Today, my mantra is different. Today, it goes, "I'm broke. Really, finally broke." I have my own motivation to blame because I was much more comfortable denying the situation. Instead, I looked for cheaper apartments and saw what my price range will get me - from the outside, at least. Looking for an apartment mid-week is difficult because even apartment managers have jobs. My day off is not everyone else's day off. Mostly, I got voicemail. The only one I spoke to was Bob.
Bob worried me. He didn't sound like someone who should be responsible for managing a property by himself. If he looked after the details of people's lives, I pictured him doing so on closed circuit television through surreptitious cameras in indecent places. Bob sounded like someone more comfortable with a three-day beard on his graying face. Bob bought beer on sale and fell asleep at the beginning of old movies that followed his baseball games. Bob was only lonely because he can't stand cats. He tried. Bob loved a cat once, but it almost lost him his home. An apartment manager's unit shouldn't reek of cat urine. Bob's cat pissed on the new carpet no matter how many times it was replaced, just to show her dominance over Bob. The cat's name was Tulip.
Bob tried to give Tulip to a better home. First, he tried the couple in the unit with hard wood floors. Then, the gay guy down the block who heard Bob venting about his predicament at Starbuck's. He even tried to "donate" Tulip to a retirement home across town that was featured on the news for using animals to comfort its residents. Each time, Tulip ran home to Bob and peed outside his first floor window. Bob immediately knew Tulip had returrned.
Bob loved a cat once, and the cat wouldn't let go.
The night the cat came back from the retirement home, Bob sat in silence finishing his six pack of half-priced beer, sweating profusely as he considered his options. Tulip pranced around her chosen home, weaving her way in and out of Bob's legs and the legs of the couch. She climbed into Bob's lap when she was through and demanded he pet her. She purred in arrogant delusion while Bob dripped tears and sweat.
Tulip's eyes shot open as Bob's thick fingers closed around her neck. She tried to scream, but the palm of his other hand clamped over her face and twisted with a force that solved Bob's predicament.
Bob lives with himself because he couldn't give up his home. How pathetic it would have been to see a scraggly old homeless man with a bedraggled cat walking the city streets at night. He couldn't do that to Tulip. If only he had loved her a little bit more, maybe...
Bob sits alone most nights, watching baseball, drinking beer and not thinking about what his tenants say about him. They say he's nice and cooperative, but sometimes cold, even creepy. They say (laughingly) that he's the kind of guy who watches through peepholes in the bathrooms.
There are no holes in the bathroom walls. None in the closets anymore, either. There never were any hidden cameras. Just Bob and his quiet life alone without a cat.
I don't think I will rent an apartment from Bob.
