Room for Rent

It was winter 1998. I was living in the Denver, CO area. While living in Colorado, I had been snowboarding during the winter and working seasonal jobs all other times. For this reason I never liked to sign a lease. I was a man on the go. I never knew where I would end up tomorrow. Also, I was broke. That’s why I was in Denver working odd jobs rather than snowboarding in the mountains. These reasons, mainly the moneyless part, led me to the “Roommates Wanted” ads.

I found a room being rented in a small house in a nice location. A 40-something divorced man was renting the house and there was a room he was not using. The price was right and I wasn’t having any luck finding two 25-year old girls that needed a roommate so I was in. No lease and a verbal agreement that I would give a month’s notice upon moving out.

It didn’t start out very well. He was a used-car salesman and looked the part. He must have had all his slimy charm on display when he sold me on the room. He was tall and wiry and had facial features - a skinny head, greased hair, and suspicious mustache -reminiscent of Bruce Dern. After a few conversations, I realized I had nothing to say to him. Nothing. I tried to avoid talking with him as much as possible. My room was big enough to contain my bed, an easy chair, and a nightstand that had a small TV perched on top. When home, I spent a lot of time in the room avoiding him.

As it turned out, avoidance wasn’t the real problem. He was out on the jalopy lot selling his clunky wares until close to midnight. Slothfulness and overnight delivery don’t mix so I was out of the house very early. He also worked weekends. This meant our paths didn’t cross very much other than the two weekdays that he was off. Except on those two days off he had custody of his kid.

This kid was the biggest crybaby ever. You hear stories from new parents how the baby was “up all night.” I always took those tales with a grain of salt. But this brat, who was two-years old, WAS UP ALL NIGHT! Just constant bawling. He was worse than the colicky baby in the “Andromeda Strain” that stymied scientists looking for a cure to the space bacteria that wiped out a small town. I’m surprised he didn’t die of dehydration based on the amount of tears flowing. Don’t they stop crying eventually? So two nights out of the week I got no sleep.

This guy also had a terrible relationship with his ex-wife, the mother of the spectacularly whiney and never-ending crying two-year old. As this was pre-cell phone days, I shared the house phone. Every day there were multiple messages of at least 10 minutes each with the wife just berating this guy. Really haranguing him like nothing else I have heard before or since. No wonder the kid cried all the time. I wasn’t familiar with the answering machine so I didn’t know how to fast forward through the messages without erasing them. I was embarrassed just listening to it. Worse yet was when she would call late night and he was not at home but I would already be in bed. I would be woken up by the ringing and then not able to get back to sleep while she loudly prattled on into the machine. Then he would come home and play the message. If the brat happened to be staying the night I would have the triple whammy. The harridan of an ex-wife on the machine, the guy cursing aloud at all her accusations, and the kid crying up a storm.

One day I get back from work and necessity navigated me to the bathroom. It was a mess. The toilet was overflowed and shit water was all over the carpet. (As an aside, let me strongly state my opposition to carpeting a bathroom.) The bathroom wasn’t like this when I left in the morning. It was a disgusting sight and smell. It was how I imagine it smelled when Chief Brody and Hooper cut open the tiger shark in “Jaws”. Unfortunately, I really had to go. I scanned the revolting scene for a plunger. No luck. I found a toilet scrubber and I worked the business end of it into the brown abyss. Because I had to go, I felt optimistic about clearing the clog. Optimism was never a very reliable gauge for future rational actions and it once again failed me. I flushed, and I watched in horror as the murky water rose above the rim and onto the carpet. All I could think was “Do toilets always flush for this long? When is this going to stop?” It was unbelievable. Was Godzilla in my bathroom that morning taking a shit?

I stepped out before I vomited. I was smart enough to place wads of newspaper down before stepping into that hellhole, so my shoes weren’t covered with defecation. I ran out to the local hardware store to get a plunger, and stopped at a gas station on the way. The gas station bathroom was paradise compared what I had just left. Plunger in hand I returned and successfully unclogged. The bathroom did not have an exhaust fan so there was still the wet carpet and smell to contend with. I opened the window and closed the door. Let him deal with it. I was in bed when he returned. I awoke to loud cursing. I knew what this was about. I got out of bed to get this bathroom confrontation over with. In a very terse conversation, I told him that I came home from work, saw this mess he left, purchased a plunger, unclogged the toilet, and the rest is up to him to clean up. (Astute readers will note that I failed to mention that I also flushed the toilet and caused an overflow. He didn’t need to know about that.) I went back to bed. The next morning the bathroom was still foul smelling and the carpet was still soaked around the toilet. I found a scrap of dry carpet and used that to stand on as I pissed in the bathtub. I didn’t want anything more to do with that bathroom. I skipped the shower and washed up in the kitchen sink and off to work I went. We didn’t talk to each other, not even a “Hi, how’re you doing?” for a week.

The coup de grace came after about four months living there. I returned from work one day and there was an eviction notice on the door. I read it several times. It didn’t seem to be a mistake. We were getting evicted. This pissed me off. Even though I hated living there and I had already given my month’s notice to move out, I became indignant at the thought of being evicted. Also, I paid rent for my room directly to this weasel. He was supposed to be paying the rent for the house to the landlord. I left the eviction notice up on the door so he would see it when he got home. I stayed up until he arrived back from selling his lemons. He walked in looking forlorn, holding the eviction notice in his hand. I immediately pounced on him. If I waited a second longer, I might have felt sorry for him as he looked like such the sad sack walking through the front door. “Where the fuck is my fuckin’ money!” I yelled. “I’ve been paying you and you can’t pay the fuckin’ rent and you’re getting me evicted?” This went on for some time. Me swearing a lot about him screwing me, and him yelling at me about his ex-wife screwing him. Although it felt good to yell and curse at him, eventually it was a dead-end.

As stated, I was already moving. I had accepted a job offer in Arizona. I sold my bed to a friend and told the guy that he could have anything I was leaving behind, which was a sofa and easy chair. I was going back to owning only what I could fit into my Chevy Blazer. I had a friend helping me pack my truck. As we were finishing up we sat on the sofa, which was on the front porch, and popped open some beers. The guy came to move his stuff out. He was alone except for the brat who would be offering no help. While the brat sobbed and cried in a playpen the guy hauled all his belongings into a moving van he had rented. I sat on the couch with my friend and didn’t offer a hand or a beer. Take that, you bastard.

So I moved to Arizona and stayed in the spare bedroom in my friend and his wife’s house for about 8 months. I’ll let them tell that story…