Bullets, Beverages, Purchase Agreement

Juley met me at Starbucks to have me sign a purchase agreement on the house I’m buying on the North Side. Out of prudence, I’m not revealing all the details of that deal quite yet. I’m convinced the house I’m buying is a bargain and I don’t want anybody to snatch it away. Once the deal is signed by the seller, I’ll reveal more.

Juley had some time to kill before another appointment, so we sat there drinking our beverages. Diet tea for her, of course. If Juley packs away an extra calorie overnight, she must keep it on her nightstand instead of her person.

I remember the first time I met her at Starbucks, and she was taking notes on what kind of house I wanted. I had to keep assuring Juley I wasn’t kidding, because she had never heard of a customer who thought, for example, bullet holes were a big plus.

“What do you need for title?” she asked me. I blinked, confused.

“Need…for…title?” I asked.

“Some people are worried about title,” she explained. “How strong a title do you need? What do you need for title?”

“Keys,” I said, and then had to contain myself, because I was congested and laughter would get me coughing.

Title, indeed! POSSESSION is what I care about.

Now, so close to a deal, Juley was worried about me. She was worried I was going to get killed on the North Side, and then she would feel terrible about it, like it was her fault. And she said so.

“It’s not your fault, Juley,” I laughed. “I’m a lunatic, and this is how lunatics die.”

She didn’t find THAT amusing. So I went into army pysch tech mode, the “sooner or later we’re all food for the worms so carpe diem” kind of thing. I told Juley the dangers of the North Side were overrated, and even if they weren’t, “somebody has to do this.”

“Look at all those empty houses,” I said. “Somebody has to live in them. And somebody has to sell them.”

I tried to convince Juley she should make a play to become “Queen of the North Side” among real estate agents. Juley said something about how it might end up being hers “by default” because most of her business, lately, involved the North Side. She ticked off a few of those transactions for me.

Juley cares about selling homes and has told me, for example, she doesn’t like selling homes to “flippers” as much as people seeking a place to live. Honestly, I’d sell houses to large, intelligent Termite People From Outer Space if there was a commission in it, but that’s me. Once you’ve driven a large truck around for The Corporation Which Shall Not Be Named, picking up barrels of sheep skulls with brains and eyeballs still attached--to be made into biological specimens--most OTHER work doesn’t seem so rough. And don’t even get me going about my job on that army psych ward.

What’s the difference between an army psych tech and an army psych patient? Psych tech has the keys, baby.

I told Juley she could make a ton of money selling homes on the North Side, and now with real estate in a state of total gloppy red hot molten meltdown, what else could one do but follow the market? Sometimes the economy makes our choices for us, like my ex-wife in effect made the choice about what city I would live in by bringing my child here. So just go with the flow.

I talked to Juley about how I was trying to “popularize the concept of remote showings” so it would be easier to “show” homes on the North Side without actually setting foot there. I said she should have her male customers “go on point” and walk into the empty houses with a tire iron. They’d love that, I said. It would make them feel big and strong and manly.

Juley confessed she thinks about bullets. She thinks about random bullets hitting her in the head when she is on the North Side. She can’t stop thinking about “that little girl who got shot in the head.”

“You seriously think about a bullet hitting you in the head?” I asked. “More likely a bullet is going to hit you in a limb. And, heck, even gangsters who have never received formal weapons training know enough to shoot ‘center mass.’ I mean what’s with your worry about getting shot in the head?”

Juley reiterated her vision of getting shot in the head, with a gesture to her forehead. Juley is not a person who constantly gestures while she speaks. When she makes a gesture, it is notable.

I said to Juley, “When you played volleyball, weren’t you ever worried a volleyball would hit you in the face and alter your looks?” She denied she was ever afraid of volleyballs.

OK, so that line of psychology didn’t work. Try again, Johnny Northside.

I told Juley how General Patton used to worry about getting hit in the nose with a bullet, because he believed in a previous life he had died that way in battle from an arrow. So he was always thinking, in the back of his mind, “bullet to the nose.” But he got over it. He just accepted the notion of dying a warrior’s death.

“So how did Patton die?” Juley asked. I had to think about it for a minute, but then I remembered. Patton died in a jeep accident. There was no bullet to the nose.

I asked Juley if there were other things in her life that once made her afraid, but which she overcame. Juley told me there was a period of time during which winter driving scared her. But she got over it by repeatedly being forced to drive. Her fear went away.

I told Juley that when I’m on the North Side, and I see the big liquor store at Broadway and Lyndale, I feel safe. I feel safe because, first of all, I’m not lost. I know exactly where I am and how to get back to campus. Furthermore, I know there is a security guard in the store and the staff don’t put up with any bullshit.

It reminds me of my first exposure to Frogtown, to the West Bank, to any rough neighborhood: at first I am uneasy. But when it becomes familiar, my fears lessen. I am not uneasy, just constantly watchful.

I told Juley a North Side gangster would have more sense than to shoot her. If a “pretty and young real estate agent” got shot while trying to sell homes on the North Side, there would be a public outcry. My word, how will the place ever get better if real estate agents aren’t safe selling homes? There would be editorials, follow-up stories, her picture on the front page. Her death would not go unnoted, or unremarked. Some might later say, “That was the turning point, when that real estate agent got killed trying to show a damn house.”

Juley said something about how her death would help my mission to “turn around” the North Side. Oh, my word, FEMALES. They are too clever. They are too quick to find the loophole in your point--the selfish angle--even if you didn’t think of it YOURSELF it would be hard to deny the kernel of truth in it. The scenario she suggested was viable. Not what I had in mind, but viable.

I must have said something about how she could do a lot more good by selling houses. Lots of houses. I pointed out how real estate was a nice, safe profession where one could make a lot of money, or so everybody thought. Right as she entered the profession, got her feet wet, the market melted down. She did the safe thing (entered real estate as a job) and suffered for it. Maybe, I suggested, she should do the dangerous thing (concentrate on selling homes on the North Side) and she would become rich beyond her wildest dreams.

To my surprise, Juley became tearful for a moment, then blinked away the tears.

She said something like, “Thanks for the pep talk.” I asked her if she NEEDED a pep talk? I really have no idea how she is doing from day to day in this real estate market, whether she is on top of things or struggling. I know she is paying her father to fix the fender damage on her vehicle instead of doing it in a shop. That much I know. She turns down free lunches but that doesn’t tell me anything.

At some point I told Juley some of my ideas for turning around my block. First of all, I needed to secure the block. Get the contact information for all the sellers of the many vacant houses on that block, so I could contact them quickly and easily if somebody broke into one of their houses. Pick up litter. Plant some flowers. Nobody, I said, would give a shit if a few extra hollyhocks showed up in the yard of a vacant and boarded up house. I needed to create a “corridor of safety” from my block to the bus stop, or at least the PERCEPTION of safety by painting over graffiti, planting flowers.

“You’re going to do all this YOURSELF?” Juley asked.

I told Juley I’d try to get others to help me, like my friend Karl. I’d try to get others to buy houses on the same block. Besides, I said, it sounded like a lot of effort, but it wasn’t, not really.

“Planting flowers could take a couple days, sure, but once they’re planted you don’t have to stand there and shout, GROW FLOWERS GROW,” I said. “They grow on their own and create a constant impression.” Yes, indeed, flowers are very cost effective. And a little paint over graffiti goes a long way.

Juley can never quite decide if I’m a visionary or completely off my rocker. This makes sense because I don’t know, either. Really, the somewhat random paths of bullets could make the call on my behalf. And what can I do but go with the flow?