No Lease on Life Read Online Free PDF Page A

said.
    —Collectors are sick.
    Hector collected everything, because he had nothing. People never really had what they wanted, because they wanted everything. People who could afford to buy everything were miserable about something. There’s always something missing.
    Things were missing in Elizabeth’s life. They weren’t misplaced. In any time or under any regime, it would be the same. Elizabeth couldn’t replace what was lost, and what wasn’t lost may never have existed to begin with. Everyone was dissatisfied, even if they didn’t have much to complain about. Once deprived, always deprived.
     
Three men are in a nursing home. One of the men says, How old do you think I am? The two men say, Eighty-five. Everyone thinks I look eighty-five, he says proudly. But actually I’m ninety-five. He walks over to an old woman. How old do you think I am? he asks. Drop your pants, she says, and I’ll tell you. He drops his pants and she grasps his penis. She fondles his penis for a while. Well, how old do you think I am? he asks. Ninety-five, she says, her hand still on his penis. How’d you know? he asks. I heard you tell the two men, she says.
    When Elizabeth complained to the Big G about the state of the building, she was mindful of Hector. She didn’t criticize him directly or use his name unless compelled. She tempered any criticism of Hector. She didn’t want him fired, she wanted him helped or assisted. The building could be turned around. By any means possible, Roy said.
    For Elizabeth’s pains, the landlord and Gloria hated her. They had valid, landlord reasons. Elizabeth was white, mostly employed, though underemployed, and educated. She’d had opportunities. She was the worst kind of tenant. She wasn’t as easy to push around and intimidate as people on welfare, or disadvantaged and handicapped people, or people depressed and frightened by a system that employs people to treat them with disdain while assisting them inadequately.
    When a 1930s vintage stove stops working, though its oven wasn’t ever regulated—if it was on, it was always 500 degrees—Elizabeth’s type of tenant doesn’t buy a reconditioned one on time through the landlord. With some money in the bank, her kind of tenant buys a stove for four hundred dollars rather than pay four or five dollars extra each month for the remainder of the lease, and all other leases. You pay forever for one stove. The extra money raises the base rent and increases the amount on which the next rent hike will be figured. If you have four hundred dollars, which Elizabeth and Roy did, you didn’t do this. As Elizabeth explained to Gloria, It doesn’t make sense to increase our rent base. Gloria’s mouth fell open.
    The Big G hoped to obstruct them. She’d catch Elizabeth on the street. She’d sidle over and say with a sympathetic smile, But you know you can’t put that stove on the street, or she’d ask, Who’s going to remove that old stove, or she’d insist, more aggressively, You’ll have to move it out of your apartment yourself, you know, we can’t help you.
    They bought a new stove anyway. They had never wanted a stove. They owned one now. This made them different from the Lopez family downstairs. The Lopezes had to pay on time.
     
What do you get when you cross a Mafioso with a deconstructionist?
    What?
    An offer you can’t understand.
     
What do you get when you cross a Puerto Rican with a Jew?
    What?
    A super who thinks he owns the building.
    Most of the time Elizabeth couldn’t look Hector in the eye. She couldn’t talk to the Big G. And nothing was accomplished. Nothing was done. Fuzzballs grew fat and fluffy in ancient grease-encrusted corners. Cigarettes and paper bags collected on the floors. It was like living in the Port Authority and paying rent.
    On occasion Elizabeth phoned the housing department. Hardly anyone else did. You’re not supposed to expect clean halls in the poor part of the city, or if you don’t own your