They’re not
going to foreclose.”
“ How about we go ahead and sell
dad’s truck?”
Mom sighed and cradled her chin in her palm.
“Well, okay. I’m not sure we have to, but … whatever you think is
best.”
“ I’ll make some posters. We can park
it out front. Put a sign in the window.”
“ Yeah. You do that.” She got up
slowly from the wicker chair. A quick wince deepened her crow’s
feet.
Another jolt went through me. “You okay,
mom?”
“ Yeah. I’m just tired. I think I’d
better go and lie down.”
I watched her retreat into the house, my heart
drowning in a rising sea of doom. Something twined around my
ankles. I threw a suspicious glance at the gnarled roots of the old
magnolia tree behind me, but they just sat there inert, like any
well-behaved tree, as roots from some farther world latched onto my
spine and crept up my vertebrae like an inchworm.
Chapter 11:
Complications
Sleeping in a rented storage unit in mid-July
in Central Florida isn’t half as bad as you think. The drone of the
expressway at night could be quite mesmerizing. Some folks paid
hundreds for those white noise generators. I got to have it for
free. I had my favorite pillow and my own mattress between me and
the concrete floor. With my Bob Marley poster stuck to the ceiling,
it almost seemed like home.
My biggest problem was the heat. The concrete
walls buffered the temperature somewhat, but it still got stuffy
when I closed the overhead door.
So I duct-taped together a pair of screens and
propped them under the door to let in a breeze but keep out
mosquitoes. That helped a bit. I never really felt cool, but after
midnight, it almost got comfortable.
At least I only had to be there six hours out
of every twenty-four. The rest of the time I went to work or hung
out in air-conditioned spaces like the mall or the hospital, where
mom was recuperating from pancreas surgery.
The diagnosis shocked me at first, but by this
point, cancer no longer scared me. We met plenty of folks at the
hospital who had lived with it and seemed to get along just
fine.
Mom had been lucky. They caught the cancer
early and the tumor was operable. And the type of chemotherapy she
would need wasn’t the kind that made your hair fall out.
At least she didn’t need to skimp on doctor’s
visits anymore to save money. After losing the house and having to
quit her job at the library, we now qualified for
Medicaid.
She was better off staying in that hospital
for now. I hadn’t had much luck finding us an affordable apartment.
She planned to stay with a friend when she got released. In the
meantime, I would keep on sleeping at the storage shed until I
could save up some money for rent.
Gideon, the balding Cuban who managed this
Handi-Stor, wasn’t supposed to allow squatters. But he was a family
man with a big heart, so he made a deal with me and a couple others
who had been lurking around the place. So long as we stayed off the
facility until 11 p.m., didn’t pee in the alleys and were gone by 7
a.m., he would tell security not to hassle us. That way, the big
boss and the regular clientele never had to know we were
there.
The other squatters were, like me, decent
folks dealing with a little bad luck. But those storage units also
attracted an alarming amount of vice. This Handi-Stor was
apparently a staging area for some major cocaine trafficking up and
down the east coast of Florida. I doubt Gideon would have let us
stay had he known. His night watchman apparently got paid to keep
mum.
I would lower the shed door and keep quiet
whenever I heard these drug deals going down. It got pretty
stifling awful quick, but it beat letting those degenerates know I
was here.
One night a squatter named Jojo came back late
and walked into the middle of a transaction. He got beaten up so
badly he had to have surgery on his face. The poor guy never slept
there again.
A couple hours sweltering in that concrete
cave, listening to the freaks outside,
going to foreclose.”
“ How about we go ahead and sell
dad’s truck?”
Mom sighed and cradled her chin in her palm.
“Well, okay. I’m not sure we have to, but … whatever you think is
best.”
“ I’ll make some posters. We can park
it out front. Put a sign in the window.”
“ Yeah. You do that.” She got up
slowly from the wicker chair. A quick wince deepened her crow’s
feet.
Another jolt went through me. “You okay,
mom?”
“ Yeah. I’m just tired. I think I’d
better go and lie down.”
I watched her retreat into the house, my heart
drowning in a rising sea of doom. Something twined around my
ankles. I threw a suspicious glance at the gnarled roots of the old
magnolia tree behind me, but they just sat there inert, like any
well-behaved tree, as roots from some farther world latched onto my
spine and crept up my vertebrae like an inchworm.
Chapter 11:
Complications
Sleeping in a rented storage unit in mid-July
in Central Florida isn’t half as bad as you think. The drone of the
expressway at night could be quite mesmerizing. Some folks paid
hundreds for those white noise generators. I got to have it for
free. I had my favorite pillow and my own mattress between me and
the concrete floor. With my Bob Marley poster stuck to the ceiling,
it almost seemed like home.
My biggest problem was the heat. The concrete
walls buffered the temperature somewhat, but it still got stuffy
when I closed the overhead door.
So I duct-taped together a pair of screens and
propped them under the door to let in a breeze but keep out
mosquitoes. That helped a bit. I never really felt cool, but after
midnight, it almost got comfortable.
At least I only had to be there six hours out
of every twenty-four. The rest of the time I went to work or hung
out in air-conditioned spaces like the mall or the hospital, where
mom was recuperating from pancreas surgery.
The diagnosis shocked me at first, but by this
point, cancer no longer scared me. We met plenty of folks at the
hospital who had lived with it and seemed to get along just
fine.
Mom had been lucky. They caught the cancer
early and the tumor was operable. And the type of chemotherapy she
would need wasn’t the kind that made your hair fall out.
At least she didn’t need to skimp on doctor’s
visits anymore to save money. After losing the house and having to
quit her job at the library, we now qualified for
Medicaid.
She was better off staying in that hospital
for now. I hadn’t had much luck finding us an affordable apartment.
She planned to stay with a friend when she got released. In the
meantime, I would keep on sleeping at the storage shed until I
could save up some money for rent.
Gideon, the balding Cuban who managed this
Handi-Stor, wasn’t supposed to allow squatters. But he was a family
man with a big heart, so he made a deal with me and a couple others
who had been lurking around the place. So long as we stayed off the
facility until 11 p.m., didn’t pee in the alleys and were gone by 7
a.m., he would tell security not to hassle us. That way, the big
boss and the regular clientele never had to know we were
there.
The other squatters were, like me, decent
folks dealing with a little bad luck. But those storage units also
attracted an alarming amount of vice. This Handi-Stor was
apparently a staging area for some major cocaine trafficking up and
down the east coast of Florida. I doubt Gideon would have let us
stay had he known. His night watchman apparently got paid to keep
mum.
I would lower the shed door and keep quiet
whenever I heard these drug deals going down. It got pretty
stifling awful quick, but it beat letting those degenerates know I
was here.
One night a squatter named Jojo came back late
and walked into the middle of a transaction. He got beaten up so
badly he had to have surgery on his face. The poor guy never slept
there again.
A couple hours sweltering in that concrete
cave, listening to the freaks outside,
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