or big, you reach a level of disembodiment. By creating the opportunity to lose everything you have - property, social standing, or whatever is precious to you - by willingly wagering your physical comfort, your reputation, your life on this planet - you rise out of the physical body to become spectral, spirit and human willpower. If you can't risk everything, you don't really have anything. The Indians knew that. I got that idea from a Public Television show on Potlatch. I tried to explain the concept of "glorifying the SELF by displays of purposeful indifference to material values" to Brock by taking a hammer to the wall of my office, "for instance, I said as I delivered effective blows through the drywall, if one chieftain breaks a copper pot or burns a pile of blankets or smashes a canoe, his opponent is under obligation to destroy AT LEAST as much, if not more if possible. I'm not sure if Brock really understood my point. Maybe I'm both of the chieftains in this office, I said. He put his cigarette out on his palm. At least it was a start. What I mean is, taking chances is the only way you're going to gain anything at all.
Before I became an investor in the real estate of our City of Angles, I was a cab driver. What? Do I hear you laughing? Sniggering smugly to yourself, asking yourself - I can hear you, by the way - you're asking - who takes cabs in Los Angeles, besides suckers from other cities stranded at the airport? Besides the senile octogenarian who still clings to their memory of a Los Angeles of the past- a functional city, a public-minded city - a cab-filled city? The next question you might ask is: how could anyone make a living, let alone a fortune, driving a cab in this city - what with the meager 2 nights a week allowed per cab at the airport, and other than that the estimated 3 calls a week and even fewer roadside flaggers? We've all heard stories from friends and loved ones about the ONE TIME they had to call a cab in Los Angeles - discharged early from the hospital, say, or their vehicle broke down - and the cab they called never arrives. In their ONE TIME of need, the cab never comes and they end up staggering home from the hospital or, if they're very lucky, they get picked up by a cab that JUST HAPPENS to be passing by. Well, guess what? That cab that JUST HAPPENED to be passing by was MY cab. I used the empty playing field to my advantage. I didn't accept the status quo. I didn't belong to any company or have any boss telling me when to clock in and out and how many hours a week I could work. I was my OWN boss, and believe me, I was one tough nut of a boss. I SLEPT in that cab - three hours a night with a couple of naps in between. I knew every street, every exit, every alley, every one-way street, I knew every stretch of median possible to cross doing 80 without flipping the cab - I knew every parking lot and every gas station possible to cut through to save precious time. I wouldn't even hesitate to cut through back yards if I had to. Of course I've probably left a small wake of death in my path - but hasn't every L.A. driver? Dogs - cats - birds - people - I would bet you that every driver in LA has killed at LEAST one person in their driving career - whether they're aware of it or not. That 12-car pile-up that happened just AFTER you changed lanes - you probably didn't even hear it, you were on your merry way to Universal City or to the Santa Monica Boardwalk for a nice stroll and a ride on the ferris wheel - well, four people died in that pile-up - so you can wipe that self-righteous citizen's arrest look off your face and let me tell you how well I did my job.
And it wasn't an easy job, either. Yes, I'm talking to you. I'm not anything like you, using your SUV as a giant gasoline-powered wheelchair, rolling lazily around the city, trying to get the closest parking space in the lot so you don't have to walk the 20 extra yards. Are you AWARE that being a cab driver is one of the most dangerous occupations you can have? Taxicab drivers are 60 times more likely than other workers to be murdered on the job. In Los Angeles it's even worse. Do you know what sort of people take cabs in Los Angeles? Ninety-five percent criminals. That's who's on the street here needing a ride.
As a cabbie, if you're not being held at gunpoint, and sometimes even if you are, you're in the driver's seat. Make no mistake, the minute you step into a cab, you've been taken hostage. At least for a certain amount of time. I particularly enjoyed this aspect of the profession. I always took the opportunity to show the passenger who was really in charge - who was really calling the shots. If a passenger started acting up - telling me how to do my job, where to get off the freeway and such - I would just drive right past that exit they were telling me to take - then I'd come to a screeching halt - still on the freeway, mind you - and sit there, for a count of about 10 - it's all about timing - and then, inevitably at the hysterical protest of the passenger - my hostage - gun the cab in REVERSE - ha! Dopplerized horns of oncoming cars careening past us - missing us by what seemed like less than an INCH - and finally, usually successfully, arriving back at the suggested exit - by this time the hostage has been reduced to a limp doll slumped in the back seat - past the paralysis of fear and resigned to their imminent death - meanwhile I'll have pushed my meter about 20 bucks ahead during my passenger's deer-in-the-headlights stage - and calmly, chuckling to myself (not unlike one of the pilots described in The Right Stuff) I'll exit the freeway and casually ask my now compliant passenger whether their stop is on the right or left hand side of the street. By the time they step out of my cab, I'm not joking, - some kind of Stockholm effect - they're seeing me as their savior - someone who successfully dragged them out of the valley of death - which results in a big fat tip for moi.
Renting houses is the same deal as a cab ride-with less whiplash and more cash. The passenger, the renter - accepts your terms when they step into your domain. Their ride on your property might be for 6 months or for 10 years. Four slipped discs didn't keep me from turning my head as soon as I spotted that fire-damaged, boarded-up shack in the hills of Echo Park - I'm no rube - under all that plywood and char was an authentic Craftsman bungalow. And do you think I gave a whistle or a toot that the gang that burned it up lived next door? Why do you think it's called a fixer-upper?
I never do background checks on my tenants - I just tell them I do and collect the fee. I can ascertain most of what I need to know by giving them a good long look up and down. Dirty nails? Acceptable if the hands are calloused from hard work. Not acceptable if the hands are dainty and soft as well as dirty. Shifty eyes are obvious. Prospective tenant leans against the wall in my office during our meeting? He's out. Besides having no manners, he's way too comfortable with me. Usually I'm right on the mark, but once in a while a get a couple of bad eggs. The fact is, some people hide their filthy little habits better than others.
Take Albert and Jimmy, the 2 lads living in the one-room, converted basement under the McDuff street property. After I found sixteen pairs of soiled Calvin Klein underwear in the recycling bin, I decided I needed to keep a closer eye on them.
As usual they were watching television. I just wished Albert or Jimmy would change the channel. Or settle down so at least I could see a little of what was happening on the screen. When Jimmy swung his legs off the bed and asked Albert if he wanted anything to drink, I finally caught a glimpse of the video action: a lanky, pale man with a bald head and a thin red moustache cowered behind a jumbo television console in a cheaply furnished, brown-carpeted room. He smiled tremulously from behind the t.v., at the hulking, acne-pitted man in the doorway, who was clad in only the top half of a dark blue coverall jumpsuit. "Here to repair your CABLE." The actor said the simple line unconvincingly. The camera viewpoint switched to the backside of the repairman. Below the ripped jumpsuit's company logo, spanning the lower back area above the man's bared, shaved buttocks, lay a bluing tattoo which read in large gothic font: SODOMITE.
Albert giggled, "does that guy live around here? He looks sooooo familiar." Jimmy climbed back up onto the bed carrying two tall mugs of what appeared to be hot milk and handed one to Albert as he examined the sodomite on the screen more closely.
Then he settled back on the mound of pillows, just to block my view again. "I think he really is a repairman. Look how he's clipping those wires." Jimmy's voice was more muffled now because of the insulation of the overstuffed pillows.
"Well he's definitely not a professional actor". Whatever. They weren't really watching porn. They were watching a quippy melodrama about a young single mother and her smarty-pants teenaged daughter. But I knew what they were really thinking about. Pinks hot dogs. I didn't have the attention span for television anyway. I was more interested in watching the back of Albert and Jimmy's heads as they contentedly sipped their mugs of frothed milk. The steam from the milk seemed to be riding a current of air into the small hole in the wall in the corner of the loft bed, where it caressed my eyeball, which was positioned right up by the hole. My sex-feelings seemed to have migrated from my twiddle, which was numb anyway now from sitting in the same position for so long, into my face: my eye in particular, at the moment. The iris tingled.
"You look cute with a white moustache," I thought I heard Jimmy murmur. I imagined him coyly taking a dollop of froth from his cup and gently adding more to Albert's upper lip.
My stomach churned and a hot wave of gastric acid sloshed up the back of her throat. My midsection was suddenly bloated with gas. Those cabbage pupusas.
Jimmy abruptly started up, yanking the bedcover up to cover his face. "Did you just let one loose? EEEW! Silent But Deadly!"
"I did not fart! You know I never fart. I'm too uptight to fart."
"You are such a liar. Did you eat at that Pnom Penh place again for lunch? Don't you know it got a C? Oh, mercy! Rotten nim chao!" Jimmy dramatically pinched his nose and began waving his other hand in front of his face.
There were Tums stashed somewhere down here. It was hard to see with only the slim beam of television light coming through the hole, but they should be within arm's reach. There they were. Behind the rusted bottle rack, under the broken brick. I decided to clip their cable the next day.
As I crunched down on the first chalky tablet, a key turned in the lock upstairs. The front door opened and slammed, and the floorboards visibly gave in over my face as a heavier-set tenant, probably the one who resembled Steven Segal, trod across the hall to the master bedroom, which was over Albert and Jimmy's apartment. A vacuum cleaner started up. Jimmy bolted from his comfortable slouch and almost hit his head on the ceiling. "Who the hell vacuums at 11:30 at night?"
Then it was extra quiet, before the birds started up. Poppycock. I had fallen asleep, and woken up face-down, mostly on the moist quilt, hands pinned under my pelvis. My body was so paralyzed in its position I wasn't sure whether my hands and feet, or maybe it was my head that was on backwards. Either Albert or Jimmy, through the drywall, was snoring loudly. There was a rustle on the outskirts of the crawlspace. There was still time in the night. The fat white fanny of a possum bobbed in the corner. It was so involved with the paper bag of half-eaten pupusas it didn't realize I was there.
Arthur was back. Arthur-itis. Luckily I had a high tolerance for pain. Neck and knees cracking, I made my way toward the opening of the crawlspace and lowered myself onto the top of the bureau and then into the house's common laundry room, making my way almost silently, except for the quiet crinkling of the joints, an arthritic ninja, up the uneven concrete stairs (I knew each step well), through the wooden gate (masterfully sliding the latch open), and down the block to where my white Mercedes Phantom SX was parked. Hoo-ha! I unlocked the front door and slipped in, opening the glove compartment to retrieve a notebook and what looked like an aerosol spray can with a party horn-shaped nozzle on the top. I jotted a note for Brock to cut the cable for the McDuff street property within the next 3 days. Rub the dog's nose in his doo-doo as soon as he doodles on the rug. I turned the key, but not far enough to start up the car. Adjusted the seat-warmer to high and waited a minute until I could feel the warmth coming through the leather. Put the car into neutral and coasted down the hill a little ways until I was in front of the property. Pulled the emergency brake and got out of the car. Leaving the door ajar I made my way through the driveway and used the hood of the car parked there as a stepping stone to get to the top of the recycling can, which was under the master bedroom window for the street-level unit. It was a warm night for December, and the window was open, as I had hoped. The queen-sized bed within was lumpy with bedclothes and protruding limbs. In the distance, probably from the Park, a coyote howled twice; then all was quiet. A short burst of glee squirted through my heart as I beheld the stillness, the peace. Then I pointed the horn into the stillness and firmly depressed the activation button on top. A piercing blast of coast guard and fire-department-endorsed signal horn recommended for use on seafaring vessels and in traffic control situations decimated the silent night, blew the hush to fiddlesticks. I held the button down just to the count of three, One...two...three! Hidey ho! I took one extra moment, allowing myself the pure pleasure of watching the bodies spasm into shocked consciousness, before I sprung nimbly from the recycling can to the car hood and into the street, into the Mercedes Phantom, releasing the emergency brake to coast around the corner and down the hill. Over the river and through the woods, the seat was piping hot! My circulation was successfully restored to the nether-regions. There was no pain in the joints now! Rolling two blocks, I started up the car and turned west onto Sunset Boulevard toward the office.
"Hello, Realty Associates!" I always answered the phone professionally, pronouncing each syllable crisply, clearly, with emphasis on clean "l's", no lazy vowels or consonants. "One moment please, I'll see if she's available." I admired my pink-nailed finger as I depressed the "Hold" button. I paused to survey the office as the tiny green light on the phone blinked: "hold." "hold." "hold." The wicker couch's gingham cushions matched the curtains exactly. The straw scarecrow, man-size, with felt features, googly eyes, clad in denim overalls, added to the country cottage feel. Country cottage feel was especially effective in a filthy city like Los Angeles, especially this filthy neighborhood. Even if a potential didn't prefer country cottage comfy-cozy feel personally, they most certainly weren't going to be offended by it. The most neutral, innocuous of decorating schemes. The small antique oven (working!) in the corner justified the linoleum flooring. Country cottage kitchen! A calico goose pillow? Perhaps a pet would complete the picture, or just a little pet dish filled with kibbles. "hold." "hold." "hold." Brock had figured out how to change the "hold" music to John Denver's "country roads." People needed to be put on hold. It made them feel that the business they were involved with was in fact busy, and important. Maybe the calendar of Thai beauty queens nestling in piles of tropical fruit didn't match the decor. I had put it up there to make the place more racially welcome before I had settled on my target clientele and the country-cottage-comfy-cozy motif.
I picked up the receiver and depressed the "hold" button again, to release it, and said in a slightly lower, more authoritatively rushed voice, "Hello, Realty Associates! This is Leslie Shirley speaking". Mmmm hhhhmmmm, yes...Well, I do have some folks slated to sign a lease on that property today, but I'm certainly willing to show it to you on the slim chance they'll change their minds - you know how tenants are!..Alright, how's 2 o'clock for you? I'll meet you here at my office. See you then, dear!" As I neatly placed the receiver back in it's cradle, the last cheerful, high pitched syllable reverberated off something metal in the space.
The winter morning sun fell across the opposite wall at such an angle that the spray painted message under 4 layers of paint became visible again: SUCK PIG ROD AND DIE DOING IT. Brock hadn't sanded it enough. And stuffing the crumbling holes with paper towels and joint compound was evidently not the patching technique recommended by This Old House. Alright, I got a little out of hand with the Potlatch tutorial but what I was trying to do was illustrate a point.
"BROCK!" the metal twanged again. How could someone keep a name that was the phonetic equivalent to the act of vomiting? I'd changed my own name 3 times, whenever I decided it was no longer suitable. I had finally come up with Leslie Shirley, which I thought rolled, trilled, around the tongue very pleasingly. I also enjoyed the mysteriousness of the double first-name. The unisex quality of the first name was negated, but only after acknowledgment, by the second, unquestionably feminine name.
"BROCK!" With all this gingham and straw around, his name sounded like a choking rooster. As if the previous scream and door slam routine hadn't been enough to rouse him, Brock was apparently still fast asleep on the collapsible cot. "Zero to sixty in thirty seconds, kid! Did you buy those pop-and-bake biscuits I put on your list?" This flagrant display of laziness made the back of my throat itch. Yelling "BROCK!" seemed to help, so I yelled it again.
Without knocking, I brusquely turned the knob to the adjoining room and threw the door open. The light weight of those cheap Home-Depot doors never failed to surprise me. They were so flimsy you could probably kick one through in your slippers. His cot was empty.
Where had that boy gone? The night before, he had simply disappeared two hours into the Lease Matrix lesson. "BROCK!" thinking about his lack of commitment inflamed me, so I had to scream again even though he obviously wasn't around. Well, good luck to you Brock. Go follow your dreams. See you on the big screen. Right. You may look cute now, but those kind of features don't age well, kid. Those pig-type faces suddenly become decidedly uncute after 35, in my honest opinion. Good luck getting parts with that old, wrinkled pig-face.
Brock was my son - like a son to me, I mean. I was teaching him everything he needed to know about the Real Estate business - as well as some important lessons in life. I had thought he was learning. Now he was playing hooky and leaving me to deal with the biscuits. Hot biscuits were indispensable when it came to selling or renting substandard units at inordinately expensive prices. Magical biscuits cost just under a dollar, cover up most unpleasant odors with cozy-home-smell, and are proven to make potentials more comfortable signing the documents that secure their parting with more cash over longer periods of time. Hot biscuits had sealed the deal on a three-year lease for an unheated 1-room apartment located over a fish store that apparently didn't keep the temperatures in their refrigerators very high. Fresh, steaming biscuits had coaxed signatures from a pair of young newlyweds, who, under the influence of flour and butter, decided it would be ok, if not preferable, to raise a family next door to headquarters of one of the most violent gangs in the city.
To be honest, my blood was boiling because the night before had been the 5th of December, rent-money night. According to tradition, I had deposited half the rent checks and cashed the rest, split it 2-1 with Brock, and then proceeded to lose all of my share to him at Blackjack. I was so spitting angry by then I had to challenge him to the knife game - after I'd served him a couple celebratory shots of Leo's moonshine - I didn't take any myself, of course - so there was no way I was going to lose aim with "Lucky", my pearl-handled carbon steel double-edged dirk. Brock, on the other hand (pardon my pun!) had taken a clean chunk out of his right middle finger AND stabbed through one of the webs. Served him right for gloating!
No, I don't always play fair. Who does? When you play fair you turn into a self-righteous, dissatisfied, whimpering simp, because everyone else is eating pie, cake and cookies and you still haven't gotten anything on your picnic plate. I'm an American. That means I believe in free enterprise. The land of opportunity. El-flippin' Dorado. Personally, I think it's a crying shame, if not a sin, to see an opportunity and NOT take it.
That's why I had to put in a call to the snotty professor and his knocked-up wife when they decided to break their lease, to move out, because SUDDENLY they realized that gang territory - what with all the bullets flying, the drugs being passed around, the men running through their backyard - was, contrary to what they had AGREED when they signed the lease - that this was not a healthy environment in which to raise their future crumb-snatchers.
They called first, anyway, from their new home - wondering when they could "expect" to get their deposit back, seeing as they'd left the house in- quote - the same condition or better - unquote - as it had been in when they moved in. As it turned out, they had moved quite far away - down to San Diego, and betting (there is always risk!) that the move had been sufficiently hard on their little up and coming family - that they would most likely be loathe to revisit their recently-vacated abode anytime soon - I made myself unavailable to inspect the premises until a week and a half later. And when I did finally inspect it, what I found!
Mr., excuse me, Dr. S., I began gently, in my best phone voice, I don't know WHAT you had in mind when you left that couch on the sidewalk in front of the house when you moved out - I assumed there was a THINKING BRAIN in that head, PROFESSOR - with extra emphasis on "professor" - I'm sorry, professor, I know you're very accomplished in your field - it's just that I'm a bit upset right now - I'm sure you would be too if you had just seen what kind of horrible, horrible vandalism ensued as a result of your carelessness - as a result of your leaving that couch out on the sidewalk in front of the house - just a moment, professor, I'm a little choked up and overwhelmed. Yes, unfortunately this will affect the amount of your deposit return. I don't know if it was drug-related, or if those folks next door are satan worshipers - Doctor S., be glad you got out of that neighborhood when you did. Well, the original fixtures are ALL missing - the crystal doorknobs, the turn-of-the-century lighting fixtures. The stained glass window in the hall. The banister. And the clawfoot tub - yes, they somehow carried the clawfoot tub out of the house - as well as the fireplace. I'm absolutely devastated, professor - those items meant more to me than the money they're supposedly worth. I know, I can't believe it either. (sniff sniff)I guess the couch out on the sidewalk tipped them off that the place had been abandoned - no, I know that doesn't sound like Satan worshippers, but I haven't told you about the fecal graffiti. You're not familiar with the term? Well I wasn't either until it happened to me. To us, professor. Did you have any enemies in the neighborhood, do you recall? It just seems to me too violent to be a random robbery - the messages - they were smeared across the walls of almost every room in S-H-I-T. Yes. I don't know how they got ahold of so much cock-a-doodle-doo. This was not the work of a lone robber. I don't know gang-speak and have just a little knowledge of Spanish - and the handwriting - if you could call it that - was terrible, but I believe... I believe it was YOUR NAME I saw on the bathroom wall. And the carpet's been torn up and urinated on- and another thing that I found particularly disturbing was this big burned figure - an effigy of sorts - at first I thought it was a person and I nearly fainted, but then I realized it was made of straw. The weird thing was that it - this figure - it was clothed - the parts that weren't burned up, that is - in similar clothing to yours, professor - yes, it was wearing corduroy pants and a tweed jacket - I don't know whether you left any of your clothing behind in oe of the overflowing trash cans - well, like I said, I thought it resembled you - but maybe that's just me. If you'd like me to send it to you... Alright, I'm sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but this will affect your deposit return. No, I haven't added up all the damages yet...
The McDuff property had turned into a real problem. It had been an idyllic find: 2 bedrooms, 1 bath, remodeled kitchen, washer/dryer, dishwasher, gas stove, working fireplace, French doors opening onto large patio overlooking multi-tiered acre-large yard with lawn, fruit trees, organic vegetables and herb garden, collection of rare and heirloom roses, including Abracadabras, Voodoo, Nell's love and Peppermint Stick. lower level studio unit, fully carpeted, rental-ready. A dream come true - dirt cheap because of permanent termite damage, and with a yard like that, an easy profit turnover. A no-biscuit deal. But the tenants, as usual, turned out to be stinking liars. They're all yes-men and garden experts before they move in, then realize what hard work it is and won't dole out the cash to pay for a maintenance crew - I didn't actually give a possum's tukus for the garden itself, for the fluffy , prissy roses with their effeminate perfumes- but with each day of neglect I was virtually watching my potential profit on this place plummeting by the thousands. It had turned into a moldy jungle. Just past 2 a.m. I decided I can't take this waiting game any longer. The computer programmer keeps giving me the runaround, telling me he's got "friends" that are going to "help him out" with the gardening at some later, unspecified date. Under regular circumstances, I'd have this situation completely under control. At this point I'd have called in my "boys": Leo, the 78-year old Mexican alcoholic and the Chinaman Eugene Chen. They were always available to work, no matter what the job, especially when I mentioned the INS. I thought they worked well together. Kept each other in check. But last week, the spitting drunkard did me the double whammy favor of falling off the scaffolding (that HE had built) while painting a window ledge, and then having a stroke as he lay on the pavement below with a broken hip. I don't know which came first. All I know is that Eugene, the petty man that he is, had already gone home for the day because it was 7:00 at night and he had already finished, according to him, HIS share of the painting. Nice teamwork, boys, I told them, yes, not without sarcasm, while we kept Leo company in his hospital room. Eugene, as he should be, was silent. All Leo did was move his left eye. Probably looking for beer.
So I couldn't call the boys in, because they'd gotten themselves paralyzed and fired. As they say, if you want something done right, you've got to do it yourself. By 3 a.m. Lucky and I were making good headway thrashing on the Japanese creepers, which had crept over every plant on the south side of the yard and were in the process of strangling the life, along with my profits, out of them. In fact these creepers were giving me some more fruitful ideas. Somehow, though I'd never practiced martial arts, an idea, a picture actually, or a series of pictures, started playing on loop in my brain. I step up from behind computer programmer as he shuffles his way down the walk, self-satisfied, carrying his little laptop computer. I'm wearing soft sandals so he has no inkling what's coming to him. Right foot plants firmly aside his. My left arm lashes around his neck, squeezing down his twerpy Adam's Apple. On second thought, I think I'll make it easier on myself, and bring home the point, by using a piece of Japanese creeper as a garret. Rerun. I step up behind him as he shuffles down the walk, self satisfied, carrying his little laptop computer. I'm still wearing soft sandals so he has no inkling what's coming to him. I stealthily raise the natural strangler over my head, and in one quick motion, snare his neck and pull in firm. If he's smart he tries to grab my testicles, but guess what? I don't have any. The neck snaps. The computer drops. I exit soundlessly to approach my next victim, the mousy girlfriend with eyes like cream-filled chocolates. Both would have to go if I wanted to increase the rent substantially. She'll be easier so I can improvise on her, I'm thinking, as I bushwhack through the night as skillfully as a Vietnam Vet. Now that's a population I hadn't yet tapped for landscaping work. I decide to make a note to myself to visit the local Veteran's hospital.
I'm just finishing the first tier at the top of the yard when I catch a whiff of the Mary Jane - no wonder I'm imagining Vietnam - followed by a bout of whooping catarrh and laughter from the adjacent yard. The locos must be having another meeting. I had tried to join forces with them when I first started out in real estate- personally I had a clear vision of a win-win partnership, but they seemed to think that an old lady cab driver wasn't tough enough to run with their little gang. This one section of vine seems to be crucial connection to the entire network - each time I tug on it, the whole chain link fence rattles. Just then- I blame the cloud of mary jane surrounding me -- my sandal buckle gets snagged in a slipknot of creeper, the sole comes loose and as I try to regain my footing I step down firmly onto the base of the oldest, thorniest rosebush in the yard. Slap the jack cracker it's a good thing I have a high tolerance for pain! I wasn't planning on yelping or moaning but even before I could have yelped or shrieked if I was the type, all I hear is the whispered word - "rata" - how would I know whether it was meant literally or metaphorically? Don't ask me, because after the word "rata" was whispered and before I heard a gun fire off, something clipped my shoulder and whizzed by my ear. I wondered if events might be occurring backwards as I felt myself propelled uphill or downhill or both counting very slowly but lightning fast too, one by one step down and up seven tiers of roses definitely the Voodoo was uprooted I could smell the black spot, the black rot, the blood clot whatever it was called the cat, the rat or the gas was let out of the bag, the beans were spilled and I'll wager you it won't be me cleaning up this foul mess...