$3000. That’s how much I owe my landlord in back rent. 3 days, that’s how long it’s been since I’ve answered my boyfriend’s phone calls. NO CALLER ID reads above my phone. “It’s probably him” I think to myself, but I don’t know which ‘him’ it is. I answer. Thirty minutes later, “Just evict me,” I yell into the phone, “I can’t pay another $1500 to live in this shithole.” John sighs heavily, “What did you expect, Bianca? I can terminate your lease, but you knew what the apartment was when you took it. Your lease clearly states the unit comes as is.” I hang up, still fuming. I grab my lease papers out the dressing trunk and slam them on the table. I quickly look it over, “Tenant approves of conditions and accepts unit as is,” the line sits on my mind like a paperweight. “As is.”
*Six months earlier* I’ve already spent thirty minutes squinting for the right door number. I’m looking for “7,"my universal life number, plastered above the threshold. I finally find it, a brassy golden seven sitting small and pretty above a rusted storm door. The building is ugly. The landlord is thirty minutes late. “If I leave now I can pretend I never wanted it,” I negotiate with myself. But I had to find something, sharing that closet of a bedroom with my boyfriend was starting to breed resentment.
My thoughts are interrupted as a black man with blue camo pants ascends the steps to greet me. “You must be Ms. Brooks,” he shoots a sly, toothy smile. “I’m Flash. I’m the building super. John is the landlord, but he’s not coming; he rarely shows up.” Flash tells me his real name is Jerome, but people call him Flash because he’s quick witted. That was the first lie he ever told me. He’s an older man and smells like cheap liquor. His eyes meet mine and I at once feel undressed yet oddly comforted. He is strange and a stranger, but not unlike my grandfather. He means no harm, but likely can’t help but cause it. I take him for what he is and follow him into the building.
The building is not just ancient, it’s sickly, too. The stairs creak as if they’ll give way under me. Gaps indent the floor where tiles should be. Mail is strewn over the gangway. There is nothing quaint or lovable about it; it is just dirty. I hold my breath and prepare for the worst. “This is the place,” Jerome says, unlocking the door.
I push open the giant mahogany portal, entering into an entirely different century. The room before me is not an average studio, but a former brownstone parlor room. Real hardwood floors, light pouring into sky-high windows overlooking the avenue, crown molded ceilings, and adjustable studio lights. But that wasn’t the best of it — a giant wooden framed mirror spanning half of the eastern wall stretches its ornate hands across the landscape. I stare in it for longer than a moment. Here, I can see myself. I am home.
“HOME”
Flash interupts my musing. “It’s not great but it’s solid. If you want it, you can move in by Sunday. They’re also building new units across the street. If you get in good with the building manager there maybe you can move out of this shithole.”
“It’s not a shithole. It’s a beautiful place with a lot of potential,” I charmingly retort. Flash chuckles, “Whatever you say Ms. Brooks.”
“Are there mice? Roaches? Any problems I should know about?”
“Mice? No. Maybe on the third floor. Those tenants are filthy. This place is damn near renovated.” That was the second lie he ever told me.
“I’ll take it.” In three days I sign the lease and drop off the deposit. I fill it with my things, beautiful things. A leather couch, a glass folding table, four vases, three paintings, a vintage louis vuitton suitcase, miscellaneous marble objects, and an antique dressing trunk. “I’m home,” I think again.
*Six months later* I’m sitting on the steps beneath that ugly, rusted seven. I’m stuck in my dissatisfaction, weighing over my options. I have the rent, and I could just pay it. But then my list, the one I’ve recited over and over, bangs me in the head again: the cabinet is broken, paint is peeling, cockroaches stream out of a hole behind the sink, the radiator is leaking, the tiles are broken, the lock on the door is busted, and the hot water still won’t turn on.
The list crowds my thoughts to the point of suffocation, so I switch lanes. I check my phone, it’s 2:30. “Maybe I could just call him,” I think. But my list bangs me over the head again — he’s selfish. He gives time when he has it to give, but comes with little else. When he has something else: money, career prospects, happiness, he refuses to share time; he hardly comes at all. “Just leave me,” I yell into the phone, “If I’m so demanding, so petty, so miserable. Just move on.”
A new idea rears its ugly head as the two thoughts collide into a black hole. “As is” I think again. I took both of these things — my home, my man — as is. I saw the glaring signs: the busted lock, the clear disregard for my time, the broken tiles, the non chalance towards my feelings. I overlooked it all. I stood in that dirty mirror before those towering windows and decided that if I could just pour beautiful things into an obviously broken place, I would be home.
Love and squalor are an unlikely pair, and yet they seem inextricable in this moment. Right now, I was ashamed and hiding from the homes I’d built. Not just because they were unkempt or ugly, but because they were the living artifices of my own naivete. Sure, this building much like this man, had great potential. But one cannot live in potential. One cannot grow, sleep, eat, wake, cook, cry, and secure oneself in potential. Why had it taken me six months to realize that? Why had it taken years of signing leases, cashing bad checks, and ignoring the holes in the wall to stop pouring myself into beautiful, broken things?
The thought was nice and complete. The metaphor was solid and therefore comforting. The home was the relationship. Both were falling apart. Both were beautiful, but in desperate need of repair. Both were expensive and required too much labor. I had agreed on both as is, and therefore I was the fool. As a writer, the thought was tantalizing, because it was so damn eloquent.
However, my musing was interuppted by a thought much more eloquent than my own. My mother’s voice rang in my head. “Whatcha gonna do, when the rent is due?” She sings to me. My good sense pulls me from my own resentment, and I’m reminded of that pesky fact of love. When I moved into these worlds, it was not out of foolishness, but instead curiosity and admiration, longing and desire for something to call my own.
I realized something I had known all along, yet conveniently disregarded. All love comes “as is.” That’s the meaning of unconditional. It’s not just a contract that can be terminated, because its very promise is its potential. We take love at face value and recognize it for what it is, but keep faith in better things to come. Sure, love was a lot like my house. It was unfair. It took a lot, and gave a little. It stored memories and brought fear of the future. It was broken and discomforting. Sometimes it locked me out. But my relationship was not my house. Unlike my house, love had gotten better with time. Love had acknowledged and repaired some broken things in both of us. Though I had taken it “as is”, it had not only grown, it often times surpassed any and all expectation.
I breathe deeply before mounting the steps again. I open the door and admire my beautiful home. “I built this,” I think to myself. The song emerges again — whatcha gonna do, when the rent is due? Though the rent is past due, I have no good answers and little more to give. Maybe I will be evicted. Perhaps I will stay forever. I have no more energy to live in the threshold of potential. If anything is to survive, it will have to remain in this present moment. Instead, I recede into the home I’ve built inside myself. Whatcha gonna do, when the rent is due? We will just have to find out.