The Apartment

It was early morning when he opened the building door, letting the man out onto the street. They didn’t meet each other's eyes, but their hands touched for a moment, too quick for anyone watching to have noticed, but just long enough for him to feel it as a quickening in his chest.

The man, his visitor, disappeared down the street. He didn’t look back and was soon lost behind a passing car, then around the next block. Staring through the doorway, he waited, feeling the absence and sitting in it, before leaving the feeling at the stoop and returning upstairs to his apartment.

He hadn’t noticed it then, but a baby doll’s head, severed from its body, was jammed into the corner of the hinge, causing the building’s front door to stand open at an awkward angle, squishing the head into a rotten peach.

There was time for an hour or two of sleep before work, so he took off his shirt and slid back under the covers. His eyes closed for only a moment before his telephone rang.

“Hello?” Sleep still clung to his throat, turning it into an awful croak.

The sound at the other end was the congested voice of his landlord, Mr. X, a short,
condensed man who looked as if he had been sculpted out of clay by an amateur student of ceramics.

He didn’t have the faintest idea why the landlord might be calling; he always paid his rent on time and, to his recollection, he hadn’t spoken to Mr. X other than an occasional nod out of politeness since he had signed the papers for his apartment.

“Hello, Mr. X.”

“I need to speak with you,” said Mr. X.

“Is this about the rent? I left it in an envelope just last week—”

“No, not the rent. I need to speak with you now, as soon as possible.”

He glanced over at his clock. Barely ten minutes had passed.

“Well, alright, but it is quite early, Mr. X. I’m not sure what this is all about.”

“Yes, quite early.”

The call ended with a click. Anxious now, he swung his legs back over the bed, grabbing the discarded shirt and a pair of pants, which he pulled over his boxers.

The sun glowed a soft orange between the curtain’s narrow opening. His mind raced through the possible reasons for Mr. X’s calling. He had, to his greatest capabilities, been thebest tenant he could. He left the house at the same time each morning, returned home at the same time in the evening, never made a sound, never had guests, and paid on time without fail. And yet, unless he had imagined it in his groggy state, Mr. X’s tone had been harsh, the voice of a man who has been wronged.

He tied his shoes and left with the bed unmade. The landlord’s apartment was the last unit at the rear of the building. From the third floor, he descended and poised himself to knock at Mr. X’s door. His heart sped with anticipation. He had never been one for confrontation, opting to succumb to any aggressor even when he was clearly in the right. His mother had knocked him in the ears once, telling him he was too quick to please, that he must stand up for himself, or others would learn to take advantage of him. That he would be stomped on.

Mr. X answered the door in a cheap suit and polka-dot tie that choked itself around his thick, pimpled neck. He was let in without comment, finding his own way to a chair.

“Good morning, Mr. X.”

The man stood with his arms crossed; the gray toe of his shoe rooted to one spot.

“I hope I’m not out of line for asking,” he said, hating that his voice shook as he spoke. “But I would like to know what this is all about. I do have work shortly.”

“I regret to inform you, sir,” said Mr. X, “That I will be needing you to vacate the
premises by the end of tomorrow.”

Stunned, his mouth hanging, he said, “I don’t understand. I’ve been a good tenant, have I not? This can’t be legal”

“It is quite legal, under the circumstances.”

“But, but,” he stammered. “I never make a sound. I’m always here unless I’m at work, and I never have any guests!”

And it was true. The loudest sounds he made all week had been the clattering of dishes in the sink as he washed them, running water as he drew a bath, a faint shuffling of his socked feet on the hard wood floors as he moved between rooms.

“It has nothing to do with noise,” said Mr. X. “You see, the other tenants, well, they find you unsettling. They don’t like that you don’t make any noise. They don’t like that you never leave or that you never have any guests.”

He was shocked. Not until this very moment would he have ever considered that his neighbors spared a single passing thought towards him, much less one of such disdain. He had always thought that he’d gotten along quite fine with the other tenants; in fact, there were some he was fond of on a personal level.

“I-I don’t understand.”

“They wouldn’t object to you having people over once in a while. They’d encourage it even!”

“Are these grounds for eviction? Sure, I keep to myself, but I’d never wish any of them any harm! Unsettling? I just don’t get it.”

Mr. X didn’t reply. Instead, he took a long cigar from a box, lit it, and stuck the hard end into his mouth. He sucked in, moving it around on his tongue, and let a plume of smoke out from between his swollen lips. The way the cigar moved, and the muddy wetness of the end protruding from Mr. X’s mouth reminded him of a beetle, a cockroach scurrying to conceal itself under a bit of furniture.

“I’m sorry, but my hands are tied. It must be done.”

“Can’t I get another chance? I’ll make noise! I’ll throw a party! Why, I’ll bang on the walls or slam my pots together! Anything to stay; I’m so fond of the place, and I have nowhere else to go!”

“I’m afraid it’s quite too late,” Mr. X replied. “Unless, of course, you’ve had a guest in the last twenty-four hours. I’m sure the other tenants would rethink this whole debacle if they knew that you were, in fact, a social creature. Someone whom others like to occupy their time with.”

He thought back to that night, that morning: the man, his crinkled shirt, their hands brushing. Fingers curling overtop fingers.

“No, no, I’m afraid I can’t say that I have.”

“I see.” Mr. X opened the door. “Then I expect you to be gone by tomorrow.”

The landlord moved behind him. Using his stout yet firm frame to push him outside to the hall, Mr. X then slammed the door behind him. He was shocked, feeling the reverberations of the conversation through his chest like a battering ram against a wall.

It was then that he noticed the baby doll’s head, which was still lodged in the front door, letting in a draft. Only the doll looked less like a doll now and more like the man from that morning; the man stuck in the crack, limbs all jumbled around at odd angles, and his head hanging.

He didn’t stop to check whether it truly was the man who was stuck in the door. And even if it was, he didn’t know what he would say.

A wave of sorrow overtook him as he entered his apartment. The place had been a comfort to him for many years, and now, it was being snatched away just like that. He had treated his apartment not so much like a home, but as a rodent might treat their burrow, digging out a space for himself between the walls, a place of sanctuary and protection against larger predators.

He wondered if there was anything he could do to keep the apartment; if, despite what Mr. X had said, he might take legal action. Yet, with the price of rent being what it was, he was so poor that he wouldn’t be able to afford a good lawyer.

If he was really to be evicted, there was nowhere for him to go. He thought of calling up an acquaintance from work, but the embarrassment of the situation overwhelmed him. Even going to his mother, his last living relative, brought such an immense flood of anxiety that he immediately squashed the idea.

The neighbors around him had always treated him with respect, or so he had thought. Mrs. Smith, the little old woman who lived next door, crossed his mind. She always smiled when they met in the hall. Surely, she could not be one of the tenants to have complained?

And there was the Anderson couple that lived across from him—the ones with a great big furry dog that barked at the slightest of sounds; its roar seeming to shake the walls. He had never once complained about the noise and had even given the dog a pat a few times when he encountered them out on their walks.

The thought of any of these neighbors being so disturbed by him to the point of eviction made him feel quite depressed. He had never been one for social interaction, but he was always kind and considerate to his fellow people.

He sat down on his couch. The apartment seemed to be grieving along with him. The walls looked grayer, the floor creaking out its wooden tears. Looking out his one window, which was no larger than an envelope, a light pattering of rain began spotting the glass.

His eyes wandered to the bedroom where his blankets were still tossed about from the night before. Shutting his eyes, he thought back to the man who had lain beside him and the words he had spoken.

“Do you ever feel that the world is wobbling out from under you?” He had said, no louder than a whisper. “That it’s all about to give way and that soon you will be falling.”

The man’s words kissed his ears, staying there and roosting.

To his surprise, the apartment door was unlatched and thrown open. A woman in a pink suit stepped inside; a young man with spectacles and a woman in flats entered behind her.

“Hello?” He cried, fear overtaking his sadness. “Who goes there?”

The trio ignored his question.

“Now, here it is! Great natural light, as you can see. The paint is a bit scuffed, chipping here and there, but nothing a new coat won’t fix,” the woman in pink spouted the speech as if it had been pre-rehearsed, which it probably was.

“A working fireplace as well. Quite rare to find in the city. All the plumbing has been recently repaired. All top-notch, though the previous tenant really let the place go— such a shame.”

“Excuse me,” he said as the three intruders moved around him. “What is the meaning of this? I understand that I must be out of the apartment by tomorrow, but this is a bit unprofessional. I haven’t even packed my things!”

Again, he was ignored. The group failed to give any indication or acknowledgement that he was even there. The woman moved through the room, brushing his items aside to point out the apartment’s features.

“Who was the previous tenant?” The young woman asked, holding onto the man’s arm. “The decor is—well—so drab.”

“He was a sorry, sorry man. No one knew anything about him. He was a stain in the building, or so I’ve heard, but don’t worry, he’s long gone.”

“Pardon me! I really can’t believe—,” he attempted to interject but was cut off.

“Just wait until you see the bedroom!” The group moved like a pack of wild dogs, passing through one room to the next almost as soon as they entered.

“Now, I know it’s a little small, not a place where you’d start a family, but I’ll ask you to use your imagination for a moment. Consider taking down this wall, opening up a second bedroom —”

The young woman held onto the man’s arm a little tighter, looking up at him and blushing. The man placed a hand over the wife’s stomach.

The woman in the suit smiled, tears sprouting in her eyes.

“You two are exactly what this building needs.”

The couple looked at each other and, in unison, said, “We’ll take it!”

“Bravo! I’ll get the papers!”

With that, the group sped out of the apartment, slamming the door behind them. He sat, frozen on the couch, stunned by the display, which couldn’t have lasted longer than five whole minutes.

“I can’t believe this,” he said to himself. In just an hour or so, his entire life had been uprooted; his apartment sold, and himself left to teeter in some nonreality. He felt his arms and legs, wondering if he was still here, still visible in this place.

He stayed there on the couch until midday, sitting immobile all through what should have been a day of work. The office never called to inquire about him as if he had already been forgotten.

A symphony of clattering feet on the staircase sounded as his fellow working tenants arrived home, doors opening and shutting, and keys tossed onto tables. Each movement caused the apartment to rattle. A tempo of voices and conversation warmed the walls, which seemed to hug themselves closer to him.

A building is like its own ecosystem, he’d always thought. There is nourishing required, and even something as simple as careless overwatering could destroy the delicate balance.

He spent the night there on the couch, still sitting in place as darkness flooded through the window. He should be out, looking for a new apartment, but the absurdity of his situation had left him paralyzed.

The couple moved in the next day, with him watching from the sofa. Throngs of men carried out his belongings, replacing them with the couple’s. His wooden desk, a bookshelf filled with volumes, all annotated and well-loved, was thrown out on the street in favor of towering pink and gold cabinets.

He was too defeated to protest, and deep down he knew that his concerns would be given no notice.

Pretty soon, all that remained of his old life was the couch on which he sat. It wasn’t long before he disappeared into it—flesh becoming upholstery. It wasn’t all that bad; he shed a tiny, solid tear when the couple welcomed home their squishy baby.

Chloe Johnson is a queer writer and bookseller from Los Angeles, California. Her work has been published in the 149 Review.