Roommate Wanted

I never planned my rendezvous with destiny. Things just happened to turn out the way they did. I would have been the first one to call the cops if I'd known what was going on, but who would have thought something like that would ever happen in a place like Newark, Delaware. Shit, there's hardly anything here except for UD, and you can't hardly call that a real school. I mean, its biggest claim to fame is consistently making the list of the top twenty party schools, but that's only counting ones on the East Coast.

Newark's not that far away from the Pennsylvania border. The Klan is still strong around there, I heard the national grand wizard-poobah-whatever now lives in rural Pennsylvania. They got a permit to march in Newark a few years ago, but so many people turned out to protest the march that the Klan never showed. Dumbass racists.

That's why I was a little freaked out when I first met my roomie back then, right around oh, '98 or '99. He answered my ad for a roommate wanted, well, actually my ad was all set to run in the Wilmington News Journal, but he called even before it did. He'd seen the notice I sent out on the listserv for UD grad students who need housing, although later he admitted he wasn't a grad student. I think he was just using the school's computers. This was before somebody got raped in the stacks of Neimers Law Library and they cracked down on letting outsiders onto campus. Anyway, he said he was living in Bowman, this little tiny rural Pennsylvania town about thirty minutes away, and was looking for a place in Newark.

He seemed a little funny right from the get. He e-mailed me a couple times, all cryptic, and wouldn't answer the simple questions I asked him about how long he needed a place for. Then finally he called me, and wanted to see the place right away. At this point, I really didn't give a fuck. I needed a warm body to fill the spot. My previous roommate was real nice, he was a pothead, deadhead, you name it, if it involved the 60's, he was into it. Adam worked for this group called Save The Earth, until he fell in love with a fellow canvasser who, big surprise, was a major hippie chick, and they both moved to her uncle's farm in Tennessee. I think their plan was to raise medicinal marijuana and babies.

Adam was cool, because he always used to leave his weed in the fridge, and I was welcome to it. Maybe he also moved out 'cuz he was trying to protect his weed. But he jetted right before the summer started, with four months left on the lease. Man, it's murder finding somebody over the summer in a college town. The only cats who don't have their shit all lined by April are the sketchy ones, or the kids who are coming to Newark because their internships with MBNA or Dupont are connected to fellowships at UD, so they're trying to live near campus. But I don't live anywhere great, I mean, there's no washer or dryer, just a clothesline out back, but it's usually in use because the guy downstairs from me has this clean clothes fetish. Day or night, rain or shine, Soggy Britches is out there hanging up some laundry. And the dishwasher doesn't get the dishes all the way clean, plus the same fridge dude used to keep his weed in doesn't close properly, and over time it's gotten kinda worn down. I think the motor's burnt out, 'cuz nothing stays cold. I swear, next summer, I'm gonna look in the $50 or less section of the News Journal classifieds and buy another fridge outta somebody else's house, which is how I found this one six years ago.

Almost nobody else had responded so far to the notice I'd sent out over the listserv, except for a few people with cats. Wow. If you really want to rent your place, I'll hip you to the magic words - "cats welcome." Nobody ever puts that in their ads, so right away, you'll automatically hear from all the mugs with cats. People with two cats, three cats, sometimes more, short haired, long haired, indoors, outdoors, the whole nine. And they all smell great and never, ever shit in the house, except for maybe once or twice two years ago, but they've learned their lesson since. They only reason I was open to cats in the first place is because I had an ex-girlfriend with the sweetest little cat, he used to sleep curled up right by my face, and ever since I sorta missed that little guy. But faced with the reality of my crib becoming a full-fledged cathouse, people calling and e-mailing me left and right trying to bring their critters over to sniff out both me and the turf, I had to just say no.

Besides, my ad hadn't even started running. I'd almost given up on the listserv when I heard from this new guy. So then he shows up to actually look at the place. As luck would have it, right around the time I'm expecting him, the doorbell rings, and it's a fucking canvasser from Save The Earth! They were doing my neighborhood that day! I asked ol' girl if she knew my ex-roomie Adam, but predictably, she's new on the job, a summer recruit. Just as she's leaving the porch, my new roomie walks up. So my guard was a little down from the start, I thought he might have been her canvassing director, or whatever. Nope, he was there to see the room, right on schedule.

I got a weird feeling about him right away. Not bad weird, just funny. He had a shaggy beard, and dark, piercing eyes. He seemed a little jumpy, and talking with him was a little strained, like he hadn't been around people in awhile. This should have been all the warning signal I needed to tell the dude, hey, I got a few other people ahead of you who already saw the place, so I'll call you if it's still available. But at the same time, I was getting desperate. It was five days before the end of the month. My ad wasn't due to start for another two days, and the knuckleheads who wait until three days before they gotta move to read the classifieds are truly a sorry bunch.

It wasn't even my fault that my ad was running so late. The deadline for classifieds to start on a Sunday is Friday, it's been Friday ever since I've lived in Delaware, and I called those bastards at 2 pm on Thursday. Come to find out, since the first of the year, there's a new policy in effect for all real estate ads, and now the deadline's noon on Thursdays. Great. Of course she wouldn't squeeze it in for me, even though I'm a regular classifieds customer and a faithful News Journal subscriber. When I used to stay in Wilmington, I even had a roommate once named Otis who delivered the News Journal. But she didn't care about any of that.

Dude said his name was Robert. Robert Ericsson. Then he said he was from Western Pennsylvania, but had lived all over the country, everywhere from Gainesville to Austin to L.A. and back. That was about all he mentioned about where he was from. Claimed he was thinking about going back to school at UD, studying Horticulture. Which sounded promising. When I asked him if he liked to puff, his eyes lit up, and he said, yeah, sure! So I figured maybe I'd still have a source of fridge weed. He wasn't really clear about how long he wanted to stay, he just said he was applying to some other schools, and might only be around for the summer. I said fine, whatever.

Next thing I know, dude's borrowing my measuring tape and checking out the dimensions of the room, so he could be sure his shit's gonna fit! I was like, hey man, not so fast. But on the other hand, renting the room was the plan. I kept selling him on how quiet the street was, how nice it was having a dishwasher, and how there was a great laundromat just down the street. That made him stop in his tracks. He said something about not liking to go out much, and I was a little relieved thinking the deal might be off, until he asked to borrow my phone book. Sure enough, the dot-com bubble hadn't burst yet, and Sudsy Duds had expanded its operations to include a pickup and delivery service. He also looked up the pizza delivery options, and was pretty psyched to find Newark had at least a dozen places flipping pies. Gotta keep the college students fed.

So that was that, the guy moved in. I was relieved to have the place rented, and for the first week, I kept telling myself he seems nice enough. Then, once it was obvious he was a little nuttier than the average acorn, I kept sane by reminding myself it was only for the summer. After the summer came and went, and my efforts to get rid of him and find a nice, normal roommate all came up short, I shrugged my shoulders and said, hey, how bad could things get?

All the phantom stuff he'd been so concerned about having enough room in the apartment for turned out to be nothing more than two army-issue duffel bags, and a lot of milk crates packed with dog-eared videotapes that looked like they'd all come from the same mom & pop video store. I asked him about them and he said he bought them all from a store in Bowman for a dollar apiece when the place went out of business. Except once that summer when I was watching this flick called "Hardbodies," all about the philosophy of the BBD, which stands for Bigger, Better Deal, and also has lots of naked chicks, I noticed a metallic sticker on the tape that said "Video Plus, Murphy, NC." But I didn't say anything to Robert. By this point, I'd gotten used to him telling tall tales. In fact, he never told the same story twice, about how his applications to school were going, or where he sometimes disappeared to for days at a time, nothing. But it never really bothered me. I decided he was just a habitual bullshit artist, and I'd take the stuff he told me with a grain of salt.

Besides, dude was not only keeping the fridge stocked with weed, it was all over the house! The motherfucker was growing! His room had these two enormous closets, one on each side, and they opened up on exposed rafters, so it got really hot inside. This was another thing that made his eyes bug out when he opened the closet doors with my measuring tape in hand. Said they'd be perfect for his "gardening research." Little did I know exactly what kind of horticulture he had in mind! But I didn't give a fuck, because number one, I just rent the place.

It wasn't like they were gonna haul me into forfeiture court and confiscate the apartment. Our landlord's some Chinese lady named Syreeta who lives in Hong Kong. Her son stays in Wilmington, and every once in a while he shows up to check on the place and make sure we're not breeding animals, or sunbathing on the roof. Those are pretty much the only things Syreeta cares about, that and the six hun she makes off us each month. Dude never thought to check in Robert's closets, maybe he could sniff out pets but not three dozen five foot tall mature female cannibas sativa plants.

And no way they would really take the time to bust somebody for growing weed in Newark. The cops around here have bigger fish to fry. Downtown Wilmington's like, twenty minutes away, and people will hardly drive there after sundown because they're afraid of getting shot. The downtown businesses have private security guards that patrol the streets! All the little shops and stuff close around dark. It's 'cuz there's no middle ground in Wilmington, you either work in a gleaming corporate building and escape to the suburbs daily, or you're one of the little people stuck working at a little job and living in the city, and you're struggling just to make it. Or you've got a city job, in which case you're also struggling, 'cuz there's been a recession on for the last couple of years and everything's gotten cut. Or you're on welfare. That's about all there is to Wilmington. That and the rich people who live on the hill over by Brandywine Park, and that's who the cops and private security guards mostly care about. God forbid they might be afraid to go out to the theatre and enjoy a night on the town.

People struggle in Newark, too. Like I said, there’s nothing in this town except the University. No industries, nowhere for people to work who don’t have college degrees or enough dough to open their own business. And kids come from all over Delaware to go to school here, but if you’re born in Newark, and you’re from the wrong side of the tracks, chances are the closest you’ll get to UD is working as a groundskeeper, housekeeper, or employee in the Physical Plant, spending your life making sure things run smoothly so other people’s kids can get a good education. What’s really fucked up is back in slavery days, some of the same black folks working for the school today had ancestors who built its original buildings, brick by brick. Betcha didn't know there were slaves in Delaware. They might have outlawed slavery, but it’s almost like the University’s still a big plantation.

The thing Robert liked most about the university was the co-eds who walk to class in the mornings and back in the afternoons, ‘cuz there’s a big front balcony and our place is right near campus. Robert spent a lot of his time out there in the late afternoons, when he wasn’t lying around on the living room couch. He also liked taking naps, watching predictable stoner stuff like Cheech and Chong movies, ordering takeout pizzas, and of course, smoking weed. He was usually reading something, and muttering to himself, but it'd always be two three magazines at a time, so I could never tell exactly what he was reading for real, underneath the big copies of the Weekly World News he always kept on the outside. I figured it was probably porno mags, but when I heard later what kinds of stuff he used to subscribe to, and was likely keeping in his room the whole time he lived with me, it really freaked me out.

I mean, I had no idea. It's not like I was keeping up on the news every night. Fuck, I read the paper, but it's mostly for the horoscopes and classifieds! Plus the film reviews and schedules. See, one of my friends used to work for the Regal, this little theatre across from UD on Main Street. The Regal's the only arthouse theatre in Newark, and they've had a deal cooked up with all the chain theatres in town for years where employees of the Regal get to go see chain movies for free, and vice versa. So me and my friend go to the movies for free all the time.

There's all kinds of free stuff like that in Newark, you just have to know where to look. Like, you can call up WVUD, the campus station at UD, and win free tickets to shows at the Rocket in Wilmington, where any bands that bother coming to Delaware usually wind up playing. Why anybody ever bothers paying for tickets to the Rocket when they give them away all the time over the air is beyond me. You can also get free toilet paper on campus, if you don't mind wiping your ass with something cheap and scratchy.

On Wednesday nights, except in the wintertime, the Falung Gongers from the temple in Delaware City serve a free dinner on the campus Green. It's all vegetarian food, and it's all free. You can go through the line as many times as you want, so if you want to get two or three plates worth of food, no prob. It's all veggies and rice and weird Falung Gong applesauce and shit, so if you stick it in the fridge it'll keep for a couple days, long enough to get you close to Sundays, when the Feed The World anarchist kids serve a free dinner at the Little Red Bookshop, right down the street from the only McDonalds in Newark.

Monday nights, there's no cover trivia nights, where you can go to the Moonlight Cafe and win free beer and sandwiches just by answering some silly questions! I swear, people in this town must have nothing better to do on Monday nights, 'cuz that place is jam packed on the regular. There's even a theme song, and people from the audience join in to play it with trombones and accordions. Maybe there's so many people there because all the restaurants in Newark close down on Mondays, and eating's pretty much the only industry in this town besides the University.

I must have developed a heavy tolerance from having so much weed around me all the time in the apartment, because eventually, it didn't seem to get me high like it used to. It was right around the time Nevada voted "No" on legalizing small quantities, in the fall of '02. Robert had been excited all summer long for that shit, yammering on about it whenever I was around, telling me how he wanted to drive out there and volunteer for the cause, and how he was gonna lead the charge to pass a similar bill in Delaware. I was excited too, but after the election, reality set in again. That's when I finally had to tell him he should think about downsizing the garden.

Robert didn't take the news so well, and then we started fighting about other, trivial stuff. I got on a neat kick after four years of living like a slob. I realized I was the only one who'd been cleaning up, wiping down the counters, taking out the garbage, stuff like that. Once I opened his medicine cabinet, and out fell a crusty Ding Dong and half a dozen Rice Krispie Treat wrappers. I asked him to start pulling his own weight on the chores, but he still never lifted a finger. Then I asked if he could maybe start taking off his shoes in the house, and he refused. Live with somebody four years in a weed haze, everything's likely to be fine, but take away the weed, you might just realize they're an asshole. One morning, I woke up and just found him gone. All his things were cleared out, and there was no note, nothing. Talk about no class. That was a few months ago. I didn't hear anything else about him until this past week. Then, when it all made the papers, suddenly everything hit me at once.

Maybe I should go to the cops and tell 'em what I know. That he wasn't really living in the woods for five years, like a mythical Davy Crockett. While armies of FBI and ATF agents were combing the hills of Western North Carolina looking for his ass, he was laughing at them from the relative comfort of a run-down second floor apartment in Newark, Delaware, sitting on the front balcony every afternoon getting stoned, devouring junk food and pizzas, reading his fucked-up white supremacist literature, and watching UD co-eds go by. But to be honest, I don't want the publicity. People might think I was harboring him because I was a racist, or a dum-dum because I didn't realize who he was for so long, or even figure out that I was sharing my crib with a radical right-wing fanatic who hated gays, blacks, Jews, even the Olympics. And screw it, he's not about to talk, mess up his outlaw fugitive image. I'll tell you what, though, this experience has definitely taught me one thing for sure. I'm gonna be a lot more careful next time I need a roommate.