Billy Summers

There’s a corner grocery, but it’s closed up. Like many declining neighborhoods, this one is a food desert. There are two barrooms, one closed and the other looking like it’s just hanging on. A pawn-shop that doubles as a check-cashing and small-loans business. A sad little strip mall a bit further on. And a line of homes that are trying to look middle class and not getting there.

Billy guesses the reason for the area’s decline is the vacant lot right across the street from his target house. It’s a big expanse of rubbly, trash-strewn ground. Cutting through it are rusting railroad tracks barely visible in high weeds and summer goldenrod. Signs posted at fifty-foot intervals read CITY PROPERTY and NO TRESPASSING and DANGER KEEP OUT. He notes the jagged remains of a brick building that once must have been a train station. Maybe it served bus lines as well – Greyhound, Trailways, Southern. Now the city’s land-based transportation has moved elsewhere, and this neighborhood, which might have been busy in the closing decades of the last century, is suffering from a kind of municipal COPD. A rusty shopping cart lies overturned on the sidewalk across the way. A tattered pair of men’s undershorts flap from one of its wheels in a hot wind that tousles the hair of Billy’s blond Dalton Smith wig and flutters his shirt collar against his neck.

Most of the houses need paint. Some have FOR SALE signs in front of them. 658 also needs paint, but the sign in front reads FURNISHED APARTMENTS FOR RENT. There’s a real estate agent’s number to call. Billy notes it down, then goes up the cracked cement walk and looks at the line of doorbells. Although it’s just a three-story, there are four bells. Only one of them, second from the top, has a name: JENSEN. He rings it. At this time of day there’s probably nobody home, but his luck is in.

Footsteps descend the stairs. A youngish woman peers through the dirty glass of the door. What she sees is a white man in a nice open-collared shirt and dress pants. His blond hair is short. His mustache is neatly trimmed. He wears glasses. He’s quite fat, not to the point of obesity but getting there. He doesn’t look like a bad person, he looks like a good person who could stand to drop twenty or thirty pounds, so she opens the door, but not all the way.

As if I couldn’t push my way in and strangle you right there in the foyer, Billy thinks. There’s no car in the driveway or parked at the curb, which means your husband’s at work, and those three unmarked bells strongly suggest that you are the only person in this old faux Victorian.

‘I don’t buy from door-to-door salesmen,’ Mrs Jensen says.

‘No, ma’am, I’m not a salesman. I’m new in the city and looking for an apartment. This looks like it might be in my price range. I just wanted to know if this is a nice place. My name’s Dalton Smith.’

He holds out his hand. She gives it a token touch, then draws her own hand back. But she’s willing to talk. ‘Well, it’s not the greatest area, as you can see, and the nearest supermarket’s a mile away, but me and my husband haven’t had any real problems. Kids get into that old trainyard across the way sometimes, probably drinking and smoking dope, and there’s a dog around the corner that barks half the night, but that’s about the worst of it.’ She pauses and he sees her look down, checking for a wedding ring that’s not there. ‘You don’t bark at night, do you, Mr Smith? By which I mean parties and loud music.’

‘No, ma’am.’ He smiles and touches his stomach. The fake pregnancy belly has been inflated to about six months. ‘I like to eat, though.’

‘Because there’s a clause about excessive noise in the rental agreement.’

‘May I ask how much you pay per month?’

‘That’s between me and my husband. If you want to live here, you’d have to take it up with Mr Richter. He’s the man that handles this place. Couple of others down the block, too … although this one’s nicer. I think.’

‘Completely understood. I apologize for asking.’

Mrs Jensen thaws a little. ‘I will tell you that you don’t want the third floor. That place is a hotbox, even when the wind blows from across the old trainyard, which it does most of the time.’

‘No air conditioning, I take it.’

‘You take it right. But when it comes on cold weather, the heat’s okay. Course you have to pay for it. Electricity, too. It’s all in the agreement. If you’ve rented before, I guess you know the drill.’

‘Boy, do I ever.’ He rolls his eyes and finally gets a smile out of her. Now he can ask what he really wants to ask. ‘What about the downstairs? Is that a basement apartment? Because it looks like there’s a bell—’

Her smile widens. ‘Oh yes, and it’s quite nice. Furnished, like the sign says. Although, you know, just the basics. I wanted that one, but my husband thought it would be too small if our application gets approved. We’re trying to adopt.’