Day 142 – Monday, 1 Apr

I left PADS this morning and went straight to Mike Lord’s place. I want to be there when the owner of the funeral home arrives to talk with him about the apartment.

The entrance to his office is next to the entrance for the apartments. He’s there when I go down to check just after nine am.

“Hi, good morning. May I talk to you about the apartment you have available?”

“By all means. Come in and have a seat.”

He was a pleasant fellow. I guess you have to be friendly and easy to get along with in the funeral business.

“How did you hear about the apartment?”

“Mike Lord, one of your tenants, told me it’s available.”

“Oh, so then you know the building. You’ve seen Mike’s apartment, have you?”

“Yes, I have. In fact, I was just visiting Mike before coming to see you. It’s a nice building.”

“Yes, it is. And so you know, we like to keep it quiet. The funeral home is downstairs, so we can’t have loud music or noises. If you live here, you have to keep in mind that this is funeral home first. It’s a business.”

That might come across as harsh, and he certainly was serious, but he wasn’t being mean.

“Yes, sir. That’s fine by me. I spent twenty years in construction. I’ve had my fill of loud noises.”

We ended up not even going to see the apartment. Every apartment was a one bedroom, and since I had seen Mike’s it didn’t make sense to go look at an empty apartment. Instead, we talked about me, the book, and my plans, and him and his business.

It took a couple of trips to We Care to have the lease co-signed, get checks and deliver them, and show Denise the receipt. We finished with me having the keys, and the landlord asked if he could have the rest of the day to have the apartment cleaned.

He said I could come anytime tomorrow. The apartment would be all mine.