The Flagstaff Chronicles, Vol. 2

North Park Drive turned out not to be where my new home would be. As is typically the case, trusting a complete stranger is a fickle endeavor and this stranger did bamboozle me. The neighborhood was a little rough, the renter in the larger house was - to put it plainly - a dumbass, and while I was led to believe that I and the little red dog of mine would have a private yard, we simply didn't. And for those of you who know the little red dog, also know that the situation would not work.

The photo to the left is an accurate depiction of what I had envisioned happening upon seeing the place and its inhabitants.

This is a photo of the little red dog in the apartment I live in. As you can see, she has replaced the Jotul woodstove of five and a half years with a radiator and is quite peaceful. She is a private type of animal, much like her owner.

Anyway, being the resourceful men that we are, we considered finding the closest hardware store, purchasing fencing material and building a worthy fence that would, indeed, separate the yards. It would have taken some ingenuity to pull off - because of how the other renter entered the yard - but it was doable. We used the image at right as our blueprints.

But all of this was secondary to the absolute fiasco that ensued the minute we got out of our vehicles on North Park Drive. The renter in the other house on the property appeared on the front porch in a t-shirt and sweat pants and promptly placed a half of a tin of Copenhagen in his lip. Then gave us a "I'm a tough guy" look. Okay. We just snorted. Next, an amiable Mexican lady appeared from out of the shadows and asked us if we were there to look at the place with the Realtor. "Uh...no. He," someone jerked a thumb in my direction, "is renting that little house back there." She and her husband were looking at buying it. She then proceeded to tell us a lot of good information; from good restaurants to which neighborhoods a lily white little sumbitch like me may want to avoid, specifically after sundown. Nice lady. Talked a lot, though.

Then, the Realtor showed up and somehow we found ourselves standing in Mr. Copenhagen's living room with two Mexicans, looking blankly at his walls and the incredible mess his three children had created. I left. Private type of animal, remember? I made my way out the front door, stepped over two skateboards, a bicycle or two, a blue tarp, a trash can and up to the chain link fence that would serve as my gate for the next six months.

The Realtor fumbled with the lock on the front door of the small rental house - my house - got it open, and once again, I was in a small space with my brother, my friend, a Realtor, and three Mexicans. And, once again, I left. The house was about 33 degrees Fahrenheit, darker than a black bull's butt on a moonless night, and immediately gave off the wrong vibe. I bailed out. I was done at that point. Like my brother later said, "There's no way in hell I was going to unload your stuff at that place."

But what sealed the deal was when the landlord/owner showed up. You are beginning to see, I hope, how this whole situation kept degenerating into what we like to call a quality fuckshow, a term illustrated quite well by the photo below.

Enter Dr. Doolittle. (He really is a doctor...of what, I have no idea and I pity anyone who needs his services.) He is probably in his mid-forties, has bleached white hair in a mop-top fashion with all of it in little tiny braids, each braid held together by a different colored rubber band. He was also sporting a black and gray goatee - but it wasn't really a goatee. It was more or less random facial hair that hung down five inches like walrus tusks from either side of his chin in a scraggly mess. His chin was shaved bare and he had no mustache. He looked like a damn idiot. He complained that he didn't think he was going to have time to get to the gym. He picked up a target arrow that was laying in the yard (I don't know why it was there), studied it and then threw it in another corner of the yard. He had an existing renter, a prospective buyer and their family, a Realtor, and a new renter and his family all on the property at the same time. "I didn't coordinate this all that well," is what he said to me. No shit. He couldn't have coordinated getting laid in a goddamn brothel. He produced a wrinkled rental contract from his back pocket - for he had arrived fifteen minutes tardy on a bike that looked like it had come over on the fucking Mayflower - and handed it to me. "Yeah. Right. Thanks," I mumbled.

Now, you have to understand that I had never met him prior to that afternoon. I had only spoken on the phone with him twice but I was bolstered by the fact that when I called his office, the voicemail greeting said in a somewhat sexy female voice, "Thank you for calling. Dr. Thompson is not available right now..." Doctor is the operative and confidence buttressing word. Upon dealing with him in person, I would not let that man tend to a sick pet cricket. Also understand that there are 60,000 people in Flagstaff proper. The odds are, really, 1 in 60,000 (or a .002% chance) that I would run into such a goddamn dork as a landlord. Consider as well that there were three Colorado mountain guys standing in the yard; three guys who have been through a lot of different experiences in our respective lives; three guys who had just driven over five hundred and fifty miles; three guys in boots and jeans who had absolutely no patience nor understanding for someone like Dr. Doolittle. Three guys who, upon seeing Dr. Doolittle, exchanged looks, rolled our eyes and were on our way back to our vehicles before the engines had even cooled off.

"We're going to go get a hotel room and think it over. Maybe I'll call you later," I said to Dr. Doolittle and walked away.

"Well, well...you know, you, you can move in tonight, you know? I mean, it's ready for you," he insisted.

I just blinked at him. Words, at that point, escaped me.

My brother shouted over his shoulder to Dr. Doolittle as he was marching back to his Dodge, "Yep. Well, we're going now. Come on, Johnny."

I stepped over the skateboards, past the enormous barking dog, (I hate Labradors), around the yappy little dog that looked like the head of a mop with legs, over the tarp in the driveway, around the bicycles, past the other renter's two vehicles, said goodbye to the amiable Mexicans, dodged a few cars hauling ass up the hill from Route 66, got in my Jeep and drove off. Two weeks - hell, three months - of stress and negotiating and scheduling and finally getting a place to live vanished in less than fifteen minutes.

At that point, I wanted off of the carnival ride in a very bad way.