Bright Lights, Big Ass

by Jen Lancaster

  Half an hour later, we’re still in our jammies, drinking coffee, eating Lucky Charms, and watching SpongeBob11 when Tracy comes over. Being the consummate adult, I haul ass up the stairs and leave Fletch to answer the door. I’m crouched behind the wall, doing my best to eavesdrop, but I can’t hear anything. As soon as the door closes, I’m back down the stairs as fast as my footie-pajama’d feet can carry me.

  “Thanks a lot, asshole,” he says.

  “Yeah, yeah, whatever. What’d she want?”

  “She wanted to prove you right, apparently.”

  “Meaning?”

  “She asked for money.”

  “No way!” I predicted this, but I’d hoped I was wrong. I try to think the best of people yet I’m constantly disappointed.

  “Tracy said Holly was supposed to leave some money for her but ‘forgot.’”

  “You believe that?”

  Fletch gives me the weary, raised-eyebrow, tilted-chin look my father perfected many years ago when I tried to convince him $50 designer jeans were an investment in my future.12 “She told me an elaborate story about a check getting lost in the hurricane and she wanted to know if she could borrow one hundred dollars to tide her over ’til it arrives.”

  I contemplate for a moment. “The truth generally requires very little backstory.”

  “Exactly.”

  “And you said?”

  “I was honest. Told her we’re broke, but we’re happy to send her over a plate of whatever we have for dinner if she doesn’t have any groceries.”

  “This is so not going to end well.”

  “You’ve mentioned that.”

  We watch as Tracy goes from door to door in the complex. I should note the only person the neighbors hate more than us? Is Holly. She’s nice as can be, but everyone here is terrified of Vaughn. He wouldn’t hurt a kitten, even if he looks like a tremendous brute. However, he’s a barker and she lets him hang out in her little gated front yard, woofing his head off every morning at six a.m. I sleep with earplugs, so I’m not bothered, but the fat girls and gay boys are totally up in arms. I’ve tried to warn her they’ve been banding against her, but to this point she’s ignored my advice. She’s of the “people are basically good” school of thought and has no idea how vituperative these shrews are.

  From our panoramic view on the couch, we observe the fat girls and gay boys shake their heads with pinched expressions. It’s almost painful to watch, yet I can’t stop. Fletch could, but if he did, he’d have to put up with my running commentary, so it’s easier just to witness this himself. Tracy is summarily rejected until she gets to Tommy’s house. He nods and opens his wallet and from fifty feet away we see her eyes light up.13

  In the time it takes me to shower and play a few rounds of my bottlecap game,14 Tracy has not only stocked up on liquor but also managed to get drunk as a monkey and lock herself out of Holly’s apartment. We help her get back in by having her go up to the second floor, through the office, out onto our balcony, over the lattice dividing our properties, and into her open glass door. Fortunately we have an early-afternoon wedding to attend and we leave for a while, but not before bolting and bracing our own doors in the office. When we return a few hours later, we assume Tracy will be passed out and that I can water my flowers unmolested.

  Um, no.

  Not only does Tracy decide to come out and visit with me, she chooses to do so naked.

  Naked.

  Nude.

  In the buff.

  Birthday suit.

  Clothes-o a no-no.

  I wish I were kidding.

  I convince her to get dressed, and while she does I run inside the house and close the blinds. Unfortunately, we’ve already started the grill so we’re stuck going back out, where we find we’re not alone.

  She is, mercifully, dressed this time.

  Fletch is just about to get his shout on, but before he can she begins weeping hysterically about a family issue. Call us wusses, but we simply can’t yell at a crying person. Then she offers to wash our car again. We decide trichinosis be damned; we tear the steaks off the grill and hurry back inside to eat them raw.

  Over the next four hours, I watch her sit in Holly’s car, running down the battery by listening to the same song over and over on the CD player. She sobs while the car’s flashers blink and the windshield wipers run and poor Vaughn howls from the patio. I go out and comfort the dog, but he’s having none of it. And when I tap on the car’s window, Tracy ignores me.

  I’m recounting this not to be funny because, really? It’s heartrending. This girl is obviously in tremendous pain to act out like this. What I don’t understand is what the hell am I supposed to do here? I try to call and e-mail Holly, telling her there’s weirdness afoot, but I haven’t heard back from her. I consider contacting the police, but I don’t think Tracy is violating any laws. Technically the car isn’t on, so she’s not actually driving while intoxicated. In the meantime, what do I do?15

  I’d like to be compassionate, but now Tracy isn’t even trying to straighten herself out and that makes me angry. I’m also mad because she made our already hostile neighbors even more agitated at Holly by hitting them up for drinkin’ money. I reflect on the days of our combined unemployment when we ate nothing but egg salad and little pizzas made out of leftover hamburger buns, and I still waited a whole week before I approached my parents for a loan to buy food.16 Yet Tracy has no problem asking complete strangers for money to feed her habit and that irks me. And I’m pissed off she’s essentially spit in the face of our lovely neighbor who was only trying to help.

  I don’t want to be blatantly mean next time she comes out to hover over us, but I’m really exasperated that I can’t use my yard or deck unaccompanied.17 And then I’m annoyed at myself because I feel like a terrible person for not being more compassionate. But I’m most concerned about Tracy hurting herself or others, and I’ll be damned if I let her start the car and try to drive, so I stay up to keep an eye on her, trying not to wonder where my responsibility as a decent person ends and hers begins.

  I’m totally at a loss.

  I run into the gay boys and fat girls when I go out to get my paper this morning. I’m exhausted because I watched Tracy until she staggered into the house around three a.m. I learn that while we were at the wedding, Tracy offered to blow some of our gay neighbors for cash. I’m greatly upset because this is not the way a healthy person acts.18 What gets me is we’re only a few blocks from the projects in Cabrini Green. What’s to stop her from going over there to peddle her wares, as it were? She’s engaging in behavior that could get her killed and I hate that there’s not a damn thing I can do to stop it. I voice my concerns to the gay boys and fat girls, hoping somehow we can come to a compassionate consensus.

  Instead of helping me problem-solve, the head fat girl starts to bitch about what this poor wretch is doing to her property value. The others concur. I stand there, mouth agape, unbelieving that anyone could be so cold.

  You know what?

  That’s it.

  We’re moving.

  Why do we put ourselves through this?

  It’s not as though we enjoy gathering up our shit every couple of years. We get no thrill from seeing all the nail holes we’ve made in our walls or the dirt paths we’ve beaten into the Berber, nor do we get off on the smell of cardboard boxes and packing tape. We don’t delight in handing out a week’s pay to a group of thick-necked gentlemen because we’ve grown too old and fat to carry our own stuff…and yet we’re looking at moving to our sixth new apartment in less than a decade.

  God help us.

  The worst part isn’t even the physical logistics of a move.19 The nadir of Operation Unearthing a Chicago Home(a.k.a. OUCH) is going through the apartment-finding process.

  To find a new apartment in my city, there are a handful of options. You can check out the Chicago Reader, our weekly hipster newspaper. Granted, there are a ton of listings, but every ad reads the same—“Beautiful
apartment! Must see! Call 555-1212.” So, if you want to know any details, like if there’s central AC or the building is dog-friendly, you have to call the number listed, only to reach the landlord’s voice mail (on which he’ll leave no apartment specifics), the landlord will try to call you back and get your voice mail, and then the two of you will end up playing phone tag until your lease expires and you and your dogs have to go live in a van down by the river.

  You can also stroll the neighborhood you like in search of FOR RENT signs. The occasional clever landlord will actually list some of the unit’s features on the sign, but most will simply put a phone number and all of a sudden it’s you and the dogs in a van again.

  Craigslist posts ads and they’re actually quite good because you can search by keyword (e.g., washer and dryer), price, and pet policy. However, most posts link to apartments listed by apartment brokers. On the one hand, working with a broker in Chicago is free; on the other, you get what you pay for.

  Enter the brokers.

  Our first appointment over the weekend is with Bob. We arrive at Bob’s office at 9:55 for a 10:00 a.m. appointment. Unfortunately, Bob never shows up and some guy in flip-flops, apparently the owner of the brokerage—and is it wrong of me to say I really don’t want to see the toes of anyone with whom I do business, particularly those of the prehensile variety?—tells us he’s going to fire Bob for bailing on us.

  Sorry, Bob!

  Instead this guy named Jose steps in and shows us a number of inappropriate places (too small, too dark, too damn many roaches), asking important questions, like “Are you sure you want to keep your dogs?” and noting such selling points as “The exterminator comes once a month.” Um…thanks, but I’m pretty sure I don’t want to live somewhere an exterminator needs to visit on a monthly basis, regardless of how lovely the lighting fixtures may be.

  We finally find a place we like and it meets the bulk of our needs—it’s new construction with the most gorgeous dark cherrywood floors. There are stainless appliances in the clean, dry kitchen and the unit duplexes up three stories. There’s a great loft I can write in, three bedrooms, and the living room is two stories high. Yes, it’s got a view of the expressway, but that’s why you buy curtains. (Which is also why we can afford it.) Plus, there’s a twenty-five-by-fifty private roof deck with an unobstructed skyline view and I kind of lose my mind thinking of all the stuff I could grow up there. (Traffic exhaust is good for plants, right?) However, we aren’t 100 percent sure of the neighborhood,20 so we tell Jose we’ll think about it, knowing we have an appointment with the biggest brokerage on Sunday, and biggest equals best, right?

  Ha.

  The dirtiest person I’ve ever seen who actually holds a job is our leasing rep at the big brokerage. This gal hasn’t had a proper bath since George H. W. Bush’s reign and was last acquainted with her razor during the Nixon administration…which was about the same time she declared jihad on using soap and wearing a bra. I’m not kidding—I could actually see large streaks of dirt? Mud? On her forearms and shoulders. To make matters worse, she squires us about in the Stankmobile. Lest you think I’m exaggerating, allow me to paint you an accurate picture. Imagine every cigarette in the world. Then imagine one person smoking all of them. In this car. With the windows rolled up. For fifteen years. And even though Fletch and I both have to shower when we finish with this appointment, it wouldn’t have been so bad had the rep actually shown us anything decent. (And I’m not being an elitist here—as a person whose dog craps in her house every night, it’s not like my standards are terribly high. When we say to please not show us anything without a yard or a deck, do not take us to five deckless, yardless places in a row.)

  Unfortunately, Stinkarella’s apartments are the high point of the day.

  Seeing the caliber of apartments out there, Fletch and I panic. We like the place south of the Loop, so we drive down to check out the ’hood in the dark. And you know what? It’s actually fine and now I kind of get why the Southsiders think the Northsiders are a pack of snobs. We call Jose and say we’ll take it, toasting each other with our root beers when we come to this decision while eating club sandwiches at Goose Island Brewery.

  The next day Jose calls in a panic and says our FICO score isn’t great. Um, no kidding. That’s why we told him twenty-four hours earlier, “Our FICO score isn’t great. We’re looking to rent for another year or two so we can improve it and then buy our own place. However, we can provide excellent landlord references and W-2s and is that okay?” to which he replied, “No problem!”

  Arrgh.

  We manage to pass the credit hurdle only to find out the landlord wants the lease to start immediately, and not September 1, like we’d requested. In addition, he wants a $7,000 deposit because of the dogs. Apparently he’s concerned they might remove a load-bearing wall or perhaps install an illegal hot tub, as naughty dogs are wont to do. Whatever happened to the good old days of college when if you showed up, the place was yours? Jesus, it’s probably easier to get a job with the FBI than it is to secure an apartment in this city.

  We tell Jose to pound sand and start over.

  Fletch is in our living room, holding the cordless phone to his ear. “Hold on, let me check with my wife—Jen, how about a noon appointment with the apartment brokers on Sunday?”

  We haven’t found anything yet, the rain’s coming down harder in the kitchen, Tracy has yet to be carted off to proper rehab, and I’m starting to feel desperate. “Sounds good.”

  Fletch tells the caller, “Okay, noon it is. See you Sunday.”

  Five minutes pass as we both quietly work on our laptops. The icon blinks telling me I have mail, so I log on. “Hey, Fletch, I got an e-mail from you.”

  “Uh-huh, I know.”

  I open the e-mail and scan its contents. “Whoa, is this a meeting request to look at apartments on Sunday?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you trying to be funny?”

  “No. I used the Yahoo Scheduler. Now you can add this to your Yahoo Calendar so you can manage your personal affairs.”

  “But I don’t have a Yahoo Calendar and I was sitting ten feet away from you when you made the call. And as eager as I am to move out of Melrose freakin’ Place, chances are good I won’t forget this appointment.”

  “Au contraire. You do have a Yahoo Calendar. I set it up for you.”

  I’m getting agitated. “You’re missing the point—I don’t need a Yahoo Calendar to manage my personal affairs, nor do I want to receive meeting requests from you. Here’s a quick rule of thumb: no meeting requests to anyone you’ve seen naked, okay?”

  He is resolute. “It’s very handy.”

  “That may be, but when you e-mail your wife to schedule an appointment, you set an ugly precedent. What’s next, sending me a request to clean the bathroom on the third floor?”

  “Now that you mention it…”

  “Sweetie, I love you, but I promise that I will smother you in your sleep if you ever assign me a chore via e-mail.”

  Five more minutes go by while we both quietly work on our computers, and then Fletch asks me, “So, are you going to respond to that request?”

  “Fletch? This? Right here? Is exactly why you used to get beat up in junior high school.”

  The broker on Sunday manages to show us something good. It’s a gorgeous house with lots of bedrooms and skylights and a gourmet kitchen with a full basement. We fall in love on the spot. Naturally the broker neglects to tell us the place is a thousand dollars over the strict budget parameters we’d established with him.

  Dude, you’re so fired.

  A few zillion calls and appointments later, we finally find the perfect place—spacious, lots of outside area, tons of amenities, dog-friendly, plenty of privacy, and with its polished concrete floors we can have a pony without any fear of damage! We’ve got to find something, like, today because we’ve given our landlord notice and he’s already found another sucker who wants our place. In addition, Holly’s not
yet back from her trip and this morning Tracy offered Fletch a hummer and the gay boys and fat girls are starting to collect pitchforks and torches.

  We’ve got to go now.

  As we stand outside the building while the broker fiddles with the lock, we look at each other and agree as long as there are no dead bodies on the floor, we’ll take it. All we have to do is see it to be sure.

  Do I even need to mention the lock is broken and we can’t get in?

  Uncle.

  We give up.

  I hope the dogs like living in a van.

  * * *

  from the desk of Miss Jennifer A. Lancaster

  An open letter to the dogs,

  Although I don’t blame you for your behavior with the squirrel, I am holding you accountable for your actions Saturday night.

  Let’s be clear about one thing—your daddy and I don’t have a lot of people who like us. So when we’re able to convince a few of our handful of friends to come over for a barbecue, we expect you to be on your best behavior.

  “Best Behavior” does not include the following:

  Head-butting Angie so hard that you split her lip.

  Using your collective hundred and sixty pounds to pin Carol down on the couch while you lick her stupid (especially offensive considering your penchant for “salad tossing”).

  Plowing into the screen with such force that you sent the entire door crashing into Jen, which then almost knocked her over the side of the porch.

  Again, we don’t have that many friends and we’ll have even fewer should you accidentally kill them in your zeal to shower them with affection.

  Best,

  Mumma

  P.S. I shall be sending your daddy a note under a separate cover detailing my issue with him delaying dinner by almost three hours when he set his shorts on fire.