Chapter 3
— Chapter 3 —
Vista View Apartments used to be the Vista View Motel, until it got too run down for tourists and they started renting to people like me. The only change to the rooms was the addition of half-sized kitchen sinks and a counter where you can rest your own hot plate or coffee pot, but not both because it’s too small. The view is the backside of a chain hotel that’s behind another chain hotel, but maybe Vista View came first and for a little while the name was true. From this distance, the choppy winter waves in the narrows sound like cars on a highway. I wanted so badly to live near the sea, and then I got used to it.
My apartment is only on the second floor, but it takes ten minutes to climb the single flight of stairs, and the victory of my summit is short-lived. There’s a yellow piece of paper taped to the door. I’ve seen that notice on other doors over the years, so even before I read the words, I know I’m being evicted. The form says I have seven days to vacate, but I was in the hospital for two and a half of them.
I tried to save my summer money last year so I could have a cushion for once. But the alternator in my car quit in August. I had the flu in September and missed five shifts. And then snow in early October wiped out foliage tourism. I had to start boxing half my shift meals to make them last for two. Aside from work, I didn’t go anywhere I couldn’t walk to save on gas, and filled in washing dishes at The Clam when there weren’t any extra bar shifts. I was going to catch up on rent this month, but now I’ll have hospital bills and more missed shifts. Off-season is usually rough, but this one is brutal.
I drop the key while I’m trying to open the door and have to kick my shoe off, grab the key with my toes, and lean against the wall to meet my foot halfway. I never realized how hard abdominal muscles work. Balancing makes me cry. When I finally get inside, I lie wrong ways on the bed and stare at the painted pastel sunset bolted to the wall until the little white vees that are supposed to be seagulls start to blur into the pale orange sky. I should track down the super and beg for an extension, but I can’t even find the strength to reach for my pillow.
It’s night, then day, and then night. Sometimes I’m not sure if the light is sun or headlights in the parking lot. Sometimes I’m not sure if I am actually awake. I debate peeing the bed more than once. I debate calling an ambulance too. I sleep leaning against the dresser when I can’t make it back to bed. Another time I sleep on a towel on the bathroom floor. I eat peanut butter and crackers and uncooked ramen noodles. I bite around the not-bruised part of the last apple from my mini fridge. I think about calling for takeout, but fall asleep, and when I wake up, I can’t remember if food is coming. I don’t think it ever does. When the hurt gets too high, I take pills without looking at the clock.
Once my thoughts and body finally start to reconnect, I am six days into the eviction notice. It’s too late to find someplace new when I owe money here and haven’t worked in a week. Too late to rally drunks from the bar to drive over in their dented pickup trucks and move all the junk I’ve acquired. It is too late to beg the super, because I’m likely to fail and don’t want to call attention to the shitty thing I’m about to do.
When it’s dark again, small armloads at a time, I fill the trunk of my car with the things I can carry and leave the rest for someone else to deal with. It’s mostly books, both what I take and what I leave behind. Stacks and stacks of dusty clothbound novels with pencil marks on the endpapers: ~.50 and ~$1, ~$2.50 if I was feeling spendy. The books I take aren’t necessarily my favorites, but ones I know I’ll never find again, not even in another antique store. I’ve read every one. Loved the books I didn’t even particularly like, because they felt like friends. They were better than people. I stop loading the car when my incision echoes the throb of my heartbeat. It’ll have to be enough.
I close the trunk, climb the stairs to my apartment one last time.
Sleep until four AM.
Leave the door ajar when I go.