just as the used pickup that i ended up buying was right down the road after spending full days driving to look at rustbucket heap trucks with no promise, after five weeks of following dead-end leads on living situations, the place i have resolved to rent is just across the road.
the main room is spacious and in great shape and the kitchen is smallish and could use some paint and trim around the doorframe; the bathroom, however, could easily be featured in a b-rated slasher film. besides the odd green paint and tilted sink, the olive-colored toilet and cheap linoleum, which all are excusable, the shower gets the prize for scare-factor. the old rusty tin shower box has flaking and peeling paint and a loose drain cover surrounded by a moldy rubber ring designed, i gather to protect the showeree’s feet from tetanus and lead poisoning from the old paint, but which in fact just lends to the creepy, squishy feel of the shower. the low-ceilinged room has no vent or fan and the off-white ceiling most likely contains bountious spore cells.
luckily i will be tearing out the old shower and replacing it with a clean plastic one in exchange for a break on my first two months of rent and probably will splash some white paint on the walls to brighten up the steamy cave, and maybe forget for some time about the spores.
however bad i think my living space might be, i think back to a place i looked at that was in the local paper for fifty dollars per week. the house was a heavy constipated brown color and brightly painted school-bus yellow concrete yard animals surrounded the place. i was lead by a man i could only assume had retired from the carnival, who at five foot five had the smallest hands of any fellow i had yet met, through the dark kitchen and into an even darker basement hall and passed five doors to the very back corner of the basement to the vacant apartment. it was outfitted with a single bed, card table and folding chair, a dormitory fridge and a small microwave, and evidently a cable hookup.
the single window was of the sniper variety, a mere slit for a scoped rifle to be operated through and offering no real daylight. fake wood paneling framed out the fifteen by fifteen room and the carpet was an earthy rust color.
the bathroom which was a converted closet with a raised floor would be shared by myself and the landlords ”nephew” whom i was told ”didn’t come out much.”
after deciding that this was exactly the kind of place a serial killer might choose to launch a bloodspree, i shook the man’s wee carny hands and thanked him for his time.