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| ← Short Stories |
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“Can the ceiling be higher?”

“As high as you’d like.”

“Twenty five feet?”

“Not possible. Unless you want a smaller play room.”

“We don’t have any kids. Just a teenager and he won’t be caught dead outside his room.”

“I’ve seen people turn it into lots other things.”

“Yea? What else have you seen.”

The realtor had not seen anything but had instead in his head a never ending list of things that he supposed people might do with a play room if they found the time. The truth was that he had never seen a home lived in before, not in this neighborhood. It was a point of pride for the agency. “Buy in with ReHigh and you’ll never say goodbye”. The slogan was amylase in his mouth and every time he heard it (in his head of course, he had vowed never to say it) he felt it was made of too many words. “Buy in with ReHigh, say no more goodbyes” was much better. Perhaps he should have been an ad man. Or maybe “Buy High with ReHigh”. “Say bye to goodbyes and buy yours with ReHigh.” Of course that was a guess itself too. He thought that there must be at least one family that had wanted to leave. But where would they go? He had showed every home on every block of this neighborhood one the last fifteen years since the first ground had been broken and each time it was brand new, never once lived in. And none had been lived in anew since because to leave you would be betting that the next home would be new and worse yet it was new but became just the same.

“Lots of things. A game room. A TV room. One family had a poker table”

“Are those any different?”

“I guess so or else folks wouldn’t change them”

“Well how about the dining room then. Could it be changed to an office?”

“Sure it could. There’s already a den of course that I’ve seen plenty use as an office instead.”

“Sure but it’s got the window and the glare messes with the monitor”

Well then this could easily could be a beautiful office. It’s connected to the kitchen. You work from home at all often? Would be a quick walk on your lunch break”

The realtor paused for for a chuckle and the man did so, like the others always had. He looked at the man for really the first time in the showing and regretted it immensely. He wore a lightly striped polo that hung out over thick shorts propped up by a gut that had probably been sucked in when they first met and shook hands. Over the phone the man had told him what he was looking for. A nice home in a school district he didn’t have to worry about his kids finding drugs in. “With other families like mine. Folks who don’t want to be bothered with bull crap” The man bent over to look at some molding and a brushstroke of sweat was painted up the crack and the realtor thought he might vomit.

“Brand new like I said before. The builders used the same crew to finish every house on this block. Top shelf work. I could reach out to the Reyes’s a couple houses down if you’d like to ask them any questions. Sold them their place eight years ago and they still send me a Christmas card every year. Beautiful family. Three kids, the middle one just a year younger than your boy. Could ask them them about the schools round here too.”

“Looks cracked”

It probably was but the realtor did not look for it as he bent over next to the man. He reeked of outside. A constant smell of bland lawn clippings and sweat that grew from the bacteria on skin that never met something new in-between long stretches of air conditioning. The smell of getting away that grew only out here a forty minute drive from Dallas where bare tracts of hay land was flattened and then re-mounded with garbage so that each home felt like it’s own cresting wave. He probably would have smelled like it too if not for his dogged adherence to what he called the smell law of real estate. Always get to the house first, at least fifteen minutes early and take a bird bath in the shittiest bathroom. The one buyers never enter, just glance in and nod fine. Can they put in different faucets? Whatever you smell like is what the home smells like too.

“They’ll re-mold whatever you’d like. Re-paint it too if you you’re serious about the office. I think that’s a great idea. Could turn the one there is now into a second guest room”

“I’m thinking a game room”

“Might have to run that one by your wife first I’d imagine. A curtain over the window would fix up the glare”

“What glare. “

The realtor did not know how to answer.

“Doesn’t matter what the hell she wants. Getting a divorce in a couple of months. Still get the kid twice a week though. She’s living over in Ridgemorrow. Same school district as here.”

His clerk was going to hear about this. The fucking guy was divorced and he should have known, that was a whole different playbook.

“Hell even better. You know the whole block got fiber internet last year. Plenty fast for whatever you play. Enough for your kid to play too. Hell even his friends could play too. Could be six of you all live streaming at once and the service wouldn’t event wink.”

His words floated atop the soft vulgarity as natural as anything in this neighborhood. Which was to say not at all but when everything’s plaster it all feels like home. Let the buyer curse first and then flow in behind them with words just a shade lighter than whatever they chose.

“He doesn’t play games much. Just sits on the screen reading who the hell knows”

The man did not look up from his phone while he spoke and the realtor knew that the sale was now final. This man would buy this home, it was a sure sign when they spoke about anything this way. “You want them to picture their life there.” And the implication in these trainings was that the life was a happy one but after fifteen years in this business the realtor had learned that what worked even better was to picture their shit growing too. Get them picturing hell and they are already stuck there because nobody leaves the place they already own. A tar pit grabbing your heels with your own claying feces. Picture the wife crying while you stew in the office. Picture a hidden bottle you drink from when she’s putting down kids while your work phone keeps beeping because these walls that you purchased made of fiberglass and cheap foam were something you owned. You can picture a place you’d be happier living but you will cling to the frame of a matchbox with stucco rather than risk moving somewhere that could bring something new.

“Lets go see the master. It’s got two toilets”

“Which ones for shitting.”

“Whichever your ex would have used.”

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| ← Short Stories |
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