RING RING RING
"What the?" My standard after lunch nap is suddenly disturbed. The doorbell is ringing. God, I hope that it isn't another religious, political, or any other fuckin' salesperson. I've gotten in to the habit of saying salesperson, not salesman. Found out that being respectful to others has provided me with some advantages over the years.
When I'm not interested, I'm always polite with a 'No thank you'. If they disregard that and come at me again, I look at them in the eye then say in a polite way, and without venom, 'I am only polite the first time. If my request is disregarded, then I turn nasty. If it continues, I get real nasty. How would you like to proceed with me?' I've had a half a dozen find out about nasty and only one got my real nasty. Hey, it works for me.
Looking through the peep hole I see its Tess, Chloe's grandmother. Opening the door I say "Tess, it is great to see you again. Is there any problem with Chloe?" It's been 2 months since Chloe left her house and 5 weeks since my garden and hot tub had unwelcomed visitors.
"No, everything's fine. I wanted to thank you for all the help you gave to Chloe."
"Well, come on in. Can I get you anything? Water, sparkling water, coffee, tea, wine, beer, bourbon, margarita, foofoo wine coolers, ouzo...OH,I KNOW, MALORT." That's when I start laughing.
I see a grimace (she's had to have sampled that liquor). "How about a cup of coffee with cream and sugar. Can we sit in your garden?" She then looked questioningly at me, "You really have Malort? I thought that they only sold that in bars?"
"This is Chicago so yes on the Malort as well as a couple of other digestifs and other herbal liqueurs." (It is so cool that I can properly pronounce digestifs.) "Come this way to the kitchen." I start to walk toward the back of the house and for the first time in a while, I see the clutter. "I'm afraid that it's the maid's year off." I laugh nervously. It's clutter with a bit of dust. It's not hording or unsanitary. I'm feeling like a kid that was brought to the emergency room and I forgot to change my underwear that morning. My mother always warned me...
"Bill, I've seen worse. Please don't worry about it." Walking into the kitchen, it was different. "Correct me if I'm wrong, by the cleanliness and the whiff of disinfectant in the air, you scrubbed this today?"
"Oh no. I cooked chicken stir fry last night so I scrubbed it all down before going to bed. I also cleaned the exhaust fan as it was time." I walked over to the edge of the counter pointing to a machine on the counter. "It's from my grandkids; I have one of those single cup thing-a-ma-jig coffee makers." I picked up my box of assorted k-cups left over as 'gifts' from my dinners, and gave it to her. "Pick what you'd like."
Rooting through the selection, she pulled out a dark French roast. Here is a woman with taste. I took her selection then took out a random k-cup for me - Dunkin' Donuts. Somehow, I don't think that this was going to impress her. I had a pained expression which she saw and laughed.
"Come on Bill, try again. I can't hold that one against you." I tossed it back in, closed my eyes and pulled out a peppermint decaf. I tossed that one in and pulled out a French vanilla mocha decaf with my face showing my pain.
Laughing, she took that one from my hands and tossed it back in. She rooted around and found the last remaining dark French roast.
"Thank you so much for saving me from a pain worse than death. Well, if not death, then at least torture by foofoo coffee." I made the two coffees and we each customized our own. I like my coffee 'strong, white and sweet'. Growing up I kept hearing my uncles say they wanted their coffee 'Strong and Black'. It wasn't until my 20's after returning from Nam when I understood that their phrase was always followed by a racist joke concerning Black women. Once I realized what they were doing, I stopped laughing and walked away. One day they saw a picture of my unit in the Delta. There were no more racist jokes after that. There were dumb Polack jokes, but if you're in that group, only your own group is allowed to poke fun at themselves. And believe me, I got some great ones. With those, the Russians don't come out smelling like roses.
We ended up in the part of the backyard where I had built a sheltered sitting area surrounded by evergreens and roses. "So how is Chloe doing? I haven't seen her since that day she pulled her things from the house."
"She's doing real well." Then she looked around to see if anyone was within ear shot. It's 11AM in a working class neighborhood. The only people not working are us retired folks, the disabled or somebody sick. Ain't no nannies or stay-at-home moms in this here neighborhood. The neighborhood families generally tend to keep their heads above the financial water line. Just about everyone is working to try to get ahead. Lines on jobs are routinely passed around for those that need it.
"She told me about your little present to Trevor. Thank you."
SHIT. "She wasn't supposed to say a word about it to anyone. Just she and Jerry were supposed to know."
"I'm her favorite Grandmother, and confident. I may add that I'm the only confident. She doesn't get along well with her father and my daughter. As far as I know, Jerry has been mum.
"Do you want to know what happened after their little trespassing escapade?" Smiling she continued, "It's real juicy." The look of anticipation and glee on her face disarmed me. I nodded yes.
"The sounds of the car with the bad muffler set her off. That sound had been grating on her nerves for weeks. Without telling her, Jerry got the car fixed the Monday before, and had the paperwork just somehow lying around the house to prove it. Then having the very mild mannered Jerry loudly cussing then followed by a gun blast was genius. As you know, the only way they could go to get away from 'him' was to go through the garden to the alley. I'm sure you saw that they both fell down twice and that Trevor then abandoned her. Both got several thorns imbedded in their feet and they both ended up in the emergency room."
"Well Tess, about 5 - 6 minutes after they left the hot tub, she was still paralyzed in the roses. However, Trevor somehow already scampered over the back fence and was hiding in the alley. I then played the clip of Jerry's car leaving. I saw Trevor limp naked back to his house. He grabbed some clothes and shoes and got Brea's clothes and shoes. In the indirect streetlight, I saw that both of them already had large red blotches over their bodies and some on their faces, and they were starting to scratch. I also saw a series of bleeding red lines from the thorns. I thought that the multiple bloody scratches and red blotches on his face and hands were not going to do well for his salesman position at the dealership. Good-by to selling new Cadillac Escalades, hello to selling used cars in a gateway neighborhood in Chicago?"
We both laughed. "I always disliked that man. However, I supported any good thing in their marriage. Toward the end, he was just emotionally abusive to my granddaughter Chloe. That's when my dislike moved toward hate. Before the night he hit her, she and I talked about her possibly leaving the house and then demanding counseling.
"They both ended up in the ER. The imbedded thorns in their feet and their skin rashes forced them there. Brea was discharged in time for Jerry to take her home. She stayed there for three days. Then she moved out. She decided not to fight for her lost marriage and moved back home. She signed the divorce papers and took the fair settlement that Jerry offered. She was off from her teaching job for nearly three weeks. The scratches on her face healed slowly. A thorn infected her right foot and that took longer to heal." I held up my coffee and we toasted.
"Trevor was a different story. He lost his sales job immediately. Who want to buy a Cadillac from Scarface?" We both chuckled. "He was off his feet for 2 weeks and also decided to quickly sign the divorce papers. The lack of income and a very possible spousal abuse charge helped. As he was the only one living at the house, rent was sucking up his rapidly declining funds." I held up my coffee and we toasted again.
"That is what brings me here today. Both their names were on the lease. Chloe can't afford the place on her own." That's when she looked into my eyes. "My apartment's lease was up... so... neighbor... Want to welcome me to the neighborhood?" Her eyes sparkled and her mouth broke into a wide grim.
"When do you start? Do you need a hand? What can I do?"
"Chloe's whole crew will be here Saturday with her and my things. I'm going to be spending the next 2 days giving the house a good cleaning. Today was to see what had to be done and bring the supplies and actually start cleaning tomorrow. Want to come with me to inspect the house?"
"We have a couple of swigs of coffee left, and wasting good coffee is just outright wrong, so... 5 minutes with another minute for me to get a clip board and some flashlights?" She nodded yes and we both sipped our remaining coffees.
Trevor lived alone in that house for a total of 6 weeks. I never realized how one person in such a short time could make it so filthy. The bathrooms needed scrubbing and repainting. He started to use those walls as a notepad. The kitchen had rotted food in the fridge, the oven, the table and counters as well as the floor. It's summer and flying bugs already descended. The garbage can in the kitchen was empty. Tess was pretty discouraged. As she was writing down all that had to be done, I told her that I'd be back in 5 minutes.
I returned with buckets, disinfectant, rags, industrial level rubber gloves, and in my case, I had already changed my clothes. Oh yes, I had a smile and several cold bottles of water and heavy duty garbage bags. "I'll start emptying the kitchen." and immediately disappeared, not giving her a chance to stop me. She was in a bit of shock for a minute, but broke out of it when she started hearing takeout food containers being pulled from the fridge and tossed into a garbage bag.
It took us an hour to fully empty the kitchen. The only things that we kept were unused paper towels, pots and pans, dishes and silverware, unopened bags of barley and rice in canisters and finally, canned goods. Because of the rat droppings, even the ramen was suspect. Then we started on scrubbing everything down. An hour later, I went back to my house to get my shop vac. By the time 5 PM rolled around, we had made a very good dent in cleaning the kitchen.
"How about we take a bit of a break for dinner? I can pull something together from my freezer and you can take a break? What do you think?"
