Before I met Francis Scott Fitzgerald, I was in the mortgage business. I used to have a “decent” home in the suburbs and a German luxury sedan with a sticker on the gas tank door that read, “premium fuel only”. The premium gasoline part is an important milestone on the road to personal success. If you’re still unfortunate enough to pump your own gas, you may not know that pressing the premium button on the gas pump, disguishes one from the rif-raff. But that was then, and this is now.
These days I sell something different, I walk around St. Paul with a cardboard sign that reads, “Causualty of the Housing Bubble. Please help. Godbless”. I don’t believe in god, but Francis thought I would get more sympathy if I added it.
Depending on which neighborhood I’m in, folks ignore me, call the police or stick me up for whatever small amount of change of that I’ve collected. Francis thinks that I’m being a baby and that St. Paul hasn’t changed a bit since the last time he was last here.
“You’re just being a baby”, Francis said. “I drank soda at W.A. Frost all the time and nobody ever bothered me. Of course back then it was a real pharmacy and they sold herion over the counter instead of in the back alley”, he added.
“You always say that”, I said.
However, I did get robbed at knife point just outside W.A. Frost. The frigied winter air was just slightly sharper than the blade held againt my neck. Usually, the drunks give me a few bucks here and there, or offer me a ride, or if I’m lucky then one of them might invite me to a chili omlette at Mickey’s Diner. However, on this particular evening, two men wearing oversized jackets and smelling of whisky walked up besides me.
“Hey man, you homeless right?”
“Well, at least right now. I mean I used to live in Eagan, and I’m sure when I get back on my feet, I’ll live in a house”, I answered.
“Man, is you a bum?!”, he shouted.
“I prefer the title practitiner of the begging arts”, I said.
“Practitiner of the beggeing arts? What the fuck is that shit supposed to mean?”
“Yo man, just take his shit”, the other guy said.
At that point the first guy stuck a steely blade to my throat and blew a steamy breath of booze in my face.
“Don’t fucking say shit”, he scowled.
The other man went through my pockets and took some my change and my empty wallet. Suprisingly he left my dog-eared Great Gatsby paperback.
“The Modern Library named that book 2nd best American novel”, Francis reminded me.
“Well maybe if they had named it 1st best American novel, those guys might have taken it, as well”, I said.
Sometimes I tired of hearing Francis go on about how things “used to be”.
“That’s Dayton’s Bluff”, he would point out. “That’s where all the poor people lived. All the smog from the railyards would leave soot all over everything up there”.
“Well, if you would pay attention Francis, you’d see that the poor still live in Dayton’s bluff, despite the Real Estate people telling all the newly-weds that it’s a real up and coming neighborhood. But to there credit, there are some great little restaurants and community gardens”.
“Why would anyone want a community garden?”, he asked.
Francis and I didn’t become friends until after my wife left me. Jeanie left as soon as it was clear that I could no longer afford to pay the mortagage and wouldn’t be able to sell it for what we were on the hook for with the bank. Despite my pleading, Jeanie packed up her stuff and left me with an empty house that I couldn’t afford.
“Jeanie, you have to listen to me”, I cried.
“We can’t afford this place, you never talk to me and I don’t even know who you are! I can’t do this!”.
“The bank won’t force us out for another 13 months or so. They’re so backlogged that we can live here for free and save up enough money to make some kind of arrangement with them.”
“Are you fucking crazy?” she asked.
A big throbbing vein appeared on her forehead nicely complimenting her anger dialated eyes.
“Do you think I want to wait for that to happen?” she screamed.
I didn’t say anything.
“You said you would be there for me, that we’d have a good life! You lied to me!”
“Please don’t go”, was all I could say.
Jeanine packed up a couple of suitcases and drove off in the car and left. That was the last time I spoke to her. I sold off all the furnature and whatever Jeanie left behind, so I could have enough money to eat. I did freelance mortgage work to try to make some money, but no one wanted to buy and most of those who did couldn’t get financing. The people who could get financed didn’t want to work with someone like me. They wanted a “real” realtor. Francis moved in about a month before the sheriff came to kick me out of the house. In hindsight, I should have charged him rent, but he just showed up one day. He looked sharp in his herringbone three-piece and scarf holding his cigarette.
“What are you doing in this dump?”
“This is a nice place!”
Francis took a thoughtful drag of his cigarette.
“It’s a dump. Look at these hollow walls!”, he said as he rapped loudly on the drywall with his fist.
One day some officers from the sheriffs department showed up. They hammered loudly on the door with their clubs.
“Hello? Is there anyone here?”
I didn’t say anything. I sat on the floor and looked out the window.
The rapping on the door continued.
“Hello?”
“Alright open it up.”, one of the deputities said.
“Aren’t you going to let them in?”, Francis asked.
The whirring of a cordless drill could be heard as the locksmith began to remove the deadbolt assembly.
“Why?”, I asked.
“I figured you for a man. It’s pathetic to invite yourself to be dragged out on your ass like a deadbeat.”
The doorknob dropped out of the door like a ripe apple out of a tree, emitting a tiny clang as it bobbed along the hardwood floor. The men from the sherifs department immediately stepped inside.
“What the fuck are you doing here?”, asked the portly mustached officer.
“What manners!”, Francis exclaimed.
“Actually, I was sitting here remarking how beautiful the weather is”, I said.
“Are you fucking kidding me guy? If you like the weather so much you can get the fuck outta this house and get your ass outside, you goddamn deadbeat”.
“In time”.
Expecting a blow from the officers club, Francis braced himself against the wall.
“That’s it guy”, the officer said as he grabbed my arms and shuffled me across the living room and out the door into a snowbank.
After I was evicted from my home, Francis and I took up wandering the streets and asking people for “donations”.
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