Tuesday, February 19, 2013

365 Jobs: Handyman Sketches: Eviction

Don't Blame Me, I'm Just Here to Fix the Garbage Disposal: Part Four

Eviction

Tenants splash and float
in the pool.  A baker of a day.
Sweat streams as I work.
The dude trashed the unit.
Holes in two doors.
A chair rammed through a wall.
Faucet ripped out, flooded.
Dishwasher disappeared.

The new occupant, a single woman,
Japanese, has a voice like music. 
On a pedestal she spreads
an embroidered pillow
with ornamental blanket
on which she beds
her Princess telephone. 
There will be no trouble here.



Note: Among my contracting jobs, for many years I've served as the on-call handyman for a group of townhouse-style apartments — or rental units — or whatever one should call an enclosed square of two-story dwellings in a subdivision of Sunnyvale, California.  It's steady money.  As a minor league writer, I need that.
I tried to summarize the experience in prose, but verse seems to work best.  Most of the events took place in the 1980s though a few are more recent.  This is Part Four of a series.

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