The Flagstaff Chronicles, Vol. 4

CW had found a pamphlet for something an hour earlier or so named "ApartmentFinder.com," I think, as we were entering a convenience store and stuffed it in my hand.

"Here, Johnson. I ain't staying down here for more than two nights so you better find something in there that will work for you and that damned dog," he said and walked into the Circle K.

We all bought our respective flavors of chosen beverage.

We took our places in the hotel room; me in the chair, Brad on one bed, CW on the other.

"You got the Internet on that thing?" Brad asked.

I opened the MacBook, waited a few seconds, punched a few keys. "Yep," I said.

"Okay, type this in," he said. And he proceeded to read to me, as he stared with brow furrowed into the depths of the little pamphlet, "dub-yuh dot dub-yuh dot dub-yuh dot f-l-a-g-s-t-a-f-f-a-p-a-r-t-m-e-n-t-s...umm, r-e-n-t-a-l oh shit, no, wait, yeah, that's right, -a-l-s dot c-o-m."

"What?!"

"Jesus Chri-," he whispered as he sipped his cocktail. He repeated it louder, as though I had suddenly gone mostly deaf. The fact that it was entirely unintelligible hadn't occurred to him. "I said, 'dub-yuh dot dub-yuh dot dub-yuh dot f-l-a-g-s-"

"Whoa," I interrupted. "Damn man, just read the address on the whole."

This situation repeated itself roughly seventeen times over and with each time, he thought it was even funnier. Brad scribbled notes on the pages in the pamphlet after I took a look at the places online and gave a report. I looked at the notes later. They ranged from "nice, too much $" to "call" to "no pets" to "nothing avail" to "small" to "sounds like shit." Two things I will not detract from my brother's personality are his senses of immediacy and practicality. I have learned loads from him because of those two things.

CW sat over there, head propped up by a pair of pillows, looking through a real estate catalog. Every so often he would proclaim - as he sat up - something along the lines of, "God-damn! Listen to this one. Ninety-two acres, older ranch style house, horse barn, corrals...oh - never mind. Seasonal water. Piss on that." He took a sip of whiskey, kicked back and returned to his catalog.

Jackie Chan flashed across the television. He sailed from the heights of the Eiffel Tower into a swimming pool, he used a coffee table as a life-saving device, he spoke quickly with some bug-eyed little black man as a motorcycle got stuck into the side of a minivan.

The word surreal does not describe the scene fully. My brain, as it tends to do, reeled.

"How 'bout this one?" Brad asked. "Dub-yuh dot dub-yuh dot dub-yuh dot f-o-r-e-s-t-r-"

"For shit's sake!" I said.

"Ha-ha! Okay. Ha! Hee-hee-hee!" He took a sip of whiskey. "Ha. Johnny's gettin' pissed with me, CW. Hee-hee! Um, okay...www dot forest ridge apartments dot com."

"Oh, yeah! Hell, that's the outfit that I called from the corrals that day when we were preg checking. Remember?" I said. "They were running a special and when I went back to the cabin to check my email for the info that they had sent me, I also found Dr. Doolittle's place on Craigslist...so I never got back to the gal at the apartment complex. I suppose that's why we're all sitting and farting in a hotel room right now."

"Yeah. Good work, Johnny," came the retort from CW.

"Hey, you got to see dan-sin girls, big guy."

"Yeah, I did," conceded CW.
 
Brad: "Did you type it in yet?"
Me, looking for my drink: "Yeah."
Brad: "What's the place look like?"
Me: "Hang on for chrissakes."
Brad, considering, over a sip of whiskey: "That's a good computer, huh?"
Me: "It is. It's bulletproof. I need things like that."
Brad: "No problems yet?"
Me: "Nah. The thing is too smart, too concise."
Brad to CW past the lamp and little table that separates the hotel room beds: "Concise. Did you hear that?"
CW: "I'll be con-cise for you, Johnny: what the fuck does it say about the apartment?"
Brad: "Ha-ha! Whew! I love this shit. You two locked in a jail cell sized room together."
Me, eyes darting through the website, ignoring the clowns: "Same as what I saw just a couple weeks ago. Pets are okay, 'tis affordable, simple floor plan, a little bigger than the cabin, five minutes from campus...look at the website."

The site was inspected by my cohorts. A Consensus was reached through a series of grunts, nods and the shrugging of shoulders.

"Well, shit. Let's go look at that place tomorrow. When do they open?" Brad asked.

"Um...nine a.m."

"Then we'll be there at eight-fifty-five waiting for them."

Eight-fifty-five a.m. the next day.


"Which right hand turn?!"
"This one!"
"No, that takes us back to Black Bart's."
"No! Black Bart's is that way! Take a fucking right!"
"Jesus Christ, people drive fast down here!"

"Go to your third intersection and take a left. Lone Tree Road."
"Right here?"
"Yeah! That's your third left, right?"
"I don't know! I'm just driving. You're reading the goddamn map!"
"Now what?"
"Take your next right. On Zuni. I don't know how far it is."
"Hey, look at that: a dude out there running a chainsaw at nine o'clock in the morning."
"Huh."
"Now what, Johnny?"

"Okay. We're on Zuni."
"Ha. Zoon-ee."
"A left on Walapai is next."
"Wallah-what?"
"Wallah-pie." 
"Then what?"
"Left on Yaqui."
"Where in the hell did they get these street names, Johnny?"
"I don't know. I've been here twice in my life until today."
"Oh yeah, there it is: Yah-kwoo-eee."
"I think it's pronounced Yah-kee."
"It's a 'q' and a 'u' together, that means 'quoo.'"
"Okay. Here it is."
"Where?"
"There. On your left. See the sign that says Fore--"
"Hell, look at that. Forest Ridge Apartments. He wasn't shittin.'"
"Where's the office?"
"I don't know."
"Right there. It says 'Leasing.'"

We walked into the office at 9:22 a.m. - twenty-seven minutes late by my brother's account. Upon our entry, the nice gal said, "Oh, wow. It looks like my day is just going to start off with a bang."

We all shook hands. Brad and I sat at the desk. CW sat silently off to stage right like a security guard.

We looked at an apartment, again we all nodded and shrugged.

I signed some papers. We shook hands again.

We unloaded the silver trailer full of my stuff into the apartment.

We had a beer or two.

We exchanged lines that ranged from "Nice place" to "Hell, it's perfect."

We stood around - hands in pockets - and looked at what would become my new four walls.

We decided to go back to Black Bart's.

"Well, hell...we might as well go see how the dan-sin girls are doing," someone said through a smile.

Then they both picked up their cell phones and called their wives.

"Hell, that's a nice place, Johnny."
"It oughta be perfect, ain't it?"
"It's quiet, nothing fancy, it's a good deal and it's five minutes from everything."
"A guy oughta be able to find a job pretty damned easy, don't you think?"
"Shit, with all that business and what not we seen yesterday I don't think a guy would have a problem."
"And it was professional, you know? The apartment and those gals and what not. No Dr. Doolittle with his fucking go-tee and shit."
"But don't you think that's a nice place?"
"Hell, it oughta be perfect, just like we said."
"Ha! There it is. Ol' Black Bart's. That was a good damn steak last night, ain't it?"

We walked in.

No dan-sin girls.

Apparently, Tuesdays are dan-sin girls night. On Wednesdays, the place is staffed with waiters. Our waiter was friendly enough, though a bit overzealous. He spoke like he was announcing a championship game between two mediocre teams and needed to fill the void. Maybe it was the looks on all of our faces that forced him into it.


Oh well, you can never have it all, eh?


We got back to the apartment. Brad wanted a movie. Something with "an airplane and a chase and laughin and some shootin and shit. I ain't watchin no sad shit."

I debated between "Shrek" (has a flying dragon and an ogre) and "Hitman" (has Olga Kurylenko and some nice guns, so to speak). We settled on "Snatch" (has some bad-ass fight scenes and men being fed to pigs). The thick British accent and the story line kept Brad guessing for the first half and CW slept through the second half. When everyone got shot in the end, Brad was happy even though there was no airplane. I stepped over them a couple times to go have a cigarette as they slept on my new floor.

I woke up at 6:10 the following morning. The Crew was already gone. They were somewhere around Cameron by then, I supposed, maybe even as far as Tuba City. I called Brad and left a message. "Thank you," I said.

The apartment was suddenly bigger, quieter and emptier than it had been just seven hours prior. No one to laugh with...again. But, hell, that's the way it goes.

I shrugged, used to it. I put on some coffee and went about the process of becoming a true stranger in a strange land.