Any Sort of Troubled Mind

Hector Raven sat in the leasing office and waited, whistling Christmas carols through patient, parted lips. The cold outside was expected. Late December had a way of blowing her frosty breath through the broken windows of the complex, as though the panes were a set of her own shattered teeth.

Finding tenants wasn't easy. The building was what put them off. It was situated beside a strip mall whose every store was bankrupt and vacant- leasing signs curling in derelict windows and weeds growing up through the pavement. The apartment building itself was a simple two stories, built in the sixties, with the intention of one day falling in on itself. It was the sort of place nobody noticed, over-grown and unmaintained to the point that it appeared abandoned, which it was except for the family now living in the basement below. Hector examined his fingernails, blue from the cold in the room. Every man should have a family. Having a collection of people you could count on served to soothe any sort of troubled mind.

On the table before him was a lease agreement- a formality, and in hindsight, more of a prop. A ballpoint pen was set at a slant across the pages, though nothing would need to be signed.

Hector consulted his watch. The appointment was to arrive at one thirty and it was nearing one forty five. He was certain she would show, however. He could tell over the phone that she was the hopeful sort, youthful and determined not to disappoint. She just moved to the city, she had said, and was learning the lay of the

land. She was the type who would see the state of the building and want to turn around, but good manners would prevent it. Her instincts weren't that ripe.

Hector stood as the woman pulled up in a blue Honda Civic, then stamped his foot on the moldering carpet because someone was moaning in the basement below. He leaned down and shouted to be quiet. He was trying to fill the space.

The woman sat in her car for several moments, considering whether or not to come in. Hector walked out onto the stoop of the leasing office and beckoned her with a wave. He was not unattractive. Mid-fifties, silver hair, narrow mustache, slight goatee.

The woman smiled at him through the car window. Her coat was blue, her scarf was grey and her skin was lovely - perfect. She reminded him of someone you might enjoy on a ski holiday, sharing hot chocolate and peppermint schnapps.

"Trouble finding it?" Hector asked as she approached. She nodded. Her hands were crammed in the pockets of her coat. "It's certainly on the outskirts, isn't it?" Hector placed a hand on her back and guided her into the leasing office. "It is on the edge of things," he agreed.

He could feel her reluctance as he pulled a chair out with a flourish and offered her a seat.

"This place is more than it seems," he assured her. He studied the back of her head as she sat, the way the brown filaments of hair lined up exactly as they fed

into the band holding them back. The gentle slope of her parietal sphere was perfect and he fought the urge to touch it.

"I've actually just signed a lease," the woman said. "I came as a courtesy. I didn't want you waiting around for me to show."

Hector nodded, recognizing the lie. It was what they all said upon arrival. He circled the table and sat back down in his chair. "This is a place where you'd fit in well."

The woman stared quietly around the gloomy space. It was a room that housed nothing except the table, its four chairs, and a peculiar kind of cold that winnowed its way into your pours.

She said, "From the outside it looks vacant."

Hector took a moment with this. Like the cold, he'd been expecting it. Without her seeing, he took a wooden mallet off the chair beside him and slipped it under his coat. It had a heaviness to it that produced a certain satisfaction, its intended purpose to pound and soften meat. "I realize you've committed elsewhere," he said. "But I'd like to show you around, in case that doesn't work out."

The woman smiled, relieved to be getting out of whatever contract she'd violated by being so promising over the phone and then showing up, not wanting. Hector stood and the woman stood with him. She followed him out of the leasing office to the side of the building where he opened a door leading down to the

basement. A reek rose up to meet them- urination, defecation, and something rotted, like the deadest of meat.

"After you," he said. The woman turned away, repelled.

Hector was ready. A gentle nudge sent her sailing down the concrete steps where she landed in a heap and began to moan, moving in a manner that told him things had been broken.

What Hector enjoyed most was the crack of the mallet, knowing the exact place where the brain would bleed - saturating grey matter and seeping out of the cranial vault.

He descended the stairs as the woman attempted to right herself, scarf in a swirl around her face. Swinging the mallet up in semicircle, he brought it back down with a satisfying smack on the back of her head. Reaching for her ruined noggin, she whimpered and let her hands drop, managing a simple, raspy "Oh."

Hector smiled. With his second flourish of the afternoon he indicated the room around him, introducing her to his family of tenants; each situated in their own angle of repose. He presented them all individually with the boastfulness of a father then knelt down tenderly and patted the woman's broken, matted head.

"Welcome home," Hector whispered. Then he turned and headed up the staircase to meet his next appointment.