“Glen, talk to him. I think he’s ready to chat.”
"Mom. Mommy."
"For crying out loud."
Minutes later, Martha shoved George into a snow bank beside the road.
"There—that's your free lodging right there."
Chapter 9
It was early June and school's end. Justin informed Glen he was returning to Taiwan for the summer. “I should really stay here and finish my degree early,” he said, “but the wife is pining for me and I miss her.” Despite knowing this day was coming—or at least that it was a very real possibility, Glen felt crestfallen. Replace such an ideal tenant? Good luck. And now he would have to put out ads and interview tenants—meeting strangers always unnerved him.
But the next evening Justin reappeared at the front door with some news and a proposal. He knew a classmate who wanted to rent the basement during the summer months. The plan was that his classmate—someone by the name of Bill Decker—would take the apartment from June to early September sometime. Justin would then reclaim it after returning from Asia.
“I'm happy here,” Justin said. “There are good transit connections to the university for one thing and the area's really laid back. It’s basically got everything I want.”
“The number twenty-three. I took that bus to university when I went there. And now there’s the Skytrain option too, of course.”
“You went to UBC?”
“Quite some time ago.”
“What did you study?”
“English Lit.”
“Really? I wish I’d known. Did you do graduate work?”
“No, just the lowly BA,” Glen said. “I didn’t see any reason to go to grad school since I wasn’t interested in teaching and that's pretty much all you can do with an English Lit. doctorate.”
“Have you ever been overseas? You could teach ESL in another country.”
“I’m a homebody. I rarely go anywhere.”
“You should get out into the world. If I’m not constantly traveling I collapse into a kind of funk. Life starts to feel, I don't know, dull and meaningless.”
Glen shrugged, “Airplanes give me the willies.”
“Yeah?”
“You know.”
“Yeah.”
An involuntary twitch buzzed up Glen’s arm. He imagined getting whacked in the jaw with a tightly balled fist—his fist! He wanted to punch himself! The willies, he'd said!
Piss off back upstairs! You dimwit!
In his bathroom, Glen bongo-drummed the top of his skull with both hands. He screamed dumbly at the pale, rusty-haired freak in the mirror, mouthing over and over, “You fucking idiot! You dumb fucking idiot! You fucking moron!”
The anger lasted half an hour, the usual half an hour. Then his jaw muscles unclenched and the crimson left his face. Truth was, Justin made him nervous—hell people all made him nervous so he often said the most idiotic things. Sensing the need to vent further, Glen went out into the near-dark and pitched himself down the sidewalk. Anxiety’s steel claws raked his innards and his stomach churned up the coffee he'd drunk after dinner. A short ways down the block, he barfed brown gobs of half-digested food into a neighborhood hedge.
Glen wiped his mouth on his sleeve. What a class act, puking into the bushes like a sick dog. And if some nosey neighbor happened to be watching? What in the world were they supposed to think? But shame and humiliation were simply par the course for him—and him alone, it seemed. Some things never changed. Cursed for life he was.
A week passed, and Justin moved out. On the appointed Tuesday morning, a red pickup pulled up to the front of the house. Justin's classmate was right on time. Glen waited on the porch to welcome him, but the second Bill Decker stepped out of the truck cab everything turned rotten; Glen’s legs wobbled, he had to lean against the porch railing. Bill Decker was the very guy he and Russell had seen scoping out the backyard shed that day a while back. The sweat pants and bum pack, the glinty gray flecks of hair: they were unmistakable.
This guy goes to university? He studies Chinese with Justin? Bill resembled a drug dealer or a thug. And though muscular and lissome, he was much older than your average student.
“You must be Justin’s classmate,” Glen said.
“That'd be me,” Bill replied, removing his sunglasses.
“We’re getting some pretty decent weather,” Glen continued, weakly. He badly needed to buy some time to compose himself and decided to try small talk. But it was an effort thinking up something to say in his present state. “The forecast is for sunshine all week.”
Bill cranked his head towards the sky. “That suits me.”
“Yeah, me too.”
“Beach weather.”
"But I almost never go."
"To the beach? No?"
Glen needed information about this newest menace. Out of consideration for Justin, he had waived the rental procedure involving a tenancy agreement and reference check—what a horrible blunder that had been. In effect, he knew nada about the man standing before him.
“Whereabouts do you work?”
“Over at Red Cedar Equipment.”
“One of those outdoor sports places on Broadway.”
“Broadway and Main.”
“Must be a fun place to work.”
“It’s an okay place and I work there.”
Glen waited for the rest of it.
“But work is never what I’d call fun,” Bill quipped.
Answering all of Glen’s questions, one by one, Bill explained how the university classified him as a mature student. After getting his degree he intended to head out to Taiwan or mainland China and find a teaching job. That Bill Decker had made it as far as university certainly had to count for something, Glen concluded. Surely, it was a sign of seriousness and stability—yes, and reliability. Everything should work out fine.
“You’ve already got the keys?” Glen asked.
“Justin gave’em. That alright?”
“You won’t be moving much in, or will you, since you're only staying the summer? I can be around to help you move, although Justin said you wouldn’t be moving any furniture in.”
God, could I sound any more agitated?—Glen imagined dropping a puck-sized sedative into a glass of water and swallowing. There now, that's better. Drugs always do the trick. Only he knew that wasn't the case: years back doctors had prescribed medication for his anxiety but nothing had helped. Medication doesn't work on every patient, he had learned.
“I’m keeping my stuff in storage,” Bill replied.
“You do realize Justin didn’t furnish much.”
“Justin lives on another planet sometimes. But since I won’t be staying in the apartment long, I figure I can adapt to a monastic lifestyle for a few months.”
Glen was relieved to be wrong about Bill Decker, who came across as both friendly and candid about his affairs. Glen scolded himself for judging a book by its cover. How silly. Besides, Justin had vouched for his classmate and he trusted Justin a hundred percent. Only first impressions were tough to shake: Bill cranking on the door knob of the shed, the hard gaze of someone who'd done time—for Glen had no doubt his summer tenant had done time.
A week passed without incident. Bill rarely made any noise when home and readily exchanged pleasantries whenever they bumped into each other. This proved to Glen that his original wariness had been unfounded and unfortunate; it had stemmed from something deplorable lurking inside the dark recesses of his character. He hadn't known a thing about his tenant, yet judged him unfavorably based on a conspicuously low-income background—for Christ's sake give the man a break! Bill Decker was a man working his ass off to get a good education. That was nothing short of commendable.
The discovery of his own prejudice disturbed Glen. Had he inherited the contempt of his fellow man streaking Martha's worldview? Was he mean-spirited like her?
Some tension over his tenant lingered nonetheless. No amount of constructive thinking could completely dispe
l Glen's fears. One day, he fantasized about phoning Russell.
“You’ll never guess who moved in,” he imagined himself saying.
“Isn’t that Justin guy living downstairs?” Russell asked.
“He left for the summer. I told you, remember?”
“So, who is it then?”
“Remember the guy we saw trying to break into the shed that one time? Well, it turns out his name is Bill and he’s my new temporary tenant. God, I’m freaking out.”
“You’re fucked.”
“Exactly.”
“No, you’re really fucked.”
“It’s funny that I'm half-panicking, is that it?”
“No kidding. Glen, you’re worth millions of dollars so now earn some of it. Jesus! You should have to work once in a while, don’t you think?”
“In the end, he’s probably not so bad.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“But he still makes me nervous.”
“Don't be childish!”
“I should’ve known you’d react this way.”
“You want to play landlord? This is the job.”
Chapter 10
Glen was at the pool house. Sorting though his father’s paintings, he recalled the two of them spending time together years ago. While Dad perched on a stool and painstakingly added brushstroke after brushstroke to a painting, Glen would often sit nearby—perhaps at the base of the easel—and doodle his imaginary creatures and fantastic landscapes. Later, when a little older Glen read or did his homework instead. For the most part they rarely spoke, but Glen still believed some kind of father-and-son bonding had been going on.
On one occasion a large canvas had been set up. His father was touching up an orange-winged angel escorting Adam and Eve out the gates of Eden, that famous biblical scene. Notably, the two transgressors were out of step, which was symbolic of their discord after falling out moments before: God had asked Adam who gave him the notorious apple and Adam had betrayed his helpmeet, Eve. And so, Adam buried his face in his hands while Eve wailed heavenward. Her pear-shaped body suited the punishment God had burdened her with, just as Adam’s muscular build fit the eternal toil that lay in store for him.
Glen’s father turned to Glen, an eleven-year-old at the time.
“Well, what do you think?”
“I dunno, about what?”
“Do you know the story?”
“God’s chasing Adam and Eve out of Eden.”
“Actually, that’s an angel wielding the sword.”
“Why did they have to leave?”
“They broke their promise.”
“That doesn’t seem so serious.”
“You don’t think so?” Glen's father asked.
“Couldn’t they ever go back? They look so sad.”
“No, you can never go back. That door's closed forever.”
As an adult Glen still enjoyed hanging out with Dad, albeit only his ghost—besides, it wasn’t right to abandon him all alone in the pool house. While it was true that Martha preferred banishing her husband’s memory for all-time, something she had essentially done by stashing his art in a location she never visited, a son couldn’t do without his father. Glen figured he needed to keep Colin close to him. At times the relationship fortified him.
Sitting there among the paintings, Glen made up his mind to take one home. A nice one to hang up in the living room. He lined several of his favorites against a wall and studied them, but just as he was nearing a decision the phone rang: it was Martha—shit! what did he do? Martha hated it when people didn’t pick up; if he didn’t answer now, an interrogation was certain the next time she called. Weighing the options, Glen nevertheless chose to leave the phone be, predicting that talking to his mother now would ruin his whole evening. She would get under his skin and upset him—Christ! she had already.
Martha, the next time she phoned: “You didn’t pick up when I called yesterday. Where the hell were you?”
“I must have been away from the phone.”
“You’re lying. I can always tell.”
“I was in the other room. I was taking a nap.”
Martha growled, “Just like your father. Weak. Feeble.”
“I was in the backyard. I was talking to a neighbor.”
“You sound more and more like Colin every day. You probably haven't been in touch with me lately because you screwed up again. Tell me, what is it this time?”
“Everything’s fine at my end. How are things with you?”
“So you want to play games, is that it? We both know what that means.”
“What's that?”
“You're not telling me something.”
“Is that so? Not this time.”
“Fine, we'll wait for the other shoe to drop, instead of you just telling me.”
“There's nothing to tell, Mom.”
“Glen, you’re not your father. You could be so much more.”
“Not a whole lot.”
“We could start over.”
Chapter 11
On the first of the month, Glen restrained himself from going downstairs. He wanted to give Bill Decker the opportunity to come pay the rent unbidden. His tenant failed to show up, however, and grim premonition pounced out of the shadows where it had been skulking all along. You could always tell the type—your typical problem tenant. Now he was forced to play the role of asshole and kick the whole landlord-versus-tenant power play into motion.
Anxiety kneaded Glen's insides. Bill wasn't at all like Justin Wheeler. He had an edge that set your nerves on end, his steely eyes even suggesting the possibility of violence. Dealing with a menacing tenant was virgin territory for Glen—how would his mother handle this kind of situation? How he longed for her guidance. Her cool head under pressure. For a whole hour, he fretted at the kitchen table over how to phrase his demand for the rent money.
So how about the rent, Bill, okay?
Give me my goddamned money, please.
Okay, don’t give me any trouble, motherfucker, please.
At eight the following evening—careful not to pester Bill during dinner and figuring that showing up later in the day seemed more nonchalant—Glen plucked up the courage to call on his tenant. He heard the drone of the television on the other side of the basement door and knocked. But then, with the press of a button, the TV went dead. Glen took a deep breath and knocked harder: a stern police knock this time. Nobody answered, though, and nobody was going to. Bill was pretty brash about it as well; not five minutes after Glen had gone back upstairs, up went the volume again. So there it was, plain as day. Hard reality.
What Martha had told him was all true.
Glen popped down the following evening—no tenant to be found though. On the third of the month, he knocked a bit earlier in the day, detecting a shuffle somewhere near the door. But he skipped back up the stairs without daring to knock again and felt relieved to have dodged a potentially nasty confrontation. I'll come back tomorrow. There is always tomorrow. Only afterwards did Glen realize Bill Decker might have been spying through the blinds as he ran from the door. A timid rabbit trying to collect money from a wolf.
Next day, the basement was sepulchral from dawn to dusk. Carrying his bedding to the living room that night, Glen lay down with an ear pressed to the carpet. Air molecules could be heard whispering conspiracy among themselves but there wasn’t a dry fart from his tenant.
Then, on the sixth of the month, at twoish in the afternoon a thud emanated from the basement below. The house would have smothered the sound had Glen not been paying such close attention. A leg had bumped into a table, or a box had been set on the floor, or a large book had fallen off a shelf—that motherfucking Bill Decker was home! Bastard, I've got you! Glen moved fast, bounding down the backstairs, which swayed beneath his weight. But the fear and apprehension leaping down after him quickly caught up, and he froze terror-struck as the lock snapped and the door swung open. What the hell did he do now? What should he say?
“I hate—sorry to bother you. How’re things going by the way?”
“Not so hot,” Bill said, without a smile.
“Everything going all right?”
“I lost my job.”
“Oh, crap.”
“I’ll be late with the money this month.”
“I see”—Glen gulped, swallowed saliva. “Oh, I see.”
“But I’ve already got another job. A bookstore on Broadway.”
“Oh, yeah? What an interesting place to work.”
“Might be. We'll see.”
“I'd love to work in a bookstore.”
“You want the number? They're hiring.”
“No, no. Thanks, though.”
Severity was warranted here, disapproval of some sort: Bill had deliberately evaded him. But the pit of acrimony in Glen's stomach vanished; his anger and resentment rocketed into outer space and their abrupt absence left him feeling light-headed. A soothing inner voice reminded him to have a little faith. Bill was working again, the rent money would be coming in soon. Being broke didn’t automatically make Bill a bad guy. You had to give people a chance.
Don't be the hard-ass everyone expects a landlord to be, Glen told himself. Be the kind of person you originally set out to be and stand by Justin’s friend, the friend of a friend.
“When can you come up with the rent?”
“I gotta fucking eat.”
Bill was punchy; Glen winced.
“Give me a week to pay last month’s rent, then I’ll work something out with a friend for next month. I’ve already talked to him about making some arrangement.”
“Fine, I appreciate that.”
Chit-chat was salve for Glen’s chafed nerves and his tenant obliged. Glen heard a chunk of Bill’s life story. Hippy communes in California, a cross-continent hitchhiking odyssey and, naturally, the drugs: Bill was a regular Charles Bukowski and a wonderful storyteller. In Texas he had duked it out with a seven-foot cowboy. Once he had almost become pig food on the farm of two hillbilly brothers. And there had been women everywhere. Given an opportunity to boast, Bill gladly did so: he reckoned he had slept with more than five hundred women over the years. Wow, Glen thought, Bill’s legions to my own big fat zero.
But the day came for Glen to call on his tenant again.