Sitting on the patio of Purgatory in the midday sun, Francine throws down today's newspaper in disgust on the table; she's tired of reading about the political convention downtown, and mad that she's been banned from its premises. She sighs, squints around, and lights a cigarette. Just then, brown-haired Chris comes out the back door with a beer in her hand.
"It's a little early for that, don't you think?" Francine smiles and gestures for Chris to join her at the table.
"Last night was rough," Chris says, scraping a metal chair across the brick paving as she pulls it out to sit down.
"Oh, no, did something happen again at that crazy place you live?"
Chris sits down and takes a sip of Weedwhacker Beer--"This summer brew'll get you drunk, but not enough that you'll cut your leg off!"--and says, "Of course! Someone finally moved into the apartment above us, but they only lasted about a week. They moved out last night during the night so we didn't get much sleep with all the slamming doors and dropping boxes on the floor that went on. I'm not sure, but they must work for the circus because I could swear that from the sound of the boards creaking in the ceiling that elephants must have helped move them out. Finally, I just called off work and slept in. I just woke up."
"Why'd they move out?"
"Who knows? Everyone is moving out of the building. I'm amazed anyone even tried to move in. Plus that apartment was a wreck. Nothing worked in it. The one time I was up there it looked like a scene from a horror movie."
"Why'd you go up there?"
"One night last winter, Chris was brushing his teeth in the bathroom and felt water dripping on his head. He saw that there was a leak in the ceiling, so he went upstairs to investigate. He knocked but no one was home. He tried the door and it was unlocked. He looked inside but was terrified at what he saw."
"What did he see?"
"Black mold growing on the walls, steamed up windows, a flood of water on the floor, and electrical wires sticking out of the wall."
"Yikes!"
"Yeah, so he came and got me, and we decided that it probably wasn't safe to go inside, so we called the apartment manager and she came over with the maintenance guy."
"Is that the guy who stole all the ceiling fans?"
"Yeah. This was before he got fired. He didn't seem to be fazed by the scene, which I found even more scary since that meant he probably dealt with horrorshows like that all the time. I mean it looked like a good place to murder someone in. Anyway, they shut off the power to the apartment and the maintenance guy waded in and found that a hot water pipe had burst in the bathroom. He turned off the water to the sink, and said he'd fix the rest in the morning."
"Did he?"
"Ha, ha, I don't know, but I doubt it. He never did much. They must have cleaned it up though at some point in order to get somebody to move in. I bet they didn't do it real well though, and that's why the people moved out right away. The slumlord probably just had somebody spray paint over the mold rather than remove it."
"That mold's probably not good for your health either. Aren't you going to move out?"
"We were going to, but then the landlord dropped the rent again, so we're going to stay a little longer," Chris says, taking another sip of beer, "Besides, just about everyone else in the building has moved out, so it's kind of nice having this big place to ourselves."
"Well, you and the mold anyway."
"There are worse neighbors to have. At least the mold is quiet."
Blog Love Omega Glee is a novel by Wred Fright about two bloggers who fall in love while the world falls apart, which is being serialized on his blog. To start reading from the beginning or read another installment, please visit Blog Love Omega Glee Central on WredFright.Com. If you like what you've read, or you've read all of Blog Love Omega Glee and want more Fright, then please read his first novel, which is available in print and as an ebook.
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