It was the Summer of 2003, I was living in a very old and ugly apartment building between Biscayne Boulevard and NE 2nd Avenue, off of 33rd street. I had a bitter, mentally unstable landlord that walked around with a concealed weapon. I had a part-time gig at History–Miami, the old Historical Museum of Southern Florida. I would give guided tours of the permanent galleries and write historical theatre scripts for their Summer Camp program.
Every afternoon of that summer I would arrive home from work, and I remember noticing really shady people coming in and out of my building. Pimps and prostitutes, the same ones one would see walking the sidewalks while driving on the Boulevard.
This one time I was sitting on my writing chair, trying to figure out an ending to three of my stories when suddenly, the phone rang. I answered it.
“Hello?”
“Oscar?”
“Maybe…”
“Hey, this is your landlord.”
“What do you want?”
“What do I want? I want my rent, you punk!”
I hung up. Couldn’t really stand people cursing on the phone. Especially annoying landlords like mine. This was the worst landlord I ever had. Two days late from the first of the month, and he was already calling the cops on me.
There was a knock on the door. I picked up a bad reading on it, but answered it anyway. Opened it. It was my neighbor, the stripper. She was 75 years old. She had a six-pack of beer, Heineken. I let her in. she always wore a mini skirt, and the skin on her legs was all loose and hanging down. Her teeth were yellow and twisted. She always bragged about how in her younger years, she was the hottest stripper in Miami, but now she was old, sick, and very tired.
We drank the beer and talked about the poetry of life. I mentioned the BBQ smell in the building, and how it always smelled like BBQ. She looked at me with frozen eyes, slowly pointed at my back window and said, “Oscar, there’s a smoky chimney out there.” I got up to see and there it was, a smoky chimney right outside my window. I didn’t ask her anything about it. I figured I would go down there and see for myself. After a while, she left. I kept on writing. The phone rang.
“Yeah?”
“Goddamn it Oscar, I swear you hang up on me one more time, I’ll put a bomb on your door knob” It was my landlord again.
“What do you want? You want my rent?”
“My rent! I want MY rent!!”
“Come pick it up.”
“At what time?”
“Come now, you lizard.”
“Oscar, if I go there and I don’t find you, I swear to God I…”
I hung up on him again. Couldn’t really stand people bitching on the phone. Someone knocked on my door. Someone knocked three times. I opened it. It was a giant lizard wearing funky sunglasses, shorts, sandals, and a funny haircut. It also looked like an iguana, but it was my landlord.
“What are you doing here?”
“Oscar, I had it up to here with you.” He told me, pointing at his stomach.
He was a very tall man. Always smoking a cigar. Heavy set, about 300 pounds. With a heavy breath. Minty breath. Tobacco minty breath. He looked insane and dangerous.
“Your rent is five days late, Oscar!” He screamed, taking out his .45 caliber. He pointed the gun at my left knee. I froze. I didn’t want to move. He walked around me, and now he was inside my apartment, pointing that thing at my back.
“I want my money, Oscar. Where is my money?”
“Look pops, just take it easy.”
“I’ve been taking it easy for the longest.”
“Look man, I don’t have your money here in the apartment.”
“What?”
“We gotta take a drive to the bank on Coral Way, and my car’s out of gas.”
“That’s no problem, we’ll go in mine.”
We left the apartment. He drove his car and steered the wheel with his left hand, while he pointed the .45 at my stomach with his right. I didn’t even give him directions to the bank, and he knew all those short cuts to it. A speed driving lizard. One of those lizards you see on the road driving in rage, and looking around, trying to find someone to hit with their bumpers. And he did. He hit an old lady crossing the street. She looked like my neighbor, the stripper. I looked. It wasn’t her. I looked again. She was already up and walking, as if nothing.
We finally got to the bank. It was closed. Most banks closed around 5:00 in the afternoon; it was 4:45 pm. The lizard made me knock on the front glass door of the bank. The employees that saw me knocking didn’t even look twice. They all just stood there counting their money. Thank God it was closed. My bank account was empty. Suddenly my chance to kick the gun off his hand came my way. His eyes opened wide, he couldn’t believe I had just kicked that thing off his hand. I picked it up fast, and aimed it. I could smell the shit running down his pants.
“This is where you lose lizard.”
“You got a bomb on your door knob, Oscar”
“That’s why you’re going to open it for me.”
“In your wildest dreams!” He screamed, as he ran away from me with surprising speed.
The coward. The yellow lizard. One of those sorry ass lizards you find in your back yard. I looked at my watch. It was already 5:15 on the dot. I remembered I had a date to attend with a hot mama. The hottest ever. I walked over to the lizard’s car. He had left the keys in it. Got in. turned it on, and drove off into the congested streets.
Back at the apartment, I stood outside, and tried to come up with an idea. A solution. There was a 50% chance I had a bomb on my doorknob, so I broke in through the kitchen window. I noticed from inside the apartment that the doorknob had a black plastic device with a blinking light. It looked like a toy bomb. I walked up to it, and indeed. A toy bomb. I laughed, and I knew my landlord had lost his mind. It had an on/off button; I pushed it off and dropped it on the wooden floor. I laughed again. Took a quick shower. Got dressed, and heard the engine of my date’s car pulling into the parking space. Without thinking there could have been a real bomb on the other side of the door, I walked towards it and opened it, walked out, closed it behind me, and locked it.
And there I was, opening the door of the car and getting in. And there she was, switching radio stations and looking at me.
“Where to?” she asked.
“The Port. The City Port.” I said.
“Why there?” she asked again.
“Sweetness, I really don’t care where we go, anywhere you want is fine.”
She smiled at me, and with her smile she showed me her beautiful teeth. She then stopped smiling and pointed at the building next to mine, asking: What is that smoky chimney I wonder?
We drove around the block on NE 2nd Ave to see what building was the one with the chimney. We looked and it read, Van Orsdel Crematorium. I sat there in her car feeling shocked. It all made morbid sense. The dust on my window sill was no dust and the BBQ smell that circulated the hallways was no BBQ.
