Short Story / Keeping the Tower
…for riches certainly make themselves wings; they fly away as an eagle toward heaven.
Proverbs 23:5
Dear Mr. Bertek & Mr. Archer,
Our accounting office has brought to my attention a recent pattern of delinquency in rent payment on your unit. It is my duty to inform you that no further late payments will be accepted. There is a balance of $375.00 remaining from May bringing your total amount currently owed to $1,775.00.
Payments are due by the fifth of every month. If that deadline is not met, the board will consider filing for eviction. I appreciate your understanding in this regard and trust you will make every effort to rectify this situation.
Sincerely,
Jason Rodriquez
Assistant to the Building Manager
”Ross told me he was good for that money like three times in the last week.” Tristram said to me as he slid the letter across the table.
The whole downtown living idea was his and Ross’ to begin with. When they came over to my old apartment to pitch the idea to me, my lease was about due to expire and I had been tossing around the idea of getting a bigger place and moving in with a roommate. They proposed leasing this apartment in the Plaza Tower and the three of us rooming together and splitting the rent.
Granted, I was able to swing the five hundred per month. Sure, the Tower is the tallest building in Grand Rapids. Yes, the girls at the club always perk their ears when you mention where you live. But when your third roommate goes and gets himself fired for dumping out a bus tub full of dirty dishes and uneaten food—well, none of that stuff really matters, because there is just no way that Tristram and I can hold down this fort by ourselves.
The first few months living there were really great. The Tower is pretty much the baddest-ass place you can live in the city. Every day after work, Tris and I would shoot hoops up on the rooftop court. If you have never had the opportunity to play basketball 90 feet or so above a busy city street, I have to tell you that it’s pretty fucking cool. Another great thing about The Tower is the third floor cigar lounge. Tris and I both came of age right around the time we moved in. That bar is the best place to sit and watch a Pistons or Tigers game. They have great flat panel TVs and these sweet leather arm chairs crowded comfortably around low thick glass tables. The only thing I ever found to be slightly off-putting about our life there, was the ever pervasive feeling of being the least affluent bunch in the building.
Most of the people who rent the apartments on the first eight floors are young professionals. They are all career oriented types with four year degrees and tie racks. Above all of us underling renters live the upper crust of the city, older couples who own the luxury condominiums that give the Tower its prestige. Then there are the three of us. Tristram, I’m sure, is the only barista to ever even set eyes on the inside of an apartment here. Ross use to be a busboy before he got fired. And I work at a little family owned roofing company. Plenty of people in this building bring home more in a day than the three of us do in a week. Whatever though, I’m happy enough just to be young enough to enjoy it all. Going out and partying every night, being able to smoke down whenever I feel like it, and then the girls man: they are just all over downtown every weekend. Those old suits upstairs might have a better bank account, but you put one of the girls that I bring home in the same room with one of those old guys and he’ll probably drop dead of a boner before he knows what hit him.
“You wanna come with me out to my uncle’s cottage this afternoon?” Tristram asked.
”Which uncle, Uncle Bob?”
”Yeah.”
”The same Uncle Bob with that Lexus we took out a couple summers ago?”
”Same one.”
The car in question was lent to us on the basis of trust for a quick trip up to the grocery store to get some hamburger buns and Cherry Coke. Uncle Bob was visiting Tris’ parents and was getting kind of drunk with his little brother Mike. He tossed us the keys and told us not to wreck it- easy enough. On the way home we took a little detour and pulled up to our friend Ben’s house to show him ‘our new ride’. As I recall, Ben was the first one to actually find some money. He was poking through the glove box (don’t ask me why but kids will always do some weird shit when they first sit in a really great car) and found a twenty dollar bill crumpled up behind a bunch of napkins. We tore the car apart after that and when we were finished I think we found a total of seventy or eighty bucks. Don’t know why old Uncle Bob left cash money to lose itself like used condom wrappers under a frat house couch, but at the time I was sure glad he did.
”Yeah sure, I’ll go,” I said.
The drive from Grand Rapids to Lake Michigan usually takes about forty minutes. Tris merged on the highway and proceeded to blow past row after row of mid-afternoon traffic. I could have sworn we were on track to make it there in twenty.
”You gotta slow down a little bit, I got that bud we ganked from Ross in my bag.”
”Let’s both stick to the things we’re good at, I’ll drive the car and you shut the fuck up and roll a joint.”
”Thanks, but I don’t really feel like getting caught in possession.”
”Yeah, even if we did, Uncle Bob likes to smoke even more than we do. If we even got pulled over I’d call his ass up and he’d be up here in two seconds yelling about habeas corpus and all that shit. We’d never even get a ticket.”
As usual I let Tris’ overblown sense of confidence be my placebo. We smoked ourselves out so well, that even my nagging fear of the law subsided to a gentle hum in the back of my brain. Jane’s Addiction came on the radio and he cranked it up. Tris has a thing for upgrading stereo equipment. This little gem came out of an old Honda Civic that was parked in the college ramp for a couple of nights in a row. The weed, the music, and the memory of obtaining the stereo must have rattled around in my mind right because just then I found myself thinking about how much better the free things in life are.
Tris had to call his aunt Veronica to get the security code for the gate at the entrance to their community. I felt slightly betrayed by my own imagination as we drove through the development. Earlier, when Tris said ‘cottage’ I pictured a little peeling blue shack complete with outhouse and ragged rowboat. In reality, the only thing that qualifies Uncle Bob’s lakefront estate as a cottage is the fact that he doesn’t live here year round.
We were still pretty stoned when we got there. We moved through the family gauntlet as quickly as we could. Hey, how you doing? Quick handshake and move on. Before we could make a clean break, Uncle Bob burst in from the front deck and greeted us with the enthusiasm of a pub owner who has just seen his favorite patrons.
”Well, well, well, looks like you fellows made it just in time. Here have a cigar.”
He produced a humidor from an unseen cabinet and I snagged a couple before Veronica came in and started bitching at Bob for having a lit stogie in the house. While he stood there, berated and smiling, we left the family people to do their family thing and stole out towards the beach.
The blue cooler on the front deck was full of Coronas. We each grabbed two and chose to go without a lime garnish, rather than try to wade through the genetic Charybdis back inside the cottage.
Walking around the cottage we found a set of steps carved into the hard packed dirt hillside and we made our way up the steep wooded grade without spilling a drop of beer. We sat and smoked the cigars on a big rock outcropping overlooking the house and lake frontage. Tristram’s younger cousins were trying unsuccessfully to navigate the Ski-doo to dock with the giant inflatable dock. The thing kept stalling and each time they started it up again it belched out a cloud of blue smoke.
”Looks like they’re running it too rich,” Tris said. “Probably foul out the plugs pretty soon if they keep it up.”
”I’ve never really worked on a watercraft engine like that,” I said.
”Neither has Uncle Bob. When the thing breaks down it’ll just sit behind the house until Veronica puts an ad in the paper and somebody comes and picks it up for a few hundred bucks.”
”Why doesn’t he just bring it back to the dealership and get it fixed?”
”Because the man has no respect for anything. He thinks everything is just disposable. Most likely he doesn’t even know how to hook up a trailer to his truck,” Tristram took a big gulp of beer out of disgust. ”He’s a damn fool who’s got way too much money.”
After our cigars burnt down we went up the back porch and into the upstairs game room. Whatever Uncle Bob lacks in mechanical ability he more than makes up for in good interior taste. The centerpiece of the room was a regulation sized Madison pool table with an expensive looking halogen fixture overhead. There was a matching cherry pub table in the corner facing a wall mounted plasma TV. An ashtray with a couple of roaches in it was the only accent on the table.
”Is it cool if I snag these? Looks like they’re only half-smoked.”
Tristram shook his head.
”Just throw the bastards outside so nobody thinks they’re ours. I know where Uncle Bob keeps his stash. We’ll get some from there before we go.”
I threw the wasted roaches off the back porch. When I came back in through the slider door Tristram had the table cleared off and was racking the pool balls. In clearing the playing surface he had set an aluminum case on the pub table. While I waited for him to arrange the rack I clicked open the case and started playing around with the poker chips inside. While I was shuffling a small stack of chips I noticed an aberration in the design of the case. In the small box area where you would normally keep a deck or two of cards there was a finger sized indentation in the felt. I reached in and ran my finger over it curiously. Looking more closely I realized that there was a hairline crack running along bottom angle of the card space. I gave a little pull on the finger hold and the bottom portion slid aside smoothly in some well engineered hidden slot.
”Holy shit Tris, take a look at this!”
Tristram glanced out the hallway door as he walked over. I pulled out two heavy stacks of bills from the compartment. Tris pushed the door most of the way shut and relieved me of the weight of the bills. He unbanded the first stack and began flipping through, pulling out bill after bill. Then he replenished the first stack with some from the second, folded up the contraband, and stuffed the cash in his sock.
”How much did you take?”
”Three.”
”Three?!”
”What, you want more or something?”
”No, three’s good.”
”I’m glad you think so. Put that shit away like you found it and come shoot a couple of games.”
Normally I can hold my own at pool, especially against Tris. But with all the shit running through my head I was lucky if I was sinking a ball every other shot. Apparently thriving off of the palpably tense situation, Tristram was shooting a couple of the best games of his life.
”Stay here and keep an eye out for anyone coming upstairs,” Tristram said.
”Where are you going?”
”To raid his stash, what the fuck do you think. When are you going to learn to trust me.”
I wanted to say ‘when you stop being a shady-ass’, but I thought better of it. Never a good idea to call your friend shady when he’s holding your get out of eviction free card in his tube sock.
I stood sentry near the hallway door while Tris went down the long hallway out of sight. I was fiending for a smoke. What happens if Bob or Veronica finds Tristram digging through their stuff? Will Bob notice the missing loot when he goes to play poker again? Won’t he suspect us first thing? Who’s coming up the steps? I could have shat myself. It was Veronica.
”Is Tristram up here?” she asked.
”He went to use the bathroom I think.”
”Who’s winning at pool?”
She came into the room and sat down next to the poker case. I followed her like a whipped puppy over to the table.
”I got this poker set for Bob the same day we got the pool table. Did you guys see this? It even has his name inscribed on this little plate here.”
Holy hidden cameras Batman! She knows for sure.
”No, I didn’t see it,” I said.
”Do you and Tristram ever play cards?”
I looked back to the door and saw Tristram poke his head in. I gave him the subtle eye bulge of panic. He grinned and strode in as confident as class president in a high school assembly.
”Hey Aunty, getting ready to play poker or something?”
”I was just showing your friend here this set of chips that your Uncle Bob never uses. I think he played maybe twice with a couple of guys from the neighborhood. If you guys want, you could take this set home. I bet you could even get this little nameplate off if you wanted.”
”Yeah sure, Aunt Veronica, that would be awesome, thanks!”
She pried at the metal tag with a red manicured nail. Tris and I both bulged eyes at each other simultaneously thinking ‘I can’t fucking believe this’.
Everything after that washed around us like a psychedelic blur. Neither Tris nor I said much of anything over dinner. I had no appetite whatsoever, but I did manage to choke down a hamburg and a couple of hot dogs so as not to appear rude. After dinner, Tris made up some excuse for us to leave-using me as the primary, of course. I wouldn’t have cared if he told them I had to go to the doctor to have warts frozen off my balls. I wanted to get on the road as soon as possible.
When we got back to the Tower we locked ourselves in our apartment and counted our take. Including the now sweaty money from Tris’ sock, there was a total of $14,550.00. We took out enough to cover our overdue rent and split the rest right up the middle. We also swore that we would tell anyone who asked that we went to the casino that weekend and both cleaned house.
”I do wish we could tell people the whole story,” Tris said. ”Then everyone would see that I’ve been right all along.”
”About what?”
”About how stupid people can’t wait to give away whatever they have. It’s like Ross with that weed, or that guy who left his nice system unlocked in a dark car garage.”
”A fool and his money are easily parted.”
”Something like that.”
That night we went to the Crush and sat in the VIP section. We called up some girls we knew and had them meet us down there. Tris bought drinks for our whole group all night. We stumbled back a few drunken blocks to the Tower a little bit after closing time. I was too wasted to get laid that night, but Tristram will still swear to you that he slept with all three girls we brought back. I couldn’t say for sure one way or the other.
The next couple weeks were a little bit different. Tristram got fired from the coffee shop for missing too many days in a row. He promised me he would find another job before he ran out of his half of Uncle Bob’s money, but he didn’t.
My last memory of our struggle to keep the Tower is when we were moving out the last of our furniture. We ended up getting ourselves evicted and waited until the last possible minute of our thirty day grace period to move out our stuff. We used the freight elevator to bring all our furniture and boxes down to the loading dock. Some old bushy-eyebrowed maintenance man had to ride with us to work the controls for the elevator and the bay doors.
We were pretty well loaded up in the U-Haul (which I had to pay for) and Tris was already in the driver’s seat while I was cinching up a couple of tie-downs. Before he closed the door behind us, the man got my attention.
”Did you fellas have a good time while it lasted?”
I just nodded.
You need to log in to urbis or create an urbis account to review this writing.
Reviews
Sort Reviews by Newest | Oldest | Highest Quality | Lowest Quality | Newest Comments |
By starting the story with the notice of late payment, you’re setting up the reader’s expectation that this will be the main struggle for the characters. And it is, sort of, but you make it way too easy for the characters to overcome the problem, only to have the moral ending hammer them with a reversal of fortune at the end.
The story needs more tension. You have scenes of opportunity with the letter and the aunt walking in on them while they’re playing pool, but it all resolves itself without incident and thus makes the story less compelling.
The characters aren’t very distinguishable, either. On page 7, with the tagless back and forth dialogue, nothing about what the characters are saying or how they’re saying it distinguishes them. The addition or subtraction of quotation marks is really inconsequential for the larger issue of needing two strong, separate characters that are easily distinguished from one another. We get hints that Tris is the more daring, outgoing guy, but he doesn’t stand far enough apart from the narrator to be as developed and interesting as he could be. You also name and mention a third character, Ross, but he doesn’t appear in the story in any active role. Three people in a scene is much more interesting than two because you can play them off one another instead of either being in agreement all the time (which your characters are) or being in disagreement (which creates a “ping-pong match” of dialogue and doesn’t move the story). I would have preferred to see the character who was ultimately responsible for their predicament being in the story and contributing to their success or failure.
Writing a story with amoral behavior that then has a “comeuppance” ending is a little odd, though you did well to handle the repercussions within the same moral code that the guys follow (they lose because they’re lazy, not because they’re caught by the police). For me, the heart of the story is them deciding to steal money from their uncle who may waste his money, but who also seems very generous and trusting. They don’t deal with that betrayal, and you let them off the hook with the crap justification that he’s so rich he can slosh money around like it’s kool-aid.
There’s also a lot of time spent describing their lifestyles, which is actually pretty easy to sum up in a paragraph—they’re dudes in their early/mid-20s who like to party. The subject matter is fine, but the depiction of their lifestyle is pretty generic outside of a few details about where they live. I get the sense that their lives aren’t going to change much except they’ll be living in a place they can better afford and might have to pick up less attractive women. Give them some interesting hobbies or some weird ambition, something that goes beyond where they live that is also jeopardized by their being evicted or stealing the money. Raise the stakes a little more.
The quality of writing is pretty strong. It’s clear and, despite the lack of tension, has a nice pace that kept me in the story. I think if you made life and the decisions a little harder/more dangerous for the characters, the story would be very compelling. Good luck.
- add/view comments (0)
Showing 1 - 1 of 1
Review item
Add to faves
GENERAL
REVIEW QUEUE
Ratings & Rankings
