The Gems continued to have problem after problem. I'd drive by and see a police car, lights off, parked outside one of the units and just shake my head, roll my eyes, groan inwardly and drive on. It seemed bizarre that I'd gotten used to that sort of thing. I'd also learned not to tell anyone which houses I was managing, since once they realized the described location, the conversation would ultimately turn to tales of drug sales and busts, prostitution, or a murder in the basement.
Whenever a tenant moved out (with or without giving notice), I'd try to bring a muscular son or two along while I was cleaning. They didn't enjoy being there for hours on end, and I got none of the solitude I used to get when I owned the cleaning business.
"This is a trashy place, why don't you just quit managing these?" they'd frequently ask.
I had the same thoughts. Once again I was concerned that if I quit, I would not be 'earning my keep' within our household. Being in a second marriage, my husband's former wives (!) had, according to him, all held at least part-time jobs and had been a source of income. I already had an issue with comparing myself to the others, and financially it was no different. To let go of the money I was making off the Gems didn't seem prudent until I could replace it with the same or greater amount from another source.
This caused no small amount of dissonance within. I'd promised my fellow-cleaner friend with a solemn vow, 'no bleach', and there I was, scrubbing again. I rationalized that this was different, that I no longer cleaned for a living, but it was a weak argument. I was also clearly working in a dangerous part of town, which didn't make a lot of sense no matter what angle I angled it. The money earned wouldn't be any consolation if something adverse and/or life-altering happened. My hair stood on end and my spine tingled each and every time I entered one of those ancient units. Haunted? Undoubtedly. Full of 'bad' energy? Like an atomic bomb. As I swept, vacuumed and dusted I wondered in which of the rooms the murders had been committed. Since all four of the houses had basements, and according to the tales I'd heard, that was the likely scene of crime. My active imagination got the best of me a time or two, when I thought the cleaning cloth sitting on the counter top that brushed against my arm was someone who'd just emerged from the closet, watching for an opportunity to maim and destroy. Brooms or jackets hanging on a hook sometimes got mistaken for a person or personage.
Still, month after month I took the barely-literate phone calls, showed the units that were vacant to (often suspicious-looking) would-be tenants, and worried about who was going to get shot in a basement next and whether or not I'd have to be the one to clean up the blood stains. It was getting ridiculous; yet I wouldn't crack. I kept telling myself that I had to be responsible, make money and not be a quitter.
Someone else had other plans.
I got cancer.
After a skin biopsy that I hadn't been that worried about, (I'd actually put it out of my head) the doctor called me back on a Friday morning, surprising me by saying it was cancerous, serious and that I needed to have surgery right away. This wasn't anything immediately life threatening, he told me in his calm, business-like doctor's voice, but it could turn into a huge issue if I didn't take care of it as soon as possible.
I didn't clean that day. I didn't do anything at all that was 'useful' that day. I took myself to a movie theater and watched, of all things, "Mama Mia", crying through the entire feature with the thought that I might not be around for my daughter's wedding after all. It didn't help that I'd attended a friend's funeral not long ago who had died of the exact same type of cancer I had just been told I had.
I did some thinking in that theater that afternoon. Big time.
If my days were numbered, how did I want to spend them and what did I want to leave behind? Occupied, paying rental units? Well-cleaned, hundred-year-old crap traps? The memory of telling my children, 'not now, I’m busy’ because I had to run down to the Gems yet again?
Not even.
No comments:
Post a Comment