I moved to San Francisco just after the 1989 earthquake. I found an apartment in Noe Valley with three bedrooms, one bathroom and a backyard with blackberry bushes. My roommates were two longtime SF denizens. Susan was an aspiring romance novelist from Maryland. John taught photography at San Francisco State.
We all became friends, cooking dinner together most nights. Then Susan told us she was moving back east for a teaching job. John and I placed an ad for a new roommate and conducted interviews. Most of the applicants were shifty and malodorous. We settled on a woman from Alabama named Addison. She told us she worked as a cruise director, which made her appealing. This meant she’d be gone for months at a time and could afford her share of the rent.
Six weeks after Addison moved in, I was awoken early on a Tuesday morning by horrific shrieks. I ran to the living room to find Addison in a fetal position on the floor. She was cradling the phone and sobbing, her makeup dribbling down her cheeks. She told me her mother and little brother had been killed by a drunk driver in Huntsville.
My heart opened to her and I held her as her body convulsed with grief. John awoke from a cannabis slumber and joined us in a group hug. Not knowing how to deal with tragedy, we took her to the Copper Penny restaurant on Geary Boulevard. Between tears, she devoured two stacks of pancakes and told us about her family. Her brother was her best friend.
Addison took a month paid leave from work. We assumed she’d travel back home to see family. We were wrong. She locked herself in her room and blared ZZ Top all day and night. I bought earplugs and put up with the cacophony as best I could. The neighbors weren’t as understanding. Our landlord informed us about several noise complaints. I explained the situation, but he didn’t care. He gave us 24 hours to rectify the problem or he’d file a police complaint.
I knocked on Addison’s bedroom door. After several minutes, she appeared. She wore Snoopy pajamas and smelled like ethanol. Her hair was tousled as if she hadn’t showered in days. I saw empty bottles of Seagram’s gin on her bed next to a large stuffed bear.
“Addie, the neighbors are complaining about the music.”
She smiled and put her arms around me. “Dance with me,” she said.
“You’re drunk.”
I guided her to the bed and covered her with blankets. I turned down the music and took the gin bottles to the trash. The room smelled sour. I opened windows to let in fresh air. I went to the kitchen and cut up a bowl of fruit. I placed it on her nightstand and closed the door so she could sleep.
John woke around noon. He lit a joint and sat across from me on the couch.
“This Addison thing is becoming a problem,” he said.
We felt horrible for her but she was making our lives miserable. We agreed to cope with the situation until she returned to work. At the end of the month, I knocked on her door to collect rent. She didn’t answer. I wrote a note and slid it beneath the door. She replied later that day. In barely legible writing she’d scrawled, call my boyfriend Ilya for the rent. She included a phone number. I dialed the number. A heavily accented Russian voice answered.
“Privyet,” the voice said.
“Uh, hello. I’m Addison’s roommate. She said I should call you about collecting her rent.”
“What’d you do to her,” he demanded. “I’ve been calling her for weeks and she don’t return my calls.”
“Nothing,” I said. “She’s sleeping. She’s having a difficult time, you know, after everything’s that happened.”
“Is she screwing Anton?”
I flinched, caught off guard by his anger.
“I don’t know anyone named Anton. Maybe I didn’t explain myself properly. Addison and I are roommates. She left a note saying you were her boyfriend and I should contact you for the rent.”
“How do I know you’re not lying,” he said.
“How would I get your phone number?”
There was silence on the other end of the line.
“Can I just give you my address so you can bring over the money,” I asked.
“You come to me, mudak,” he said.
I wrote down his address. He lived in the Tenderloin. I said I’d come by later that day. He grunted and hung up.
“What was that all about,” John asked from the kitchen.
“That guy’s intense. We need to go over there later today.”
“I can’t. I’m teaching.”
“I don’t want to go alone,” I said.
“You’ll be fine.”
I showered, ate lunch and then took the J-Church to the Civic Center Station. I walked up Hyde Street through Nob Hill and made a left on Turk Street. The neighborhood was filthy with drug-addled homeless types lingering outside curio shops. Ilya’s building was at the corner of Eddy and Leavenworth. It was tall and seedy with graffiti painted across the edifice. I pressed unit 3G on the buzzer. A staticky voice said, “Zdraste.”
“We spoke earlier. I’m here for Addison’s rent.”
The door buzzer crackled and I entered. I walked through a long corridor with torn carpet and dead bugs on the wall. Halfway down the hall, I found the elevator. A sign indicated it was “Out of Order.” I entered the adjacent stairwell. It was dark and creepy with a flickering light and a smattering of wall stains. I walked to the third floor.
Apartment 3G was at the end. A “No Solicitor” sign was nailed to the door. I knocked. The door opened a crack revealing a protruding eyeball and a thick black eyebrow. The eyeball perused me up and down.
“Are you Ilya,” I asked.
“You alone?”
“Yes.”
The door opened revealing a fat Russian, 30ish, with a thick beard, leathery skin and greasy black hair. He wore a red 49ers sweatsuit and immaculate red Nikes. I entered. There was a faint smell of stale cigar smoke. I took in the decor. Dirty couch, Rambo wall poster, mini-bar in the corner. The floor was covered with stacks of Nike, Adidas and Converse shoeboxes. Ilya gestured toward the couch. “Sit,” he said.
“That’s okay. I’ll just grab the rent and take off if that’s okay with you.”
“Don’t be rude. We talk. About Addison.”
I sat on the only section of couch without stains. He took the metal chair across from me. I noted an open window leading to the outdoor fire escape. This would be my exit route if things went awry.
“You want drink,” he asked.
“No, no,” I said.
“You say Addison’s having problems?”
“I don’t know if you heard, but her mom and brother died in a car accident.”
He put a hand to his beard and scratched his chin.
“This is not good.”
He leaned forward and opened a miniature humidor on the makeshift coffee table, a piece of plywood on cinder blocks. He removed a cigar.
“Help yourself,” he said.
I shook my head and then watched as he cut the tip and rolled the cigar in his fingers.
“I didn’t know she had brother,” he said.
“How long have you two been dating?”
“Not long.”
“How’d you meet?”
“You ask lot of questions,” he said. “You a cop?”
“No, sorry. Just making small talk.”
He sparked a lighter and lit the cigar. He took a long puff drawing smoke into his mouth. He tapped the tip into a glass ashtray with a logo for the O’Farrell Theatre, a famous San Francisco strip joint.
“Addison and I work together,” he said.
“Oh, so you’re in the cruise business too.”
“Yes, of course. The cruise business.”
He was being coy but I wasn’t sure what he was hiding.
“Listen, I don’t mean to be rude but do you think I can just get the rent from you? I have a crazy day.”
He walked to a closet and retrieved a metal lock box. He opened the box revealing a horde of wrinkled bills. He counted the money and handed it to me.
“One-hundred-seventy,” he said.
“Her rent is seven-fifty.”
He shrugged and said, “What I can do? Get remainder from Addison.”
“She’s a mess. She drinks all night and sleeps all day. She hasn’t left the apartment in weeks.”
“This not my problem,” he said.
“But she told me to come to you.”
“Zhizn’ ebet meya,” he said with an edge. He blew cigar smoke towards me then walked to the mini bar and downed a shot of Stolichnaya. This placated his anger.
“You have car,” he asked.
“No. I took Muni.”
He reached for keys hanging on a nail beside the door.
“Come. We take my car.”
“Where,” I asked.
“To get money,” he said.
I followed him out of the building onto Eddy Street. We walked two blocks to a parking garage. He led me to a red Cutlass Supreme with whitewall tires. He unlocked the car and tossed me the keys.
“You drive,” he said.
“It’s your car.”
“I don’t drive.”
I opened the door to see red interior seats, a red steering wheel and a red dashboard. Given his scarlet track suit and Russian heritage, he was truly a man in red. I turned on the ignition and was greeted by a strong odor of gasoline. I rolled down the window praying he wouldn’t light another cigar.
Ilya guided me north through the Duboce Triangle to the Lower Haight district. We passed poor neighborhoods filled with aging buildings. At Page and Octavia Street, he told me to park in front of a Pentecostal Church. He exited the car.
“I’ll be right back,” he said. “Keep the car running so engine don’t die.”
I watched as he walked down the block and disappeared into a decrepit apartment building. I checked my watch. It was 3:15. Ten minutes later he reappeared walking briskly toward the car, a brown paper bag in his hand. He opened the door and jumped inside.
“Go, go, go, go,” he yelled.
I screeched from the curb and sped down Page Street. I glanced into the rear view mirror to see an older man in a tank top running after us. Ilya saw him too. He yelled out the window, “Durak.”
“What just happened,” I said, scared and confused.
“I got your rent,” Ilya said.
He reached into the brown bag and removed a wad of cash. He counted it.
“Two-hundred-forty,” he said with satisfaction. He tabulated the total on his fingers. “That makes four-hundred-ten. We go another stop.”
“No more stops,” I said. “Did you just rob that guy?”
“No worry,” he said. “Man owe me money. I collect.”
“I’m taking you back home.”
“What about rent?”
“I’ll pay the difference myself.”
“I like.” He laughed, pleased with himself.
I navigated the car to the parking garage then jumped out, eager to be back home.
“Good meeting you,” I said.
“Take me to see Addison,” he said forcefully.
“Uh, I should probably talk to her first.”
“Give me your address.”
“I’ll call you with it?”
“You scared of me,” he asked with a smile.
“Yes,” I said.
He laughed. “Dosvedanya,” he said.
“Dosvedanya,” I replied. I hurried to the street grateful to be away from him.
That evening, I told John about my experience. He thought it was hilarious.
“It’s not funny,” I said. “I might’ve been an accessory to a robbery.”
He agreed to split the difference in Addison’s rent, $175 each. We knew we needed to speak with her. She remained hermetic, rarely leaving her room.
Questions filled my head. If Addison had a full-time job, why did she need rent money from her boyfriend? Why would she date someone like him anyway? Why didn’t she go back to Alabama for the funeral? I replayed the events with Ilya. What kind of person owns a car but doesn’t drive? Why does he keep cash in a lock box? What’s with all the tennis shoes? I remembered the glass ashtray with the strip joint logo. I opened the phone book and found the number for the O’Farrell Theatre. I dialed.
“Theatre,” a gruff male voice said.
“Is Ilya working today,” I asked.
“He’ll be here after seven,” the man said.
I hung up, stunned. It suddenly hit me. Addison didn’t work for a cruise line. She was a stripper. That’s how she knew Ilya. And she called him her boyfriend. Did this make him some kind of pimp? I shared my epiphany with John.
“You’re nuts,” he said. “You’re also being a sexist pig. There’s no way Addison’s a stripper.”
“How do you know,” I asked.
“Does she look like a stripper to you?”
“Not with her clothes on.”
We argued back and forth, our voices rising. That’s when we heard Addison’s voice behind us.
“I can hear you,” she said.
She was standing in John’s doorway, in shorts and a t-shirt. She looked haggard, but sober.
“If you’re going to talk about me, you should at least close the door.”
I was mortified. John apologized and pointed at me, laying the negative aspersions at my feet.
“I’m giving notice,” she said. “I’ll be moving out at the end of the week.”
“We’re the jerks, not you,” John said. “You don’t have to leave.”
“Yes I do.”
“Where are you going,” I asked.
“Back home. San Francisco’s not for me.”
John gave her a warm embrace. She started crying. I felt like a complete heel.
“I’m so sorry, Addison,” I said.
She refused to meet my gaze.
The following Saturday, the doorbell rang early. I answered the door to see Ilya and another man, both wearing red t-shirts. Ilya said they were there to help Addison move. I remained in my room the rest of the day, sneaking glances out the window as they loaded boxes into a U-Haul. It took half the day. Around lunchtime, John knocked on my door.
“You can come out now,” he said. “They’re gone.”
“I feel like such an asshole,” I confessed.
“You should,” John said. “You hungry?”
“Starving,” I said.
John made cheese melts. We sat in the kitchen, eating in silence. That’s when I noticed a matchbook resting on the table. It was from the O’Farrell Theater.
“How’d this get here,” I asked.
“Ilya must have left it. We smoked cigars together.”
John and I locked eyes.
“I know what you’re thinking,” he said. “Probably best to keep it to yourself.”