![]() On weekdays, the painter crawled out of his hole at seven sharp and began his daily journey through the city streets. Go to the hospital and sell a kidney-you got two, one too many for one person.” The janitor carried on like that every morning, like a rooster thankfully, unlike a rooster, he had two days off every week, and that was when his poor tenant could get some sleep. I could post an ad-‘Slave for Rent, Three Years’ Payment Required.’ But an ad costs money and time. “Pay up or get lost! There’s a line waiting!” He ruminated: “Or I could rent you out, instead. “You owe me a cool million, you hear!” the janitor yelled, brandishing his broom, while the painter pulled his coat over his ears. The janitor screamed that in the whole universe there was only one kindhearted fool who would give away valuable housing and tolerate not being paid for six months. As the painter’s back rent accumulated, however, the janitor felt more and more aggravated at the sight of his prone body when he came in early in the morning to get his shovel or his broom. The janitor hoped that someday the painter would win the lawsuit he had filed against Adik, the crook who had swindled him out of his apartment, and would then pay what he owed. We’ll just say that he was one of the many gullible souls who were promised a fortune for their little apartments, their only property, and who woke up the next morning on a bench in a park, trying to remember what had happened and why their apartments were sporting new locks and curtains.Īs for the corner under the stairs, the painter lived there on credit. How the painter had come to rent this closet is a long story. The janitor in the apartment building where the painter had once owned a unit partitioned off the dark corner under the stairs, where he kept his brooms, shovels, and work clothes, and advertised the makeshift cupboard as a “Private Apartment for Rent-No Running Water.” This was where our painter slept: on the floor, with his coat for a blanket, happy nevertheless that he wasn’t sleeping in the street. Besides, brick doesn’t really draw on walls it only scratches.Īt least the painter had a roof over his head-sort of. He would have painted on walls or on fences, but every wall and fence belonged to someone. He tried to draw on the pavement with pieces of brick, but janitors and patrolmen didn’t appreciate such art. There once lived a painter so destitute that he couldn’t afford a single crayon, let alone brushes and paints. ![]()
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