Hunchback, Vampire and Garcia : by Radrook: Reviews Included

by Radrook

      The new tenant, Pedro Garcia, banged on the apartment door until the landlord, Mr. Gordon, a man who suffered from a spinal deformity, partially opened his apartment's chainlocked door and gazed from between the space. 

      “What do you want?” he barked hoarsely.

      "You should know what I want Mr. Gordon,” Garcia, a young, short, dark-complexioned, Mexican-American of strong Mestizo facial features responded.

      “But I don't!" the landlord bellowed.

      “Mr. Gordon, what did I ask you when I was applying for the apartment?”

      “Be specific and cut to the chase dammit!” the hunchbacked landlord shot back and swiped the tobaco dribble off his stubbled chin with the sleeve of his white shirt.

     “OK, I will." Garcia said:

     "Why did you rent me an apartment when I told you that  I needed a quiet place to live? A place where I could feel safe and get some sound sleep?”

      “Why did I say that to you, you ask?" Mr. Gordon responded.

    "Simple! Because this is a place where you can feel safe and get sound sleep. That's why!  Has anyone here stopped you from getting sound sleep?” he asked, jutting white stubbled dimpled chin and squinting one glassy bloodshot green eye.

      “Don’t play the innocent with me, Mr. Gordon," Garcia immediately responded, “You know exactly what I am talking about. If you had told me about who lives here, I would never have agreed to sign that freakin' lease and given you a deposit."
 
      “I didn't mislead you! Have any of my tenants messed with you-eh?”

     “Well, no, not directly” Garcia responded sheepishly.

      “Then case closed and up your nose with a rubber hose! Bye!”

     “No! The case is not closed, Mr. Gordon!” Garcia kept the hunchbacked landlord from shutting the door in his face by pressing on it with his hand ad leading his weight on it. .

      “Get your fat hand off my door!” the landlord said menacingly.
     
      “Tell me why you lied, Mr. Gordon. I had a right to know.” Garcia,  said.

     “Right to know what? Dammit! Spit it out already and be done with it. I have other things to do than to be standing here listening to you griping and whining and bellyaching all morning!”

      “Alright Mr. Gordon, I'll tell you why.  You rented me an apartment next to someone who behaves and looks like some damned bloodthirsty vampire.”

     “ Bloodthirsty what? Vampire? Vampire? What vampire? Ohhhhhh, wait a minute!"he said and chuckeled briefly. 

     "I know who you might mean. You probably mean Vladimir Petroscovich, the immigrant from Romania. Heh! Heh! Heh!”  he laughed hoarsely followed by a hacking cough. 

   "Transylvania?" Garcia was about to ask but refrained for the sake avoiding an escalation and not getting his deposit.

      “Ah, Petroscovich is more or less a harmless fellow who keeps pretty much to himself.” Mr, Gordon said calmly while slowly wiping the perspiration from his pale pate with the palm of his hand and wiping it on his his thigh.

     “Really?  Then why is he so pale?”

     "Shit!  This is not Monterey Mexico, Mr. Garcia, you know? Everyone isn't tanned by the sun here in the USA! ”

      “No, I’m not talking about just a mild pale Mr. Gordon, I’m talking about very very pale, like he was some kind of a Caucasian cadaver drained of all his blood. That kind of pale.” Garcia genuflected quickly as safeguard agaist all evil.

     “Gee! I don’t know, Mr. Garcia. Maybe he has pernicious anemia? Vitiligo? Why? What exactly is it that you are imagining that Vladimir has? As if his paleness were any of your business.”

      “Well, how pale a person becomes my business if whenever we bump into each other in the hallway, the person stops and stares
      at my neck as if he wanting to bite and slurp!”

      “Vladimir?  Bite and slurp?" Mr. Gordon scratched his pate with the long blackened nail of his index finger as if to indicate total disbelief.

      "Vladimir hasn’t bitten anyone in this building and he has been living here for a full three months. No one else has ever complained about him staring at them in the way you say he did with you. Not only that, but he always pays his rent on time and goes to work every single day at his job as a mortician. He also never--”

     “He, he, he's a mortician?” Garia said slowly in a quavering voice.

      “Why?  Do you you have some personal gripe against morticians?”

      “ No, I don’t have anything against morticians, as long as they aren’t as pale as death himself and don’t stare at my neck as if they want to bite and slurp.”

      “So why bring this to me?" Mr. Gordon grunted and pounded his chest with his fist as he uttered the word "me!"

     "Why not take it to Vladimir himself? You're both adults. I’m sure you can both work this out.”

      “Because you rented me the apartment and you are to blame for this situation.”

     For a few moments, the landlord stood motionlessly as if pondering what Garcia had said. Then he silently shook his head first in the negative and then nodding in the positive as if weighing the pros and the cons. Finally, after heaving a deep, tired sigh of resignation, he spoke:

     “Alright Mr. Garcia. Alright! Let’s go upstairs to Vladimir’s apartment and clear up this mess. How does that sound?”

     Seeing that his tenant was nervously hesitating, he added:

      “It’s better than having to move before the lease is up and losing your deposit.”

     “I just don’t like getting involved in messed-up situations,” Garcia responded nervously as the possibilities of the situation came to his mind.

     “But there really isn’t any situation, Mr. Garcia,” the landlord said finally removing the chain-lock and stepping outside into the semi-dark narrow and musty hallway.  But since you have  insisted that there is a situation, then let’s take the matter up with Vladimir personally.”

     Pedro Garcia hadn't noticed just how hunchbacked Mr. Gordon was when he first applied for an apartment. Mr. Gordon had been seated behind a huge, oaken office-desk and the hunch had been more-or-less hidden. Neither had Gordon shown him the apartment. That task had been assigned to Willie the handyman who ambled with a mindless broad smile and pronounced limp. So it was with a severe shock that Pedro observed Gordon emerge so hunched. This just coordinated too much with the image of his neighbor Vladimir and made Pedro feel as if he had just entered a dungeon of sorts and given the keeper money for renting him a cell.

      "Thank you Mr. Gordon, but maybe this isn't such a good idea after all?" Garcia responded nervously.

     "Why not? Is it cause you finally got a good look at my hunchback?"

     "No that has nothing--"

      "Let me assure you, Mr. Garcia, being hunchbacked has nothing to do with being good or evil."

          "No that isn't--"

     "What do you think? That I'm going to slap you on some torture wrack once we get to Vlad's apartment and let him feast?” Mr. Gordon grinned, partially exposing some yellow-tinged teeth.

     "No I Would--"

      "Or maybe that I'm gonna stab you in the back as you walk up the stairs with this?” Mr. Gordon seemed to have whipped out a machete from seemingly nowhere.

     "That never--"

      “Or perhaps that I might set you on fire after dowsing you with this?" Mr. Gordon produced a large jug of what Garcia imagined as being gasoline.

     "Madre de Dios! Keep the rent money!" Garcia screamed and bolted as Mr. Gordon stood with a broad smile on his face and took a few swigs from the jug full of filtered water.

     "Wow! Why do people have to be so skittish?" he mumbled as he ambled back into his apartment where Vladimir greeted him with a brotherly hug.

----