The year I went back to college after typing, I had a lot of roommates. The first was a beautiful woman my father later christened “the Brazilian Princess.” We met at an apartment-advertising notice board and she suggested we find one together. As I had only just become aware of the prices (having caused one prospective landlord gales of laughter when I assumed that the $50 rent would get me the filthy little kitchen-less room for a whole month), I readily agreed and we found a place. It turned out she came with a Danish boyfriend, so the three of us set up housekeeping. After about a week, we had to find another apartment since the landlord threw us out due to “excessive banging on the walls.” Huh? Hearing my roommates late one night in bed solved the mystery, though I never saw fit to share this knowledge.
We settled into a happy joint existence of studying, playing music, talking late into the evening, cooking lots of food and having fabulous parties that centered around giant pots of black beans. I learned a lot of Portuguese. Per, the Dane, helped me make a beautiful wooden coffee table out of some old bed slats, a table I still have to this day.
At Christmas, we left a friend to care for the apartment while we all went home for a couple weeks. My roommates decided not to return, so I came back to an empty apartment with no phone since I could not pay the $576 phone bill that the friend had run up. Luckily, the phone had not been in my name, so after about two weeks I scrambled enough cash together for my own phone, which I really needed so I could put up notices for a roommate.
The first to appear was Tony, a Swiss man from my grandmother’s home town. We were very cozy domestically, easily alternating who cooked. In the evening he would sometimes bring me tea while I studied integrals. But he fell in love with a Colombian woman who was also doing ESL and he moved in with her.
Back up went the notices.
Next there appeared a supercilious Frenchman named Patrice, somehow connected with the World Bank. He was only going to be around for a couple months. He really wasn’t around during those couple months either since he had a busy life and never ate at home. But he paid his part of the rent until the time came for him to return to what he considered civilization.
Back up went the notices.
Next came Rory the rock star. He had a striped toothbrush and was always home. He filled his entire bedroom with the most gigantic speaker equipment you ever saw. The two biggest speakers were so large he put his mattress on top. Then he put himself on top of that and pretty much stayed there day and night doing crossword puzzles. He was pleasant enough. He kept talking about looking for a job, but never did. Once when he was out, a friend of his called to ask where was he, they were all there already looking at the house. I wrote Rory a very detailed message, so the next day he came to me and said, “I bet you thought I was going to move out.” I said, “well the idea had occurred to me.” Not to worry, he assured me. He wasn’t going anywhere. But at the end of the month, his buddies came and helped him move all the music equipment. I wasn’t mad so much at the fact that he left as that he had lied, thus preventing me from looking for a new roommate… and leaving me high and dry for the rent.
I decided that was enough, and I lined up for the following fall a room in the attic of a very large house owned by a family. But I still needed to finish out the summer. So, back up went the notices.
The last roommate was Patrick, who might have been all of 18 and had never lived away from home before. He celebrated his newfound independence by drinking peppermint schnapps, which he threw up all over the apartment on one memorable occasion. I cleaned it up and didn’t really care, since I was out of there soon enough.
I always said yes to the very first person who answered my notices. I wonder sometimes if I should have been pickier, but I really felt that whoever showed up must have been sent for a reason.
