Chapter 4

Jenny and marge from sanford

It was day two in the downtown apartment. When I woke to the noise of the garbage trucks collecting cans. I though of trash disposal for the first time. I checked the city’s website and found that I needed an approved can. Since the year was 2003 the city had begun to regulate trash cans. Before I went any farther, I made a cup of coffee and decided to wait for Marge to arrive.

I bought a metal ironing board the night before in the consignment store. Also on day two I set it up first thing, then I sat there and used it while making my coffee. My coffee was slow and a lot of bullshit to make, but since I had nothing better to do, I didn’t mind. Spills were not a problem since it was a steel table top. I was surprised to find it remarkably stable, maybe because I had it pressed against the wall. The height was also adjustable, which made it nice for a man who couldn’t stand long periods of time. The ironing board also gave me some additional portable counter space. I was still experimenting with the arrangement of my furniture.

The consignment shop was on the corner building, so I had two outside walls. The front one over looked the street. I would have loved that wall for a kitchen, but alas the kitchen and bath were on the inside wall which backed against the store room. I suppose that was the secondary purpose of the storeroom, to create an inside ‘wet’ wall.

The first morning I sat by the windows over the downtown street. I watched the flow of traffic while I drank my morning coffee. The realization sank in that not only could I see out, I could be seen from the outside. I needed some curtains for sure. The thing to do was to search for a set of DIY curtain instructions.

The curtains were so easy I felt a little guilty. The secret to making them was to buy four times the cloth one needed. I chose to create cafe curtains. Each window had to have two sets of rods. In my case the windows were rectangular. They were a yard wide and two yards tall. I used shower curtain hooks to hold the curtains. It was just like hanging a sheet only I bought a patterned strip of cloth. Well before lunch I had gone out and found the material and folded it punched a hole in it with a screwdriver from a jewelers set of tiny ones. If I had been really poor, I could have saved a few bucks. The way I did it was easy and I didn’t have to wait for them, so I was happy. I liked to think that I was learning how to live almost on the streets of Sanford. Which I hoped would give me something to write about.

“Marge,” I said when I walked inside her shop on my way to breakfast.

“Yes Mr. Morris?” she asked.

“Merlin,” I explained. “I need somewhere to park my scooter. It is likely to get stolen, if I keep it outside. I noticed there is a metal door on the rear. I assume that it is some kind of door to the shop. I wondered it we might be able to work something out. Something that would allow me to roll the scooter inside over night,” I suggested.

“You were once a cop weren’t you?” she asked.

“Yes, but that was a long time ago. I got injured in the line of duty and now I’m not physically able to be a cop any more,” I added.

“You could call the cops, if you see something suspicious couldn’t you?” she asked.

“Marge, I would do that anyway,” I said.

“Then take this key and get a copy made. Give me twenty bucks a month to store your scooter,” she demanded. “You make the space for it.”

“Fair enough,” I replied. I walked out and removed the chain from the metal pole where I had secured the scooter the night before. I rode it to the neighborhood hardware store and parted with a buck for the key. Then I rode it to Hardee’s for breakfast.

It was ten when I arrived back at the consignment shop. I returned Marge’s key and gave her twenty bucks. I continued to chain the scooter outside during the daylight hours since it was more convenient. Afterward I climbed up the metal fire escape attached to the center of the side of the building. I found a metal door that was pretty rusty on the second floor landing. It wasn’t jammed completely, but it did take a hard pull to open it. I entered my studio beside the kitchen area. The studio was a little large, but it had no storage at all.

My storage consisted of every bookcase in the consignment shop, and several plastic shoe boxes and dishpans from the Walmart store ... I didn’t have many clothes, and I washed them once a week, so it could have been worse. When I did wash I had a laundry bag full of soiled clothing. I thought of myself as the undercover Santa with my pack of toys. The laundry bundle would usually ride in the bicycle trailer for my Sunday visits to the Laundromat. I also kept a jar filled with quarters for that chore. That first month I was mostly feeling my way along. Yes I was busy with household chores at that moment.

At night I planned to write stories. At first my stories were supposed to run ten thousand to twenty five thousand words more or less. I tried to begin with a story from my cop days. It was my third attempt at a story, but it was my first one with a developed plot line. Not that I understood that at the time.

I started it with the radio call. I wrote the main character as myself, but as a new detective. The body had been found by patrol division. The black man was under forty and not well dressed at all.

My partner was a veteran detective, He took one look and said, “Junkie, killed by his friend for his dope.”

“How do you figure that?” I asked.

“Today, it’s just a starting point, tomorrow it will be a working theory, and within a week it will be a closed case. While we wait for the postmortem, we can interview some of his fellow travelers,” he suggested. “Keep your mouth shut and listen.”