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Nobody ever went broke underestimating hippies and artists. That’s why I’m rich and they’re not.
Brad told me he knew he had to move when he invited this garage band from Ozone Park to party at his pad. Lead guitarist insulted Brad’s crib, calling it an “Effing shoebox,” before the entourage trooped out to a joint on Canal Street.
Well, yes, Brad’s place was a studio, for chrissakes, and those don’t come cheap in Greenwich Village. Brad pays twenty-two hundred plus four hundred maintenance, so next day he Craigslisted it for twenty-five. His old girlfriend, Annabelle, a chick from Montreal with purple hair, snapped it up without knowing it was an illegal sublet. Hey, this is New York. Everybody beats the law. That’s why they come to a lawyer like me, to settle their Con Ed bills, fight parking tickets and mediate differences.
Brad moved to a loft in Dumbo — a warehouse Down Under the Manhattan Bridge Overpass. The loft was nineteen hundred and no maintenance since it was an AIR — artist in residence, meaning technically you can’t live there.
So every month Annabelle gave him twenty-nine. You following me? And Brad gave the landlord twenty-six, earning three and saving seven. Got it now?
But there was more weird about Annabelle than purple hair. She was an artist. That means she clerked in an Italian bakery to make the rent. You don’t think artists can live by selling their goddamn paintings, do you? What planet have you been living on?
Brad announced he thought he loved her again, now that she was back from Montreal. He said love means being intimate whenever you want, but I think it was that she gave him free cannoli when he dropped by. That’s why she was fired a month later — for stealing the cannoli, not his love-making.
Now Brad was stuck with a tenant who wanted him to cover her bills, an illegal sublet and a pissed-off landlord waiting to get the housing court to remove her and the furniture. The landlord was also considering charging breach of contract.
“It’s a living hell,” Brad told me while we were having a drink on Cornelia Street. “I think I no longer love her.” He sounded like Anna Karenina.
“Why’re you laying your grief on me, Brad?” I knew the answer already.
“You’re my fraternity brother, my buddy, my lawyer.”
“So you’re picking up the bar tab as my client?”
“Stephen! My bank account’s sinking faster than a mob informer in the East River! I don’t want to break the lease on my loft, I can’t pay for the Jane St. pad, and Annabelle says she can’t pay me. My life’s a living hell.”
“So, let’s get rid of Annabelle. I’ll call Immigration and tell them she’s a hooker. They’ll deport her. My fee is your late mother’s Haviland Limoges china.”
“You can’t deport her! She’s an artist who’s down on her luck.”
“Brad, this is moving day. You want to banish hell from your Jane St. pad? I’ll eliminate the hell and pick up the china.”
He sighed like the Hindenburg going down at Lakehurst. “Okay, do it. There are times we have to play God, reluctant as I am.”
“Now, I gotta run. Going to a benefit that cost me fifty bucks. I’ll give you a ring in a day or two.”
And I was off to a dive on East 6th St. The benefit had something to do with the arts, which means there’s lots of frustrated chicks and unlimited wine — a great combination. I didn’t need to tell Brad it was Annabelle’s party to raise some walking around money.
That’s where I walked into hell herself.
“Stephen,” she said hanging her arm around my shoulder. “Brad just called me. What a nice person to warn me about ma petite problem with Immigration. The landlord. Housing marshals.” She smiled so her teeth looked like a piano keyboard.
“It’s the law, Annabelle. I’m truly sorry things have gotten so messed up.”
“No, pas de tout, Stephen. Don’t pity me. Pity your client, playing God. My lawyer has already issued an estoppel.”
“What the hell does he…?”
“She said, ‘an estoppel protects an aggrieved party — c’est moi — if the counter-party — c’est Brad — created an expectation from the aggrieved party, and the aggrieved party reasonably relied on that expectation and would suffer detriment if the expectation is not met.’ C‘est à dire, Brad said I could live at Jane St. and it would now only cost me half the rent I paid.” She posed with her finger under her chin. “What I think is he ate so many cannoli he couldn’t think straight. Sugar high, except he called it undying love.”
I was choking on my Chablis. “Where do you get off accusing my client…?”
“The proof’s in one of his love letters. Well, pas de problem, bébé. I’ll sue for damages to my reputation as an artist, my credit rating, my mental anguish.”
I was aghast at coming up against an artist chick with purple hair who could outwit me. No one does an Erin Brockovich on me!
“Don’t be angry, Stephen,” Annabelle said. “I’m sure we can negotiate. I’ll take Brad’s loft and he can have the Jane St. pad — if he can get the marshal’s lock off the door. I already have the Limoges china as security.” She turned and looked back. “Moving days are sheer hell, n’est-ce pas?”
Those artists and hippies. I absolutely and truly hate creative people.
Walt Giersbach‘s fiction has appeared in Bewildering Stories, Big Pulp, Every Day Fiction, Everyday Weirdness, Lunch Hour Stories, Mouth Full of Bullets, Mystery Authors, OG Short Fiction, Northwoods Journal, Paradigm Journal, Short Fiction World, Southern Fried Weirdness, and Written Word. Two volumes of short stories, Cruising the Green of Second Avenue, have been published by Wild Child.
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21 Responses to “DAY OF MOVING HELL • by Walt Giersbach”
Comments
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July 19th, 2010 at 1:24 am
This one made me smile!
July 19th, 2010 at 3:51 am
Nice snappy pace and a twist ending. Good one!
July 19th, 2010 at 4:31 am
Good story. I love it when lawyers get taken down like that!
July 19th, 2010 at 5:19 am
Funny and charming, n’est pas? (Not that I have purple hair or can speak French.) You done good, Walt.
July 19th, 2010 at 5:25 am
It’s not just the lawyer getting taken down (which is wonderful, no doubt about it), it’s also the female artist with purple hair who takes him down, that makes the story so much fun to read. Love the first line hook and the way it ties into the satisfying last line.
These stories really are a great way to start the day.
July 19th, 2010 at 6:32 am
A clever, fun read to start the day and the week – thanks, Walt!
July 19th, 2010 at 6:48 am
What a wickedly wonderful story!!!!!!!!
5 very bright stars !!!
July 19th, 2010 at 7:19 am
Great voice in this piece; well done
July 19th, 2010 at 8:32 am
I like it Walter – nicely evil
July 19th, 2010 at 9:29 am
I’m afraid I know very little French, so the nuances to this story were lost to me.
July 19th, 2010 at 9:58 am
Another really fun one Walt… I know you’ve made me laugh before but I forget the story. Nice job!
July 19th, 2010 at 1:13 pm
Thanks for the compliments–and I’m sure my francophone buddies will chastise me for screwing up the franglais. Ain’t hubris wonderful?
July 19th, 2010 at 2:27 pm
Way to go Walt. Nicely done!
Hubris is okay, but I prefer paprika.
July 19th, 2010 at 2:35 pm
Good piece. I got a chuckle out of it.
July 19th, 2010 at 7:01 pm
I wasn’t convinced that the character: someone who sprinkles so much of their English with French – n’est-ce pas? – would recite the following phrase,
“…created an expectation from the aggrieved party, and the aggrieved party reasonably relied on that expectation and would suffer detriment if the expectation is not met.”
July 20th, 2010 at 5:17 am
A thousand great things in this which I’m not going to list cos it would take too long.
BUT
Annabelle having all those lawyer smarts a la Brokovitch canme too much out of nowhere for this reader, like the guy who can’t escape his horrible fate tied to a giant octopus but look right at the end he has a knife in his pocket after all, wow, and he can, right, kill the octopod with it then cut himself free! Maybe you need to build some kind of preparation for her sharpness earlier in the story…
Teeny weeny bit to whipsmart smartass in delivery for me, though I know it’s meant to be the lawyer’s own voice.
So much to enjoy though: great style, flow, scene-setting, dialogue, feel and confidence.
You got a 3, this could be a five.
Pete
July 20th, 2010 at 6:42 am
A writer shouldn’t have to explain what he/she meant, but in answer to some apparent questions, I hoped it was clear Annabelle was quoting her lawyer. I mean, really, NO ONE talks like a case book. I do appreciate rveryone’s comments.
July 20th, 2010 at 7:22 am
Hi Walt
Sure she’s quoting the lawyer, but in the ‘laws of narrative’ (what the hell ever they may be) it still reads like a get-out-of-jail-free-card. Maybe we just need to meet Annabelle first-hand at some point, maybe that’s all it is, in conversation with the cannoli-lover, just something that gives us a hint of what she might or might not be up to.
Don’t get me wrong, I am seriously impressed by this writing.
Pete
August 13th, 2010 at 5:51 am
Delightful.
September 10th, 2010 at 3:32 pm
Dee-light-ful!
Great sentences include: “My bank account’s sinking faster than a mob informer in the East River!” “He sighed like the Hindenburg going down at Lakehurst.” “She smiled so her teeth looked like a piano keyboard.” “I was aghast at coming up against an artist chick with purple hair who could outwit me. No one does an Erin Brockovich on me!”
To Pete’s issue: Consider something like, “She said – wait, I wrote it down somewhere,” Anabelle held her finger up in a keep-your-shirt-on gesture as she searched her pocket, “oh here it is – ‘an estoppel protects an …
September 11th, 2010 at 12:08 pm
I’m late in saying “Thanks,” Pete and Simon. If I had it to do over again, I would have crafted Anabelle’s response with greater subtlety and had her use a crib sheet.