When we first moved to Long Island in the summer of '00, we stayed with Mike and Arleen in their rambling old house in Northport. Mike and Eric have been partners in crime since Eric was in high school and both of them were working at the long-defunct Al Dowd's Steakhouse in Centerport. The idea when we arrived at Mike's, on the Fourth of July 2000, was that we would help him refurbish the rental "cottage" on his property, and would then rent it from him for a nominal sum. The previous tenants had been a mentally challenged brother and sister whom Mike referred to as "The Circus Twins". They had, he warned us, left quite a mess behind when they moved out. From L.A., we optimistically figured we could have the place spruced up and ready to move into in a couple of weeks at the most. There's nothing like blind optimism...as my mother used to quote from the Greek, "Ah, faith! followed a shit-cart and thought it was a wedding!"
Upon arrival at Mike's rambling, ancient property in Northport, Westerly Farms, we had our first major shock. The "cottage" was a converted chicken coop, and the Circus Twins' several years' residence in it (they rarely left the place) hadn't helped matters. There was a coating of cooking grease an inch and a half thick over every imaginable surface, including the inside of the windows. (Mike allowed that the kitchen stove had had to be disposed of under HazMat conditions.) Even the floor went "schmook, schmook" underfoot when you stepped on it. The place was small...a small kitchen, an odd, long, narrow bathroom with no window, a 45-year-old drop-in plastic shower stall, and moldy carpeting, and a main living room that had been divided with 2x4's into two tiny cubicles. (Mike said the bifurcation had been done to allow the unit to be described as a "one-bedroom" by the rental agent who had found him the Circus Twins as tenants. I mean, the male Circus Twin couldn't sleep with his own sister, right?).
Mike had ambitious plans to fix up the cottage. He was going to panel the walls (we figured he thought all the grease would help the paneling to "seat"), put down carpeting, install another window in the main room, re-floor the kitchen and bathroom, replace several broken panes in the old kitchen window, and yank out the old electric baseboard heaters, all of which had been shorted out by grease, or worse. Eric and I loved Mike dearly...still do, in fact...and we very much wanted to believe that we could live here comfortably. I envisioned the kitchen, scrubbed and gleaming, with lace curtains over the window (minus the rusted chicken wire that presently covered it), brilliant copper pans and rustic baskets on a rack over the gorgeous (gas) replica of a wood-burning stove, rag rugs on a highly-polished floor, old oak table and chairs with matching chair pads...and the main room would be a stunning all-purpose room, with built-in bookcases flanking a dark wood settle/bed, covered in velvet, with welcoming, overstuffed chairs tucked into the corners, an Oriental rug, perhaps a little wood-burning stove, lots of plants...After all, Mike was the head restoration carpenter at the Vanderbilt Museum in Centerport. He had the know-how, and we had the muscle.
Somehow, we neatly convinced ourselves that we could easily polish this particular turd.
Thus began our routine. We stayed in the main house, in one of the upstairs guest rooms. It was a nice room with a comfortable bed, but we had to keep Neko our cat and our parrot Hammy cooped up in the room all the time, because Mike and Arleen's two enormous cats had the run of the house. Every day Mike went off to work around 7 a.m. in the mornings and was home by 3:30. When he got home, he spent an hour or so unwinding, sipping from the Snapple bottle he carried around with him wherever he went. Sometimes he'd take a nap, then it would be time for dinner.
A week went by. By now Eric and I had completely cleaned the cottage (some of the greasy smell still lingered, but the floor, walls, and windows no longer squished underfoot or beneath one's fingers) and we'd pulled up all the old, smelly carpeting. Mike had "inspected" the cottage, declared it fit for construction to commence, and said we could go to Home Depot that weekend and pick out the carpeting, flooring, and wall paneling. That was it for the week. On Saturday he got a call to inspect a boat for pay, so that put off the Home Depot jaunt. On Sunday, his sister called with a family problem. No Home Depot that day either. Another week went by, during which Eric and I tried to do as much as we could in the cottage. Mike assured us that we'd get to work in earnest by the weekend.
And so it went. In a couple more weeks, one wall had finally been paneled. The rest of the wall paneling was being stored in the barn until Mike could get around to installing it. He hadn't yet found any carpeting that we liked and he felt was affordable. Eric and I had worked on the windows and had laid the kitchen flooring. We were trying to get up our nerve to ask Mike if we could replace the kitchen sink and the shower stall (with, hopefully, a real bathtub). At the rate we were going, we doubted we'd be actually able to live in the cottage until October or November. Still, we couldn't really complain, because Mike and Arleen weren't charging us any rent until we were officially moved into the cottage.
After a couple more weeks, a bit more progress had been made, but we'd hit another snag. Arleen didn't want to spend anything to upgrade the cottage. That meant no kitchen sink (the old one wasn't functional), no new refrigerator, and no upgrade of the bathroom, however cheap. We even offered to pay for those things ourselves, but she refused to let it be done.
Arleen had a mysterious job working at home, updating vast data files on her computer for a company in Maryland, I think it was. She was hoping I would work with her, calling businesses and getting information from them so the files could be kept current. I had my doubts, because the pay was only $10 an hour, no benefits...and besides, I wanted to get into the city and start making musical contacts. Arleen kept asking me when I could start working, and I'd put her off, saying I had other things to do for the time being. Finally I had to tell her I didn't want the job at all. This didn't sit well with her. She began lurking in her room all day and avoiding us. Later I realized she was a bit phobic about using the phone, and had hoped I would take over that part of her job for her, allowing her to remain employed.
And then, finally, came the last straw. It was a rainy night. The four of us sat around the old mahogany table in the dining room and held a meeting. Mike was reasonably sober. Eric and I brought up the issue of the desperately needed upgrades to the cottage. Arleen flatly refused, for the umpteenth time. Mike had to back her up, although he wouldn't have minded going along with us. Eric and I felt we were very much between a rock and a hard place. We appreciated what Mike and Arleen had done for us. But the truth was, the cottage was still not ready to move into, and without those basic upgrades we wouldn't really want to stay there any longer than we had to.
So, not without regrets, we moved out of Mike's guest bedroom and into what had to be the most squalid motel this side of the Black Hole of Calcutta, and began looking for a place to rent. Someday, perhaps, that tale will be told, but for now, all that needs to be said is that although Mike has remained our best friend on Long Island, Arleen has held a grudge against us for the past three years. She won't let us in the house. And that's why last night was the first time we've set foot there since that rainy night in 2000...having lost the computer job, Arleen has been unemployed since then, and she never leaves the house, except once a year, when she serves as ballot examiner for the local Board of Elections.
(To be continued)
NEXT: He Wouldn't Hurt a Rat
