It was right about then that the landlady walked out and I told her at first that I was moving all of my boxes into storage; that seemed to put a smile on her face and a spring into her step, but that would be temporary. She then asked for the rent. I told I would pay her shortly, but she demanded that I pay her right at that precise moment.I knew right then and there of course, the shit was about to hit the fan big time! I faced her in a kind of non-expressive way and said, “Oh yeah, by the way, I wanted to tell you, in addition to moving all of my boxes into storage I’ve decided to move out of here and go live with friends…”
Not surprisingly, her jaw dropped about several inches and that’s when the fireworks began! For every point I made regarding my now quickly emptying apartment, she made excuse after excuse for. She told me I “needed help” and told me there were several doctors in the area that could help me out, to which I countered sarcastically, “No, you’re the one that needs help much more than I do!”
Then she told me that I was acting like a little boy, to which I said firmly, “No! You’re acting like a little girl!” She wanted the last word and I didn’t plan on giving it to her, not this time! I handed her a pro-rated check for 10 days I lived there, to which she whined, “You don’t really care do you,” to which I said, “Nope, I don’t care at all, after all this is an illegal apartment.”
She went absolutely nuts and shouted, “Yes, I know it’s illegal,” she declared proudly... (so, city government of Evanston, Illinois, if you feel like busting someone’s ass, here’s your chance: her name is Aandraya De Silva and her address is: 1633 Florence Ave; it’s a lavender house across the street from Cahill’s, even after all this time I have been gone, she still doesn’t have a proper address on her home and oh yes, I almost forgot, she’s rented out the illegal basement apartment again, so go get her and prove the voters of Evanston that you mean what you say when you enforce the city ordinances!!!)
From there, she screamed at the top of her lungs and threatened me by saying, “If you don’t come back and clean up this place, well, I know where you work,” to which I countered, “Yeah and I know where you live, your point?” Then, she went up to The Toothless Hag and started badgering him with all sorts of bad remarks about me; she knew she was losing the battle and so this was her way to make it up in the two and a half years time.
When he told her to get lost, she went flying into her house, grabbed her daughter, her daughter’s friend and her three yapping dogs (burritos with legs as Zog-19 & I called them) and piled them all into her car and demanded that I move the truck out of her way. We moved the truck... and sure enough, she revved up her car, backed it out of the driveway and flew down the street to wherever she was headed to.
We continued to load and pack the moving truck when all of the sudden, Zog-19 reported to all of us that the landlady had gotten into a car wreck! I didn’t care and the rest of my friends just shrugged their shoulders and kept loading and packing.
Before Twitchy drove the first load over in the moving truck to the new apartment, we all took a break for lunch. Zog-19 went to the local Burger King about 7 minutes away and bought everyone Whoppers, hamburgers & Cokes on the silver ten dollar bill I gave to him. I didn’t have very much money on me that day and figured that the silver ten dollar bill wasn’t going to be worth much more than $10, so I felt it would be better spent and collected by someone elsewhere.
As we drove the first load over to my then-new apartment, we passed her by. I grinned. My relief was well-worn. The move in my opinion went fairly smooth, to say the least after that little incident.
Everyone else left after the final move-in, closer to six o’clock in the evening to be exact, except for me and Zog-19; we hung out in the alley on a few cushions I had managed to snag from one of the two old couches that we had tossed out. The futon had to be dried out from the mildew and rainwater for nearly a week after the move.
I was able to return the moving truck on time and there were no further incidents from that point on. Zog-19 left closer to seven o’clock in the evening and I in turn went to fetch another good friend, Astute Annie who helped me mop up and clean whatever we were able to inside that apartment.
The landlady never returned to the house that night, as we drove up. The house was unusually quiet, which for once I was glad for. Sadly, there was so much mildew and must in that apartment, that it would seemingly make it hard for one to live in it, but since I was longer an occupant there, it didn’t matter at all to me anymore.
We cleaned up the inside for about three hours, just mopping the floors and wiping down the kitchen & bathroom areas, talking, singing and taking photographs to use as evidence later for the terrible water & mildew damage that wreaked havoc on me and my lungs while I lived there & in case I needed the documentation for future reference. Slightly after the beginning of cleaning into the third hour, I said to Annie, “C’mon, we’ve done as much as we possibly can, let’s just get the hell out of here.”
And with that, I packed up my Saturn with whatever I could hold, threw out the rest of the things in the trash or on the side of the fence along with the rest of the furniture I had tossed out, went back inside and took a look around for one last time, said a few silent prayers for the apartment, then got into my car, backed out of the driveway for one last time, dropped off Annie back at her apartment and went back to my new home at long last...
No comments:
Post a Comment