CITATION

Lafayette is a small, upscale suburban community that once had a slum one short block long—a few ramshackle houses facing a one-story, five-unit-long apartment building on a street that was little more than an alley, called Bell Street. It was there that I moved when I left my mother’s house. My apartment had dark brown asphalt tile floors throughout, an inexplicable interior window in the dining area overlooking a tiny “laundry” room with a deep gray sink (no washer or dryer), and two bedrooms, which meant, on my meager salary, I had to find a roommate fast.

“Dear Ella,

“I’m typing to you from the dining room floor of my new apartment. My fingers can hardly locate the right keys in this position. The usual position wasn’t negotiable, however, since it would have involved bringing the only table in the house, a hinged contraption that folds out from the kitchen wall, and the only seat in the house, the toilet, into close proximity.

“It’s nighttime. I have every door and window open to cool off the rooms. The crickets are chirping raucously. The house is dark (I don’t own any lamps), except for a shaft of light from the kitchen.

“I moved in the night of the afternoon you left, taking one knife, fork, spoon, plate, etc. and some bedding. Before I went to sleep I turned on my clock radio for the first time ever and listened to a not so ‘mellowdrama’ about an Indian called Chief Edipo Rex who murders his father, etc. I was simply waiting for the announcer to announce the time so I could set my clock and retire. He never did. I slept with the window above my nose open out of paranoia about my gas stove—and dreamed a cyclone hit the house.

“I felt very lonely the next day and missed you. That morning, minutes after the store opened, I bought the shower curtain we saw with the coral shells.

“When I got back from dropping you off at the airport, a prospective roommate was waiting at the apartment. A divorced the mother of three teenage daughters who live with their father, she talked nonstop, mostly about her unstrung landlady, and found at least two occasions to use the simile ‘like a fart in church.’

“Enough old news. My several quarts of water and few hard peas have been on the stove struggling to become pea soup for more than two and a half hours. My itch is back. I bought my first two bottles of spice today—momentous decision: whether to buy the cheap little tin boxes and start a collection of those or the more attractive Spice Island bottles and start a collection of those.

“In the meantime I’m having trouble figuring out where to park my car. The first evening I tried to parallel park in front and ran my front tire over my neighbor’s brick entry. He came out and glowered at me. The next day I parked against the fence, but found if I allowed enough room for passing on the right, I couldn’t get out the door. Yesterday I left my car down the road for the night, expecting someone or other to object. When I went out the next morning, I discovered I’d been cited by a tree—there was a large leaf tucked under my windshield wiper.”