Chapter 9
T
he next morning the men who believe in angels are still in the stairwell. That’s why Lucas doesn’t dare order pad thai from his usual place, so instead he eats a ham and cheese sandwich with mayonnaise. Then his phone rings, and of course Lucas tries to decline the call, because what normal person answers
their phone? But unfortunately he’s got mayonnaise on his fingers, so he accidentally pushes the wrong button.
“Hello?” says the voice on the other end.
“Mmm,” Lucas grunts discontentedly.
“Hello! I’m a real estate agent! I represent one of your neighbors who’s selling his apartment,” the voice bubbles.
“Okay. But I don’t want to sell my apartment. Thanks for calling,” Lucas says, munching his sandwich.
“No! No! I wonder if you want to buy
the neighbor’s apartment!” says the estate agent.
“Why would I want that? I have my own apartment,” Lucas points out.
The real estate agent takes a very deep breath, as though what he’s about to say is actually so stupid it needs a little run-up.
“Well, here’s what I’m thinking: Because of the pile of garbage on the street outside your building, of course no one wants to buy an apartment there right now. But then I thought, you live there already! So you obviously don’t mind living there? So then maybe you want to buy your neighbor’s apartment?”
“But . . . then what would I do with my own apartment?” Lucas asks with a mouthful of sandwich, causing some of the sandwich to get on the phone, and when he moves his phone he then gets a little sandwich in his ear. Pad thai would never have treated him this way.
“Well, I’m sure you can sell your own apartment with the help of a good real estate agent. I can recommend a colleague!” the agent promises.
“But . . . you’re a real estate agent?” Lucas points out.
“Yes, but not a good
one,” the agent admits.
Lucas promises he’ll think about it, because it’s the nicest way he can think of to say: I think you should be locked up. When he hangs up the phone, he’s got mayonnaise almost everywhere, and as he’s trying to wipe himself down along with his phone, his doorbell rings. He tries to pretend he’s not home, but unfortunately the board shouts from outside:
“We know you’re home! We heard you talking on the phone!”
Lucas opens the door with the defeated manner of a sausage that dressed itself up as a carrot to avoid being eaten by a bear, only to be found by a rabbit.
“Yes?” he sighs.
“We’ve been informed that you’ve started a cult,” Head One of the board animal says.
“Cults are forbidden in the building,” Head Two informs him.
“What kind of cult is it? Is it a murder cult?” Head Three asks curiously.
Lucas closes his eyes and counts to ten, because he’s seen unhappy people on TV do that when they’re upset, and at this point he’s ready to try anything.
“I . . . have . . . not . . . started . . . a . . . cult,” he says, clenching his jaw so hard that he discovers he still has quite a bit of mayonnaise at the corner of his mouth.
“What do you call this then?” the entire board animal wonders with an agitated gesture toward the two men, who unfortunately are now no longer two men but more like about ten men and an equal number of women. The whole stairwell is actually full of cult members, all eating pad thai but in entirely different versions. One of them, as a matter of fact, looks like he is eating a spaghetti Bolognese. When the cult members see Lucas, they all start chanting:
“ANGEL! ANGEL!”
“It’s forbidden to be an angel in this building,” says Board Head Two.
“All right. All right,” Lucas groans, giving in to the fact that this seems to be the kind of situation where trying to apply logic and common sense will only make things exponentially worse.
“Also, eating is not permitted in the stairwell,” Head One of the board adds, handing Lucas a piece of paper.
“Are these more fines?” Lucas sighs.
“No, this is the guard-duty schedule. You didn’t come to the guard-duty-schedule meeting, so you’ve been assigned a shift between two a.m. and three a.m. tonight,” Head One informs him.
“Excuse me?” Lucas says.
“We have to guard the pile!” says Board Head Two.
“With violence, if necessary!” Board Head Three chirps, clenching her small fists.
“Not now, Linda, please,” Heads One and Two whisper.
This is when Lucas does something very, very stupid: he tries to be constructive and solve the problem. Any middle manager on the planet could of course have told him that this is a terrible decision, because the truth about problems is that the problem itself is never actually the problem. It’s always the people involved who are the problem. But unfortunately there are no middle managers around. So Lucas points to the men and women who are standing in the stairwell shouting “ANGEL! ANGEL!” and says to them:
“Listen! Do you really think I’m an angel? If so, I hereby order you to go down and guard the pile of junk all night!”
The men and women immediately get up and hurry down the stairs, eager to be the first to obey the angel’s instructions.
Lucas looks at the board with great satisfaction and says:
“There! Problem solved!”
Then he goes back into his apartment and plays video games and drinks wine. He falls asleep very, very happy. He is awakened by the sound of sirens.