No Lease on Life by Tillman Lynne

Author:Tillman, Lynne [Tillman, Lynne]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Literary Fiction, FICTION / Literary, Fiction
Publisher: Cursor
Published: 2013-01-07T16:00:00+00:00

A man comes home from the golf course. His wife says, Why do you look so depressed? The man says, Harry had a heart attack. His wife says, That’s terrible. The man says, Yes, it was. All day long it was, hit the ball, drag Harry, hit the ball, drag Harry.

The void was outside her door. The stairs were an abyss of green sticky slime. There was an uncommonly strong, foul smell. It didn’t seem to be the green slime. Someone may have died. The last time she thought someone or something was dead in the building, because of a smell wafting up from below her wooden floor, she figured a dead rat or pigeon was decomposing, and she went downstairs and asked her neighbors if they smelled something dead. They said they were cooking. They were a little distant after that. Roy said, What’d you expect.

Elizabeth was stymied in front of her door. She locked it. Ernest trotted jauntily down the stairs. They met at her landing. It was the first time in months.

—What’s that stench? Elizabeth asked.

—There’s a guy sleeping at my door. I’m still running a homeless shelter, Ernest said.

—Even in the summer?

—No accounting.

They walked down the filthy stairs together. Cigarettes, a used condom, gum wrappers, dried gum blackened with time. It didn’t stick anymore. Nothing big. The smell became worse.

Ernest clutched The Confessions of St. Augustine to his chest.

—If there’s a heat wave, he said. All the garbage…

—Don’t say it. The Confessions?

—I once wanted to be a priest.

—Do you still go to confession?

—Sure. Catholics go to confession.

—That’s good.

There was blood on the vestibule floor. Crack vials. The smell was overwhelming. There was a pile of shit near a bunch of takeout menus pushed behind the door.

The smell was coming from upstairs and downstairs.

Elizabeth was nauseated, speechless. Ernest understood. They looked into each other’s eyes and stepped over the shit. Probably human shit. Some of the crackheads came back and shit on your floor if you pushed them out of the vestibule, or were too tough with them. It was retribution. It could’ve been the peroxided one. She was out to get Elizabeth.

—Nice, Ernest said.

—Lovely, Elizabeth said.

She held her nose. Ernest said he’d call the landlord about getting a new door. If there was a good lock on the outside door, the dopesters and crackheads wouldn’t get in, and the homeless man wouldn’t be able to get up the stairs and sleep on the top landing.

Elizabeth and Ernest were on the street, in front of the lousy door.

—I’ve tried, Elizabeth said.

—I’ll give it another whirl, he said.

—Good luck, she said.

—Good luck, he said.

Ernest smiled grimly.

Hector was outside, too, on the sidewalk, conspiring with the Big G.

—Not our day, Elizabeth whispered.

—I’m not ready for this, Ernest said.

Ernest walked one way, she walked the other. She had to pass the Big G and Hector. This is my street, they’re not going to make me run, Elizabeth encouraged herself. She marched past them, eyes straight ahead. She controlled her breathing. In, out, in, out, in, out.

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