landlord

I'm not even gonna pretend like there isn't a healthy dose of wish fulfilment fuelling this splat-tastic story :)

“Where did you say the leak was again…” the speaker, a fabulously tanned man in his mid-50s dressed in designer blue jeans and a stiff-necked polo, began, clearly uncertain but too uncaring to clarify, before adding, with a tell-tale upward inflection of tone, “Andy?”

I glanced down at the two-gallon bucket the man—my landlord—clutched in his immaculately bronzed hand. The bucket itself was brand new (a splotch of glue remained where he had hastily torn off the price tag) and its side was emblazoned with the Home Depot logo. But, crucially, it was also filled to the brim with plumbing tools, most of which looked completely unused. I sighed.

Off to a great start.

I hadn’t mentioned any leaks when I had unexpectedly crossed paths with my landlord earlier in the week. We’d nearly bumped into each other on the sidewalk out front of the law office where I’ve worked the last three years as a paralegal. I was headed out just as he was coming in. Our near-collision caused me to lose my grip on my travel mug, whose plastic handle immediately shattered into several jagged pieces upon impacting the ground. It took me only a moment to recover, however, and, quickly recognizing the opportunity before me, I immediately resolved to use coincidence to my advantage. And so I had practically begged him, and not for the first time either, to finally address my long overdue vermin concerns. Each of my earlier requests for an exterminator, submitted through an insufferably slow and overly-complicated online portal, had been summarily ignored. A reflection, no doubt, of my landlord’s confidence that no one could possibly be insane enough to raise a ruckus and risk eviction. Not in this housing market—and certainly not in this economy. Sure, my tiny don’t-look-too-close-or-it-might-fall-apart one-bedroom apartment was criminally over-priced at $2200 per month, but I knew there would practically be a lineup around the block for it if it suddenly became available. My landlord, of course, knew these facts as well as I did—even more so, actually—and thus, I assumed, he had simply been planning on waiting me out. As far as he was concerned, I was liable to either swallow my complaint and continue forking over rent or get fed up and leave, which would allow him to flip the unit to a new tenant for an even higher price (to account for the impact rampant inflation had had on his profit margin, poor baby). A win for him either way. But all summer long, rival gangs of ants and cockroaches had been fighting over my place like Montagues and Capulets and I was beyond tired of playing Mercutio and getting up caught in the crossfire. I was determined to be ignored no longer.

I had hoped, in vain, as it turned out, that our meeting face-to-face under the buzzing glow of the streetlights would finally win him over to the righteousness of my cause. I had believed, foolishly, of course, that even renters and tenants could share a common human bond. But, instead, he stood at my door in designer blue jeans and faded Nike runners, his “working shoes,” with absolutely no clue who I was, wholly unequipped to address my most pressing need. He hadn’t even taken off his diamond-studded Bulova before coming over. Apparently the sonuvabitch had been too distracted by my uncouth presumption that he owed me at least a modicum of customer service to pay any attention to what I actually said.

I gazed into the Home Depot bucket that dangled from his gloriously tanned arm and saw several sections of PVC and copper piping of various lengths; there was also a pipe crimper; a tube cutter; some flaring tools; an array of wrenches; a few brushes; a plunger; a power drill; and a drain auger.

While he had arrived woefully unprepared, I, on the other hand, spied the exact tool I needed.

“Leak’s right over here,” I responded, pointing down the hall to my left, in the direction of the bathroom, where I figured an insectile interruption was least likely to occur. The time for talk was over. The time for action had finally arrived.

I led the way down the narrow hallway toward the bathroom as he followed close behind, his tools jangling in the bucket with every awkward step.

“Just underneath the sink, there,” I said, pointing at the cabinet doors of the vanity that housed my bathroom sink.

I stepped back briefly to allow him to enter the room before moving back into the doorway again as he dropped the bucket with a noisy thud and lowered himself to the ground with a groan. He whipped opened the vanity doors and thrust his head inside, flicking on a small flashlight he’d pulled from the bucket to illuminate the space.

“Woah!” he exclaimed. “ I think I see something moving around down here…”

For a moment, I thought maybe the jig was up and he was about to pull himself out of the vanity, shrieking bloody murder, but there must have been just the one roach—and he must not have gotten a clean look at it—because he said no more and stayed put. I watched as he shuffled towels and spare cleaning supplies around the space underneath sink, evidently searching for “the leak.”

“I, ugh… I don’t really see anything down here—not even any stains or anything like that. You sure there’s a leak?” he asked, doubtfully. His voice echoed in the narrow confines of the vanity. His head and shoulders remained buried in the interior of the cabinet, which had the effect of making him look something like a squirrel who had tried the wrong hole and gotten stuck. I nearly laughed at the ridiculousness of the thought, almost giddy now that the moment of truth had so suddenly arrived, but I recovered quickly enough and continued the charade.

“Oh, yeah, it’s leaking down there, for sure...” I said, as I reached down into the Home Depot bucket, wrapped my fingers around the handle of a large red wrench with pristine paint, and pulled it free.

The metal jaws of the big wrench were slightly agape and they rattled with perceptible weightiness as I tested my improvised weapon.

“Here, pull yourself outta there and lemme show ya,” I said. Although, in actuality, I almost crooned the words, so sweet were they to my ears.

He began to shuffle out of the vanity on his hands and knees, scooting back inch by inch, but I interrupted his little dance before he could complete the full routine. I hefted the wrench above my head and struck him as hard as I could with it as soon as he pulled himself clear of the vanity. The blow landed true at the centre of the back of his skull, exactly where I had aimed it. Upon impact, there was a sickening crack, like the sound of a thick branch being broken over someone’s knee, which was accompanied by a wet squelch. He didn’t cry out, but neither did he collapse to the floor in a heap. He just froze there, as if in suspended animation. Blood soon began to run freely from the open wound on the back of his head, which leaked down both sides of his cheeks and neck, spotting the floor tiles beneath him with artful red dots. I didn’t allow him time to recover. With both hands on the wrench’s handle now, I lifted the weapon above my head again and delivered yet another blow. His skull caved in, which sent shards of bone flying like shrapnel and revealed the wet, fleshy pink-grey meat of his brain. I bludgeoned him repeatedly until the wrench flew out of my blood-slicked hands and into the corner of the room next to the bathtub. At that point, my now-former landlord’s head had been reduced to a chunky paste, like a salsa with bits of broken tortilla chips mixed in. He never made a sound as I murdered him. Not even once. But sometimes, when I hit a nerve or something, his whole body would twitch a little bit. It freaked me out at first, but after awhile, I knew it was just a reflex and ignored his spasmodic limbs as I delivered crunching blow after crunching blow.

Finally, exhausted, I slumped against the wall next to the corpse, and watched as the coastline of the bloodstain around the body steadily expanded its borders.

“By the way—it’s ‘David,’ motherfucker,” I said, still panting from the exertion.

I closed my eyes for awhile then—I’m not sure for how long—but when I opened them again, I stared in slack-jawed silence at a pair of good-sized cockroaches as they descended from the vanity and began to lap at the scarlet pool spreading across the floor. They were soon joined by dozens of others.

A tense laugh escaped my lips. A laugh that seemed to fall out of me, wholly unbidden.

I reached out blindly with my hand and searched vaguely until I felt the familiar touch of cold, hard steel on my exploring fingertips.

I seized and lifted the wrench above my head yet again, loosed a primal, blood-curdling scream, and laughed deliriously as I set upon the roaches that had descended to drink the still-warm blood of my slain landlord with a furious vengeance.