The Illegal Tenant

Frankie sniffed his way around his sparsely furnished one-bedroom, cursing his prostitute-lady-friend. Shauna had made him take a shower. Now, for some reason, Frankie was acutely aware of the way his apartment perpetually smelled. It was a foul mix of stale body odor, onions, and something else he couldn’t figure out. Who was she to be making demands when he was the one paying? He had even more things to do now as he searched for the offending smell.

But Frankie loved that Shauna-chick. She had a sass and attitude that added another dynamic to their relationship. It’s why he paid her more than the others. Frankie was a normally stingy consumer but he didn’t mind paying for quality.

After being unable to locate the decaying article polluting his home, he sat down at his computer to check his accounts.

He saw that a settlement check from DeGraw Cleaners had made its way into his bank. He also browsed through his calendar to see which court dates were coming up for his other lawsuits. There were three against the city, two against private companies, and 11 involving individuals.

Then he made his daily call to his lawyers. You had to keep on top of them.

“Hello Chuck,” said a genial Frankie. “The landlord stuffed another envelope under my door. How do we proceed?”

“Well, technically,” said Mr. Friedman. “Since you never paid him money and you moved in under auspicious circumstances, I wouldn’t call him your landlord.” Yeah, Chuck was a funny guy. “You should probably start making other arrangements. We can hold off the marshals only so long.”

Frankie became incensed. “What the hell am I paying you for?”

“You’re paying us to represent you in a variety of lawsuits,” explained Mr. Friedman. “May I remind you that we’re the only attorneys left who will represent you after that stunt you pulled with your last law firm.”

Frankie hung up. He didn’t need that aggravation so early in the day. He put on his neck brace, grabbed his cane, and went about a few errands.

Two days later Shauna was over. Frankie complained about the shower she was demanding again.

“Come on,” he begged. “I just took one the other day.”

“Let’s make cleanliness a regular thing,” she said, completely ignoring his protest.

Dispirited, Frankie took his shower. He wondered if he might be in love with this lady whose commands he always gave in to. He took a minute to daydream about a life with her, after he settled down.

Oh, who was he kidding? Men like Frankie would never be satisfied with one of anything.

Fifteen minutes later, he watched with admiration as Shauna got dressed. She was something, wasn’t she?

“What’s the deal with your new neighbor?” she asked.

“I have a new neighbor?” As far as Frankie knew, no one had moved either in or out.

“Well, someone’s living in the basement now.”

“The basement?” Frankie’s face lit up. A basement apartment was an illegal sublet. A different kind of illegal tenant could possibly give him some leverage with his own landlord issues.

“You haven’t seen him?” asked Shauna with an expression of incredulity. “He’s really ugly and gives off an evil vibe!”

“This could be really helpful in my legal dispute with the owner!”

“How about a tip for providing you with some useful information?” she suggested.

“A tip?” said Frankie. “My whole payment is a tip!” But he peeled off an extra $2 anyway.

“Thanks, Rockefeller.”

Frankie wondered if she was getting attached to him as well since she used pet names so casually.

From then on, Frankie made frequent checks through his peephole but he never managed to catch sight of the neighbor Shauna described. Had he given her an extra $2 for nothing?

One day, as he was leaving, a strange man opened the door from the basement. He was creepy, as Shauna described. He also seemed very old.

“Hey there, ‘neighbor’” said Frankie, smirking.

His ‘neighbor’ said nothing but handed Frankie a box and wordlessly retreated back into the basement,

The box was small, wrapped in brown paper, and tied with a string. There was nothing written on it but once it was unwrapped, he saw the box had an unusual symbol stamped on it.

Inside the box was a figurine in the shape of a man. He took it out and saw that the man was wearing jeans and a white t-shirt with yellow stains near the armpits and other smaller stains in different colors on the front of it. The face had a beard drawn on it and a large bald spot where Frankie’s bald spot was. In fact, the entire figurine sort of looked like Frankie.

As he looked back and forth between the doll and his own stained t-shirt, it appeared that the figurine's stains exactly matched the random pattern Frankie’s food spillage had marked the shirt he was currently wearing. Frankie was insulted by the overly large belly on the plastic-like figure and the fact that it smelled like onions. The box also had a separate, small patch of furry hair with a little plastic knife sticking in it. What was going on here?

Frankie banged on the basement door but received no answer. Frankie was perplexed. The guy might have dementia, he rationalized. A lot of the geezers did. He tried not to think about it.

When Frankie returned home, he found a toupee he rarely used pinned to his door with a large kitchen knife. The knife appeared to be Frankie’s! What the hell was going on? Did the old guy break in? Frankie’s lawyers were going to have a field day with this.

The next day, Shauna came over she handed him another box wrapped in brown paper. She said it was sitting outside his door.

Frankie unwrapped it. The same kind of figurine was in the box. Only this time, the figurine’s clothing matched the clothing Frankie was wearing that day. His ensemble was another dirty t-shirt, boxers, and tube socks. The patterns matched, down to the mismatched tube stripes. There were also numerous pins poking the doll and something that looked like a knife in its back.

“Someone’s got it out for you, huh?” said Shauna in a rather unconcerned way of expressing concern.

“It’s that crazy, old guy living in the basement,” Frankie told Shauna.

Twenty minutes later, with his collar and cane, Frankie left his apartment shortly after Shauna. As he went to pick up his suit for an upcoming court date, he saw a young man running down the block with a large knife. Frankie had the image of that stupid figurine in his head and he ran as fast as he could to get away from him. Eventually, he was able to duck into a convenience store.

The next doll that was delivered to Frankie, in a box wrapped in brown paper with a string, also looked like him. This one was in a clear plastic container filled with water.

For the next few weeks, Frankie stayed inside. No more packages were dropped off and he didn’t see the odd basement-dweller. He had almost forgotten about the packages as he made his way to court for one of his lawsuit hearings.

The hearing was only a preliminary, to show that Frankie was irreparably harmed by the negligence of a store that hadn’t attached the top well enough to his take-out coffee. Soon, the attorneys would just go back and forth with settlement options. Frankie had been through this before.

Afterwards, as he was walking on an overpass above a river, someone started running towards him. The young man wore the same black hoodie as the knife wielder a few weeks back. He seemed to be looking directly at Frankie as he pushed him. He was trying to force him into the water, just like the figurine! He did this in broad daylight! Thankfully, Frankie was able to ward off the attack and run away.

Frankie banged on his neighbor’s door demanding an explanation but no one answered.

Frankie admitted to himself that his growing figurine collection was more than a little unnerving. To Shauna, and anyone else who might be watching him he was the same self-assured paragon of manliness he always was. But inside he was getting nervous.

Frankie woke up with a headache one afternoon. He felt hungover and couldn’t remember what day it was. As he stumbled around his apartment, the phone rang. It was his lawyer.

Chuck was angry about something he’d been emailed. He was sending a link to Frankie and told him that, essentially, his future lawsuit income was history.

The link opened up to a video. In it, a man who looked an awful lot like Frankie, wearing satin pants and white shoes, was singing dance-modified nursey rhymes in a club of some sort. People were laughing at him as he sprayed cans of silly string and flung tubes filled with glitter that he had tucked in his pants. The man climbed onto the bar, started dancing, and swung from a pipe near the ceiling. He was pulled down by a bouncer and thrown out.

The video was followed with other clips of Frankie being chased by the young men in the hoodies. Frankie thought he looked very masculine in the video where he fought off someone in significantly better shape.

It dawned on him slowly that his lawyer would see this as detrimental to his injury lawsuits. Frankie didn’t seem to be disabled or permanently harmed by negligence. Frankie started to panic. Who had screwed him? The list of people who could have done this was miles long.

He noticed a stamp on his hand. Was that actually him at the club? He didn’t own satin clothing. Where would he get the glitter guns?

Frankie got to work trying to find out which club used that stamp and where it was. When he left, he opened his door and found another box. In it, was another Frankie figurine. This one was dressed up in the clubwear he’d seen in the video. It was covered in glitter.

He got to the club where the manager recognized him and angrily told him to leave.

“Just tell me,” begged Frankie. “Did anyone put stuff in my drink?

The man thought about it for a minute. He turned on his computer and reviewed video surveillance from the night before. He got to the relevant part and showed the video to Frankie.

There she was, the woman he knew would be his downfall - Shauna.

When Shauna came over again for her regular appointment, she admitted without apology, that she’d slipped him hallucinogens and taken him out. Apparently, Frankie’s ‘landlord’ paid her to.

“You said you wanted to go out and have a good time and you did! I didn’t film nobody and I had nothing to do with those people with the knives. I even tried to warn you about that guy in the basement with his evil dolls. Your landlord’s paying him even more than he paid me, lots more. I’d get out of here if I were you.”

Frankie couldn’t be angry and he believed her. She even warned him about the basement dweller. He knew he loved her. Maybe now that he was forced to reevaluate his future, they could be together. Frankie knew they could be happy, bound together by love for each other and also, especially, for an ill-gotten dollar.