It was 1992, I was 24, working
full-time and going to business school part-time. My
one-bedroom apartment had a couch, TV, bed, and a desk. My
kitchen inventory included one pot, one pan and a toaster. The
only thing on the walls was my undergraduate diploma, and I was working to
put a Master’s of Business next to it. I
didn’t spend much time at my place other than to sleep and study.
I didn't see Ashley physically move in
across the way, but I started seeing him fumbling with his keys to get into his place across the common
sidewalk, and we would run into each other at the giant communal mailbox. His
gray hair and mustache stood out in an apartment full of young professionals
and laborers. His
parking-slot was next to mine, so I started seeing his dark green Jaguar parked
next to my maroon Mustang, my one luxury in a world of milk-carton
bookshelves.
One day we arrived at our front doors at the same time, and he waived me over and beckoned me in. I dropped my keys back into my pocket and went into the
identical apartment across the sidewalk.
The fist thing I noticed in my
carbon-copy living room was the Persian rug, easily the cost of my semester’s
MBA tuition. On
top of that was a grandfather clock noisily keeping the seconds, definitely
classier than my Radio Shack digital clock-radio.
“Come in, sit down! Can
I offer you a drink?”
I didn’t start drinking alcohol in
earnest until 30, so at 24 I declined.
After a few pleasantries he
exclaimed “Did you know that the word “divorce” is derived from Turkish for
“Wife takes All?"
Ahhhh. So
this was a divorced guy taking his few worldly possessions and fleeing to an
apartment, now out of place, out of time, starting over with gray hair,
drooping mustache and tired Jaguar.
“No I didn’t . Have you
been divorced for long?”
“Not long! I used to live close by
in a big house! Hope
I get something out of the settlement!”
I squirmed in my seat, not knowing I
would need his knowledge and insight sixteen years later, when I found out that
his Turkish translation was pretty accurate. “That’s
too bad. How
long you think you’ll be here?”
“Not long! Not
long!"
That, sadly, wasn’t true. Ashley
was still there, In Stir, when I moved out a good 18 months later to my first
house in the southwest nether-regions of Houston.
Thirty years later - surely he is
dead now - I wonder what happened to him and his magnificent possessions,
crammed into an apartment that made my duplicate look like a
bear-cave.
I would unfortunately repeat his experience after my own divorce, going back to a little apartment again in my early 40s, out of place among the college students who filled the complex. I was there only about a year - I must have had a better lawyer than Ashley - but actually feel a sort of warmness for that little place over 15 years ago now, as it was good to be starting over, being able to become myself again.
