Category Archives: small town USA

Occupied: Day 40

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So my lawyer’s assistant called yesterday. We won’t be doing an eviction on Dec. 22. We will be getting an emergency order so I can go inside my own house.

Fascinating.

The guy changed the locks, so the last time I went out to see if he had allowed his dog and cats to cover the floor with feces again (at least I hope it was the dog and cats) we couldn’t get in. He passed us on the road in as we came out, so we went back. But he would not let us in.

This is illegal, but I cannot prosecute over it. That’s interesting to me. One feels the justice side should be errant toward the poorer party, but at a certain point does that mean there is no justice for the person who owns the property? Increasingly, at each point of his illegal actions, no recourse is available. It’s illegal, but so what?

We are not having an eviction on Dec. 22 because Legal Aid has gotten involved and filed several motions asking for documents of disclosure, information on the lease, etc. Each request is accompanied by a request for a separate court date. In other words, Legal Aid would like to cause the person asking for the eviction (me) to spend so much time and money that they drop it. This is a common Legal Aid strategy.

It is also one that most lawyers for those trying to make the eviction happen stand to benefit from financially. So that becomes tricky.

I am mistrustful of my lawyer for not disclosing that he would be away during a critical week of December. It feels like something he should have said when we started this journey. I am unhappy that he has offered several platitudes and reassurances, but not strategy. We have a call coming up. Let’s see what happens.

And I am miserably unhappy with the former friend who introduced me to the guy who is now occupying my property. I never once faulted her for introducing me to him, but recenltly I told her that she would need to testify, since she knew about the terms of the agreement (we made it on her front porch) and the circumstances of him taking up residence (we all drove out there together and inspected it and he asked her permission, basically, before moving out of her house).

Her exact words: “I can’t. I wouldn’t have anything to say.”

The most fascinating part of this process, when one steps back from the pain caused by it, is looking at the human decisions involved.

The guy has to be willing to harm people who did many things to help him. We gifted him a truck. We offered him a great work-for-rent deal. We accepted his need to flex his schedule when he notified us that he had appointments. OK, he’s willing to be a person who will do anything to get what he wants, and he has grown up in a world where this kind of behavior was normal, accepted, smart even.

My friend has decided “not to take sides.” She is watching me deal with a financial and emotional burden she has direct knowledge of, and holding herself disassociated from it all.

This feels like a worse betrayal than the guy, in all honesty. I expected better from her, if nothing else for his sake. Accountability may have to be an acquired skill, but can we get through life without it?

It feels unnecessary, this fight to take back what is mine. Had the guy fulfilled the terms of the agreement, he could have stayed. And it feels lonely. Friends don’t ask, and some friends turned out not to be. That part is hard.

The First Time Your Dad Forgets Who You Are

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The first time your dad forgets who you are, annoyance might supplant sadness.

We were going into Costco to replace his lost hearing aid. Shoppers for the holidays raced about, all of them surly. So was the girl in the Santa hat, checking cards at the door. I scanned our card and had my dad sit down while I went back out to get an electric cart. A kind employee showed me how to work the controls after he saw me back into the building.

When I came back in the cart, Santa Hat Guard made me scan the card again.

I parked the cart in front of Dad, who said, “Oh thank you; now I just need to wait for my daughter.”

We were in a high stress situation. That’s more or less what accelerates the Alzheimer’s in certain moments, for lack of a simpler explanation. Being in a different place, not knowing the rules, pushes harder on what’s left and breaks it up faster.

I held up his hearing aid box. “Ready to go do this?”

He smiled. “Yep, just gotta wait for my daughter and then I’m ready.”

I thought for a second, went outside, and came back. Santa Hat glared at me. I swiped my card. Again.

“Ready to go, Dad?” I said cheerfully.

“There you are. I wondered where you’d gotten to.”

A lovely woman works at the Hearing Aid department: Dani. She taught him slowly and steadily how to keep the device in his ear. When they finished, he wanted to buy a big screen TV.

We already have a big screen TV.

We got eggs, and the cashews he likes. We left the scrum of shoppers and screech of carols over the loudspeaker. And as he hauled himself into the car by the door handle, he said, “I need pop tarts.”

We went to Walmart, where they were also kind to him. Found him a cart, kept him company when he announced, after we’d checked out, that he also needed Pepsi. I ran back and got it while the nice lady in the Santa hat and blue vest and Grinch onesie (they were having PJ employee day) kept him company.

On my way back with the Pepsi, a sudden balloon of red and black plaid wriggled backwards from a narrow crack in a display of pie-making supplies, and turned into a human behind. Standing upright, the filled-out plaid pants became a human with cute pony tails in a two-piece buffalo plaid. She grinned at me, looking very like an elf who had just successfully fought a chimney.

For no reason whatsover, I said, “My dad forgot my name.”

She blinked once, then shrugged, “Prob’ly so he won’t hafta buy you a present. He’ll remember it by New Year’s.”

I had to laugh. She patted me on the shoulder as I walked on by, then slid her red-and-black flanneled body between cans of condensed milk and assorted spices once again.

Dad was waiting with Santa Hat Nice Grinch Lady.

“There she is!” Ms. Grinch pointed, smiling, “See, you’re going home for Christmas!” To me she said with a wink, “He was a little worried you’d forgotten him.”

“How would I forget you?” I said to him. “You’re my dad.”