It was Sunday, August 14, 1988.

Our landlord – the crazy guy who’d tried to start a group home for victims and perpetrators of sexual abuse under the same roof – had tired of our complaints about sewage leaking into our kitchen cabinets and refrigerators that made better crock pots, and decided to terminate our lease on the first of September.

The landlord was as inept as a property manager as he was a therapist – and, as it turned out, his day job wasn’t much better.  He ran a hardwood floor refinishing business.  Wyatt, Shane and I went to look at a place – a lower-duplex in Frogtown.  We noticed the finish on the floor stopped a solid two inches shy of the wall moulding.

We all started laughing.  “Did [landlord’s name] do this finishing job?”

“Yes”, said the landlady, a rather irritated looking black woman. 

We all guffawed. 

We didn’t get the place.

The guys – Wyatt and Shane – thought the three of us should get a place. “No kidding”, I thought. Shane was making like $4 an hour and couldn’t afford much, and Wyatt no doubt figured it’d be plenty cheap sharing a house with a couple of guys who’d cover him when he skipped his bills. Which was frequently.

Although at least he’d caught the utilities up – once we heard the landlord was kicking us out.

So we started shopping for places.

And so did I. Part of me figured “I gotta get out of this place”. I could sort of afford a place of my own – as long as it was cheap. Part of me figured “what difference does it make?”, and thought I might as well stay with Wyatt and Shane.  As miserable as it was sharing a duplex with a guy whose drinking, pot-smoking, womanizing and bill-skipping was getting pretty much out of control, it was cheap; I’d been paying $166 a month in rent, plus generally $40 a month in utilities (more if Wyatt skipped out), plus $50-100 for the phone, depending on how many radio stations I called that month.  I was bringing in about $800-900 a month after taxes.  Not horrible, but not good.

Today, I was having an “Option A” day. I’d picked up a Sunday Pioneer Press this morning, and found an interesting-looking place.  I made a call, and drove over around noonish on a gorgeous Sunday.

It was on the East Side, over on York street, by the big Rainbow Foods store that serves as the home away from home for every schizophrenic in the east metro.

But it was nice – a newly-remodeled one-bedroom in a six-plex, with a small but new kitchen, a nice living room with a sliding window opening on the patio, and a bathroom of my very own (!) – for $275 a month plus phone.

The landlord liked me. “I’ll knock money off the rent for shoveling, fixing things, calling the handyman or the dealers if there’s something you can’t fix, that sort of thing.  You’d sort of be a building manager”, he said. “The place is basically yours if you want it”.

I was thrilled. I told him I’d call back tomorrow. Might as well not appear too eager, I thought – not quite realizing that that only applied to jobs, not apartments.

I turned the thought over in my head as I drove home to get ready for work. Nice place. I’d be alone – which I loved! But $275…

I kept on thinking.