The Second Doublewide on the Right, part 32

I’m Fixin’ To Present Part 32 of The Second Doublewide on the Right:

In an attempt to collect the back rents from his Shady Grove Trailer Park tenants, Leon had a flyer printed up and distributed it by taping it to the front door of each trailer. The flyer advised that any tenant whose rent was not paid up to date in seven days would have their power and water cut off. He decided not to cut off the collection of garbage because the place already had a rotting odor about it.

There was mixed reaction. At the end of the seven days five tenants simply packed up and disappeared into the evening. Three others made the deal with Leon to make a partial payment and to catch up the remainder by paying extra for the next three months. The last two played hardball. They simply stayed on after the power and water was cut off and still refused to pay their back and current rents.

To get rid of them Leon had to go back and see the lawyer who had handled his aunt’s affairs, who helped him with the eviction process.

Three months after Leon had received his inheritance he realized he was going broke. He only had three renters left and it took all of the rent money he received from them just to pay the utilities, and the maintenance costs were killing him.

Then, right on cue, there was a revival in the trailer park industry when the economy ground to a halt after the federal government perpetrated it with regulations, mandates, executive orders and new taxes. Folks began to lose their jobs and homes right and left, and started looking for a cheaper place to live.

It was gradual, but to Leon it seemed as if it had happened overnight when people began knocking on his doublewide door wanting to rent a trailer. He had his lawyer draw him up a renter’s agreement so that he wouldn’t have to rent to no sorry no-accounts unless they had a job and could pay a month’s rent in advance, and agree to an eviction clause.

The only exception he made was to Jimmy Ray Hurd and Quantavious Cortez Carter, neither of whom had a job, or at least not an obvious one. What turned the trick for them was they both offered to pay six months rent in advance, and do it with cash. Leon took their cash and put them in the last two trailers in the back of the park. So Shady Grove came to be a filled up park, except for the second doublewide on the right, which nobody seemed to want to pay extra for.

Then he had time to work on the strip mall. He had the parking lot patched up, the weeds trimmed and a fresh coat of paint on the three adjoining buildings. Afterwards he had advertised in the local newspaper and the renters had arrived.

It had been a three year trek for Leon, but now his properties were all rented, except for the one doublewide, and he was the king of his own little fiefdom, the unofficial mayor of Apt-To-Miss, Georgia.

It was in the afternoon, the day he had eaten lunch at Granny’s Kitchen, when he was sitting in his office, still thinking about the fried pork chop Candy Sue Collins had served him, but mostly about just Candy Sue. He had also been planning to spend a little time with Marthalene Benton in her little beauty shop next door. Then he had seen that new preacher go into the shop.

While the preacher was in the beauty shop Leon fumed and began toying with his little Keltec pistol. He took the clip out and oiled it good. Then he reinserted the clip and chambered a round. That was when he heard the door close next door, and rushing up to his window and saw that, lucky for him, the preacher did have a fresh new slicked down haircut.

A few minutes later he decided to rap on the wall between his office and the beauty shop again to see up Marthalene was up for some company. The little pistol was still lying on his desk. He picked it up and pointed the barrel down as he used the handle to rap three times.

He gripped the little weapon a little too hard on the third rap and was astonished at how loud the blast was when it went off. He immediately felt an excruciating pain in his right foot. He looked down and observed a ragged and bloody hole in his right shoe and suddenly realized he had no idea he had been fixin’ to shoot himself in the foot.