“Unmasking the Secrets: How Grocery Man and Astro’s Surprising Rivalries Redefine Friendship”
Added on February 8, 2025 inASTROLOGY CARDS
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In a world as curious as our own, where characters can be just as puzzling as plotlines, tales like mine emerge—juxtaposing a galaxy far, far away against the everyday drama of a young bartender. Ever found yourself tangled in a web of unexpected relationships and bizarre revelations? Well, buckle up! In this whimsical recount of my life, you’ll not only meet a crush named Grocery Man but also dodge roaches, navigate confusing landlord dynamics, and explore the colorful chaos of young adulthood. It’s a ride that illustrates how life’s a bit like bar service—sometimes you pour the perfect drink, and other times, well… let’s just say the order doesn’t always come out right! Intrigued? You should be! Dive in and let’s unravel this journey together. LEARN MORE
I mentioned, Obi Wan Kenobi PhD, yesterday. People wonder what happened to by beau in the story, Darth Vader. I know, but if I give you a straight answer, I deprive you of real stories the illustrate how life twirls around, sorts itself and such as it unfolds. In this case, I got my update on, Vader, via another friend or character I knew. I called him, “President”.
I introduced, President, back in 2001 which is right about the time I first started blogging. I was posting a story as a holiday distraction. As for the astrology, it’s got all elements… in spades.
I wrote this before I developed any filters. The audience was much smaller then, just a few people gathered around to hear a story told. This story is true of course and not embellished.
As for the back story, I moved to town when I was fifteen, and started working as a bartender. I met, Mr. Kenobi, when I was seventeen. At this point, I’m twenty-one years old and a seasoned bartender.
Many who knew me back then would tell you I was in my own class. I’d say that was probably true though why would be hard to pinpoint. I have always been some strangely landed dice.
Scott is in this story. We met in his mother’s bar when I was fifteen. He was my on and off boyfriend for seventeen years. “Sexy Gal” is his sister. She’s featured in another story. Everyone else is just who and how I present them, and this includes me…
That’s it, Enjoy!
Part one – “Royal Gardens”
I was twenty-one years old and Grocery Man had a bit of a crush on me. It was not a huge crush or an obvious crush but the common kind. A fair number of people sitting at a bar develop a desire for the bartender. It is a pedestal of sorts; it’s the catbird seat or so I was told.
Someone told me I was sitting in the catbird seat and I had to call the library to find out what that meant but anyway, this desire thing happens all the time. When you tend bar, people are drinking. You start to look tasty to a percentage of them.
Grocery Man was the sensible type. He kept his crush in check and it didn’t get in the way of us relating. As a bartender, if you want to keep your customers, you really have to find mechanisms to deal with this infatuation thing. The bar wants to keep the customer coming back and the bartender wants the tips so it’s a skill to remain “carrot” in front of a horse.
I can’t date everyone and I can’t flat out reject them either. Like Mohammad Ali – I had to duck and dive. I have to float like a butterfly, sting like a bee because by my nature, I talk way too much to be aloof or inaccessible. It’s a real trick to be both friendly and unavailable and I’m pretty good at it, credit to Sexy Gal. She was beautiful and alluring but she had a head for business and she was masterfully in command when working the bar. I learned from her, so there you go.
Grocery Man was respectful and generally he’d didn’t drink too much. Occasionally he’d get stupid but I liked him enough to forgive him that. He liked to talk about business which was fairly unusual and a hot topic to me. This gave us common ground. I considered him not a problem which is a high compliment, really. Many people in a bar are a problem for the bartender; it’s just a matter of degree.
One day I’d decided to move. I was leaving a boyfriend actually and I needed a new apartment so I did what bartenders do. I asked around and sure enough I had the top tier of a large property management company as customers. I was offered an apartment at the coveted “Royal Gardens”.
Did someone say “Royal?” My Leo Venus perked up.
I’d been by this place hundreds of times and it was glorious. The whole place was lush and nirvana looking which is not so common in desert. There was a fountain in front and it even had a stream running through it which was truly astonishing.
You don’t think so? That’s because you didn’t grow up in the middle of desert, ten miles from the grocery store, without a TV.
This place even had grass! I’d say I pined to live there but I didn’t. It was so hopelessly out of my price range, I couldn’t afford to pine. I never even thought about the Royal Gardens outside of feeling the people who lived there were ultra-fortunate. I thought it was sort of an apartment heaven for the lucky.
The President of this corporation quoted a price and I told him I couldn’t afford it. I was embarrassed, but come on. I was totally poor. He nodded and said he’d give me various discounts to get the rent down. He says he’d give me $50 off for a military discount, $50 for senior discount, $50 disability discount…
Hmm.
I asked why they didn’t just have a $150 discount for poor people so I could move in without breaking rules. No one laughed but that was because it was funny.
I took the deal, but secretly wished he’d have brought the rent down further. The apartment was still very pricey but I must have said thank you fifty times anyway. You know. Location, location, location. I didn’t want to appear ungrateful for what he did offer so that was that. I made plans to move my humbleness in to this green, lush, I mean lap of luxury.
I was happy and couldn’t wait to get picked up by my first date in my new digs. I was an uptown girl now, and if I’d been able to afford a Mary Tyler Moore hat I would have tossed it in the air for sure.
Part Two – Veneer, Baby! That’s All It Is!
I showed up at the gates of apartment heaven with the card of the President in my purse. His company owned just over 300 apartment complexes across several states. I was told to explain I was a friend of his. I should outline the agreement to the onsite manager. He said I could have them contact him if there were any questions. It was a Saturday but he’d written his home number was on back his card. I felt I was pretty well covered.
The manager was a gal named, Ms.Thinkslow. In hindsight I’d say she didn’t like me on sight, but I was truly, brilliantly stupid at the time. I’d never have guessed this. I have Venus square Neptune and had no idea how I appeared, until I was about thirty years old and my sister broke it to me. Consequently,when I met people like Ms.Thinkslow, I was purely baffled.
Q. Why does she think she is superior to me?
A. I have no idea.
This was pure puzzle to me but, Thinkslow, was the kind of gal who’s offended in a fear-based way, just by having to converse with someone who looks the way I do. She was probably daughter of someone affluent and had probably been isolated from anyone who was not her mirror image. Consequently, standing toe to toe with someone with my look, caused her to panic.
In her defense, I have a “street” quality. I got by living on the street so it’s pretty authentic. I have it to this day, and at this time in my life it was most acute, so you get the idea. There was a clash. Ms Thinkslow’s comfort zone abandoned her the minute I stepped in her office.
I knew she was a scared animal, but I didn’t know why, so I ignored this, smiled and explained who’d sent me into her office, and what my deal was.
She responded by trying to get me out of her office. She said she didn’t know what I was talking about. It was like I was some scary foreigner who’d best move along. I think it may have even crossed her mind to call the police because the look on her face was, “How did you get in here?” See? It was panic. Where’s Daddy when you need him?
Since she was so stupid, I explained the deal again, but this time a little slower. When the President told me I understood right away but never mind that.
“I can’t do that,” she said.
“Huh?”
“I can’t do that. You’re not over sixty-five. I can’t just give you all of these discounts that you are not entitled to.”
“Sure you can! President said you can and he oughta know,” I said with a chuckle. I smiled wide.
“He didn’t tell you that. I don’t believe you,” she said.
I noted she just called me a liar. I thought it was not very professional but I opted not to to confront. I have that little bit of Libra in my chart so smiled gaily and pulled the card of President from my purse. I invited, Thinkslow, to call him to confirm.
“I’m not going to call him,” she said.
“Huh?”
“I’m not going to call him.”
“Hmm. Are sure about that? Because if you don’t, I’ll have to call him and have him call you. Because I’m supposed to move in here today,” I said, smiling to acknowledge the plain fact that she didn’t like me, and the feeling was mutual.
“You can’t do that. He’s not in the office. It’s Saturday”
I have dramatic timing that’s innate, courtesy of my Leo Venus. I proved this, when I looked her in the eye and flipped the card around, with home phone of President on back. “No problem,” I said in my sweetly superficial Libra voice. I smiled and tilted my head. “Call him at home.”
I could tell by the look on her face she did not have the President’s home number, so how does a gal like me have the home number of the President? Big mystery.
“I’ll give you one discount, but not three,” she said.
Grief process, eh? She was deal-making. I didn’t answer. Well, besides a little snort. I extended my hand with card of President, eyebrows raised. Trumped is trumped and she was trumped.
“Ok. I’ll do it.”
“Thank you.” said Libra.
She didn’t respond. It turned out she was indicative of everything in the place. Looks good on the outside, but its all veneer.
I moved in and day two, I saw a roach. Within two weeks the place was crawling with them and I had no idea what to do. I bought a little can of “kill bugs” stuff because I don’t know much about roaches.
Three weeks pass and the roaches were now visible on the walls. I paid my rent a week early and complained to, Thinkslow, who promised to spray but a week later there were more bugs not less. I was back in her office and she was not glad about it.
I waved my arms around like Italian people do. “Bugs everywhere,” I said.
“Well they sprayed your apartment.”
“I don’t care. There are bugs everywhere. You have to do something.”
“They must be coming in from the apartment next to you.”
“I don’t care. Just do something. I can’t stand it,” I added.
They sprayed my apartment and the apartments on both sides of me. There were no bugs for three days, then I came home, turned on the lights and saw roaches on the wall again. I wanted to cry. I want to move. I wanted to tell President that “Royal Gardens” was the most disgusting place I’d ever lived in my life but I didn’t because he was a pal of mine. He was my benefactor.
He’d started referring me to tend bar at private parties for what was a pure fortune. He was booking me at an exorbitant rate and people were paying it without blinking. It was gift-horse money and I didn’t want to make waves. The President was in charge of 300 apartment complexes. I decided I’d have to work this out with,Thinkslow.
I spoke with the neighbors and learned the roach infestation had been pervasive for a very long time which surprised me. How have they endured this? That’s what I wondered but didn’t ask. They must all be getting military discount, you think?
I spent money I barely had on roach control potions and tried to get Thinkslow to comprehend she needed to bug bomb the entire place from the perimeter. I knew this because I’d called the bug people to ask. I had become educated on the subject.
The problem was repeatedly “addressed” but within a few days, right after I bought food, the bugs were back and it just kept cycling like this.
I was apparently the only one complaining, at least Thinkslow made it seem that way. I walked into her office and she’d greet me with “Oh. You again.” She didn’t seem to have the capacity to understand that I’d leave her alone as soon as she did something competent. I was in her office with increasing force and frequency because gross bugs freak me out and that’s no lie. Never mind I was going broke buying roach kill and food to replace food… to replace the other food that the roaches got into. When you are poor you only want to buy your food once, see? I was explaining this to her.
Two and a half months passed and then one morning I got up and poured cereal into a bowl to see three or five roaches scramble from it. I’d just bought the cereal the night before so I screamed bloody murder at the top of my lungs and then two things happened. First, I didn’t eat another bowl of cereal for thirteen years. Second, the gloves came off. I went to work and complained with vigor to everyone who came in and guess who was there..?
It’s Grocery Man and he had an idea.
“I rent a small house. It’s really nice,” he said. “The landlady is nice too. I’ve lived there for about 3 years.”
“Oh really? I live in a roach motel and spend more money on bug spray each month then I do on rent.”
“There are two duplexes across the street and the people in one of them just moved out. Do you want me to check it out for you? I could talk to the landlady and see if it’s available and how much the rent is. My rent is pretty reasonable and it’s close by. It’s close to your work.”
“Yeah, sure. Whatever. I guess. I just can’t deal with these bugs,” I said, disturbed to the bone over the cereal.
I was miserable, pouty and on the verge of brooding. Not only that, I was a little afraid. I wasn’t sure I’d have the money to move. President waived the deposit on the bug apartment, but that wouldn’t happen twice. I didn’t know how I was going to pay for the next place because I’d really spent and spent and spent on bug control and I was broke.
I was working constantly, but I was supporting my mother in large part. Her rent was my responsibility for starters, so money was very tight and damn. At least I didn’t blow big bucks on the Mary Tyler Moore hat.
Part Three: The Duplex
I moved into the duplex, but not without careful consideration. President was a good man who wanted to help me. I had the idea he was self-made and he saw himself in me. Takes one to know one. I could see he thought I was a person worth investing in. In contrast Grocery Man was dicey. He had the crush. I knew he had the crush; the crush that he had under control.
Was it under control? I sure as hell hoped so because I was not going to date the guy under any circumstances. I thought about it and thought about it hard, but the bugs were making me crazy so I decided to roll the dice. The place was nice and the price was doable. Most importantly he assured me there were no bugs and if ever there were, he said the landlady would respond immediately. This jibed with my impression of her.
She was one of those landlords who scrutinize you. Difference of dealing with the owner of a property as opposed to an agent of the owner, I guess. She impressed me as savvy and I assumed that she’d been at this awhile and probably a long while.
Overall, this entire thing was just way more credible than the other. The landlady wanted a tenant who wasn’t going anywhere and after moving and then moving again, what I wanted was stability.
Someone told me once “when you move, you lose”. I argued this with them. I pretty much had to because I have Libra in my chart, but I noted it was ringing true in this circumstance. Still I had to cut my losses. No more bug money after bad. No more Ms. Thinkslow, who aside from having a very nice manicure, really was a dingbat.
I checked and rechecked in my mind and could not see how I would be beholden to Grocery Man if I moved there. This was important to me. I didn’t want to be obligated.
See, I knew exactly what I was going to do. I was going to move in, then let the dating begin! I considered the scenario of him watching from across the way. A stream of dates coming by to pick me up and him over there chewing his arm off but I decided that if that were the case, it would not be my problem.
In support of this idea, my life and how I lived it was hardly private. All I did in that bar, eight hours a day, was tell jokes about the men I dated. How this one said something offensive and so I kicked him out of my place. How I was in a five star restaurant with a millionaire, wearing a dress from Goodwill that cost a dollar. How I spilled Cherries Jubilee down the front of that dress and by the way, it was white. Stories. I tell them. It’s what I do.
Since I knew Grocery Man to be intelligent I thought it reasonable to assume that he’d worked out any angst or grief he may have had around an attraction to me long ago, so based on this logic, I said “deal me in”.
If I was wrong? Then I guessed he’d just have to pine and get over it some more because I had attraction none for this guy and I’d just signed a one year lease.
Part Four – Settling In
The duplex was great. It was fantastic. Grocery Man didn’t bother me and I felt a little guilty for thinking he might of. I learned he was a lonely guy. This should have been obvious but honestly if you tend bar and think about that all day…
Grocery Man would invite me to dinner with fair frequency. To his place I mean, and about once every few weeks, I’d go. We’d sit on his patio and chat. I’d mostly be bored to tears but I’d go over anyway. I did it out of goodwill as opposed to a feeling I had to. I was happy. I was happier than he was and I thought it was no big deal to spend some time with him.
In return he let me know if I needed anything or had any sort of trouble he’d be available. I appreciated this but would never have called on him because of fierce independence, but also because I still felt he had remnants of his crush.
I was careful not to mislead him in any way due by my nature. I want to be an upright sort of person. I don’t like games and I don’t like to hurt people. I was always cordial but also very careful to maintain a boundary. I chatted with him on his patio about the same things we chatted about in the bar and these things were distinctly not personal.
He thought I should get out of the bar. He thought I should be a vendor, specifically.
“What’s that?”
“Like the beer or the liquor salesmen. They have a route. They drive around all day taking orders from their accounts.”
“Yeah, I envy them,” I said. “Sometimes the bar is boring and they come in and out and I have to stay.”
“Well I think you’d like it but if I were you I’d get away from bars all together.”
“So people sell stuff to grocery stores?”
He laughed. “Yeah. You should really think about.”
“Like, sell what?”
“Everything. But the best? Well if you could get on at Frito Lay… well they’re the best company to work for from what I can tell.”
“Oh.” I said.
“Because I hate seeing you in the bar,” he said.
“Huh?”
Months passed. Six of them? Something like that. I did exactly as I’d planned. I was dating and rejecting. I was being rejected too, but who cares about that? I didn’t. It was great for business. The activity I mean. Stories were generated but also I was still technically available and so the “carrot” for the horse that I mentioned was intact.
It’s a little like an entertainer who marries and sees their stock drop. I wasn’t meeting anyone very fascinating and everyone was glad about it. The last thing anyone wanted was for me to marry.
Eventually this routine would get tiresome for me though, per my longstanding pattern. I’d run amok, have some fun and then go back to something with more substance. Fed up with the ridiculous, I’d want a man who had a clue what to do with me, so I’d dial up, Scott. We were in year six of what would become a seventeen-year-long affair. Every time we hooked up, a hush fell over the crowd. He was a wild card. It was at times like this that crushes like the one Grocery Man carried would show itself.
See, if a man had some fantasy idea about me, then a stream of dates may be wholly annoying but if I am rid of these men in short order, hope is restored. They can be thinking that surely I’ll soon come to my senses and see how true their love is, which is exactly what they do. But when, Scott, was on the scene there was real threat of him putting me out of commission all together and everyone knew this.
I knew this. For that matter, my boss knew this.
My boss was making money hand over fist by my talking, but when I was with Scott, I clammed up to a large extent. Scott is a Cancer so that “clam” thing is a joke.
Point is, when we hooked up, everything and everyone was up in the air and waiting to see the outcome. My boss was no dummy. If I quit talking his business was going to take a major hit. The people in the bar came to see the canary so he held his breath with everyone else and hoped we busted up again (and soon!)
Anyway, I’d lived at the duplex about 7 1/2 months when Scott rang my phone, or maybe I rang his. We were spontaneous combustion, so five seconds later, we took up for the second time at this apartment and this is when Grocery Man started to wig.
Part Five – The Conversation
We were sitting on Grocery Man’s patio and the conversation turned to Scott. Grocery Man was the assistant manager of a grocery store by the way; he was waiting for a slot for top job to open up. He was tall, slim, blond and decidedly not my type. He was also ten years older me, he was thirty-one.
“What do you see in that guy, Elsa?” he asked.
“He makes me laugh,” I said. I saw no reason to list the 2000 things I liked about, Scott. More like a reason not to.
“I don’t get it. I don’t see what there is about him. What’s the big deal about him?”
“Well, Grocery Man, we’ve known each other awhile,” I said.
“So?”
“So?”
“Are you going to keep seeing him?”
“Yes,” I said. “No. Probably. Yes, I’m seeing him. Well, I am at the moment and then I probably won’t be. You know how we do. We get together, we get apart and then we get together. Why?” I asked. “Why are you asking me?”
“I don’t like him.”
I laughed. “Well, I do,” I said directly, chuckling because I felt kind of nervous. I didn’t know where he was going with this. “Even when I don’t like him, I still do,” I said to make sure he knew where my loyalty was.
“It just seems you could do better,” he said.
I didn’t know about that, so I let it drop but he didn’t.
“Is he ever gonna get a new car? Why does he drive that car?”
“Because he’s odd,” I said.
“Why do you want to be with someone odd?”
“I like the guy, Grocery Man. That’s all there is to it.”
I tried to be diplomatic. I’d have had no problem articulating why I liked, Scott. We bonded the instant we met. Could it have something to do with the fact he was not a bore?
“So you’re going to keep seeing him then?”
“Probably. Yeah. At the moment I’m seeing him and have no plans not to. Why are you asking me this?”
“I don’t like him.”
“Duly noted,” I said, starting to get pissed off. I didn’t really get what he was getting at, but I don’t like to be undermined.
“Well, it’s your life I guess.”
“Yep.”
“Okay then.”
“Okay.”
“Well then I’ll see you tomorrow, probably,” he said. He meant, he will stop by the bar after work.
“Yep. Goodnight.”
We lived across from each other on a dead end street so I crossed the cul-de-sac to get home. I was wondering what the hell’s going on. I thought it was creepy. Just what the hell was that?
I was thinking I may have a problem, and wondering if I did, how bad was it and how could I fix it? I wasn’t sure though.
Was he drunk? He could have been drunk. How drunk was he?
I wasn’t thinking about that when he was talking so I tried to reach back and get a read. I’d had several men from various bars confess their undying devotion to me when snockered and have no recollection the following day. There are several variations on this theme.
There is the no frills straight vanilla “I will love you forever and never do you wrong”, or sometimes they elaborate. Here’s the script, slurring. Leaning on the bar, a pole, a buddy, or whatever.
“Those guys you date Elsa. They no good. They no good for you. Not enough. They don’t know what woman a woman like you need. Why don’t me and you get togefver Elsa. I’d make you happy darlin’ and you won’t have to go out with dose loosers anymoe.”
Then they pass out.
This sounded a little like that. I was hoping because it also sounded vaguely threatening. Like he was confirming something and giving me my last chance. It sounded a little bit like “if you keep dating that guy, then I’m gonna …”
Gonna what?
It was creepy all right. Real creepy.
I finally fell asleep hoping and wishing that tomorrow I’d wake up and none of this would have happened but same time knowing that Grocery Man had a screw loose. I knew this because I was lying in my bed and I could sense he was over there seething. Fuck.
I had four and a half months left on my lease and decided that night I’d move when it was up regardless. In the meantime I would keep an eye on Grocery Man and look for some kind of clue as to what his deal was.
Part Six – Cold, Cold, Cold
Grocery Man went cold. Real cold. I’d have liked to kid myself, I was imagining this but I wasn’t. It had been a few days since the conversation and he had been absent from the bar completely.
It was customary for us to wave when we saw each other ‘round home but twice when I waved at him, not only did he not return the gesture, he avoided eye contact. I knew him to brood at times over various things so I still had slim hope it was not personal to me. I was hoping he would right his wheel somehow but it was looking more and more like that was some serious wishful thinking. I had myself a situation and I was a little afraid. Was he planning a strike of some sort?
I had the idea something was in the works. That something was being constructed and I would find out “all in good time.” It was as if he was not going to tip his hand until certain things were irrevocably in motion and it was vaguely ominous.
Should I confront him? Ask him what was going on? I didn’t think so. For one thing I never ask people personal questions and secondly, I didn’t care what was on his mind provided that cutting me up and burying me under the patio was not his agenda.
Bottom line, this was just as well. No more dinner invitations? I can live with that. He doesn’t come in the bar with his dollar tip? I’ll live. I decided there was little to do but watch and wait. I half expect him to show up in the bar each day like nothing happened.
I told Scott.
“He’s in love with you. I told you that.”
“Oh shut up.”
Part Seven – The Landlord
Five or six days passed and then a knock on my door. I peeked out and it was the landlady. She’d never stopped by before so it was anyone’s guess.
“Hello?” I said, opening the door to greet her.
“Hello Elsa, I’ve brought the new lease.”
“Huh?”
“The new lease. You’re going have to sign a new lease,” she said.
I had four months left on my lease. “What?” I asked.
“If you want to stay, you’re going to have to sign a new lease.”
“Why?”
“You shouldn’t have to ask me that.”
“Huh?”
“You don’t need to ask me that, the way you’ve been carrying on,” she said with something akin to a snarl. She looked perturbed. Worse than that. She looked as if she loathed me. This dawned on me and it hurt my feelings.
I quickly ran through my dealings with her to see how I might have offended her but there was nothing there. I’d paid my rent early every month. I’d mail it to her home five blocks away. We’d had no direct contact since I moved in. I didn’t get it.
“What do you mean carrying on? What are you talking about?”
“You know what I’m talking about,” she said, with a full out sneer. “You have a lot of nerve playing dumb after what you’ve done to, Grocery Man.”
“What?” I was incredulous. I was also getting pissed off. Someone’s been talking, what the heck did he tell her?
“What are you talking about?” I asked, eyes drilling, heat rising.
“You. You’ve… you’re cheating on him!” she said.
“WHAT?”
“You don’t think that he is going to keep paying your rent while you go with other men do you?”
“WHAT? WHAAAAAAT?” I yelled. “What the hell are you talking about? He doesn’t pay my rent.”
“Yes he does,” she said.
“No he doesn’t. What are you talking about? I pay you every month. That’s MY money.”
“Yes he does pay your rent. I ought to know, I’m the landlord,” she said, staring me down with pure venom.
“No he doesn’t. Where did you get that idea? He doesn’t pay my rent. I pay my rent.” I felt a mixture of pain, anger and confusion.
“Look Elsa. Who do you think you’re talking to?” she said, with a hint of some kind of hick accent coming out. “Every month I get two checks. One with your name on it and one with his. Are you trying to tell me that he writes a check on his account with your money? What do you take me for? You pay me half of the rent and he pays the other half. Are you going to deny this?”
“WHAT?!?” What! what! WHAAAAAT are you talking about?” It was surreal. “I signed the lease. The rent is XXX and that is what I pay you every month. Why is he sending you a check?” A check for what?”
She clucked. “Elsa, you don’t really expect me to believe that you didn’t know this? Like you could rent a place like this for the XXX that you pay?” She laughed, as if I wouldn’t be pulling anything over on her. “He has a lease and you have a lease.”
I had a huge lump in my throat. “Let me get this straight. The rent here is XXX times 2 and every month I pay you half and Grocery Man pays you half? He has a lease on my apartment and no one bothers to tell me this?” I asked.
“You knew this.”
“No I didn’t. What the fuck? Are you fucking kidding me? Do think I would let some son of a bitch pay my rent?”
“Elsa, I don’t like that kind of language. You two were supposed to get married weren’t you? You’re his fiancée. If you’d treated him better you would not have today’s problem. It’s your own fault.”
“WHAT!????” What the hell are you talking about? I am not his fiancée!”
“Well not any more you’re not,” she said smugly. “And who can blame him, the way you’ve been carrying on. He’s told me what you’ve been doing over here.”
“I AM NOT HIS FIANCEE’! I have never been his fiancée. He told you that?”
“I’m not going to have this conversation with you. Do you want to stay? If you do then you’re going to have to sign this new lease and pay the full rent. If you want to know the truth, I think I would prefer you move. I don’t approve of your kind. Grocery Man would like his half of the deposit back as well.”
My mind was spinning. Apparently Grocery Man has been paying half my rent. He wants his deposit back? Obviously, she wasn’t making this up. My heart started to pound. I decided I need more information.
“He told you that I was his fiancée and what else?”
“He told me the two of you were engaged. He said you supported your mother so he was going to help you out with the rent. He’s a nice man and a very good tenant. He’s a good man, trying to do right by you and he’d have made a good husband. How many men take care of women these days? You could do a lot worse, that’s for sure.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Well Elsa,” she said snottily, “I thought youuuuu knew.”
“How could I know?”
“Well, he’s your fiancée. How could you not know?”
“HE’S NOT MY FIANCEE.”
“Whatever. Whatever you say,” she said condescendingly as if she were annoyed with my charade. “Are you going stay? If you are, then you need to sign the lease.”
“Does he have a key?”
“Of course he has a key. He pays half the rent, he’s entitled to a key.”
I was out in the front yard by now and this is when I screamed like an animal. I saw quick mind pictures of Grocery Man in my bedroom poking through my underwear. I imagined he’d rigged the place with cameras. The shower. It’s the shower that comes to mind and I continue to scream. The landlady was afraid.
“He told me you were crazy like this,” she said.
“WHAT?”
“So are you going to move?”
“Are you kidding me? Some psycho over there moves me in here and is paying my rent and….. never mind. Yes. I’m going to move. What fucking choice do I have?”
“There is no need to talk like that.”
I didn’t respond. My mind was racing, gaskets blown. The landlady confirmed I’d move by the end of the month, then shrugged her shoulders and headed back to her car but not before getting her last jab in. “It’s not right what you did to him. I don’t understand you, young people. You had a perfectly good man there but I guess you think that they grow on trees.”
Two days later I moved. I never saw Grocery Man again. I didn’t confront him and I didn’t find evidence my privacy had been compromised in the duplex, but I didn’t look very well. For one thing I wouldn’t know where to look and for another, I really didn’t want to know.
I never told anyone this happened outside of Scott. It was just too gross.
The End
Notes – lots of classic stuff in here. No one believes me. Saturn Neptune / Venus Neptune
I found the epilogue to Darth Vader, but I’m not sure where to publish it.
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