The Apartment Across the Hall

by Jack Dane

Fall in New York City is a strange thing. One second, it’s eighty degrees and so hot you’re practically begging for death, and then the next day you wake up to find the leaves are orange and the air wants to hurt you.

The landlord special, as the joke goes. A coat of paint, and everything’s fixed.

“I’m upping what you owe me,” Derek says between pants, “to at least two cups of ramen.”

I swallow and paste a smile onto my face. It’s important to be friendly and cordial to neighbors. “Hello, I’m Salem, I just moved here,” I say with my hand raised in greeting as she reaches the base of the stairs. The old woman’s head tilts up to us, her wrinkled face looking between the two of us. “You shouldn’t be here,” she hisses.

There are marks in the black paint of the windowsill. Kneeling down, I study the small, unsteady lines. My hand comes up, and I fit my fingers into position, realizing with a start that they’re nail scratches.

Mom always said I’d never be able to settle down if I couldn’t figure out how to cook for a man. Not like her knowing how to cook kept Dad from leaving.

You can’t control what other people do, only your own actions in response…

I’ve seen it said that New York City, despite being the biggest city in the country, has some of the loneliest people. I know it’s true—I’m one of them.

Juvenile detention and involuntary commitments to mental hospitals don’t exactly have landlords begging for me.