21) Smile For The Camera

“Hey… what’s going on?” You were shocked to find a strange man standing in your husband’s office. He had let himself in, walked through the foyer, up the steep steps and was now standing right at the bottom of the staircase on the floor you were mopping. All this in the time it had taken you to dump a pail of dirty water into the sink, replenish it with clean water and head back downstairs.

“You opening a church or something?” He asks not answering your question.

“Uh… no… we live here.”

“Oh. Ok. What religion are you because I was looking for a new church to join…”

“I’m an atheist so…”

“Oh… well then I won’t bother you with that… so what are you doing?” He’s still standing inside the office on your nearly clean floor.

“Hey listen, this is my home, my family and I live here and you pretty much walked right up to our living room so… let’s go outside.” You’re slightly annoyed but also becoming increasingly concerned knowing that your Rottweiller mix is going to lose his ever loving shit when he hears some strange man in the house. You’re not quite sure where he is, but you know it’s only a matter of time before he hears the unannounced ‘guest’.

“Yeah this place is pretty cool… I used to come here when it was…”

You interrupt him and while you’re aware that that’s probably not the most polite thing to do, not only is he not paying attention to your completely reasonable request that you take the conversation outside, in public (you’re still in the city mindset that if an uninvited man walks into your home, he’s not there to chat about renovation plans) but rather he seems to not even be listening to you at all. “Let’s go outside,” you repeat as you walk past him heading for the foyer but he doesn’t budge.

You’re not ready to start screaming and looking for a blunt object to ward this guy off if need be, he probably would have jumped you by now if that had been his intent, but you are becoming increasingly annoyed by his presence.

And then because he’s not getting the message you decide to appeal to his senses, “We really need to go outside… I have a big dog…”

“I like dogs,” he interjects.

“Well my dog hates strangers and I don’t want him biting you.”

“Oh I don’t care if he bites me. I’ve been bitten by dogs before… a whole bunch of times… I actually have a couple of scars…” he says as he starts pulling up his pant leg to show you a massive scar on his calf.

If your jaw could have dropped to the floor you’d have been bending over to pick it up right about now, this guy wasn’t taking the hint and ‘who in the absolute fuck doesn’t care if a dog attacks them?’ You ask yourself.

At this point your patience is waning, “Well I certainly do! Let’s go…” And you walk past him into the foyer and towards the front door, he’s behind you now going on about his dog bites. You wonder if his numerous dog bites have anything to do with walking unannounced and uninvited into strangers’ homes.

Outside you walk to the front of the building, the sun is hot and bright. David is at the laundromat and you haven’t seen Jackie in a while. You shield your eyes and turn to the man hoping he’ll get the hint that you were busy and now you have the blinding sun in your eyes and that maybe he should just go and let you get back to your work… but no such luck. He looks to be about your age, he’s got on jeans and a baggy t-shirt, a full beard and curly brown hair. He’s staring at the building now…

“So are you rich?” He blurts out.

“What?” You’re taken off guard.

“Are you rich?” He’s motioning to the church, as if that is the only plausible explanation for anyone taking on such a massive endeavor.

“Ummmm…. No, we’re your average family… listen I have to…”

“Oh… so you’re crazy then.”

“I’d hardly say that… listen…” but he doesn’t…

“This is a LOT of work. Is it a mess inside?”

You resist all temptation to tell him “No shit,” and “Why don’t you tell me… you were just standing in our house…” but instead you sigh, “Yeah, it’s a lot of work… I’d hardly say it’s a mess though…. It just needs work…”

“Hmmmmph.” He doesn’t seem too satisfied with your answers…

“So what are the utilities like? They must be insane huh?”

“Honestly, I don’t know… we…”

He cuts you off, now he’s chuckling, did you pick up on a hint of condescension… “Oh boy… well you’re gonna be in for a real surprise this winter…”

And now it’s your turn to cut him off, “I think we’ll be just fine. I got a hold of the previous owner’s gas bills for the year and they were less than what we were paying on our utilities in our last house so…”

He grunts as if he’s already made up his mind about you and your winter surprise…

“The whole thing isn’t even heated…” You’re not really sure why you’re wasting your time convincing a guy who just walks into people’s homes unannounced and doesn’t mind being mauled by dogs that you’re not the crazy one here.

“Pffft…. So you’re going to freeze to death then huh?” And before you can even interject…

“All this space for a couple of people… you going to turn it into apartments or something? Because it really doesn’t make sense that a handful of people would live in a place…”

“We’re planning on renting out the sanctuary for events…”

“No one is going to rent out space here… nobody rents space here…”

“Well I think you’d be surprised, I’m sure plenty of couples would love to have their wedding ceremony or reception here, or anniversary parties, or…”

But he’s looking past you at the building, he’s already lost interest in the rental plan, “Looks like you got a corner stone…”

Jesus Christ this guy was fucking relentless and for some reason you hadn’t yet told him you were busy and had to go… maybe because at this point you just assumed he’d follow you back in… where was your fucking barking dog when you needed him to lose his shit?

“Uh yeah… it’s a corner stone…”

“It’s not the original.”

“Of course it’s the original, you can’t just pull one of these things out,” like it’s a fucking Jenga block you think to yourself, biting your tongue…

“No. It’s definitely not.”

“Hey listen, it’s the original corner stone and I was really busy and…”

He’s once again looking past you at the stone…

“They just smash them out on the inside and take whatever is in there and…”

“I’m telling you that this is the original stone, that nothing is smashed and that I have to get back to work…” you’re completely exasperated and at this point wondering if you’re being punked… maybe tested as to how much bullshit you’re going to take from this guy who just walked into your house, doesn’t care about being attacked by Rottweilers, and wants to argue with you over a corner stone… any second you’re waiting for him to laugh and say, “See that over there? It’s a hidden camera… your husband set you up… he said you’d think this was hilarious…”

“Oh… ok…” he says.

You think that he’s finally gotten the hint before he adds…

“Well I’ll just come back later then… I’m Rick by the way.”

“Ok Rick… (maybe we can argue about cornerstones then!) well have a great rest of your day…”

“I didn’t catch your name?”

“I’m Vanessa. See you around.” And you walk inside hoping that you don’t actually see him around… especially not in your living room.

Ottoman, your dog is standing at the front door wagging his tail, “Huh… how nice of you to show up… now that the weird dog bite guy is gone…” you say letting yourself back into the church, giving him a quick pat on his thick head. “I’m going to need for you to work on your timing…” he stares at you, his tail going a mile a minute.

**************************************************

“I guess I can understand the delivery guys just walking in… still kinda fucked up and what not… but this guy was on a whole other level… He wanted to argue with me about the corner stone and the whole dog bite thing was just… I don’t know… like how can you not get the multiple hints?”

“I’d have just told him to get the fuck out…”

“Well, I’m not you.”

Your husband shrugs. He had just gotten back from the laundromat, the two of you were in his office and you had just finished telling him about the weird exchange you had with some guy named Rick.

“We need to figure something out with the whole, random people walking in thing… I’m nervous about the dog…”

“We can just go back to keeping the door locked,” your husband offers.

“That wasn’t practical… we’re in and out all day, the commercial door key thingy is a bitch to lock and unlock, and what if the kids get locked out when it’s freezing out? We’ve already established that we can’t hear them yelling for us when we’re not right by the door…”

Just last week your seven year old daughter had gone outside to pet feral cats (that is so your daughter) and got herself locked out there at six o’clock in the morning. You and David were still in bed and you never even heard her yelling or pounding on the door. Jackie eventually found her outside crying when she went out to go to the diner down the street for her morning coffee routine. Now you were nervous that your daughter was going to do that come January and that you’d find her frozen to the door, like some sort of fucked up Looney Tunes plot. Even worse you had made the grave error of telling the story to your mother who now wouldn’t let it go… every day since then had been, “Did you figure out a door solution? You know I’m worried the kids are going to get locked out and freeze to death. Vaness…. You have GOT to get that taken care of. Don’t wait on that…”

And here a week later and you still hadn’t figured something out aside from no longer locking the door which presented a whole other slew of problems like the delivery men walking through your house or the neighbor who apparently had a kink for dog bites.

“We’ll figure something out…” David offers. Just then Jackie walked into the office…

“Hey Vaness… there’s some random guy out there… I guess he wants to talk to you or something…”

You go over to the window and peek outside, not wanting whoever is out there to see you…

“Well son of a fucking bitch. You have got to be kidding me. It’s the fucking dog bite guy. Fuck. I didn’t think he’d come back today, let alone what? An hour later… Unreal. I bet he wants to argue about masonry or the belfry without the bell…”

“Huh?” Jackie who hadn’t yet heard the story, on account of her working on basement demo was confused.

“I’ll tell you later….” You offer, and then to no one in particular… “Un-fucking real.”

“You want me to tell him to get the fuck out of here? Are we at that point NOW Vanessa?” David is laughing.

“No dear… we’re not quite there yet… but don’t go far, just in case I change my mind…”

Then you walk outside to see Rick, because as he told you, he ‘was back from his errand and figured he’d check in again and see if you were still busy…’

And you were… you even told him so, but once again he was looking right through you, not really seeming to hear a thing you said, but rather talking about how his mom used to be a Sunday school teacher in the basement as he gestured at the house, as if he were a docent talking to a museum tour group… and you, like a little kid being dragged through the museum by her parents, weren’t in the slightest bit interested…

You saw David peek through the window over Rick’s head… he motioned to the door, wanting to know if you needed him for back up… and even though you were already over the conversation, which at this point was less of a conversation and more of a ‘listening to Rick reminisce about the church’ moment, he wasn’t arguing with you about cornerstones. You could humor him a bit longer you supposed… and maybe that camera crew was still hiding out in the bushes… you just had to make it a little longer and they’d pop out with one of those big checks and balloons and a jaunty host who is smiling just a bit too much, eagerly congratulating you for dealing with the most ridiculous shit in the world and they’d marvel at your patience…

“Hey I’m Steve with the hidden camera show, ‘How Much Can You Take’ and everyone wants to know…How did you do it Vanessa? Go on… smile for the camera… tell em! Surely you almost lost your patience with the corner stone thing… HA and the dog bites? Who likes to get bit by dogs? Rick… come on over here… he’s an actor you know. Well you didn’t know, but now you do… So Vanessa… how did you stay so poised…. You must be some kind of saint! Get it… you live in a church?” And Steve would give a big cheesy grin to the camera, real proud of his little saint and church reference… and you’d do your best not to roll your eyes.

And you’d smile and shrug and think, ‘Thank god that no one could hear your inner monologue, cuz they would have walked right off and torn that fucking giant check in two.’

My husband’s office… where I found Rick…