I keep running Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday! What have I done? What have I done?
To quote The Clash. Yes, I am on the run. From who, you might ask? Why none other than the management of my apartment complex. You see, for those of you who follow this blog you may have noticed I am intent on moving out of California as quickly as possible, fleeing if you will like a coward from the army, AWOL from my personal cultural army. I am through with this place, this town, I need room to breath, a chance for a better life in a town that could give a damn about me, instead of one that asks me to keep quiet.
Naturally there have been some...obstacles. Money is one, my visit cost me financially and has thus slowed my ability to collect enough cash to escape. Then my car went kablooie, meaning I have to move on foot, and the rules changed a little at work. The most important problem though is that due to repair work on my car (which shall now be scrapped) and a tow truck for it, plus a suit for a wedding, 300 dollars in spurious fees by my bank, and a few other miscellaneous expenses I am completely broke and probably slightly overdraft. This means no rent for July, which incidentally would be my last month anyway. So after depositing my thirty day notice I have decided to work as feverishly as I can to empty my apartment and hide someplace so my landlords can't come begging for more of my money. To be honest I am completely mortified of them, they have been pushy, sneaky, and nosy. They act like parents, asking me why my girlfriend left, what my plans are, where they can find me...the list goes on and on. On top of that they can be extremely threatening, in the way that says "Give us money or we'll make bad things happen to you!" and my only response is "Stop yelling, I don't have any money for you, nor will I be getting any." They act like I have a secret pot of gold hidden away from them, and I need to collect from it or they'll feed me to the bears.
It's that situation in movies that makes me exceptionally uncomfortable, where a character knows nothing of what's going on, or doesn't have what the antagonist is looking for and gets threatened or tortured to cough up aforementioned item. They're all like "I don't know, i have no clue what a positron collider is!" and the villain is like "Fuck you pal, I'll just jam some bamboo under your nails till you suddenly know, which will be NEVER!"
Anyway, because I am completely terrified of them, and don't want them threatening me when I explain that I don't have the money, and more importantly that I don't want to give them any money, because they scare me, and I don't give people that scare me money, I have started hiding. Yes I am hiding in terror, convinced that some clawed management type will swoop down and demand money from me, and if I don't have it right now they'll keep hunting me till I give them more money, or promise them money in the future. I hate giving all of these bullies money, when from the get go they kept trying to get me to leave, or scared away my potential room mates, and all the other rude little things they threw at me. I'm terrified and pissed off and I'm not going allow myself to be placed in a situation where they get some money.
So this morning I rose, nervous that they were on my doorstep watching for me, and as a result of this I crept silently along the floor till I got to the peephole. Flattening a hand against the door I leaned in, toes stretched in the hopes of keeping extra quiet. My eye moved into position over the peephole and flicked left then right, confirming that unless they were positioned right outside my line of sight they weren't there. I stealthily back to my room to dress, grabbing my work clothes in the process, my mind plotting a course, one that was unlikely to draw attention, and also would conceal me from my crafty opponents. Returning to the front door I took the bolt in my hand and gave it a quick turn then lifted on the handle to keep the door from catching and sending a reverberating sound through the next door and down stairs apartments, because who knows, perhaps they were waiting in the downstairs apartment, eager to swallow my head, while simultaneously picking through my wallet. With the door open and no one outside I was well positioned to make a break for one of two alleys that lead to my families house on the far opposite side of the complex. With swift feet I peddled down the stairs, knowing that if a maintenance cart came by I would be helplessly trapped. Fortunately no cart came and I carried on down an adjoining alley, till I reached an intersecting driveway. Another wide open space, the street curled up and away on both sides, providing a little coverage, but if a cart came it would be too late by the time I heard it. Gathering my wits I ran as quickly as I could to the opposite alley and proceeded cautiously forward. Alley by alley, i made my way to my families, each time I came to an opening I would drop and peek my head around a corner, then proceed on cautiously. In time I was safely inside my families, a space with plenty of closets and drawers I could scurry into if the landlords showed up breathing fire and looking for me.
Eventually though I would have to leave the safety of this place, go out into their territory, open myself up to capture again. I could sense them, they were waiting for me out there, dead eyes fixed on the house wondering where the phantom tenant who owed them money was, somewhere, miles away on a breeze you could almost hear the words "just take the deposit and leave me alone." As the time grew close I trusted my ride to simply pull up and contact me, allowing me the minimum of time to get there and get away. However once 2:30 rolled around I worried and felt compelled to sneak out the back door and slink my way up to the front driveway looking for him. I crept up the back way, away from the windows of the front office, I could picture all future paycheck flying away, Ventura laughing maniacally in the background, punching me in the ribs while Santa Barbara and LA tied me to a chair. I moved along the side on an apartment and made my way to a sidewalk, then plopping myself down I waited, watching anxiously for my confederate to come and get me out of there. As I watched the school bus arrived, dropped off it's cargo of children, parents waiting at the ready, then it eased forward and began to leave. At roughly this same moment one of the landlords came charging out of the office, on a trajectory angled towards a tenant who had just gotten out their car.
"Shit!" The word leaped up and out of my mouth, I vomited expletives as i tumbled backward and down a grassy hill away from where I saw the landlady. I was in a dither, I pressed myself against the closest apartment wall and inched towards the alley next to the parking garage. I leaned slowly forward and watched to see if the first landlady was headed back for the office or was pursuing the shadow she caught of the corner of her eye, the shadow that seemed to owe her money. Nothing, no one was there, I knew though she was out there and my heart crept into my throat as I pictured her walking along the sidewalk at the front of the building, while I stared out the back, could see her now, turning the corner and spying me, at which point I would melt away and promise her months of paychecks, months of indentured servitude anything to keep her from using a stern voice and threatening me with hard time or worse, disappointment. Abruptly, out of nowhere, the second landlady appeared lumbering towards where the first one had been.
"Fuck!" I expelled another expletive as I leaped from the alley to the wall overlooking the dumpster, I teetered a bit then fell forward into the enclosure between wall and garbage receptacle. Now I pictured them both hunting me, eyes furtively searching every inch of ground, until I was discovered. Fortunately, although they knew quite a bit about me they did not know that I was a champion at hide and seek, untraceable Trebaol as it were. I crawled towards the dumpster, pulling out my phone 'where the fuck is Abe?' I pondered, he was late and as such I was now in danger. I plinked away at the tiny keypad, beseeching him to hurry, to skip his regular stopping spot and head for the back gate of my families house, just past the dumpster I was hidden beside. I glanced up at the alley just over me, did I try to press myself against the wall just below it and hope that in a quick search they wouldn't look at their own feet, or did I simply take my chances and play an ace only I could play by climbing in the empty dumpster, it would be through underestimating my fear and zeal for hiding that they would lose me. Thinking twice about both plans I moved back towards the alley and wall and peeked around the corner. the whole office staff was now arranged in a neat circle at the end of the alley, chit chatting. I hadn't been noticed, I had escaped at least temporarily!
I turned and ran as quickly as I could towards the back gate of my families house, carefully opening the door and ducking behind the grill. Abe still hadn't arrived, he texted me back and seemed perplexed as to where he needed to be.
"In the back, behind the house, go to the back alley!" I shouted in a restrained murmur, watching through the cracks of the fence. finally his Volkswagen GTI slid into view, stopped at the end of the driveway. 'Perfect' I threw open the gate and ran headlong towards the car, praying no one was coming, that the maintenance truck wasn't on its way at that moment, ready to identify me, ready to spill the beans as to where I had crept off to, ready to wreck months of intended hiding. I grabbed the handle and glanced won the driveway, there, at the far end, shining in a sickening white was the maintenance pickup truck. I was in full uniform, a black and white target, pinned against a wall. I slammed the door and Abe began to pull forward.
"Not that way!!! Turn around, right, right, right!" I shouted, crouching in the seat, I knew I had been seen, at least I could assume I had been seen. My only hope was that the day workers hadn't bothered to notice my regular uniform i wore in the late afternoon. I prayed that I was imply an anomalous sight, some strange event like deja vu or a previously unseen bird swooping by. "For the love of Pete get me outta this place!" I shouted again. Glancing behind me I could see the truck was gone, had it been there at all? Was I cracking up under the pressure of hiding all the time? The GTI rolled onto the street and sped away for my work, where no one could find me for eight hours.
Tonight when I return home I will remain awake. I will stalk the alleys and garages of the complex with impunity, everyone will be asleep and I will be free to move about unmolested. I will use this freedom to open my apartment and empty out it's contents, in time hopefully leaving it bare, leaving an abandoned husk for them when they finally beat down the door with dollar signs in their eyes. I will move with speed, and regret no loss, so long as I am not caught. I have lost quite a bit in the past few years, but on this I will win! I will laugh all the way to Portland while the slavering crowds in Ventura smash coconuts over their heads, demanding to know who let me slip out of their grasp! Ventura will throw everything at me, the town is trying to kill me and will succeed if I'm not craftier than it is. I'm certain you must all think I'm crazy to think that a city would actively try to eliminate a favorite son in such a manner, but I assure you, beyond a shadow of a doubt if it's not the city that's trying to kill me it's the whole freakin' planet. The moment I find a nice place to live...WHAM! Car trouble, bank trouble, house trouble, job trouble, every possible iteration of trouble all comes sliding down the chute, the world becomes a fetid fish cannery of misery, all in the hopes of crushing the spirit of a single person so they won't try hard enough to break free of the madness surrounding them in a state called California. I think for Southern Californians the biggest trick we played on ourselves is believing that this is all worth it here. The grinding financial degradation, the lack of culture, leave SoCal to the rich, let them sip their champagne and frolic on their beaches while the rest of us take on three jobs, I say shove it SoCal, I'm outta here! Go ahead and try and stop me, nothin's worked yet!
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