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Bruce - Easter Eggs
[For those used to GWOT, be aware that Bruce stories are a different more personal sort of hell.]
I have a little shitty apartment to myself.
It literally took me years to set this arrangement up, and I don't want to see it get fucked up.
One hundred fifty unit apartment complex. Well, actually, one hundred fifty-two. My unit is off the records. So is the one the handyman uses. He's easily as anti-social as I am, but a really hard worker so everyone overlooks it.
In some ways, it would be easier and less of a hassle to be an addict. Scraping constantly for money, flaking and perpetrating, then finding a dealer one hasn't burned yet and making a deal. Trying to avoid that dreaded weekend in the can without a score.
Instead, I get up at 0530 and go around and unlock the three laundry doors and the front lobby. Put the FOR RENT sign up out on the sidewalk chained to a light pole. Make sure none of the lights failed, broke or were shot out before the sun comes up.
Then on Tuesday and Sunday, go back out around 0700 and make sure the dumpsters are pushed far enough away from the trash chute that the pup truck's blades can reach. Can't do it earlier because the grinding of the steel wheels wakes people up. Can't do it later because 0710 is when the truck shows.
That leaves me off the hook until noon when I go get the mail from the always-locked ofice ("By Appointment") and sort it into three categories: paid rent, bills owed, and bullshit. I drop the rent money and checks at the bank daily. I leave the bills piled on the manager's desk for her to pay eventually. Sometimes I add white and red notices. Once I had to go bang on her door because the water company was literally there to turn off the water and needed to be dispelled with a cashier's check.
I now open the bullshit and deal with it myself. I escorted the fire inspector during the last inspection. Then the handyman and I repainted the addresses and the apartment signs and I updated the posted directory. Then I went around and checked and lubed all the stairwell fire exit doors, arranging for a locksmith friend to help with a couple of the balkier exit bars. This led to me updating the fire emergency keys, rekeying all the maintenance doors, and not incidentally issuing myself a master key to every lock on the premises. Like the handgun I carry when taking the rent to the bank, very rarely needed, but needed very badly when it is.
Around 1700 I take the "For Rent" sign back down and put it away; check the laundry rooms and kick out the non-residents and homeless; make sure the pool cover is still over the permanently closed pool and there are no bodies floating in it (which only happened once), and go around and check license plates and have all the unregistered vehicles and any blocking the fire lane towed. This takes about an hour.
At 2100 I give an hour's warning that laundry's about to close and if necessary flip the breaker for the washers so you can't start another load. I check the lights and call the tow company back out if we have any other idiots who want to test the red curbs and fire line signage. At 2200 I clear and lock the laundry rooms, dumping any remaining laundry in the trash cans outside the doors.
Around 2400 - midnight - I do my fire and maintenance door checks, and knock on any apartments having a loud party and give first warnings.
About once a week I have a second warning. I record some video on my phone and they get a $100 fine added to the month's rent. Then I knock on the door, inform them of this fact, in writing and advise at 0100 I'll be back with the cops and they will have 30 days to move out if the cops issue a citation. Only done it twice.
(Officially the reason is failure to pay rent. It's really hard to pay rent when I shred any checks turned in for that apartment. Any cash ends up in the collection box at St. Anthony's.)
After about a year of this routine we have a lot of stable tenants. Mostly working-class folks and some elderly. But that's me, every day, making things run as they should.
So I'm pushing the second trash dumpster out from under the chute when I smell a very familiar odor.
Oh damn.
I put on a pair of gloves and use a picker to snag a corner of the black trash bag streaked with a darker black.
It rips and a piece of foot falls out.
I toss the picker back into the vestbule, take off the gloves and toss them on the ground and take out my phone to call police dispatch.
Happy Easter, but that's no rabbit's foot.
###
When you call the police in the mid morning, you roll the dice on getting a burned out day shifter or a burned out night shifter.
I'd gotten both. Kemper and Simpson.
"What you got?"
"Homicide," I said callously.
"Damn you. You called in found property!"
"That's a foot. It belonged to somebody."
They looked. And now they were as stuck as I was.
If I'd called in a homicide, people would have come running, with sirens, and woken people up and made a mess. Now that police were already on a cold scene, the arrival of detectives and sergeants would be more discreet.
###
Eventually, with the help of two detectives, things were put on their proper tracks.
The complex only had cameras covering the front lobby. That was very much on purpose.
In theory, anyone could have lugged the five bags full of leaky corpse up the two flights of stairs to the trash chute. Or backed up their car to the dumpster for that matter.
Out in the real world, where there was a blood trail on the 3rd floor chute and none on the dumpster edge, it had obviously been done by a tenant.
So the detectives knocked on the doors on that floor, the third door to open smelled of blood, and the detectives pushed past with their guns drawn to find that quiet old Mr. Murdoch had sectioned his wife in the bathtub, tried to get most of the blood down the drain, and found that this task as with many others in his life had been beyond his meagre capabilities.
The manager showed up, yanked me aside, and asked in a savage whisper that echoed off the nearby wall and was overheard by passing aircraft as well as all the police in a 300 yard radius, "Why the fuck did you call it in?"
"Because you don't want it in the news, right? Garbage crew would have found it. Then it's news. Watch. This will be gossip, but it won't be news."
###
The cops were clear by 10 AM. The police evidence van had left shortly before, which allowed me to transfer the remaining trash to another dumpster and hose out the first preparatory to pressure steaming. The former McMurdoch apartment was padlocked shut from the inside and I'd gone out the window.
People had looked curiously at the commotion while headed out to church, but I was still very much alive, so they didn't care one way or the other.
I didn't do church, except for getting rid of stolen cash in collections boxes and the one time I'd tuned up a priest who needed it.
The complex didn't do events. No easter egg hunts. No Christmas decorations. No damn fireworks! (and that was the day I carried a handgun concealed and a fire extinguisher openly, the whole day.)
Ms. Jackson asked me in for a cup of early afternoon coffee. Mine was unflavored, hers was brandied. Coffee yes, gossip yes, face sitting not today. I extracted myself with care from her clutches and tried to figure out what to do with the rest of my afternoon.
###
By 5 PM, four different people had tried to get into the Murdoch apartment. I'd trespassed two and started the eviction process on the third - what is with teens these days? - but let in his sister, who'd known his middle name, had working keys to the outside, and was merely after his heart medication and some clothes they wouldn't let him wear in the psych ward anyway.
She'd given me the OK, so I'd sorted the fridge and freezer into three categories - shelf stable (the smallest), trash for the dumpster, and good now but would go bad when the power was turned off, which I bundled to take over to the soup kitchen.
That was where the first unusual event of the day happened.
###
They were busy serving the dinner meal. I'd dragged staff off the line to process Mr. Murdock's generous donation, so they asked if I would step in and help with serving.
Seems simple. Wash arms and hands carefully, put on plastic film gloves, dish one generous scoop of cheezy meatish slop on top of each plate's pasta.
Was NOT. I hadn't factored in the people, and how many of them would know me.
Beating them up. Kicking them out of the laundry. One of the two families I'd evicted last year. Getting them fired from jobs they'd abused. The usual.
So I was asked to turn in my ladle. I needed to wipe the spittle off my face anyway. Somewhere else.
###
It was a valuable reality check. I didn't have a safety net. I couldn't eat here or sleep among these people. I'd be safer to actually be in the can with inmates and guards.
Getting home to find the pink eviction notice from Ms. Manager was almost anticlimactic.
I'd get her to change her mind. Just having to do her job would likely be enough. This was my third notice. The handyman had gotten one too, I saw. He'd had over a dozen but was still here.
Somehow my motivation for doing the pre-laundry checks was now lacking.
So I did them anyway.
###
"Bunnies don't lay eggs!" I overheard a young, scornful voice say from an upstairs window.
No, young lady, they fuck and get fucked.
And I was very clear on which was which.
What I could not do, never do, was a normal job. I just had too much of a mouth. A year of work erased by one smart remark.
Or someone else's stupidity, of which the world was quite full.
So I locked up the laundries - no clothes to throw out this time - and made my way back towards my apartment.
A note from Ms. Manager. Rescinding the eviction notice after she'd sobered up.
And a single dollar store chocolate bunny, sealed, resting on the note.
Happy Easter kid.
At least no one would be playing hide-the-Easter-Egg with my butt this year.
The bunny made the hop into my freezer.
The note, to my someday file.
My butt, into bed. Blessedly alone.
I have a little shitty apartment to myself.
It literally took me years to set this arrangement up, and I don't want to see it get fucked up.
One hundred fifty unit apartment complex. Well, actually, one hundred fifty-two. My unit is off the records. So is the one the handyman uses. He's easily as anti-social as I am, but a really hard worker so everyone overlooks it.
In some ways, it would be easier and less of a hassle to be an addict. Scraping constantly for money, flaking and perpetrating, then finding a dealer one hasn't burned yet and making a deal. Trying to avoid that dreaded weekend in the can without a score.
Instead, I get up at 0530 and go around and unlock the three laundry doors and the front lobby. Put the FOR RENT sign up out on the sidewalk chained to a light pole. Make sure none of the lights failed, broke or were shot out before the sun comes up.
Then on Tuesday and Sunday, go back out around 0700 and make sure the dumpsters are pushed far enough away from the trash chute that the pup truck's blades can reach. Can't do it earlier because the grinding of the steel wheels wakes people up. Can't do it later because 0710 is when the truck shows.
That leaves me off the hook until noon when I go get the mail from the always-locked ofice ("By Appointment") and sort it into three categories: paid rent, bills owed, and bullshit. I drop the rent money and checks at the bank daily. I leave the bills piled on the manager's desk for her to pay eventually. Sometimes I add white and red notices. Once I had to go bang on her door because the water company was literally there to turn off the water and needed to be dispelled with a cashier's check.
I now open the bullshit and deal with it myself. I escorted the fire inspector during the last inspection. Then the handyman and I repainted the addresses and the apartment signs and I updated the posted directory. Then I went around and checked and lubed all the stairwell fire exit doors, arranging for a locksmith friend to help with a couple of the balkier exit bars. This led to me updating the fire emergency keys, rekeying all the maintenance doors, and not incidentally issuing myself a master key to every lock on the premises. Like the handgun I carry when taking the rent to the bank, very rarely needed, but needed very badly when it is.
Around 1700 I take the "For Rent" sign back down and put it away; check the laundry rooms and kick out the non-residents and homeless; make sure the pool cover is still over the permanently closed pool and there are no bodies floating in it (which only happened once), and go around and check license plates and have all the unregistered vehicles and any blocking the fire lane towed. This takes about an hour.
At 2100 I give an hour's warning that laundry's about to close and if necessary flip the breaker for the washers so you can't start another load. I check the lights and call the tow company back out if we have any other idiots who want to test the red curbs and fire line signage. At 2200 I clear and lock the laundry rooms, dumping any remaining laundry in the trash cans outside the doors.
Around 2400 - midnight - I do my fire and maintenance door checks, and knock on any apartments having a loud party and give first warnings.
About once a week I have a second warning. I record some video on my phone and they get a $100 fine added to the month's rent. Then I knock on the door, inform them of this fact, in writing and advise at 0100 I'll be back with the cops and they will have 30 days to move out if the cops issue a citation. Only done it twice.
(Officially the reason is failure to pay rent. It's really hard to pay rent when I shred any checks turned in for that apartment. Any cash ends up in the collection box at St. Anthony's.)
After about a year of this routine we have a lot of stable tenants. Mostly working-class folks and some elderly. But that's me, every day, making things run as they should.
So I'm pushing the second trash dumpster out from under the chute when I smell a very familiar odor.
Oh damn.
I put on a pair of gloves and use a picker to snag a corner of the black trash bag streaked with a darker black.
It rips and a piece of foot falls out.
I toss the picker back into the vestbule, take off the gloves and toss them on the ground and take out my phone to call police dispatch.
Happy Easter, but that's no rabbit's foot.
###
When you call the police in the mid morning, you roll the dice on getting a burned out day shifter or a burned out night shifter.
I'd gotten both. Kemper and Simpson.
"What you got?"
"Homicide," I said callously.
"Damn you. You called in found property!"
"That's a foot. It belonged to somebody."
They looked. And now they were as stuck as I was.
If I'd called in a homicide, people would have come running, with sirens, and woken people up and made a mess. Now that police were already on a cold scene, the arrival of detectives and sergeants would be more discreet.
###
Eventually, with the help of two detectives, things were put on their proper tracks.
The complex only had cameras covering the front lobby. That was very much on purpose.
In theory, anyone could have lugged the five bags full of leaky corpse up the two flights of stairs to the trash chute. Or backed up their car to the dumpster for that matter.
Out in the real world, where there was a blood trail on the 3rd floor chute and none on the dumpster edge, it had obviously been done by a tenant.
So the detectives knocked on the doors on that floor, the third door to open smelled of blood, and the detectives pushed past with their guns drawn to find that quiet old Mr. Murdoch had sectioned his wife in the bathtub, tried to get most of the blood down the drain, and found that this task as with many others in his life had been beyond his meagre capabilities.
The manager showed up, yanked me aside, and asked in a savage whisper that echoed off the nearby wall and was overheard by passing aircraft as well as all the police in a 300 yard radius, "Why the fuck did you call it in?"
"Because you don't want it in the news, right? Garbage crew would have found it. Then it's news. Watch. This will be gossip, but it won't be news."
###
The cops were clear by 10 AM. The police evidence van had left shortly before, which allowed me to transfer the remaining trash to another dumpster and hose out the first preparatory to pressure steaming. The former McMurdoch apartment was padlocked shut from the inside and I'd gone out the window.
People had looked curiously at the commotion while headed out to church, but I was still very much alive, so they didn't care one way or the other.
I didn't do church, except for getting rid of stolen cash in collections boxes and the one time I'd tuned up a priest who needed it.
The complex didn't do events. No easter egg hunts. No Christmas decorations. No damn fireworks! (and that was the day I carried a handgun concealed and a fire extinguisher openly, the whole day.)
Ms. Jackson asked me in for a cup of early afternoon coffee. Mine was unflavored, hers was brandied. Coffee yes, gossip yes, face sitting not today. I extracted myself with care from her clutches and tried to figure out what to do with the rest of my afternoon.
###
By 5 PM, four different people had tried to get into the Murdoch apartment. I'd trespassed two and started the eviction process on the third - what is with teens these days? - but let in his sister, who'd known his middle name, had working keys to the outside, and was merely after his heart medication and some clothes they wouldn't let him wear in the psych ward anyway.
She'd given me the OK, so I'd sorted the fridge and freezer into three categories - shelf stable (the smallest), trash for the dumpster, and good now but would go bad when the power was turned off, which I bundled to take over to the soup kitchen.
That was where the first unusual event of the day happened.
###
They were busy serving the dinner meal. I'd dragged staff off the line to process Mr. Murdock's generous donation, so they asked if I would step in and help with serving.
Seems simple. Wash arms and hands carefully, put on plastic film gloves, dish one generous scoop of cheezy meatish slop on top of each plate's pasta.
Was NOT. I hadn't factored in the people, and how many of them would know me.
Beating them up. Kicking them out of the laundry. One of the two families I'd evicted last year. Getting them fired from jobs they'd abused. The usual.
So I was asked to turn in my ladle. I needed to wipe the spittle off my face anyway. Somewhere else.
###
It was a valuable reality check. I didn't have a safety net. I couldn't eat here or sleep among these people. I'd be safer to actually be in the can with inmates and guards.
Getting home to find the pink eviction notice from Ms. Manager was almost anticlimactic.
I'd get her to change her mind. Just having to do her job would likely be enough. This was my third notice. The handyman had gotten one too, I saw. He'd had over a dozen but was still here.
Somehow my motivation for doing the pre-laundry checks was now lacking.
So I did them anyway.
###
"Bunnies don't lay eggs!" I overheard a young, scornful voice say from an upstairs window.
No, young lady, they fuck and get fucked.
And I was very clear on which was which.
What I could not do, never do, was a normal job. I just had too much of a mouth. A year of work erased by one smart remark.
Or someone else's stupidity, of which the world was quite full.
So I locked up the laundries - no clothes to throw out this time - and made my way back towards my apartment.
A note from Ms. Manager. Rescinding the eviction notice after she'd sobered up.
And a single dollar store chocolate bunny, sealed, resting on the note.
Happy Easter kid.
At least no one would be playing hide-the-Easter-Egg with my butt this year.
The bunny made the hop into my freezer.
The note, to my someday file.
My butt, into bed. Blessedly alone.