The Tenant Upstairs
There was something rather peculiar about the young man in the upstairs bedroom, but Nolan Baxter couldn’t exactly put a finger on it. The man was so quiet and kept to himself, a prisoner within his own cell. One who Nolan believed to be solitary, introverted, and very much afraid of the world and its unfolding events around him. Rarely did he come out of his room when the other two tenants were present. Almost never did he leave the brownstone without a hat on, long-sleeved shirt, and gloves, even when it was considerably warm outside. Yet, Nolan found the young man’s peculiarities rather attractive, perhaps magnetic, and he only wanted to get to know the tenant even more, substantially better, and build a certain amount of trust and friendship with him.
The room on the second floor was the tiniest in the lakeshore house. One window overlooked Lake Erie to the north. The closet was a foot deep and two feet wide, which was hardly useable. A full-size bed barely fit inside the room with a four-drawer dresser and a writing table—all were crammed against the available walls like children in a foster home. The man’s rent was a mere three hundred dollars a month since the room was miniscule. Had it offered more space for the tenant, Nolan would have charged a considerable amount more.
Zeb Thursday, that was the strange man’s name, kept the room tidy. Regularly he swept the oak floor, washed his bed sheets, and used window cleaner on the single window. Never was there a hideous aroma that escaped his confines like unwashed clothes or three-day old pizza. Zeb was clean by all means, Nolan had noted. One of his cleanest tenants, if the truth be told.
Nolan knew the young man’s age: twenty-three. He knew where he had come from: Cincinnati, Ohio. He believed Zeb’s parents had passed away, although he wasn’t quite positive. Zeb did not do drugs. He did not paint or play video games. Oftentimes he liked to take walks at night around Erie and Nolan sometimes followed him. The young man enjoyed Joyce Carol Oates novels, John Updike stories, and poetry by Sylvia Plath. Never was he seen with a Grisham or King novel tucked in his palms. He didn’t smoke, nor did he drink. Never did he have a visitor at 1287 Medford Street—a certain somebody in his life who climbed the sixteen steps to his second floor room to spend an hour or a night. He wasn’t a graduate of Edinboro or West End Colleges. He didn’t work, Nolan surmised, but his monthly rent for the room was never late, and always in cash. Honestly, Zeb Thursday wasn’t a problem at all. Strange, but not a nuisance like some of the other tenants Nolan housed throughout the last three years. In fact, Zeb was desired, in more ways than one, but those details of Nolan’s fixation were tamped and unprofessional.
* * * *
Nolan had opened up the brownstone to tenants when Peter Awestruck, his lover of four years, accidentally drowned in the lake. During a Fourth of July cookout at Hugh Break’s house, some three miles east of Medford Street, Peter had decided to go swimming in the lake. A strong current took him under, held him captive beneath its surface, and filled his lungs. Peter's body was found at twilight, that exact time when colorful fireworks began to burst over the lake in celebration of the country’s independence.
With grief therapy twice a week, Nolan Baxter survived his lover’s death, although he couldn’t pay for the brownstone, groceries, and electric bill. Hence, the welcoming of tenants into his abode. It was either he lost the house or opened the spare bedrooms on the second and third floors to roommates. At first, following Peter’s untimely summer demise, Nolan really didn’t think he could live with strangers. But as time progressed, and many evenings of therapy with Dr. Sharon Spada were completed, he learned to adjust.
Tenants had come and gone throughout the past three years. A beefy baseball player named Lance had occupied the attic room on the third floor. A horror writer named Wayne Something or Other stayed on the second floor for six months. A male model named Ace Harding occupied a second room on the second floor for almost a year. Young women had temporarily stayed in the rooms, too: journalist Sabrina Jostlin, elementary school teacher Yona Bradford, and photographer Terese Samuelson.
Currently, three tenants lived under his care: Bradley Shore, Victoria Waltmere, and Zeb Thursday.
Bradley was a twenty-year-old biology student at West End College. Most of the time he was located on campus at Carlton Library, studying his textbooks. The young, bald man with the bright green eyes lived on the third floor by himself. Sometimes he would cook pasta for Nolan and the other tenants. His girlfriend, Naomi Baxter
no relation to Nolan
, would send homemade brownies, apple pies, and chocolate cakes to the house for the tenants to enjoy. Bradley was not a problem as a tenant. He constantly emptied the garbage in the kitchen, tidied up the bathroom, and was often found vacuuming the brownstone at free will.
