The Landlord

Mary Goth has worked at the Cottonwood apartments as assistant manager for going on two years now. She had been at Quentin apartment management, the parent company, for going on five. She loved it. It was the perfect job for her. Basically, she was paid an obscene amount of money, to sit around and pretend to look busy for perspective new residents.

It was made clear, from up on high, that the only concern she needed to worry herself about was making sure new people moved in. She wasn’t to help current residents. That cost the company money and was out and out frowned upon. Cynthia Torrez, the manager, and Mary’s closest friend, took great pride in practicing her annoyed voice. The more distain she could slip into her voice, the happier she would be. As of late, Mary had been following in her footsteps. She would never openly admit it, but she looked up to Cynthia. She was her role model, ever since she made some old lady cry when they ran over her cat, and then fined her for it. Being cruel to the residents was almost an artform, one that Mary was hoping to become a master at.

She would spend countless hours, daydreaming about becoming manager of her own complex one day, where she could torment the residents. There was something so satisfying about ruining someone, it was a high that no drug could capture. In fact, there was a running pool going about two residents. One was an elderly couple, living on a fixed income, the other a single mother and her newborn son, both of whom, have been complaining of mold in their apartment for going on a year. The bet, was to see which resident would get sick first. For a long time, Mary was hoping it would give them some kind of cancer. She always loved seeing cancer patients. Something about how weak and frail they looked. It never failed to make Mary laugh. There was many a night, where she would fall asleep to dreams of the elderly couple coughing their last breaths, or the mother going to wake her baby, only to find that all life had left his little body. If only she could be there to witness it, that would be heaven.

Unfortunately, she found out there was no real evidence that mold causes cancer. That was a sad day. The only way she could make herself feel better, was by sending out half a dozen eviction notices. Each one claiming the resident in question didn’t pay their rent. She took such joy in their stress, their misery. It cheered her right up. She was almost hoping one or two of them wouldn’t have any receipt, so they could really evict them. There was nothing more enjoyable than waiting till right before a rain storm to toss someone’s belongings into the dirt yard, so the rain and mud would ruin everything. Inflicting that kind of pain felt like being a kid on Christmas morning again.

The newest game was randomly changing the gate code. They had to email the residents to inform them of the change, but she would spend hours, changing one letter in each email, so that none of them went through. Then one by one, she would make the residents beg for the new code. Gas lighting them into thinking they just didn’t see the email. Lecturing them on being more responsible. The misery, the stress, the anger and rage on the resident’s face, it was bliss. Unless you have inflicted this kind of misery yourself, you could never begin to understand the joy it brings. Creating misery in others brings a sense of fulfilment. Of satisfaction, in one’s life. Mary couldn’t help but believe that God had truly blessed her.

Which is why on June 4th, the day after they collected rent for the month, Mary was astonished at how quickly everything fell apart for her. The day started like every other June 4th. She spent the early morning, walking around the complex, sabotaging different A/C units. The thought of the residents suffering in 100-degree heat made her feel nice and cozy while sitting at home in her perfectly cold house. At least once a summer someone would be taken away in an ambulance with heat stroke, it was always the highlight of the summer for Mary and Cynthia.

The only downside this June 4th, was that while Mary was messing with the A/C units, Cynthia was renting an apartment to a single mother and her son. He was trying out for the high school swim team, and all he cared about was living somewhere with access to a pool, so he could practice all summer. He had dreams of completing in the Olympics. Luckily, Cottonwood has a beautiful pool, right out in the open for all new residents to see. Cynthia gave the whole song and dance, about how they were finishing up fixing it, and it would be open by next week. A total lie.

The pool never opened. They kept it closed all year long. Once a month they would clean the pool out, make it all nice looking, so people looking to move in would be taken in by it. And sure enough, as soon as the office closed each day, people would hop the fence and go swimming. Never suspecting the chemicals that they put into the pool would make them sick. It was just punishment for attempting to find some joy in their miserable lives. There was nothing worse than a resident who was happy. Who found purpose in their life. It took away from Mary’s happiness, and that was not acceptable.

It wasn’t until that afternoon that things started to go sideways. A young lady, right out of some emo goth rock band, walked in. She had only been living in the complex for a little over a month. Mary had cut her A/C that morning and days before she moved in, they exchanged her fridge with an older model that wouldn’t properly cool the food. When she complained, they replaced the fridge, with a model that opened from the other side. They were kind enough to move all her food inside the fridge for her. Only then, she complained that the wall next to the fridge prevented her from opening the door. Some people loved to complain. After a week or so of her constant complaints, they exchanged it with yet another fridge, this one with the door on correctly. Only this time, due to her own actions, what with all the complaining, they didn’t move the food over for her. Instead, they waited until she went to work in the morning and took everything out of the fridge, and left all her food on the counter. It wasn’t until two days later that they finally brought the new fridge in. She was not happy. Mary and Cynthia popped champaign that night.

Today her complaint was about her mailbox being broken into, yet again. Residents loved to complain about this. It would always happen around Christmas, and whenever a family with young children had birthdays. There was always good stuff to be found in the mailboxes, and Cynthia found some young go-getters, who would do the job for almost nothing.

Mary just nodded, her head and told her for the millionth time, that there was nothing they could do. That she just needed to be more proactive getting her mail in a timely fashion if she was afraid of it being stolen.  The emo brat, who was far too pale for her own good, turned a bright shade of red. It took every ounce of control Mary had to not start laughing. She had to avoid eye contact with her. Just dismissed her from her office and the second the front door closed, she burst out laughing. Life was great!

She only lived a few blocks from the apartments, a nice house, with a massive yard, and a pool that the stupid kid Cynthia tricked, would have killed for. She made it about half way, when her driver side front tire blew out. She cursed under breath and pulled over to the side. She always hated waiting on triple A, they took their sweet time. As if they had anything better to do with their miserable lives, than fix her tire. They were luckily she called them.

Or would have called them. It wasn’t until some snotnosed punk named Albert answered, that her phone suddenly died. She could have sworn she had charged it while she was at work. No matter, her father had taught her how to change tires. He felt it was a skill everyone should know.

No sooner had Mary gotten out of the car and found the jack, did the hot summer day, turn to a stormy night. The rain came down, fast and hard. It had seemed, like there wasn’t a cloud in the sky moments ago. She couldn’t help but wonder where this storm came from.

She forced these thoughts out of her mind as she set herself to the task at hand. She started to jack up the car, the cold rain pelting her, harder and harder. She started to shiver, when suddenly the crank slipped from her hand, flew through the air and sliced into the back tire. “Fuck!” She screamed out. She only had one spare.

Car after car drove passed her, more often than not splashing water all over her as they went. She threw the jack in the trunk, grabbed her keys, and started walking home. She’ll just go home, charge her phone and then call triple A. It was only a couple blocks. No big deal.

She made it about a block before she noticed the street started flooding. In and of itself, an odd occurrence. For the life of her, she couldn’t remember it ever flooding before. Let alone so quickly. The water came up, almost to her knees, and it was rising fast. By time she made it to her street, she was damn near swimming. Her feet, hardly touching the ground.

With great difficulty, she pulled out her keys, only to find the ring that housed her house key, was bent. The key to her house, missing. She turned around, to the flooded, street, hoping to spot the glittering key, with no avail. She returned the keys to her pocket and started to swim back towards her car, her eyes scanning the road, under all the water, for any sign of her key. She found none.

It took far longer to get back to her car, than it took for her to get home, and her day was only getting worse. Her car was no longer where she had left it. Instead, it was floating down the street, slowly sinking. Her heart sank, she loved that car. She had stolen it from her exboyfriend. She talked him into getting it when they moved in together. She convinced him to put both of their names on it, and a few months later had him arrested for hitting her. Of course, he never laid a hand on her, but a little makeup and some crying worked nicely. She made a deal to drop the charges if he kept paying for the car. All in all, it was some beautiful work on her end, if she did say so herself. And now, all that hard work, was sinking to the bottom of this damn flood.

For the first time in her life Mary was starting to feel despair, when she noticed her phone floating out of the back window of her car. She was sure she had rolled them up, she was also positive she had her phone in her pocket. She was wrong on both counts, but at least she was here in time to save her phone. She would just have to find a way into her house, without the key.

By time she got her phone and swam back to her house, it was almost halfway under water. She had never seen a flood this high before. She couldn’t help but feel a little worried. Surely the power was out. There was no way she was going to be able to charge her phone, but that didn’t matter. All she cared about now was feeling warmth again. Her whole body was shaking from the cold. It was almost unbearable. She just had to find a way inside.

It didn’t take long for her to notice her bedroom window was wide open. Water was pouring out of her house onto the roof outside the window and into the flood surrounding her house. With a little work she managed to get onto the roof and climbed up to her bedroom window. Only falling and sliding back down into the flooded landscape twice. Her bedroom was completely submerged. For the first time in years, she felt tears flow from her eyes. It was an unsettling experience for her.

Just as suddenly as the storm started, it vanished. The rain stopped and the sky cleared up. Not that it did much good. Her house was surrounded by the flood water, and the inside was just as bad. She sat on her bed, her feet dangling in the water, as if she was sitting on the side of a pool, and spent most of the night crying into her hands before falling asleep.

When morning came, she was surprised to find the flood outside had mostly cleared up. The water in her house was another story. She waded her way downstairs and opened every door in the house, attempting to drain the water out. Everything was ruined. A life time of memories and trinkets, all destroyed by one night of rain. It was almost too much, but Mary was made of stronger stuff than most. She shrugged it off and attempted to find anything she could save. There wasn’t much. After some internal debate, she decided to go to work. She didn’t feel like being stuck in this house, with all the ruin.

She was surprised to find how little damage other people suffered from the flood. In fact, the farther she got from her house, the less it seemed like it even rained. The sun was out in force this morning. It had to be over 100 degrees out. She could feel the sweat trickle down her face, as she struggled to keep putting one foot in front of the other.

Half way to work, she spotted her car. Flipped upside down, the windows shattered and the remaining good tires were gone. It was clearly beyond repair. She had worked so hard to get that car, she didn’t deserve this. It was just another problem she would have to deal with when she got to work.

Cottonwood was dry as ever. If she didn’t know any better, she would have sworn it never rained here. She paused at the front door, Cynthia wasn’t in yet, and it seemed she had forgotten her key back at the house. Mary let out a sigh and sat in front of the door. Cynthia should be in soon enough. She could wait outside a little longer.

It was close to two by time Cynthia showed up. She had decided to treat herself to a spa day. In the hours between Mary arriving to work, and Cynthia finally getting to work, it had seemed like almost every resident had come by to complain about something or other. She had been attacked by two different dogs, and no less than three birds had decided that her head looked like a toilet. Add to that the fact that heat had risen to close to a 110, and the hose outside the office decided that today was the perfect day to stop working, and Mary was almost positive she was being punished for something. She made her way into her office, Cynthia mocking her as she went. Her best friend, her role model, had turned against her. Mary couldn’t blame her. If Cynthia had the night she had, Mary would have mocked her to.

She slammed her office door closed, she didn’t want to deal with any residents and their bullshit. She just wanted to enjoy the nice, cool A/C and relax a little. No sooner had she sat her desk when the A/C cut off. She slammed her head to the desk, tears flowing freely. For the life of her, she couldn’t understand why life was being so cruel to her. After all, she was a good person. Wasn’t she? She thought she was. She was nice to her neighbors and friends. She tipped 1 whole percent when she went out to eat. It was far more than those people deserved. Nothing she had done was deserving of this fate.

She picked her head up and looked around for her phone charger. The least she could do was get her phone back on. It was under the desk, the wire caught on her chair. Getting it untangled took a while, and the wire looked a little banged up, but she was sure it would still work. It had to. She plugged into the outlet and hooked her phone up to it. Praying it would turn on, and that the water didn’t ruin her phone.

The phone started to spark, making little popping sounds as a tiny string of sparks went from the phone to the outlet, which in turn erupted into a massive fire. Mary all but jumped out of the chair and ran for the door, only to find it stuck. She banged and banged on the door, but it wouldn’t open. She could hear Cnythia in the lobby talking to someone about going out to lunch. She banged harder, hoping her friend would hear her. Instead, she heard the little bell, as the front door slammed shut.

In a panic, Mary ran back towards the far wall, and rushed towards the door, using as much strength and speed as she could muster. The door flew open, as she fell to the ground. The bones in her right arm shattered from the force. With great difficulty, she managed to get out of the office building before the whole building went up in flames.

The fire went out, all on its own, not long after it devoured the office. None of the residents answered their doors when she asked for help, none of them bothered to report the fire. She couldn’t believe how ungrateful they all were. She gave them all a place to live, the least they could do was help her out when she needed it. She was going to make sure they all paid for their actions this day.

Cynthia returned not long after, to say she was pissed would have been an understatement. She fired Mary on the spot. Any trace of their friendship forgotten. With her head hung low, she started walking home. Content in the knowledge, that at least nothing else could go wrong.

If only that was true. She returned home, to find her house condemned. Set to be demolished the very next day. The sheriff wouldn’t allow her back inside. It was a safety hazard.  She would have to find somewhere else to stay the night. Her neighbors had gathered outside to watch. Most of them seemed to be finding the whole ordeal amusing. She wasn’t going to get no help from any of them.

Before she had a chance to get more than a few blocks from her house, a car pulled up next to her, the man driving seemed to know her. He called Mary by name, and once she confirmed it was indeed her, he served her paperwork. It seemed her job, or well old job, wasted no time in suing her for allowing the fire to happen.

Once she found the nearest hotel, things only got worse. It seemed that all of her credit cards were maxed out. Which was impossible. She paid them all off each and every month. Cynthia had come up with a beautiful scheme for paying their bills. Whatever rent increase the apartments charged, they would double, and the two of them would pocket the difference. It was a beautiful system that didn’t hurt anyone. At least not anyone who mattered.

After some begging, Mary got the hotel clerk to let her use the hotel phone. She called her bank first, only to find her account had been seized by the government for fraud. The same had proven true of her credit cards. The FBI had frozen all of her accounts. It seemed that Quentin apartment management had found out about their overcharging the tenets rent, and Cynthia had put all the blame on Mary. She even had receipts to prove it.

For three days, Mary lived on the streets, eating what little food she could find, doing the best she could to stay cool. The cruel summer sun beating down on her. But alas, her luck ran out and the authorities caught her. Her trial didn’t last long. Cynthia, her bosses, and every resident, past and present of Cottonwood, came in to testify. The jury debated for all of 30 seconds before voting guilty. She was sentenced to 25 years.

Her new life was not at all fun. The guard in charge of her cellblock, seemed to take delight in making the prisoners life hell. He would shut off the A/C at the hottest parts of the day. He would rig it so that Mary was out of her room passed curfew, normally by locking her in a closet somewhere, so that she would be punished. The more the prisoners suffered, the more joy he took. Almost as if causing pain was how he got his kicks. He treated it like an artform. If it was an artform, he was Picasso of torture. For the rest of her days, Mary couldn’t understand how anyone could be so cruel, and how they could enjoy the suffering of others so much.

​She never got the irony.