The following is a true account of my time subletting a room from a very nice couple. It does have a slow build-up and may not really be suitable for a quick one-handed read, so to speak.
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After six years in the Marine Corps I was out and very exited about being a free man again, and home, instead of in the sweltering heat of Baghdad. After the relentless pace of life as a grunt, I found civilian life a welcome change. I had managed to complete my first two years of college during my time in the Marines, so I would only be here for my last two before moving on to graduate school. My financial obligations were light, as my G.I. Bill paid for my tuition, but I opted to try and sublet a room to live more frugally and avoid dipping into my savings. Also, after living in such close quarters with so many good friends for so long, living alone in an apartment seemed too foreign.
During my first week in town, I stayed with a Corps buddy and kept a close watch on the postings for rooms, finally finding one that seemed promising. It advertised a room for rent with a young married couple with a three-year-old child and warned that 'freaks, layabouts, party boys, smokers, druggies and lunatics' need not apply. Sounded like just my type of people, so I called them and scheduled a meeting for the next day.
I arrived at their home at just a bit after eleven in the morning and saw that it was an older, Victorian styled home common to the area and constructed in the earlier part of the twentieth century. Though a bit dilapidated and not in the best neighborhood, I thought that it certainly had character. Parking my Jeep on the curb, I walked through the gate and into the nicely maintained yard. I noticed the smell of orange blossoms in the hot summer air and could see a few children's toys on the large porch.
Hoping that this would pan out, I put on my most friendly expression and rang the bell. I had felt no need to dress to impress and other than my uniform I owned no dress clothing of any kind. As a result, I was in my most comfortable khaki shorts, a black Marine Corps t-shirt bearing the logo of my old unit and my favorite pair of Japanese 'zori' flip-flops. My black hair at the time was no longer quite "high and tight", but still marked me as military. Standing on the porch, I could feel a few beads of sweat from the hot, dry California air running down the back of my shirt and wondered absently if I should get more sunscreen. I've got the swarthy skin that's common to Sicilians, but thanks to the blazing sun of Iraq, I was still quite tan.
When the door opened up, I was pleased to see a friendly looking man who appeared a few years older than myself. He was also a bit taller and heavier, though by no means overweight. He looked quite strong, actually. His brown hair was much longer than my own and the style, when combined with his clothes, gave him sort of a 'hepcat' look. We shook hands and he introduced himself as Brian, the man I had spoken to on the telephone. Though he was several years out of uniform, I could immediately peg him as a military man, and he confirmed this when we shook hands and I saw the Marine Corps tattoo on his right forearm that matched my own. I immediately approved. Most people get tattoos to be unique, but Marines get them to be the same. He asked if I was prior Corps and I explained with a grin that I had been recently reintroduced into the wild, so to speak.
The living room was large and decorated in an eclectic blend of Georgian and Mexican furniture. There was a panel of Mexican masks that I recognized from Dia De Los Muertos arranged on the wall over the fireplace, and a small Catholic altar on a table with three spindly legs in the corner held a red novena candle burning next to a statue of the Virgin Mary. There was a decided Latin American flair to the house, and I wondered if his wife was from South of the border.
The centerpiece of the room, however, was a large wooden coffee table that sat low in front of an old divan styled sofa that proved to be far more comfortable than it looked. We sat down on it and while we waited for his wife, Hannah, to put their son down for his nap we made small talk about the units we served with and discovered that we were both stationed at Twenty-nine Palms with 'the fleet'. He explained that he worked as a fireman and had a rotating schedule of two 24-hour days per week and that he would be doing a lot of overtime during fire season. He also informed me that he and Hannah had been married almost six years and had a three-year-old son. Brian was at the time thirty-three and Hannah had just turned twenty-nine, not too much older than I was. The one concern that Brian did express was that a young boy might bother me, and I assured him (quite truthfully) that he would not. Brian and I got on well and I felt fairly confident that I would get the room at this point.
Hannah joined us in the living room wearing a flowery, loose skirt and a sleeveless peasant blouse. Brian introduced us and I looked her over. I found her to be attractive, but not beautiful. A definite girl next door who was on the more attractive side of plain. She had very thick chestnut hair pulled into pigtails and then braided. I thought it made her look rather like a German milkmaid, but it was cute nonetheless. Her eyes were a very nice shade of hazel, and her expression was open and friendly. We exchanged pleasantries and she and Brian led me to the room that was to be mine, should I decide to take it. As she led the way I saw that her body was curvy and lush, with a decidedly hourglass shape to it and her legs looked strong and toned.
The room was kind of bijou, but since I owned almost nothing, I didn't really need a lot of space. It had two small closets that would hold all of my clothes, but the big selling point was a small room that connected to it making the rough shape of an 'L' and giving me two rooms for the price of one. Although the second room was small, it looked as though it would fit my futon and leave enough space to walk in and move around to make my bed. It was about the size of our 'hurricane closet' in my family's home in Charleston, South Carolina, but it would do nicely for an
ad hoc
bedroom.
Brian informed me that the room was three hundred a month, which seemed more than fair, since I would pay no utilities and have full kitchen access, though I would have to share a bathroom. They made a formal offer for the room, and I accepted by shaking hands with Brian and writing him a check for the first and last month's rent. He gave me my key and said that I could move in the following day after they gave it a good cleaning, though it looked fine to me as it was.
I arrived bright and early the next morning to unpack my things and get settled, which took about three hours. While I was in the process of doing so, Hannah knocked on the door and peeked in, holding up a beer for me.
