GRANDFATHERED

by

Cindy Rosmus

          “Samantha?”

          Kate, the crossing guard. Her saying my name like that, from behind me, made me nervous.

          I checked if the bus was coming before facing her.

          This look she had, like she knew something. Or wanted to. Nosiest bitch on the block, Bingo Joe always said.

          “Georgie’s selling the building?”

          “What?” I said. “No!”

          She smirked.

          Georgie, our landlord, was Bingo Joe’s boss. Mine, too, since I wasn’t working. That bus I was waiting on was for a temp agency’s skills test.

          “Where’d you hear . . .”

          “There goes your bus!” Kate said, as it flew past me.

          Against the light, I hurried across the street. “Hey!” she yelled.

          “Nah.” At the kitchen table, Bingo Joe smoked a joint with his Fruit Loops. “Georgie ain’t selling.” He passed me the joint. “Thought you had some test.”

          “You sure?”

          “Would’ve said something last night, on the phone. And, so what if he sells? Been down Florida two years now. I’m doing the shitwork.”

          “What if the new owner doesn’t want you?”

          A shrug, and deep toke, in response. Like “’The Dude’ Lebowski,” ‘cept Puerto Rican. Nothing fazed him.

But that rumor sent my brain spinning.

“We’ll be . . .” I choked on the word. “Homeless!”

 Outside the abandoned A & P, we’d be camped out, our five cats the “new kids” in the feral colony. Eating out of dumpsters. Sharing wine out of paper bags.

“Those big, red Salvy boxes?” he said, grinning. “Where people shove clothes?”

Itchy the gray tabby clawed his ankles, and he bent to rub his ears.

“Knew a guy lived in one. Didn’t like shit they threw in, he’d throw it back out.”

          Almost crying, I ran out.

Upstairs, like some psycho, I touched the lobby walls so I’d remember what they felt like. We should’ve watered those dying plants more. Packages, mostly from Pet Place, were piled up beneath the mailboxes. Two huge ones for old Miss Roberts in 1C.

Kitty litter for Sunshine, her huge gold Persian.

“NO PETS,” the current lease said. We’d all ignored it. The building was crawling with cats, rabbits, even a snake. Laying on the beach in Florida, Georgie wouldn’t know.

But the new landlord . . .

“Stop crying!” Back downstairs, I flew into Bingo Joe’s arms. “Aww, baby. It’ll be OK.” I squeezed him so tight, I probably hurt him.

“You promise?”

He grabbed the water pitcher before Noodles shoved it off the table.

“The plants!” Bingo Joe said. “I was just gonna . . .”

Sighing, I trudged upstairs with the pitcher.

Everything had to be done “just right” now. Hallway floors should be spotless and shiny. No waiting to mop till after the drunks puked. And buff, I thought, wearily.

No leaving the trash till the last minute. Take the cans out at 5 ^PM sharp. And no mixing beer cans with cardboard recyclables.

Or with real garbage, I thought, cringing. Like eggshells. And used condoms.

Like Bobby-G, in 2-B.

I was watering a brown plant when the back of my neck felt strange. Like someone was watching me.

I looked around, but no one was there.

Bobby G., I thought. Lurking around, with those creepy eyes. And two tenants dead, right after . . .

“You guys leaving?”

I screamed, and the pitcher went flying.

Out of nowhere, he’d appeared. Bobby G. picked up the pitcher and handed it to me. Both the floor and his jeans were soaked.

He was smiling. “So, Georgie sold the building?”  

“No!” I backed away. “Says who?”

“La Roche!” The door to 1-D flew open. “That’s who’s buying it.” Mrs. Dietz kicked her laundry basket into the hall.

“Who?” I asked.

“La Roche.” Bobby G. jammed an unlit cigarette in his mouth. “The ‘Roach King!’”

 “Roaches?” Cradling Sunshine, Miss Roberts came out of 1-C. “Who’s got roaches?”

“Us!” Mrs. Dietz said, “If that slumlord buys this place.”

“He’s buying up buildings all over,” Bobby G. said, through the cigarette.

“Not ours,” I said.

“Wanna bet?”

“How do you know?” Miss Roberts asked.

Smirking, Bobby G. jerked his head toward the front door.

My heart sunk. “Kate?” I asked. “The crossing guard?”

“Take a shit on Mars, that bitch can smell it.”

I felt like puking. Would serve Georgie right, if I left it there. How could he sell to the “Roach King”? And not even tell us!

Footsteps, we heard, shuffling up the stairs. Still in his slippers and pj’s, Bingo Joe clutched his phone. “Georgie just called.”

“Tol’ja,” Bobby G. said.

Miss Roberts asked, “When does the ‘Roach Prince’ take over?”

“‘Roach King.’”

Bingo Joe sat on the bench, next to the packages. “La Roche don’t want it.”

We looked around, relieved, but not meeting each other’s eyes. How shitty was this building, that even that scumlord didn’t want it?

Miss Roberts shifted Sunshine to her shoulder. “Well, that’s . . . good.”

“But someone else does.”

Except for the plants dripping water, it was dead quiet.

“Name’s Cowell. Georgie’s flying up to meet him.”

I sunk to the floor. For Georgie to leave “Margaritaville” . . .

“I hope Mr. Cowell likes cats,” Miss Roberts said.

“You kidding?” I wanted to kick Bobby G. “They’ll be the first to go.” When Miss Roberts squealed, he added, “After these two.” Meaning Bingo Joe and me. 

“Think your pets are grandfathered,” Mrs. Dietz said. “If you’ve been here a while.”

“Not them.” Again Bobby G. meant us. “And if I read the lease correctly . . .”

My head on my knees, I thought back to those two crazy nights. In February, right around Valentine’s Day, Looney Toons in 1-E hung herself. Then, in August, Kissy-Face in 2-D drowned in the tub.

But maybe Kissy-Face had help.

Maybe they both did.

Six months apart, but both times Bobby G. had been right there. Knew more than the cops, it seemed.

If you shit on Mars, I thought, he would smell it.

Both were blondes. Maybe that was his type.

If death came in threes . . .

Who would be Blonde #3?

Suddenly, Bingo Joe got up. “Gotta mop these halls,” he said, “before they get here.”

*   *   *

Four o’clock, they would be there, both Georgie, and Cowell, the new owner.

“‘Wannabe’ owner.” Bingo Joe cracked our last beer.

At the kitchen table, we’d sat, glumly, all afternoon. In his cereal bowl from this morning, two sad Fruit Loops floated in milk. One pink, one blue.

“Georgie flying up,” I said, “that’s not good.” He nodded.

Itchy jumped up on the table, nudged my face. I buried mine in his.

Why couldn’t we be “grandfathered”?

When Bingo Joe’s phone rang, we jumped.

“Georgie’s flight’s delayed,” he said. “Says can we hang out with Cowell till he gets here.”

Disgusted, I got up. “I’ll go get a six-pack.”

Upstairs, the lobby floor shone so, I saw my face in it: a nasty mug, with too much eye makeup. Those damn plants had perked up. I wanted to spit in them.

Since the packages were gone, I stretched out on the bench and shut my eyes.

Old Miss Roberts, I thought. When Cowell took over, how much longer could she keep Sunshine? That fat cat was her whole life.

And our cats . . . Itchy, Noodles, and the other three . . .

And Bingo Joe . . .

They were my life. They were all that I had.

Tears burned my eyes, and I felt my mascara run. But I couldn’t stop crying.

Why us? I thought. We weren’t the worst supers. At the building I grew up in, those supers robbed all the tenants. This young husband and wife, said the landlord wanted the rent in cash, as of now. My Pop lost his whole paycheck to them.

We’d never screw anybody. Neighbors were neighbors.

When the front door opened, I wiped my eyes and got up.

Behind the glass lobby door was a lady, in a Fruit Loop-blue suit. Blonde hair, like a golden waterfall. Rich-looking, like she’d come here by mistake.

Not the way she strutted in.

“Who,” asked a voice from behind me, “is that?”

For once, he didn’t catch me off guard.

Before she could ring the bell, I opened the lobby door, smiling. “May I help you?” I asked, in my grandest temp-agency voice.

“I’m Melody Cowell.”

As he came around, I realized I’d never seen Bobby G. look so good. Almost handsome, in business casual: nice jeans and a shirt that was the same blue as this lady’s suit.

He admired her long, blonde hair. “I’m so happy to meet you,” he told her.

“Pleased to meet you, too,” she said, smiling. “George.”

When he glanced over at me, I looked away.

Looney Tunes had been a bottle blond. When the EMTs cut her down, I bet her dark roots were visible.

And in that vanilla bath, Kissy-Face’s locks would’ve trailed like a washed-out mermaid’s.

But Melody Cowell was the real deal.

As she and “Georgie” went up the stairs, I remembered I had a six-pack to get. Maybe I’d hit every liquor store in town till I found the cheapest.

Or let everyone think I did.

THE END

“NOYB”

by

Cindy Rosmus

“’N-O-Y-B,’” I said, laying down the phone. “‘None of your business.’”

 “Oh, yeah?” Marco smirked. He was doing a cut when the text came through. “Everything’s my business!”

The client cringed. Marco was always pulling hair.

Not everything, I thought. Everybody’s. “Section Eight,” he said, after one lady left. Eighty bucks for a color but she got free rent.

Twenty years I’d worked in his shop. It was OK, with clients of all ages, some real old. Vintage perms, they wanted. The solution burned my nose and eyes.

 “She’s worth like five mill,” Marco said, as a nonagenarian was shuffling out the door. Like she was deaf. The guy with her, maybe her son, gave Marco a dirty look.

As the door shut behind them, Marco said, “Bet he can’t wait to collect.”

“Oh, shut up,” I said.

Owner or not, he still wore his curly hair as long as when he sang in a Zeppelin cover band. He was still starved for attention.

“È pazzo!" he said, about some clients. Crazy or not, one guy took back his tip.

“Cheap fuck,” Marco said, in English.

“You,” I said, “talk too much.”

He did mostly cuts, left the shit-work to me: frostings, two-tones, those dreaded old-lady perms. But when Himself was swamped, I also did simple colors.

“Gina, please . . .” Last week, a regular squeezed my arm till it hurt. “Redo my color! Saturday . . . he missed . . . the whole side of my head!”

“Wow,” I said.

Saturday he’d been too busy trashing the client before. Theresa, this married chick he was hot to fuck.

“She could’ve had me,” Marco said, “Anybody but her would’ve dumped him by now. That . . .” He looked around the shop before saying, “finocchio.” His wrist went limp. “Can you believe it, Eddie Mangione takes it up . . .?”

Silence, all over the shop. Nancy, the pink-haired shampoo girl, just stared.

Eddie Mangione was once famous, in our town. Owned restaurants that went broke. A bar that got busted for serving minors. People said he’d hit rock bottom. And, lately, we heard he was sick.

Marco had never met him, but trashed him, anyway. Once, years back, he’d seen Mangione’s picture in the paper. Chubby-cheeked, with blond hair longer than Marco’s.

“Meat Loaf!” Marco had laughed.

“Someday,” I told him, that day I redid the lady’s color. “The wrong person will hear you.” My hand shook so, I squirted dye everywhere but on her head.

“Sorry!” I told her.

“Watch!” Marco yelled. “Blue-black’s expensive.”

Big inkblots I had to clean up, mostly on the lady. “It’s OK, Gina!” she told me.

What was up with me? That shit I’d said, about the wrong person hearing him, had come out of nowhere.

Later, like 3:30, not long before closing, I saw Nancy pack up to leave.

“Where you going?” I said, and she jumped.

“Um . . .” She slid her phone in her purse. “My son . . .”

Son? She looked like a sixth grader.

“There’s one more cut,” I said.

“He . . .” It was like lightning had struck her face. “He shouldn’t have said that.”

“Who?”

But I knew.

N-O-Y-B, I thought.

“I’ll wash his hair,” I said.

The guy had called earlier, with a mouthful of marbles. Like Don Corleone from The Godfather, he sounded. “Last-minute gig,” and “haircut” were muffled. The clearest words were “Only Marco.”

Only Marco could cut his hair.

“What’s his name?” Marco asked me.

As Nancy rushed out, the guy walked in, as if neither saw the other. Strange, especially ‘cos of her shocking-pink hair, and how he looked like Death took a holiday.

He was so thin, his bones nearly creaked. Face was familiar, but at the same time, not. Like it would’ve been, but something was different now. Hair real long, like an aging rock star’s, some blond, mostly gray. Something big bulged in the black leather jacket.

He walked right up to Marco.

“Sit down, bro.” Marco pulled out his chair.

“My niece said, you said I take it up the ass.”

          Marco froze. For the first time, he was shut up good. His face worked, like he was struggling with something.

          Nancy, I thought, my heart racing.

That meant her uncle was . . .

          “Only way you would know that,” Eddie Mangione said, “was, it was your dick in there.”

          “Huh?” Marco looked nervous.

          I started edging backwards, toward the door.

          “If my Theresa thinks . . .” Mangione reached in his jacket. “Your dick was in me,” he said, “I’m blasting yours off.”

          “Please,” Marco begged. That fast, he was crying. “I’ll shut up.”

          Should’ve done that way back, I thought, getting closer to the door.

          “Please!”

          On my way out, Mangione started shooting.   

           “Help!” I yelled, but couldn’t hear myself. The shop shook with the impact of giant bullets. I ran. A cop car passed, and I flagged it.

          It was horrific.

What a mess that huge gun made: mirrors shattered, bottles of perm solution, color exploded. Like a bizarre mural, blood, guts, and cellophane colors streaked the walls.

On the floor lay Marco, his bottom half drenched in blood. His top half close by . . . that mouth shut up for good.

Mangione turned the gun on himself, but the cop I’d flagged yanked it away.

*

Mangione tried pleading Man 1 but got twenty-five to life. I mean, he’d brought that monster gun with him. His face alone could scare you to death.

Bet he gets out, though. They say that wife, Theresa, sticks by him.

          Some say Marco was killed in a lovers’ quarrel. Others say, “Shit, he and Mangione were made for each other.”

          I say, “N-O-Y-B.”