“Well, this is the bathroom slash kitchen,” Rupert did a sweep with his arm that ended at the toilet resting next to the stove. “Note that you can use the toilet paper dispenser for paper towels as well.”
“Now, the bedroom has enough room for either two recliner chairs, which you may have noticed on the curb out front, or a twin-size bed,” Rupert told the young couple.
Jim bit his lip and wondered if they could just tell Rupert to go fuck himself. Rupert was seedy and creepy. He was unkempt and greasy. He was wearing an old No-Fear shirt and a sporty pair of orange and black Zubaz, similar to a pair Jim had sported in kindergarten.
“I actually met my first wife here in the 5th grade. It was an abandoned building at that point,” Rupert tells them as he scratches furiously at a rough patch of his scalp, sending chunks of dead skin out of his hair and onto his dirty shirt.
“This is where all the neighborhood kids would lose their virginity, so you know, it’s family friendly,” Rupert winked at Jim.
Jim stood in the center of the kitchen slash toilet room and wondered if migrants lived in this shithole at the turn of the century. There was sunlight poking through what were possibly bullet holes in the walls, there were mystery stains on the cement floor, and a horrible meaty smell that was making Kelly lightheaded.
Jim wondered how Rupert had money to place the classified ad that he and Kelly had seen in the paper yesterday. The ad was plain, a simple realtor listing with his number, nothing fancy. Jim had called Rupert and told him over the phone that they were looking for a nice starter home, something they could fix up and make their own. Rupert had told him that he had a variety of low-priced homes just looking for a loving touch.
Rupert had sounded confidant and competent over the phone. Jim and Kelly were excited to get out of their current lease and settle down somewhere, a quiet place where people didn’t blast death metal, or knock on your door at 3 a.m. looking for a lighter, or a ride to the nearest greyhound station. Some comfortable place where they actually had control over the thermostat and weren’t subjected to the whims of the landlord and their tendency to not turn on the heat until January. They were both sick of wearing sweaters to bed.
“Are those bullet holes?” Jim asks, pointing at the wall, riddled with holes.
“Those?” Rupert asked.
“Yeah,” Jim nodded. “It actually kind of looks like somebody was shot and killed right here, what with the dark splatter stains.”
Rupert pauses for a moment as though he’s trying to think of a good excuse for where the holes came from. The three of them stand awkwardly in silence.
“Now there isn’t actually a basement,” Rupert glides over Jim’s inquiry. “But, if you’ll step into the backyard with me.”
Rupert dived out the front door and zipped around to the back of the shack, while Jim and Kelly looked at each other and wordlessly acknowledged that they were both considering running to the car and escaping. Instead they followed Rupert outside and discover that he’s already talking when they catch up to him.
“You’ll notice that there’s a hole,” Rupert said.
There was a hole, a very large hole. It was half under the house, exposing some pipes that had obviously been snapped off with bolt cutters, most likely by a heroin or crack enthusiast who was hoping to sell them to a scrap yard. The hole looked like somebody had decided to bury a body there and Kelly remembered the smell of rotting meat that filled the inside of 1613 Maplewood Drive.
“If you want,” Rupert continued, “you could dig a little more and turn it into a storage unit or a nice pool.”
“Why is there a hole here?” Kelly asked, afraid.
“Convenience, I suppose,” Rupert grinned.
The three of them stood in the backyard, which had a chain link fence outlining the sandbox sized area that Rupert had described as a “small field” over the phone earlier. Most of the grass was browned from neighborhood animals who’d decided to use this specific thatch of grass as a litter box. There was what looked like years of decaying feces piled up, some of it appeared to be half eaten.
The neighboring homes looked about the same as this one. Dilapidated, with hunks missing, holes in the roofs. None of them looked lived in, but there were shady characters peeping out windows every time Jim surveyed the nearby yards.
“So, what do you think? This is a great neighborhood for kids,” Rupert pointed at Kelly’s stomach, which, though a little doughy, did not in fact contain a fetus. Kelly stared at Rupert and quietly began to weep as tears ran down her cheeks.
“Isn’t this the neighborhood where they keep busting meth-labs?” Jim asked Rupert, noticing the yellow crime-scene tape roping off the entrance to the squat across the makeshift alley.
Rupert continued smiling, ignoring the question as though he didn’t hear it.
“I could have a contract drawn up and have you come by later today if you’d like.”
“Gee, Rupert, I don’t know. What do you think, hon?” Jim asked Kelly, who continued to cry. “Well, she’s crying because this shithole is so awful, so I’d have to say this probably isn’t the place for us,” Jim tells him. “Wouldn’t you agree, Rupert, that if a home is so awful that it drives you to cry, that maybe you shouldn’t buy it?”
“I could probably get you a deal on cable,” Rupert whispers to him, as though he’s cutting him a secret deal.
“I could probably beat you to death and throw you into that hole and get away with it,” Jim tells him.
“Would you like to look at some other places? I have all afternoon free.”
“Would you like to go in that hole?” Jim asks him.
Rupert stops smiling and Jim leads Kelly back to their Honda. As they pull away, Jim notices that in the ten minutes they looked at the Maplewood Drive shanty, someone had come by and ripped out their CD player and rummaged through their glove box. Rupert’s BMW, however, was gone, stolen. As Jim and Kelly smiled at each other, Rupert was trying to flag them down for a ride. Jim slowed down, and the fear on Rupert’s face, the look that said ‘don’t leave me here’ left and was replaced by the grin they’d been subjected to throughout the showing.
Jim peeled out.
Story by Jason Schueppert.
