Top Posts Tagged with #part 05

Rent is Theft, part 5

Read from the beginning here, read the previous chapter here.

Note: My MC is a Filipina trans woman and I am not. If you have any advice or feedback about that or anything else, hit me up.

***

R1206- Marcie Tanner and Richie Cox.

northwest corner, 1 bdr.

The key to trespassing is always, always move with the confidence of a person that belongs. You almost can’t have too much swagger, but obviously subtlety is better than hamming it up. Grime moved himself in like a pro. He also helped us hook up modems to where we could get illegal internet service. His white boy confidence helped him exchange words with the neighbors from floors up, get to know them a bit better. I thought to myself that could be useful, but wasn’t at all curious to find anything out yet.

The worst was being around Grime after we boned. Even the best of men feel entitled to women’s bodies in a way they hardly notice. He felt like he could flirt with me now, like that would be the way we interact all the time. I did my best to not have him and Momi in the room at the same time, but it wasn’t always avoidable. Fortunately, he still had to haul his ass to work.

And when he went to work, Momi and I went to town, scrounging for food, clothing, toiletries, whatever we could get from the scant social services and cash available to us. The second day of Grime was a nice one, because we had his two hundred dollars burning a hole in our collective pockets.

We decided to go to the Value Village in North Seattle, because if we took the right buses, we’d be unlikely to run into Walter along the way. We weren’t out of the woods while we were still downtown, so we were incognito. Big sunglasses, big coats. I had gotten a new one for her, but it was an ill-fitting lightly stained trenchcoat, and I was hoping to do better.

We stood at the first bus stop of our journey, out in bright sun, looking up and down the street for the man’s shambolic gait. Sometimes while rubbernecking I’d find myself blinded by the back of Momi’s head and all that big black hair, and I had to smile.

We had her in a gauzy red head scarf, but it couldn’t restrain the beast. Her hair puffed relentlessly against its translucent confines. I kinda wanted to kiss her on the side of the head. Aside from the transgression of the act, it seemed likely to cause a hairsplosion. My lips were in check.

The streets were mercifully light on traffic - pedestrian or otherwise - so our vigilance wasn’t horribly stressful. It was getting hot in the sun though, and I hoped the bus had air conditioning, but wasn’t counting on it. The moment of truth came.

The bus lurched down the street and we braced ourselves. The routine was that I get on the bus first and look across the chairs for Walter, while Momi blocked the door from shutting, with one foot on the bottom step. If it was clear, I went down the aisle and she boarded. This time, it was clear.

There was nobody on the bus except one weathered-looking Native American woman, sitting near the back on the left. I staked out a seat for us nearer the front on the right. There was a sense of relief in this. As the bus got out of downtown, it was extremely unlikely he’d board it, to Momi’s thinking. He went to other neighborhoods, and even if he was looking for her farther afield, he’d be unlikely to choose the exact right neighborhood in the sprawling metropolis.

I stood quickly to usher her into the window seat, then slouched in beside her. We held hands then, mutually, easily. This life was an adventure with a very crappy monster in the hills (an ogre?), and it forged a bond. Her palm was sweaty but I didn’t care.

“Hey, Momi,” I said.

“Mm?” She was distracted by the street view, the slight possibility of an ogre sighting.

I wanted to distract her from that. Hell, she’d be less likely recognized if she wasn’t looking out the window. I said, “So, uh… What do you like to eat?”

“I eat too much.” She was still looking out.

“I call bullshit, kiddo. I’ve been with you every time you’ve eaten for the last week. Anyhow, what’s fun to eat? You like rich stuff like hamburgers, or sweet stuff like desserts?”

“Mm, dessert.”

It was a blow off, but I chose to ignore that. “Good, good. What’s a nice dessert? Pie? Ice cream? Cake? Candy?” I worked my hand around to where I could bounce hers on her thigh. Annoying, but hopefully distracting.

“Ugh.” She wrestled my hand into a less silly position and squeezed, locking me there. “What are you talking about?” She finally glanced at me, then back to the road.

“Dessert. What’s a nice dessert?”

“Coconut creme pie.”

“That’s not bad. You want one today?”

“Uh, no, it’s stupid. We should just get me the clothing.”

“Hey, we have enough. Don’t worry so much. We’re cool criminals. If we need something bad enough, we can steal it.”

She finally looked at me without looking away, her cute face fuming away. “Don’t say that. The more crimes you do, the more you get arrested. And I don’t need dessert, obviously.”

I pouted. “Not even once? Just today, while we’re rich?”

She headbutted me on the shoulder. “No!”

I blew an exaggerated sigh. “Pssh, I guess, I can take no for an answer. But if you wanna be little miss healthy pants, at the least I’m gonna buy you a hot turkey sandwich.”

Momi glared. “If you gotta.”

“With melty cheese.”

“Ugh.”

“And fire-roasted tomatoes.”

She headbutted me again, still not letting go of my hand. The hairsplosion happened.

“Ow, that really hurts!” It really hurt.

She looked proud of herself, through narrowed eyes and a jungle of big dark hair. “Good.”

“Hey, let me do something with that.” I let go of her hand and touched the Hawaiian girl’s puffy tresses, bouncing them with upturned palms. “It’s gone all crazy.”

“Yeah, OK. Just get the scarf on again, OK?”

She turned toward the window and I started gathering in the soft pleasant mess, the scarf across one of my palms as I worked. A sob startled me and I whipped my head about, noticing the native woman was having some kind of emotional crisis. “Jesus” escaped my lips, thankfully quiet.

“What was that?,” Momi asked.

“Nothing, sorry.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Just...” I spoke quietly at the side of her head, “The woman back there, she’s crying. Just startled me is all.”

Momi turned to face me, ruining my progress. “Courtney, you have to help her.”

“What? No. No, why? Maybe she just wants to be left alone. I wouldn’t want anyone talking to me if I was crying.”

Her look was so judgmental. “Why wouldn’t you? You can’t just help one person and don’t help somebody else. It isn’t fair.”

I gave her a shady look. Come on, young lady. “I don’t think that’s how fair works. If I help someone, then someone is supposed to help me. If I help two people, then two people are supposed to help me, or one person can help me twice. I’m not choosy.”

She shook her head. “No, see, I don’t know, maybe it isn’t fair for you, but, like, between me and her it isn’t fair. If I’m helped somebody else should be helped. Should I help her?”

She looked down and away, so serious. I thought it was adorable, but I could tell she wanted this to happen and was too shy to do it herself. It was time to use my big-ass big head again.

“No, I’ll do it.”

The way she looked at me made it worthwhile, but I still wasn’t looking forward to stepping into another stranger’s misery. I tried to bask in that feeling as long as possible - barely a second and the sweet expression was cross-fading into “why aren’t you moving yet?” I got up while the bus was still in motion, carefully moving to the back.

The woman looked up at me in a social panic, face crumpling in the confusion of emotions. I had guessed right - she wasn’t crying for help. I instinctively tried to play down the heavy feelings with a hand gesture, palm down, like I was patting something away. Casual face, so casual.

“Hey, how far are you riding?”

“Whu-- Northgate. Wh-?” Still confused. That could work to my advantage.

“I don’t want to pry, but I also want to take the edge off your troubles.” I sat down sideways on the seat in front of hers, and looked as easy-going as possible. Oh yeah, take off your sunglasses. One, it helped me communicate with the eyes. Two, another chance to look cool.

She sniffed. “I don’t need that. I don’t.”

“No one cries when all their needs are met. You might be surprised what I have to offer, if you’ll accept it. You need food? Somebody giving you trouble?”

“I… that’s weird to say to a stranger. What… are you about?”

“I don’t need personal details to help, necessarily. Just say whatever you feel comfortable saying, OK? What do you have to lose, except some crying time between here and the transit center?” I smiled. So confident.

She looked around for an escape as she talked. “There’s nothing any-- You don’t need to-- It’s just the usual kind of shit. They pulled my disability again, this time I just can’t… I’m gonna be out on my ass.”

I tried to restrain my excitement. A sheisty solution to homelessness was pretty much the only thing I had to offer anyone. I nodded as I listened. “Out on your ass, indeed. Go on.”

She finally locked eyes with me. “Stop messing with me.”

“I’m for real. Momi over there, she’s with me on this deal, and we’re for real.”

“Momi? I heard someone was asking around for a Momi.”

“Horrible guy? He’ll never get her, because we’re cool criminals. Don’t worry about her, tell me about you. Have you never been homeless before? Does it have you feeling like it’s the end of the world? Or is it something else about the situation?”

“...Yeah, my last boy, Richie. My other boys are all gone, somewhere, but he’s still with me. Or his dad Frank. I mean, I don’t know why I’m crying, Richie can live with his dad, doesn’t have to be--.”

“Is Frank a jerk?”

“He hates Frank.”

I nodded sagely. “I have a place you could live - both of you - where you’d only have to pay as much as you can, even if that’s nothing. You might not like it, though.”

“What’s the catch?”

“It’s illegal. You could get arrested, if something goes wrong.”

She didn’t seemed surprised, and was actually considering it.

While she was quiet, I filled in more explanation. “I got all the keys to a floor in one of those new empty apartments downtown. They’re never renting those units in this economy. We could be there for months, even years before anyone moves in and blows the deal. All we have to do is keep our heads low, act like we belong there whenever someone sees us.”

She took what I was saying wrong. “You don’t have to justify yourself, girl. I’ll do it. I can kick in a hundred dollars when this new round of bullshit settles down.”

“Ah, well. That was easy.” I couldn’t help smiling. “Where are you going today?”

“The disability people got this office in a college for some reason? Three buses. All day shit.”

“I’m sorry. Do you have a phone?”

“No. Where’s a good place and time to meet?”

“There’s a restaurant a block away. Just a Subway, so not likely to bounce anyone. Say when.”

“I could get anywhere down there by like, ten o’clock tonight.”

“It’s a date. What’s your name?”

“Marcie Tanner.”

“Courtney Marquez.” I reached out to shake her hand. She accepted. “To criminal trespass.”

“To criminal trespass.” She smiled, grey yellow and gold. Her kind, worn eyes were tinted grey beneath large transition glasses.

I left her with another smile and returned to Momi.

“How did it go? Is she OK?” Momi couldn’t make herself look back.

“I’ll be handing out more keys.”

She put her hands over her face and made a funny high noise. “Oh god, I hope we don’t get arrested. I’ll feel terrible.”

I slid into the seat and put a leg up on the one in front. “If it comes to that, blame it on me.”

***

Momi and I had a good time finding her new clothes. It looked a lot less hobo, which would be important to keeping up this con. I got her to eat a small slice of coconut cake with half of a grocery store turkey melt.

We got home pretty late, moving quick through the streets with our heads on swivels. In distraction at the Walter watchout, I almost walked us in front of a garbage truck. At the apartments, Momi refused to go see Marcie at the Subway - too shy - so I left her behind and got the keys from my place. I didn’t have a lot of time until ten, but it was at least enough to change into a track suit and windbreaker. It was similar to the clothes I was wearing the first time I met Walter, but I was starting to doubt I’d see him, and it was the most comfortable thing I had aside from pajamas and bathrobes.

Grime stopped me in the hall.

“Courtney, would it be presumptuous of me to invite some guys to move in?”

A machine in my mind ground to a halt, then pistons started to rise, ever so slowly.

“Well… Think about it, really hard. Do you trust them to not mess up, even by accident?”

He answered too quickly. “Sure. It’s this janitor at work. See, the rent on his place went--”

“I have to go meet someone. I’ll come by your apartment tonight, OK?”

I didn’t like his smile, “Sure thing, baby,” but I couldn’t stop the reflex to smile back. I walked.

The city was dark shades of grey green and blue, with occasional stripes of pinkish and amber from the few remaining old-fashioned light sources. The transition to energy efficient lighting had left the world at night a more chilly-looking place.

The Subway sandwich joint I was headed to still had high-powered yellow-white ceiling lights, which combined with the tall wide windows made the place gleam like a well-lit aquarium in a dark room, like that painting with the people at the diner. I thought, a passing creep could see me in there quite well, even from a bus seat. Better keep my back to the world.

She was in there, a short brown-skinned lady with oversized worn-out denim jacket. Marcie’s glasses reflected the lights, her hair lay flat and out of sight in a ponytail, her skin covered in lines and spots of age. I was certainly closer to her age than Momi’s, and wondered how long it would be before I looked like that. It didn’t bother me too much.

I came through the door, and noticing that she hadn’t purchased anything, I went to the counter to pick something up. I didn’t want us to be bothered by an employee with too little to do. I settled on three M&M cookies and two cokes - one diet and one regular.

I settled down at her table, very close because of the angle I needed to keep my back to the windows. She scooted her chair to a more comfortable distance. I said, “This is diet and this is regular.”

She took the regular. “Wow, this is it, huh? How does this work?”

I leaned back and took a bite of a cookie. “We go back to the building, you pick a place, and I give you a key. It’ll come with a little dongle thing to beep your way in the doors. I’ll have to show you around because if you get lost, it’ll be suspicious. And when you’re in there, doing your best to look well-off is a good idea. Just, make sure as soon as you can that you have at least a little bit of clothing with no holes or stains, something that can look bougie at a glance.”

“That’s tough.” She looked at the cookies without a move and sipped her drink.

“A long coat might help. Get a pretty good-looking one, some costume jewelry, and throw that stuff in a plastic bag when you’re out doing stuff, so they don’t get messed up. I bet a hat would help you look more like a fancy lady.”

“What does that look like? More white?” She smiled sideways.

“Maybe, heh. But no, I’m thinking, like, don’t church ladies usually have hats? Go for a church lady thing, might help distract people from noticing, like, class clues.”

“Huh.” She took another sip and contemplated. “I must be getting pretty old to have to do that kind of disguise.”

“Aww, don’t think anything of it. I’ll be there in a hot minute.” I sipped the diet coke. Worse than I remembered. I’d need more of that cookie. “So maybe we should know each other better. What do you think?”

“Are you trying to..?”

“What? No. Not that you aren’t-- nevermind. I just mean, so it feels less weird to be in on this conspiracy together. What do you think?”

She folded her hands on the table. “Conspiracy? Could they charge us with that too? Maybe the less we know about each other, the better - like if we get interrogated by the pigs.”

At the mention of pigs, my lip curled in a snicker. I straightened it out. “I wouldn’t worry about that. Anyhow, I’m Courtney, you can probably tell I didn’t always have that name, I’d rather not talk about that. I used to be a coder over there, got fired, decided I didn’t want to give up my home - such as it is. That’s how this all started. Momi is like you - just someone who was in a jam, I got her an apartment up there. Don’t let anyone know where she is, OK?”

She listened with little nods.

“So… Is there anything else you want to know about us? About me?”

“I guess… She’s hawaiian, are you?”

“Pinay. My family was pretty well off, so sometimes it could feel like I was honorary white. But men always end up reminding me, somehow. Nevermind that. What’s your boy like?”

“Richie is the only one. Clark died and the other two, I don’t even know where they are,” she looked at her hands to avoid me on those sad notes, “But Richie is the real thing. He’s a very good boy. Healthy too. He used to be so small and skinny. Well, he’s still skinny, but he got so tall, and he plays basketball.”

“I love it. Do you think he’ll move in too?”

“Oh, I’d hate to… get him arrested but...”

“I’m sorry.”

“I don’t know, he’s a big boy now. He can make his own decisions. I will tell him about it… You know, he’ll probably say yes.”

“Why do you think that? Is it just because the alternative is Frank?”

“No, he’s an anarchist. With the black bandanas and protest stuff. Freakin’ kids.”

“Aw, I’m sure he’s swell. There’s a guy on our floor already who’s a socialist.”

“There’s other people?” She looked a bit startled.

“Sorry I forgot to tell you about him. He still has his job coding, where I used to work. He’s cool though, he thinks rent sucks, wants to make this work.”

“Huh...” She considered the ramifications. “How many of us will there be? Will it make us more likely to get caught?”

I couldn’t stop myself from telling the truth. “I don’t know. If we all just act like nothing’s wrong, like we belong there, I just… have no idea how long we can get away with this.”

We were both quiet for a time, then she picked up a cookie. “That’s OK.”

I walked her to the apartments and let her in. It felt official to me, like there was just zero turning back. Marcie was in. On the floor proper she seemed nervous like Momi had been, but less emotionally fragile. I gave her a blanket from my room and we picked out an apartment for her. She went with 1206, the one bedroom at the northwest corner of the building. Unlike the two-bedroom Grime had taken up next door, its windows only faced one direction - west. She got the key, she got to try to sleep.

I couldn’t imagine she’d succeed on this, the first night of her life of crime. But there seemed to be a constant low rumble on that end of the floor that night, and I supposed it might lull her to sleep.

I steeled myself and went to see Grime. As I went I noticed the walls in the hall held an odd sheen, like snails had crawled all over them, someone washed afterward and it didn’t come completely clean. I touched the wall with a finger and it ran along smooth as I walked. Maybe it was just my eyes.

It only took a moment for him to answer the door, and he showed me into his living room. It looked similar to my place, but with a lot nicer technology. Still, it annoyed me that my living space was so similar to that of a manly man.

I sat at one of the bar stools. His unit also had a kitchenette separated from the living room by a simple island bar, pre-furnished with three stools.

He stood opposite the counter from me, arms wide. “Would the mademoiselle care for a refreshment?”

I steepled my forearms and laced my fingers together, looked across the table imperious. “This flirtation should stop, Graeme. I don’t want this situation to get messed up because of personal stuff.”

His face fell and he stood back. “OK, sure, you have my word. I mean, for me this is real important. A kind of direct action against the system. Nothing to do with making time. For real. Now you want a drink, Miss Marquez?”

I rolled my eyes and slouched. “Yeeess, what do you have?”

“I don’t drink much so I have a selection for guests. If cold matters, all I’ve got in the fridge is pabst, grey goose, and box wine. Other than that, some fireball and jim beam.”

“Box wine it is, big spender.”

He eased up and smiled as he went for the drink and a glass. “So you wanted to talk about my prospects?”

“Ah, yeah. That’s what this was about. My mind is garbage. And today wasn’t even all that hard. Yes, tell me about these prospects.”

He passed me the drink and I half downed it while he spoke. “A janitor at work, kind of an old guy, I overheard him saying his rent had gone up a ton several months ago. And because he couldn’t find a good place to move to within that first month of increase, whatever savings he could scrounge started getting drained out by the higher rent. So basically, he’s completely fucked. On top of that, his husband is starting to have problems with dementia and the neighbors are criminals.”

“Oh? Damn, that really sucks. I mean, moving here they’d be criminals themselves, but... I think you’re right, Graeme. Sounds like a good prospect. I don’t know why I doubted that.”

He grinned wolf-like. “Everyone knows I am the best. Now I’m busy at work and you aren’t, so I thought maybe you could help them move?”

“What? God. You’re the worst. Give me all of your alcohol and I’ll think about it.”

“Damn. Is this what the post-capitalist economy will look like?”

“I hope so, nerd.” I shot him with a finger gun, this one significantly less sexy than the one from the night of our tryst.

He clutched his chest. “Estoy perdido, pero ¡viva la revolución!”

“No me gusta, dude.”

***

Read the next chapter here.

Trending Tags

Last Seen Tags

#part 05

Trending Tags

Last Seen Tags

#part 05