by Renee James
Victor Grassi came with the building I bought in 2007. He’d lived in the second-floor apartment for the entire century, he would always tell me, meaning he’d moved in at the dawn of 2000. He spoke in a loud voice, full of energy and confidence. He drove a new Cadillac and had laid claim to the parking place in back. He told me it was part of his rent, but the seller told me Victor was full of crap, that he took over the spot because no one else had a car to put there.
When I introduced myself as his new landlord, Victor assured me he was fine with renting from a queer. This was supposed to make me feel good. Just so we’d understand each other, I told him I didn’t mind renting to a queer either. Victor got angry, but he got the message.
He was a decent tenant. He was often late with the rent, but the check came eventually and he was quiet, and kept his apartment clean and orderly. He entertained women fairly often and hosted small dinner groups, but he never kept me up nights with the sounds of partying and his guests were well behaved.
Victor was an art director for a hip Chicago ad agency when I met him. He did well and he used his money to buy expensive clothes, the fancy car, and lots of restaurant meals. The economic crash hit him hard. His agency had a big payroll purge that put him on the street. He was in his late fifties, which put him at the back of every line for an agency job. He hung on as a freelancer for a while. He made it sound like he was king of the world, in high demand, but he was also demanding reduced rent, his checks got later and later, and he was drinking heavily. It seemed like every time I saw him coming or going, he was staggering. When we talked, it was hard not to focus on his bloodshot eyes and the broken capillaries that crisscrossed his red nose like spiderwebs.
His rent checks stopped coming in the fall of 2008. Six months later, I evicted him. He screamed holy hell about being a loyal, long-term tenant and what a heartless bitch I was, but I had my own economic crisis playing out: I couldn’t pay the mortgage without income from the rental unit.
I saw him once a couple years later. Phil and I had stopped during a walk along the lakefront to watch the Fourth of July fireworks. We stood on a Gold Coast sidewalk along Lake Shore Drive with a smattering of others to take in the spectacle well away from the crowds. It turned out, the people closest to us were Victor and a friend. He looked like hell—pale, fat, balding, his Brooks Brothers wardrobe having given way to Sears attire, which was worn rumpled and baggy.
When I greeted him, he looked at me without recognition. As we passed on the sidewalk, I could see his friend lurch a little, the dance of the drunk, and I caught a strong whiff of alcohol. I guessed that Victor was down and out, living in a flophouse, a full-fledged alcoholic, counting down the time to lights out. It made me sad. He was a crude, insensitive man, but not mean spirited.
I figured he might be dead or indigent when I asked Phil to help me find him, but apparently, Victor has recuperative powers, or maybe I saw him on the only toot of his post-Bobbi life. Either way, I’m standing in front of his current digs, a fashionable low-rise in Lakeview, not far from my place. Its white brick façade glistens with modernity in the Sunday morning sun. A low wrought-iron fence lines both sides of the sidewalk. Stately hardwoods line the street and healthy shrubs and flowers line the walls of the building. It’s not a Lincoln Park palace, but it’s a nice place. Certainly not a flophouse.
I struggle to ring the buzzer for Victor’s apartment. I have a bag with two cups of coffee in one hand, and a bag with bagels in the other. It takes a while for Victor to buzz me in. Nice building or not, I can’t help but conjure the image of him trying to rouse himself from a drunken stupor. I struggle through the security door and make my way to the small elevator in the lobby. When the elevator door opens, Victor Grassi fills the doorway, his large body still a little bloated, but looking better than the last time I saw him. His face is alert, his eyes clear.
We exchange stares, like we’re shocked at the sight of each other. For just a moment I see rage flash in his eyes. They widen, his face tenses. He holds his breath. My fear instinct starts to kick in, but the moment passes. His face relaxes. He regards me with curiosity, one eyebrow cocked, his lips slightly open.
“Good morning, Bobbi.” He says it in a conversational voice, like a gentleman greeting a lady. He takes the bag with coffee cups from me and gestures for me to enter the elevator. As the machine makes its slow ascent, we stare at each other in an awkward silence.
“Is it nice out there?” he asks.
“Beautiful,” I say. I try to flash a smile, but I’m so uncomfortable it must look more like an expression of pain. I’m wishing I had just tried to settle things on the phone.
“Thought so,” Victor says. He looks at the floor, shaking his head as if agreeing with himself.
The elevator rises so slowly it feels like we’re still stopped. Only a ding celebrating the ascension to the second floor confirms movement. A century later, or so it seems, the ding sounds for the third floor and the doors open. Victor leads the way down a bright hallway, his gait heavy but brisk. His door is open. He stands at the threshold and gestures for me to enter, then follows me in and closes the door.
My first glimpse of his apartment brings a flood of thoughts and impressions. The place is immaculate, with parquet floors that shine, warm eggshell walls that have that flawless, fresh-painted look. The furniture is pristine, there’s some nice-looking art on the walls, the kitchen is neat enough for a television cooking show. Sun pours through a window, filling the place with a Sunday morning radiance worthy of a church. Victor is no stumblebum.
On the other hand, the space is small. It’s a studio apartment, somewhere between half and one-third the square footage he had in my building.
He gestures for me to sit at his dining table and we begin setting out the coffee and bagels.
“Nice place, Victor,” I say to break the ice.
“I like it. Good neighbors. Good neighborhood. I’m close to my friends and work.” He puts packages of non-dairy creamer and sweeteners on the table and sits down.
“How long have you been here?” I ask.
He stops stirring his coffee and locks eyes with me. “Let’s cut the crap. There’s only one reason you’re here, Bobbi.” His tone is confrontational. His body language is tense. His eyes have that look of intense anger again.
My heart pounds a little faster. If he comes over the table at me, I’m in real trouble. I’m strong, but I can’t possibly handle a man of his bulk. He must be pushing three hundred.
“I’m not sure what you mean by that.” I try to say it with confidence, but my voice cracks and my mouth is suddenly dry as sand.
“I mean, the only reason you’re in here is because I wanted to see how in the hell you got the nerve to see me.”
Victor’s face is flush. His jaw muscles flex. His anger freezes me. I can only stare back at him.
“Well?” he says.
“We need to talk, Victor.” I try to sound calm, in control, but my mouth is dry and my mind has a full-panic vision of him attacking me.
“About what?” He’s still taut. He could snap any second.
I sip the coffee to get my mouth moist enough for conversation. “I think you know what.”
“I have no fucking idea what we’d want to talk about,” he says. “I can’t stand the sight of you.”
“Let’s talk about that,” I say. I’m trying to be cool, like I know what I’m doing, but I doubt I’m fooling him. Still, I’ve come this far, no turning back.
“Victor, have you been following me?” I ask.
He rolls his eyes and shakes his head from side to side, like he can’t believe what he’s hearing. “You must be kidding.”
I wait for him to say more. He doesn’t.
“Someone has been following me. He’s defaced my salon and my home.”
“And you think I did it?” Victor is incredulous. It doesn’t seem like an act.
“The vandal was motivated by hate,” I explain. I keep my voice c
alm. I’d rather leave right now, but if I don’t play this out, doubts will linger.
“And you suspect me because I was angry with you?”
I nod my head yes.
He rolls his eyes again. “If everyone you made angry is a suspect, you’re going to wear out a lot of shoes tracking them down.” He laughs at his own humor, but there’s no merriment in his voice.
“The number of people who threatened me is a much shorter list,” I say, my voice still calm.
“I threatened you?” He asks it like it’s the most ridiculous notion in history.
“You said I was going to get what I deserved.”
He blinks, surprised. “I didn’t.”
“You did, Victor. As you were packing, and I asked if I could help.”
I can see recognition sweep over his face. He remembers it now. “I didn’t mean I was going to do something to you. I meant we all get what we deserve in this life sooner or later.”
“You never struck me as philosophical.” I’m just thinking out loud. It’s not that I don’t believe him, it’s more me wondering if I could have missed his intent back then.
“That’s because you never took the time to get to know me.” There’s a bit of a snarl in his voice, but his anger seems to be giving way to something more like a whine.
“You made it clear you thought I was a degenerate. Why would either of us want to be better acquainted?”
“Because I was your loyal tenant,” he hisses. “I took good care of the place. I was quiet. I helped you when the electric went out . . .” He rattles off a list of good deeds. Many of them are overblown. The heroic act with the electric was showing me where the circuit breakers were in the basement when we lost power. He includes paying his rent on time as one of his contributions to my welfare, and paying extra for the parking space, two pieces of complete fiction, but he seems to believe them to be true.
“I was lucky to have you as a tenant,” I say. It’s true, even if he exaggerates his value. I didn’t think much of him as a person at the time, but I thought he was a pretty good tenant.
“Why’d you kick me out, then?” He looks at me, finally. His eyes are droopy-sad.
“Come on, Victor. You stopped paying rent. What else could I do?”
“Jesus Christ!” he says. “I paid every month for years and years. You couldn’t give me a break when I needed it?”
“I did give you a break,” I answer. I shouldn’t pursue this. He’s going to get riled again and maybe violent. But I can’t leave it alone. He doesn’t have the right to villainize me.
“You didn’t pay rent for months, and every time I asked about it you gave me an earful of obscenities.” I keep my voice calm. “When I finally served eviction papers, it was because I couldn’t pay the mortgage anymore without the rental income.” I can hear the defensiveness in my voice.
He stares at me with an intensity that makes me uncomfortable. I can envision him flying across the table, hitting me, cursing.
His face changes as suddenly as if a curtain had been drawn. The tension evaporates, the muscles soften, his eyes moisten. I realize he’s going to cry. Good God!
“Do you have any idea what that did to me?”
His emotion leaves me speechless. I knew him as a blowhard and a bigot and a man who couldn’t deal with the adversity of the economic catastrophe that crippled America. I never imagined him like this.
“All I ever wanted was respect,” he says. “I wanted people to like me. I wanted to be admired. I wasn’t ever bad to anyone.” He lowers his head. “Why couldn’t you give me respect?”
It takes a minute for me to get my voice back. “Victor, it never occurred to me you cared about my respect. You never acted like it.”
“I complimented you.”
“You told me I had big boobs and you asked me if my ass was real.”
“I just wanted you to know I noticed. I thought you might like that.”
I feel a certain horror pass through me as his words make me think of Mark and his juvenile etchings. A lot of men have a hard time expressing their feelings about women in an appropriate way, but sometimes they mean well. I should know that, but it’s hard to remember. Everything I saw in Victor Grassi back then was bigotry and rejection. It never occurred to me he might have been trying to compliment me in a fumbling way.
“I thought you looked pretty good,” he says. “That’s all.”
“I wish you’d said it just that way,” I confess. “Why didn’t you?”
He pauses. “You’d have thought I was queer. I wanted you to see me as strong.”
I want to scoff, but as I process what he says, it could be true. Against all logic, it could be true. Maybe he was trying to impress me.
“Why did you tell Mark I was easy?”
That stops him short a moment. His face squints, like he’s trying to recall something. “I didn’t,” he says. “At least, I don’t think I did.”
I wait for him to explain.
“He got going one day about what it’d be like to f—” Victor stops himself. “To have sex with a transsexual. I told him my landlord was transsexual and I sometimes heard you making it with your boyfriend.”
“Why did he think I was promiscuous?”
Victor shrugs. “It wasn’t me. He was really intent on, uh, having sex with a transwoman.”
The conversation stops, me wondering how much of what he said was true, him staring into space, trance-like, quiet, sad.
“My whole life went down the drain when you threw me out,” he says.
“Why?” What I mean is, why just the eviction? He was out of work, bad prospects, so many things coming off the rails in his life.
He looks me dead straight in the eye. “It was my last shred of dignity. As long as I had a place, I was someone. Someone to respect. It was just a matter of time before everything else fell in place.”
His gaze drifts away. “I moved into the YMCA. Imagine showing that on your resume! After a while I couldn’t afford the Y. I ended up in a west-side flophouse. Fucking bedbugs. Winos. Hookers turning tricks. I couldn’t show up for an interview covered with sores, scratching. I cursed you, Logan. I prayed you’d go to hell and burn there for all eternity.”
We sit in silence again, contemplating what he said.
“That sounds like a powerful reason to follow me around, mess up my salon, my apartment,” I say.
“Yeah? Well, guess what? I got it together and got back on my feet.” His voice is strong again. His posture is erect. He speaks with confidence. Victor Grassi is back. “I’m doing pretty damn well right now,” he says. “No thanks to you. Great job, great place, just got a new Caddy. Life’s never been better.”
“You’re still angry, though.” My normal speech has returned, too. I’d like to leave, but I need to hear his answer.
“Damn right I’m angry,” he says. “But I didn’t do anything to you. I wouldn’t.”
I stare at him, looking for some kind of telltale that says he’s lying or telling the truth. He stares back, proud, insolent. I doubt he’s the stalker, but I don’t have any proof one way or the other.
“Thanks for seeing me, Victor,” I say, standing up to depart.
“Let’s make this the last time,” he says, opening to the door for me to leave. His face is grim and unfriendly, but not threatening. It occurs to me, I probably won’t know who my stalker is until the man attacks me.
13
MY WALK HOME is filled with somber thoughts and self-recriminations. I’ve spent most of my life wanting people to accept who I really am, instead of who I appear to be. You’d think I could get past the shell someone like Victor threw up and find the real person. It might not have changed the outcome. I had to get revenue from the rental unit or lose the building. But still, I didn’t even try to understand him. I threw him out like yesterday’s garbage, the way so many people have treated me.
Like Phil. The onetime love of my life. Me, the best lay he ever had.
He stands as I approach. His massive form scares me stiff. My hairs stand on end, my mouth gets dry. He looms before me like a monster from a horror movie. I stop several steps from him, panicky, trying to visualize an escape. He can break my body into a hundred pieces and I can’t outrun him and I can’t stop him. My only hope is landing one disabling self-defense move, but the odds are against me. He won’t underestimate me this time and he’ll be on me before I can get the Mace out of my purse. He steps toward me. I curse myself for being so unprepared and brace for the beating of my life.
He stops just in front of me, his face dark, sprouts of stubble showing on his cheeks, pieces of an ugly tattoo creeping up his neck from under his shirt like a snake being charmed out of a basket. There is not another soul stirring on the street. It’s Sunday morning. People are sleeping in or getting down on their knees in church. I can’t take my eyes off him. He reminds me of the Neanderthal pig who raped me, the one I caught up with, the one I disposed of without a pang of guilt. But I won’t be disposing of Cindy’s goon. I close my eyes and wish I believed in a God I could pray to. I am about to die or wish I were dead and no one will see it happen.
“I have something to say to you.” He says the words almost like a regular human being, his voice low, his enunciation half-ghetto, half working stiff. I open my eyes. He’s still standing an arm’s-length away. A conversational distance. His hands twist and rub against each other at his waist, like an apologetic child. His body language has that kind of tension, too, like a towering giant of a boy towering over a petite mom, begging for forgiveness.