I nod, swallowing down the lump crawling up my throat.
He opens the door wider, revealing a living room crowded with mismatched boxes, most of them sagging with damp or age. A folded lawn chair sits where a couch should be. The air smells of old paper, furniture polish, and a faint hint of tomato sauce.
“I can give you fifteen more minutes,” I say softly. “Technically I’m supposed to call the locksmith now, but…”
“You already gave me more than you had to,” he says. “They gave me nowhere to go. My brother’s widow said I can sleep in her basement for a while, down near East St. Louis. Not ideal, but…”
“I’m sorry.”
“I know.”
He walks past me, slow, hunched, carrying a box in both arms that looks too heavy for him. One of the flaps opens and a cascade of cassette tapes spills out—Dean Martin, ConnieFrancis, Enrico Caruso. My heart breaks a little watching him kneel and try to gather them up with fingers that tremble too much to hold anything steady.
I kneel beside him without thinking and help.
We scoop them into the box together, neither of us speaking. His knuckles brush mine and feel like knotted wood. Old, proud, tired.
“Your little girl,” he says quietly. “The one with the green eyes. She ever hear real accordion?”
“She’s into space stuff,” I say, smiling despite myself. “Aliens. UFOs. I don’t think polka’s on her playlist.”
He laughs. A dry, papery sound. “Shame. Used to be music in this town. Real music. People on their stoops, singing in Italian, dancing in the streets. Now it’s lawyers and chain burrito shops.”
I nod. “I know. I remember.”
“I miss it,” he says, voice cracking. “I miss when this town had a heart.”
When I come back outside, I sign the clipboard with a hand that’s shaking.
“Lock it,” I tell the contractor. My voice doesn’t sound like mine.
He shrugs and heads in with a tool kit and a crowbar.
Lipnicky is still watching.
I walk straight up to him, resisting the urge to chuck the clipboard into his smug face.
“That man had nowhere else to go,” I say.
“That man,” Lipnicky replies smoothly, “has been in arrears for six consecutive months. He was warned. Repeatedly.”
“He’s sixty-two.”
“He’s a liability.”
I stare at him. “You mean aperson.”
He smiles, tight-lipped. “Same thing, really.”
For a second, I want to scream. Not yell—scream. Rip open the street with it. Set the goddamn ketchup bottle ablaze and lead a parade of furious accordion players through downtown.
But instead I say, “It’s done,” and walk away.
Because rent’s due next week and Sammy’s got a field trip she’s too excited about and I’m tired.
Monsters like Lipnicky know exactly how much you’re willing to trade to keep your lights on.
The sky’s doing that mid-July Illinois thing where it looks like it can’t decide between apocalypse and barbecue. Purple clouds rolling in from the west, sun bleeding low over the cornfields, the humidity clinging to everything like regret. My AC’s on the fritz again, so the car smells like crayons, upholstery, and sweat—mine and Sammy’s, both.
