The sun beat down on the cracked asphalt of the street, and the stagnant, hazy air hung heavy in people’s lungs. It was another unbearable day in the early summer. Steam rose off the sidewalk from the runoff of a fire hydrant that gushed water into the street and added to the humidity. The neighborhood kids enjoyed the urban watering hole. They darted back and forth in front of the mouth of the hydrant taking turns getting wet and cooling off, but their parents just sat on their stoops trying to breath slowly so as not to induce heat stroke. Everyone wanted the ice cream man to come by soon. He was still blocks away from their street. The few people in the neighborhood who had air conditioning stayed inside, but everyone knew that the block was likely to black out from time to time leaving them to come out and join everyone else on the burning street.
Those already outside just did what they could to stay cool. The old Italian men at the corner sat on their stoops and fanned themselves with racing forms. They argued with each other about baseball teams. They were the oldest residents on the street and they remembered back to days gone by and how they themselves used to run across the hydrant to cool off. They were too old to do any running now. The force of the water coming out of the hydrant would probably knock each of them over.
Two of the newer residents of the street sat under the awning of their building drinking shots of vodka. They did not care that the alcohol was only dehydrating them more. It was what they drank in the old country; it was what they would drink in their new country. They had neither children playing outside not memories of water flowing out of hydrants. What they did have was an uncanny idea of which horse would win today.
Two fat Mexican women sat on their steps in the sun not even making an attempt to find shade. They were yelling to their children to be careful and watch for cars as they drove past. The children did not mind the cars. They knew that each driver slowed down before approaching the hydrant because he did not want to skid in the puddle.
Every summer was like this, but this one had seemed to come early. Both May and June had been unseasonably hot and humid, and some tensions had already begun to rise. Two blocks away there had been a fight between neighbors that left one man in intensive care and another in jail awaiting a judge. It was all over loud music or some such stupidity. People did not need a good reason to go after each other this summer; they just needed a reason.
Vincent came down the street in a rented car towards one of the tenement buildings that he owned in the early afternoon, just as the heat was reaching its hottest point of the day. His whole morning had been a real bitch. The radiator of his car gave out, and he had to rent one while his was being fixed. It already cost him more than two hours of his day. He would have been done collecting the rent and on to other chores by now if not for that. He went through the same hassle at every building. It was always someone coming up short with the money. This time someone needed it for bail. Last time someone got laid off. The first of the month was always a pain in the ass.
Don’t these fucking people know I’ve got my own problems?
The bank was on his back over a loan that was turning bad. The city was on his back about faulty wiring in some of his buildings. His wife was on his back about the city and the bank. And his bookie was just on his back. To add to his self-pity he had to go up and down several flights of staircases in the sweltering heat collecting handfuls of sweaty money from people who thought that he was the bad guy for charging them for the privilege of living in his buildings.
These fucking people...
The thought always trailed off when he was feeling sorry for himself.
“Good morning, ladies,” he said with a disingenuous smile to the two fat Mexican women sitting on the steps. “First of the month.”
“Yes, we know what day it is. We do not forget.” One of the women answered him as she reached into her purse and pulled out six fifty-dollar bills.
The other woman got up and walked into the building without excusing herself. She thought that it was stupid for her sister to sit on the stairs with her rent money where anyone could come along and steal it. Moreover, she did not like the company of her landlord.
“It’s about as hot as it ever gets out here, isn’t it Maria?” he asked without looking at her. He pulled out a small book of receipts and began scribbling on the top piece of paper.
“Yes, it’s pretty bad. It reminds me of Mexico. It’s always like this back there.”
If you love it so much why don’t you go back down there, you fucking wetback?
“Yeah, I’ll bet it’s pretty bad down there.” He tore off her copy of the monthly receipt and handed it to her.
Her sister came back out of the building and handed Vincent three one hundred dollar bills. He filled out her receipt and gave it to her without making any conversation. He was in a hurry to get out of the sun, and he didn’t want to engage in any unnecessary chit-chat. It was so hot he couldn’t think of anything else to talk about anyway.
Inside the building he visited the remaining ten apartments taking the lower floors first and working his way up the narrow staircase that was poorly lighted even in the middle of the day. One by one he collected the monthly rent money from each tenant and handed her a receipt. He didn’t stop to talk, and most of them had nothing useful to say to him.
On a day like this he was concerned that all they would want to do is register complaints, but even this bunch of complainers didn’t want to stand in a hot hallway and gripe. They knew it was pointless. Besides, they just wanted him to leave so they could get outside and try to cool off while waiting for the ice cream man.
Apartment by apartment he worked his way up the stairs until he came to his last tenant of the building. She was also his last tenant of the day. If there was anything worthwhile in owning these buildings, it was on the other side of the last door of the day.
Downstairs Maria started new gossip with her sister.
“That girl upstairs, she’s home?” she asked.
“Yes, she’s up there,” answered her sister.
“It’s disgraceful, she should be ashamed of herself. And she has a baby. That’s no way for a mother to behave.”
“It’s not her fault. Don’t blame her. It’s him. That man is a bastard.”
***
Lynette had seen Vincent coming from down the street. She stood next to the air conditioner in her bedroom and spotted him the minute he had stepped out of the rental car that he was driving. She wasn’t really looking for him; she knew that he would be around the first of the month. She was just standing by the window in the room she shared with her daughter trying to enjoy a little bit of air conditioning while idly staring at the scene in the street.
“Rent day,” she said to her daughter. “Oh well,” she signed with a depressed resignation.
It wasn’t like her daughter understood what she was talking about. She was just shy of fourteen months old, and she didn’t understand anything. That was probably a good thing. Better that the little girl did not understand what was happening, or at least what was about to happen. Better to keep the shame of it from her for as long as possible.
“What am I gonna do when you get older?” Lynette said. “I’ll have to send you outside…into the street.” She spoke sullenly and pressed her head against the hot glass of the window as she finished the sentence. She noticed Vincent downstairs talking to her two Mexican neighbors.
