By Juan David Cruz Duarte
In the summer of 2011, I was living in Columbia, South Carolina. I had been a student in the Master’s program in Comparative Literature at the University of South Carolina for a year. While I was studying and teaching Spanish classes at the university, I received some good news: one of my short story collections was going to be published in Colombia. After several years of disappointments taking my books to different publishers, several of my stories would finally see the light of day. So when the first semester of 2011 ended, I bought a ticket to fly to Bogotá. In Colombia, my parents were helping me prepare for the book launch. Everything seemed to be going smoothly.
The event took place in a small synagogue that had been purchased by the National Theater at the beginning of the century. Before the guests arrived, I received a call from a radio station. I gave a brief interview about the book, and I was surprised to learn, as the first guests began to arrive, that many of them had listened to the interview while driving to the theater. When all the seats in the main hall were filled, the publisher’s representative gave a brief speech in which he spoke a little about my writing process and praised the literary merit of several of my stories. The event continued with the presentation of a short monologue I had written a few years earlier. It was very satisfying to see, for the first time, an actor reciting the lines I had written myself. The people in the audience seemed to be enjoying themselves as well. After the short play, I went up on stage, thanked everyone I needed to thank, read the first story from the collection, and answered questions for several minutes. To wrap up the event, there was a book signing. I think I signed at least 90 autographs that night. Finally, my parents treated my siblings and me to hamburgers at a restaurant in the northern part of the city. I still remember that day with a certain nostalgia.
That’s how I spent my vacation months—signing copies of my book at the Book Fair, giving interviews for Radio Todelar, the National University radio station, and a few local TV stations. We didn’t sell a huge number of copies, but the ones we did sell covered the cost of the book launch. It seemed like things were finally looking up for me. But then I had to go back to South Carolina, and everything suddenly changed.
When I arrived at my apartment on Main Street, I discovered that a storm had damaged part of the roof of The Lofts (an old building that had served as a textile factory at the turn of the century), and numerous leaks had formed on the upper floors. A leak had formed in the ceiling of my apartment’s living room; the seeping water fell onto my desk, ruining the books, documents, and notebooks that were there. I also noticed that the building’s maintenance staff had used some of my plates and cups to mitigate the effects of the leaks in the apartment. Although I complained a couple of times to the building manager, no one took responsibility for the modest material losses I suffered at that time. But I was getting ready to start a new semester and didn’t have the energy to argue over trifles; I finally decided not to add fuel to the fire, and I focused on preparing the classes I was to teach in the semester that was about to begin.
Then I began to feel it again: the crushing weight of loneliness. It wasn’t a deep pain, nor was it constant suffering. It was, perhaps, a strange uneasiness, a weary and sad restlessness that kept me awake at night.
Suddenly, the muggy summer heat began seeping in through the windows and the small gap under the doors. And then came the swarm of flies. Flies were coming out of everywhere; they were every color and size. Since classes at the university hadn’t started yet, I spent the day in my underwear, locked up in that small, humid apartment that not even the air conditioner could cool down. My days slipped away as I prepared for classes, read comic books, and hunted the flies that landed on the windows, the furniture, and the walls. I used an old rubber flip-flop as a weapon. Insomnia, heat, humidity, and flies weren’t separate things; rather, they seemed to be different manifestations of the same phenomenon—something unpleasant and shapeless that I didn’t know how to name.
“It’s so damn hot,” I’d say to myself every night as I lay down to sleep on the mattress—which had no bed frame—that I’d found abandoned in my small room the day I moved into the building.
One ordinary morning, after a long, sleepless night, as I lay sleeping in my underwear, sweating beneath the sheets that were tangled across the mattress, I was jolted awake from a budding nightmare by the sound of a violent hand pounding on the apartment door. I, who was too tired to get up, buried my head under the pillow and tried to fall asleep again. But the pounding continued for about ten or fifteen minutes. I’d open my eyes and consider getting up, but I’d quickly dismiss the idea. Then the pounding started on my bedroom door. I felt afraid, but something told me it was best to keep ignoring the noise; I didn’t have a plan, I didn’t even understand what was happening—I was simply determined to stay lying on that mattress even if the world were falling apart. Maybe I was depressed.
Finally, I heard the sound of a key turning in the lock of my room. Startled, I sat up on the old, uncomfortable mattress and tried to cover my bare chest with the sweat-soaked sheets. A blonde woman of about 55 entered my room. She had small gray eyes, full of hatred and fury, and chubby little pink hands that could have belonged to a giant baby. She was berating me in English while I, perplexed, tried to remember who this strange and violent intruder was. Suddenly, I felt a queasy sensation in my stomach when I recognized the rosy face of the irate woman. Her expression of rage and hatred distorted her features so much that I hadn’t been able to recognize her at first glance. This woman, once smiling and good-natured, was the building manager.
As my South American mind adjusted to the thick Southern accent of my intimidating assailant, I gradually realized that those inarticulate shouts formed a message; it wasn’t a request, but rather seemed like an order. In short, I had to leave the apartment immediately. Apparently, my lease had expired. She wanted me to vacate the place so that the building maintenance crew could paint the walls and clean the carpets. I asked her to leave my room and told her I would come down to talk to her in her office after I had showered and gotten dressed. She slammed the door and stormed out of the apartment like an avalanche of anger and contempt.
I took a cold shower and then made myself a hearty breakfast of fried eggs with bread and bacon. You could say I was taking my time. I was nervous and flustered, but I was trying hard to stay calm. When I went down to the first floor, the manager abruptly stood up from the reception desk and locked herself in her private office. I heard voices behind the door; moments later, the administrative assistant came out of the office to speak with me. It was clear she didn’t want to face me. The assistant was a young man in his twenties, slim and dark-skinned. I remember he had a thin goatee. He had always been very kind to me, and I had a certain fondness for him. He calmly explained that my lease had expired and that I had to vacate the apartment that very day. For my part, I explained that in my country leases did not expire; on the contrary, they were automatically renewed unless the tenant expressed a desire to leave the property. After talking with him for about twenty minutes, I managed to convince him to give me one more day to leave the building. I had initially asked him to let me stay for the entire weekend, but the manager wouldn’t budge. I had to pack my things and get out of there.
I was feeling down and tired. I went up the stairs to my apartment and poured myself a glass of orange juice. I put on my sunglasses, slipped my old iPod into my pocket, and went out for a walk without knowing where to go. I walked to Assembly Street, where there’s a two-story Wendy’s. I ordered a burger with fries and a can of Coke. The woman at the window took my order reluctantly. I tried not to take it personally; not everyone in this country is nice to immigrants.
I decided to eat my hamburger outside the restaurant, on a small bench under a tree. A tall, blond man approached me. He had a beard that reached down to his chest, and his hair was long and unkempt. He was wearing a white sleeveless T-shirt and a red bandana tied around one of his wrists. He asked me if I could spare some money. I told him I couldn’t help him, and I apologized without much conviction. The man walked away grumbling and muttering insults under his breath. I tried not to pay him any attention. The sun’s rays beat down on my bare arms, and the gold frames of my sunglasses began to heat up like two small wire heating elements in a toaster.
“Damn first-world village,” I muttered. I pulled out my cell phone and called my friend Cristián. He didn’t answer. I wondered if he was on the West Coast.
Cristián was a Chilean scientist pursuing his Ph.D. in marine biology; that’s why he had to travel to Bodega, California, where he was conducting his experiments. I pictured him diving, collecting starfish, and jotting down his observations in waterproof ink in a waterproof notebook. I closed my eyes for a moment and sat there on the wooden bench, trying to decide what to do.
Cristián and I had been living together for a few months, along with an American named Devin Wilson, in a small house on Georgia Street. When I met him, Devin was studying electrical engineering in college. I remember he liked to play the guitar and drink on the porch. So I called Devin and asked if I could stay with him and Cristián for a couple of days, but he told me he had moved back to his parents’ house because he’d had a couple of unpleasant arguments with Cristián. He told me that, although I couldn’t stay at his parents’ house, which was on the outskirts of town, I could count on him if I needed help moving my things. I told him that was very kind of him, and asked if he could help me move the next day, once I’d found a place to stay for a couple of days while I looked for a new apartment to rent.
As I walked back to the old building, listening to music on my iPod, it occurred to me to call my good friend Julia. Like me, she had enrolled in the master’s program in Comparative Literature. Julia was born in Argentina, but had been living in the United States for several years. She was my best friend in the program. I was embarrassed to ask her for help, but I was running out of options.
Julia cheered me up and told me I could sleep on her couch for a few days. I thanked her, turned up the music, and kept walking toward the apartment. I made my way down the deserted streets, hunched over with my hands in my pockets.
That afternoon, I packed my few belongings into plastic bags and cardboard boxes that I’d gotten for free at a local supermarket. When I realized I needed more cardboard boxes, I went out to look for them on the sidewalks and under the train bridge. By midnight, I had packed everything I needed to pack.
The next morning I spoke with Devin. After lunch, he came to the apartment and helped me load my things into his truck. It was a nice red truck with a large flatbed and a comfortable cab with leather seats. We arrived at Julia’s house in less than twenty minutes. She lived on the second floor of a restored house that had been built in the 1920s. It was in a historic neighborhood called Shandon. Julia opened the door for us and offered us water. Devin and I carried my things up to the second floor, shook hands, and agreed to meet for lunch the following week.
Julia would wake up early, have breakfast in the living room (trying not to make too much noise so as not to wake me up), take a long shower, and head out to the university to teach her summer class. I would get up shortly after she left the house, have a cup of coffee, take a shower, and go out to look for an available apartment that wasn’t too far from the university. During those days I made several calls; I contacted Jim, the owner of the house where Cristián, Devin, and I had lived. Jim was a nice guy, a little over sixty years old, and had been a professor in the geography department for a long time. He and his wife, a successful lawyer affiliated with the Democratic Party, owned houses and apartments all over the city. They made extra money by renting these properties to international graduate students. Unfortunately, Jim and his wife didn’t have any properties available at that time. So I called several apartment buildings where many international students and graduate students lived. I called, for example, Cornell Arms, which is on Pendelton Street. But all the available apartments were out of my budget. Not surprisingly, most of the students living in the building were Saudis, sponsored by their country’s government. After speaking with the managers at Cornell Arms, I contacted the managers at Cliff Apartments, a large apartment complex on Whaley Street. Although these apartments were more in line with my modest graduate student budget, there were no available units there either.
In the midst of my desperation, I returned to The Lofts and spoke with the building manager. I calmly explained the reason for our misunderstanding and respectfully asked her to help me find a new apartment in the building, since the one I had previously occupied was going to be handed over to two new tenants. She, still somewhat annoyed by the trouble I had caused her, told me she would do her best to help me. We said goodbye without shaking hands. Even though my meeting with the building manager went, generally speaking, “well,” part of me didn’t want to see myself returning, humiliated and defeated, to the place from which I had been chased out like a stray dog.
That’s why I spoke with my friend Irina, another classmate in the master’s program in Comparative Literature. Irina was from a small town in Russia, but, like Julia, she had already been living in the United States for several years. She suggested I call the Park Circle office. Park Circle was a huge apartment building overlooking Maxcy Gregg Park. Most of the tenants were graduate students from Africa, India, China, South Korea, the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and Latin America. Although the building had earned a bad reputation among the university’s graduate students due to its constant cockroach problem, the rent was quite reasonable. That same afternoon I walked over to the building and spoke personally with the manager. He was a guy in his fifties whom everyone called Jack. He always wore a huge gold watch and dark glasses with gold frames. He had a thick brown mustache and silver hair at his temples. Sometimes he wore a University of South Carolina class ring. Jack told me they would have a studio apartment available the following week. Tired of searching, and certain I wouldn’t find anything better before the start of the semester, I signed the lease that very afternoon; I didn’t want to see the apartment, nor did I even ask Jack to let me see pictures of the place.
That afternoon, I went to Julia’s house and told her the good news. I also called Irina and thanked her for suggesting that I talk to the Park Circle management. Julia cooked dinner that night. I thanked her for her help and hospitality. The future was starting to look a little less bleak.
Julia kept getting up early. I kept getting up shortly after she left the apartment. I had the feeling that my friend was starting to feel uncomfortable with me. Sometimes I felt like a beggar, hiding in her little maze of boxes and plastic bags. The truth is, my stuff was blocking the way in the living room. It wasn’t a pretty sight. That’s why I spent the whole day walking around town, downing cappuccinos, espressos, and cortados at local coffee shops like Drip and Cool Beans. When I got tired of walking, I’d sit down with a book on any wooden bench in the Horse Shoe (a beautiful garden in the center of campus), by the huge fountain in front of the university library, or in Maxcy Gregg Park. Sometimes I took long walks through Martin Luther King Jr. Park, which is just a few blocks from Five Points, the area where almost all the city’s bars and restaurants are located.
Sometimes the city was battered by violent summer storms. On those occasions, I would take refuge in the Thomas Cooper Library (a massive bunker built during the frenzy of paranoia that was the Cold War) and read comic books. It was there that I read several issues of Frank Miller’s *Sin City *. And so, amid books, coffee, and long walks, the days and nights of that distant summer slipped by. I knew that soon Park Circle would call to let me know I could move into my new apartment. Then a new semester would begin at the university, and I would no longer have time to read for pleasure, nor to take those long walks through the lonely streets of Columbia. Once the students returned to the city, the fleeting peace I was beginning to experience would crumble like a house of cards.
One morning, shortly before eleven, I arrived at The Lofts’ management office. The manager invited me in and asked if I was still interested in living in the building. I told her, with some satisfaction, that I had found an apartment closer to the university, and asked her to start the necessary paperwork to arrange for the return of my security deposit. I left that office feeling like a king.
Eleven or twelve days had passed since I’d been forced to load my things into the bed of Devin’s huge pickup truck to take them to my friend Julia’s living room. I was leaving one of my long reading sessions at the library. I stopped in front of the fountain, which sparkled in the lazy six o’clock afternoon sun. Then I received a text message from Julia. She told me she was glad she’d been able to help me through the difficult time I’d been going through, but she asked me to understand her situation: the semester was about to begin, and she needed space and peace of mind to prepare for the start of another grueling academic term. She asked me to move into my new apartment as soon as possible. I felt like I was being given an ultimatum. I sat down next to the fountain and watched the water ripple in the gentle summer breeze, barely glistening under the indifferent South Carolina sun. I texted her back that I’d try to move into the new apartment the next day. I called Devin and asked if he’d have time in the morning to help me with the move. He said yes. I also called Jack to ask if the apartment was ready, but no one answered.
The next day, I got up early in the morning, called Jack—who had just arrived at the office—and explained that I needed to move out as soon as possible. He told me it was fine for me to move out that very day, but explained that they wouldn’t turn the electricity on until Monday. If I remember correctly, it was Friday. I told Jack that was fine, and then I called Devin to ask if he could still help me with the move. My friend arrived at Julia’s house around eleven in the morning; I said goodbye to her and thanked her for all her help. Shortly after noon, Devin and I had finished hauling all my stuff up to the tiny apartment on the eleventh floor, which would be my home for the next two or three years.
That night I slept on the floor. I had left the mattress I’d used at The Lofts apartment lying abandoned in my room. After all, that’s where I’d found it. I heard noises from the back street and peeked out the window. Two police officers had stopped a man driving a red Volkswagen Beetle. The man, who was handcuffed, struggled a little, but halfheartedly. He seemed resigned to being arrested that night. I wondered why they had stopped him. They took the man away and left the Beetle parked on the side of the street. “Welcome to the neighborhood,” I said to myself.
A summer blizzard was battering the window violently. I tossed and turned on the makeshift nest of blankets and sheets I’d spread out on the carpet. I couldn’t sleep. I just lay there on the floor, rolling around like a sad, abandoned animal. I couldn’t believe that just a couple of months ago I’d been signing autographs at the Book Fair.
“Life is full of surprises,” as they say. I wondered if there was a God in heaven, someone watching over us every step of the way.
The idea struck me as so implausible that it was almost absurd. I was suddenly overcome by a deep sadness. I pulled the pillow over my head and tried not to think about anything, not to move a single muscle. A single, lonely word suddenly slipped from my lips, like a heartbroken prayer: “Shit.”