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Cities & Travel
Oakland Fireworks
The hardscrabble joys of a first apartment
There were bars on the windows. The TV was old and finicky. The corners were dusty, and the refrigerator was stocked with only Ultra Slimfast and a bottle of Jägermeister. But for four months, this place was mine.
I’d spent two years in college, and I was determined not to waste another summer in rural Vermont, waiting tables and living with my parents. So I stayed in Pittsburgh, even though my few friends had vacated and my girlfriend was spending the summer in Mexico. I’d conned my way into a bookstore job, earning $6 an hour stacking textbooks, and despite the long hours in a musty basement, I was making just enough to survive. And this was what survival looked like: a dusty apartment sublet from an acquaintance named Erica.
It wasn’t glamorous — my third-story efficiency had no air-conditioning, and the rotating fan wasn’t enough to keep me from sweating through the borrowed sheets. I didn’t own a car, so I had to schlep to the nearby CVS to buy my groceries — a few cans of beef stew, minute-rice, powdered drinks to sweeten the foul tap-water. One time I left a loaf of bread on the shelf, and the slices molded overnight, inviting an army of ants. Long days at work were followed by endless nights alone. The phone had no long-distance, so…
