Curtis sits hunched over his laptop, the blue light slowly burning into his brown eyes as he types. “Books are double-spaced usually. That’s a good place to start,” he mutters. The room is dark, courtesy of the black-out curtains he managed to keep out of boxes for the months since deciding to move.
Before he can take another sip of his energy drink, his roommate, Mari, makes her presence known. “A good place to start what?”
He nearly jumps out of his seat, the drink spilling a little onto his hand-- thankfully not the keyboard. “Bloody Mary!” He starts while wiping his hand off, “Dude you scared me”
“I saw,” her voice is rough but somehow sweet at the same time, “What’re you working on?”
“It’s nothing, n-nothing important at least.” he lies, “Was there a reason you came in?”
Her voice takes on a sarcastic bite, “Hmm, I dunno. Maybe it had something to do with apartments, but it might’ve been that werewolf you chatted up on the street last week. Yeah he wants to meet you again for coffee but he was,” she takes a breath, “just too sheepish for you I guess.”
He groans, “That was horrible, and how dare you insult Stephen like that, he was nice-”
“-More like stronger than any average human should be,” she interrupted, “The man was able to pick up both of us like we were apples!”
“Anyway when are we going to check out the place?”
“In like half an hour. And don’t forget your crossbow,” she jokes, “the guy who’s gonna be guiding us is a vampire. He wouldn’t touch me, I eat way too much garlic bread for it. But you... I’d be cautious.”
“You really can’t make those jokes, one of these days you’re gonna be right.” he says while loading his laptop into its protective case.
“But mon cher, that’s exactly why I make them.”
“Am I gonna need my packer?”
“For confidence maybe, and maybe for more passsibility.” she fiddles with the positioning of her cane idly.
“That’s what I was asking.” he sighed, “Thanks, I’ll go put it on now.”
Mari turns around to give him some privacy, “It’s not your fault people see you the wrong way, that’s their fault if anything.”
Soon he finishes putting the prosthetic into place, adjusting once or twice for the comfort of his temporary balls. “Have you got everything you need?”
She runs down a mental checklist, with everything checked. “I’ve got my cane and braces, also the pain meds and our application papers are in my bag. My wallet and knife are also accounted for. You?”
He rifles through his bag, going through his own mental list, “Water, gluten free muffins for Rob-- you said he has celiac. I have my packer on, obviously. Keys, wallet, notebook and pen to write information.”
“Alright, then let’s get a move on!” she punches in his direction, for dramatic flair.
“Shotgun!” he shouts.
“Oh as if you can drive,” she jokes.
The two pull up to the apartment, Mari sighs a breath of relief at the same time as Rob. Rob being the large man who would be their landlord, who is currently walking as far as the shadow cast by the tall building will allow for.
“Hello, hello! Come on in the building is just over here.” he glances at Curtis, who seems to be actively turning into a puppy and vibrating into the stratosphere.
He steps out of the car too fast and nearly trips onto the hard concrete, but jumps right back up, “I’m alright! My heart is jumping out of my chest but I’m okay”
The man is taken aback, but quickly dismisses whatever thought he was having.
“Careful Curtis, keep that up and you’ll end up like me.” she chuckles, gesturing to her cane. It’s a beautiful design of sturdy wood, stained red and topped with a derby handle. Attached to the end of the long side of the handle is a hand-made cord to hang it up with at the end of the day.
“Always a pleasure, Bloody Mari. Do you need a tour or would the two of you like to move in now?”
“A tour, Rob. It’s what we agreed to.” she rifles through her purse, “Here, it’s our application.”
“Of course, I only wished to check.” He leads the duo into the apartment, and searches through a set of keys to unlock it.
The sound of jingling metal is a background for Curtis’ thoughts, “So, Rob. How did you get into landlord-ing?”
“Oh it’s really not that complicated what i did. I saw a need I could fulfill, so I did. Some of my buddies live up here too, and I keep the rent cheap for the area so they can all afford to stay with their kids for most of the day or take days off when they need it. A lot of us here are disabled, myself included, so it’s nice to be able to be cared for without some damned limit on how much money you can make or being allowed to get married.”
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“I had no idea, that’s very kind of you.”
He takes a deep breath before continuing his spiel, “And then I bumped into Mari the other day and she vented to me about some of the issues y’all have been having with your housin’. I offered to just let the two of you in immediately but she’s real stubborn.”
“I just wanted to be able to do things as normally as possible. Things do need to be checked on occasion.”
“Oh poppycock, anyway that takes us to now where- finally, satan’s toenails that took forever-- you get to look at your soon-to-be new home!”
The whole place has just recently been scrubbed top-to-bottom , Curtis swears he can just ever slightly smell some sort of pine-scented cleaner still in the air. When the lights flicker on, courtesy of Rob, Mari covers her eyes, swearing.
“You could’ve warned me, fuck that hurts.”
“Are you okay?” he asks, now pulled away from the awe of hardwood floors/
“I will be. For now I’m just gonna keep my eyes covered, I can feel my way around.”
“Are you sure?” he tries to come up with ways to give her the experience of the tour while her eyes are closed, “Oh! I could describe the rooms for you, or Rob could do that too.”
“I trust you more, go ahead.”
For once he’s glad that she can’t see his face, and the dorky smile he tries to hold back. “Right, the floors are hard wood, you can probably feel that with your cane. The walls are a periwinkle sort of blue, like the sky but turned down a few notches. Just in front of you, about...” he takes foot-long steps, counting, “five feet in front of you actually, and one foot to your left, there’s a green couch. In front of that is a coffee table and a TV stand. There’s no TV yet but we’ll put our own on it. The rest of the room is basically empty, but there’s a couple of windows in the direction the couch is facing.”
“Feet as in the imperial measurement?”
“Oh yeah the measurement.”
“So that means...” she tries to do some mental math, but the unmarked question is answered by the other man in the room.
“This room is 10 feet by 10 feet,” he says.
“Big living room. What’s the rent again?”
Rob tells the pair that rent costs $1350, due on the 28th of every month, but “if you need more time on some months-- i understand, things are variable-- I will be happy to give you all the time you need.”
Curtis’ eyes nearly pop out of his skull, “That’s- oh my gods that’s cheap.”
“Okay I think my eyes are feeling better now, thanks for the description of the living room.” she uncovers her vision and looks around, seemingly impressed with the accuracy of his description. “Damn, really $1350?”
“Yes, unless you want me to raise the price.” Rob chuckles
“No- nono no that won’t be necessary sir.”
“Only joking, it stays $1350 for every unit.”
Mari asks, “How many bedrooms and bathrooms are in this unit again?”
“It’s a two bed, one-and-a-half bath unit.”
“Not to push our luck, but what’s the catch? There’s no way there isn’t a catch to this sort of a situation,” the other asks.
“Your neighbors can be pretty loud and rambunctious, they’re friendly though. Anyone’s bark or bite is the least of your worries. There have also been some... not-so-great types of people coming around and harassing the people who live here. The place also constantly undergoes changes, for improvements or to help other communities.”
“Friendly neighbors,” she says.
“Friendly neighbors,” the other agrees.
Both nod for a few seconds, thinking the same thing, “We’ll take it!”
He then brings out a clipboard for them to sign, and they both do as he nonverbally instructs
“Bring your stuff over in the next few days, and if you need help one of the other tenants would be very willing to assist in the heavy lifting.”
“Oh we won’t be needing any of that. Thanks for the offer though,” Mari says as she and Curtis walk out the door to start a tedious bunch of driving and packing, driving and packing, and so on.
Hours later, just as the late Summer sun is setting, everything is where it should be for now. Boxes are stuffed between the couch’s left side and the wall without obstructing the door, bedding in bedrooms all set up to sleep in, and appliances arranged on the counters. Both agree that they can handle the toiletries in the morning, so dinner is coming out of the oven just now.
“Thank fuck for ovens I would’ve starved if I had to wait another hour.” Curtis moans from his spot on the couch, as Mari brings over two forks and plates with large slices of lasagna on top, “and thank you so much for cooking this. I know it came from a box so you hate it but it tastes like ambrosia right now.”
“Be careful, it’s hot food. Literally straight out of the oven with maybe five minutes to rest before I cut into it.”
“I will scorch my mouth so badly on purpose now, I do not care.”
“Anyway, what sounds good to watch with food?”
“I’ve seen some new reality show about clowns, it’s something like the people in it are different kinds of clowns-- circus, rodeo, the horror ones, and the ones the horror ones are based off of-- and they all swap jobs.”
She loads up the search bar, “Sounds fascinating, what’s it called?”
“Circus Swap.”
“Ah, nice and simple name to remember.”
The two sat in relative silence, as the adventures of a rodeo clown and a horror clown swapping roles played out on screen like a scripted comedy.