One day I will have a house … and a home

Del Stone Jr.

When I lived in my noisy townhouse, the one with paper-thin walls, I sometimes climbed aboard my bicycle and pedaled off into the relative quiet of surrounding neighborhoods, a journey that often carried me to a winding lane in Cinco Bayou called Opp Boulevard.

Opp is populated with very few big houses, lots of duplexes and townhouses, and a slew of cottage-style homes. It’s a narrow road fringed with big, big trees and because of the park, the people who live there are insulated from the clamor of Eglin Parkway, Hughes Street and Uptown Station.

I liked the neighborhood on Opp Boulevard because it was cozy, out-of-the-way and quiet, the kind of place where people washed their cars, mowed their yards, and waved when they passed you by. Time seemed to move slower there, and that’s what I wanted – the serenity of slow.

It never occurred to me that I too could live there.

That opportunity arrived in 2015 when I was abruptly informed by my landlords they were selling the noisy townhouse I had lived in 24 years. Would two months be sufficient to get out?

Thus began a depressing search for new digs, and I say “depressing” because the rent I had been paying, about $600 a month, had become as out of date as my tastes in neighborhoods. I looked at absolute dumps for between $900 and $1,200. A smaller, more cramped apartment lay in my future.

Then a coworker gave me the number of a friend who needed a tenant for his rental. I called and we made an appointment to meet. Imagine my delight when the address was “Opp Boulevard.”

The house was crazy big, with much more space than I needed. The rent was more than I could afford, about half my monthly income. But the landlord came down on the price and I vowed to stretch my budget, and within a few days we had agreed on a lease.

So.

After 24 years I was living in a house. An actual house. With three bedrooms and two bathrooms. I garage. A walk-in closet, for crying out loud. And get this – TWO refrigerators – one in the kitchen and the other in the garage, which I could load with beer.

Could it be? Could I be so lucky?

My first few weeks there were consumed with guilt. I felt I was living in a palace that I didn’t deserve. The living room echoed. I had my choice of two showers. One room was devoted exclusively to holding cardboard boxes of books. The garage held everything but the car.

It was true. I had died and gone to heaven.

My euphoria lasted until that first post-move in paycheck, which is when the panic commenced. How the heck would I pay for all this? I received a monthly pension from a former company, and every penny of that went into savings, along with whatever I had left over from salary. Now, the pension money would go to rent and practically nothing would remain for the bank.

But somehow I made it work, and I did save money, and both my new landlord and the bank were content.

I lived in the house five years, and they were five happy, happy years – not that it was all free sailing.

Being next to a park … well, let’s be honest … it was a swamp … meant bugs. Roaches and palmetto bugs constantly found ways inside, dodging the sticky traps and roach hotels I laid out for them. I kept a can of spray in one bathroom because the cockroaches seemed to favor that one for their intrusions.

The house had skylights and something was always falling on the plexiglass, producing a loud bang or crack in the middle of the night that at first scared the daylights out of me. I learned to ignore sharp noises, but I could not ignore the sound of something trying to claw its way through the skylight one night as I shivered through a viewing of “Insidious.”

The heater was strange – hot water from the water heater was pumped through a network of baffles. A fan blew over the baffles and the-now warmed air circulated into the house. Except it wasn’t very warm because I kept the thermostat on the water heater pretty low.

But it was nice to come home from work the night of a parade and not find my parking space taken by a parade fan. It was nice to not have to hear somebody’s American Ninja Warriors or Call of Duty rattling the walls. I could walk to Uptown Station when I needed something. Or just sit on the front porch, hemmed in by azaleas, and quietly read a book without being distracted by the thunder of traffic.

I loved that house, and I loved the neighbors and the neighborhood. I felt at home going there, pulling into the driveway and seeing the warm light from the kitchen shining from the windows.

So of course, it couldn’t last.

I don’t live there any more. I have moved in with Mom. She is at that age where she needs somebody with her.

It’s tight, and I have little space of my own. Half a closet, a spot for my computer desk, and a twin-sized bed. My clothes dryer is a clothesline in the back yard. The beer fridge is still with me, in a utility room outside near the car port.

Some day I will have another house, maybe one that I will have built, and it will be in a nice, shaded neighborhood where people wash their cars, mow their yards, and wave as they pass you by.

The serenity of slow.

I will have a home.

About the author:

Del Stone Jr. is a professional fiction writer. He is known primarily for his work in the contemporary dark fiction field, but has also published science fiction and contemporary fantasy. Stone’s stories, poetry and scripts have appeared in publications such as Amazing Stories, Eldritch Tales, and Bantam-Spectra’s Full Spectrum. His short fiction has been published in The Year’s Best Horror Stories XXII; Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine; the Pocket Books anthology More Phobias; the Barnes & Noble anthologies 100 Wicked Little Witch Stories, Horrors! 365 Scary Stories, and 100 Astounding Little Alien Stories; the HWA anthology Psychos; and other short fiction venues, like Blood Muse, Live Without a Net, Zombiesque and Sex Macabre. Stone’s comic book debut was in the Clive Barker series of books, Hellraiser, published by Marvel/Epic and reprinted in The Best of Hellraiser anthology. He has also published stories in Penthouse Comix, and worked with artist Dave Dorman on many projects, including the illustrated novella “Roadkill,” a short story for the Andrew Vachss anthology Underground from Dark Horse, an ashcan titled “December” for Hero Illustrated, and several of Dorman’s Wasted Lands novellas and comics, such as Rail from Image and “The Uninvited.” Stone’s novel, Dead Heat, won the 1996 International Horror Guild’s award for best first novel and was a runner-up for the Bram Stoker Award. Stone has also been a finalist for the IHG award for short fiction, the British Fantasy Award for best novella, and a semifinalist for the Nebula and Writers of the Future awards. His stories have appeared in anthologies that have won the Bram Stoker Award and the World Fantasy Award. Two of his works were optioned for film, the novella “Black Tide” and short story “Crisis Line.”

Stone recently retired after a 41-year career in journalism. He won numerous awards for his work, and in 1986 was named Florida’s best columnist in his circulation division by the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors. In 2001 he received an honorable mention from the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association for his essay “When Freedom of Speech Ends” and in 2003 he was voted Best of the Best in the category of columnists by Emerald Coast Magazine. He participated in book signings and awareness campaigns, and was a guest on local television and radio programs.

As an addendum, Stone is single, kills tomatoes and morning glories with ruthless efficiency, once tied the stem of a cocktail cherry in a knot with his tongue, and carries a permanent scar on his chest after having been shot with a paintball gun. He’s in his 60s as of this writing but doesn’t look a day over 94.

Contact Del at [email protected]. He is also on Facebook, twitter, Pinterest, tumblr, TikTok, and Instagram. Visit his website at delstonejr.com .