Deed Thief
2016
“Hello?” she said.
“Hello?” I said, “is this the finance lawyer?”
“Oh,” she said, “yeah that’s me, how can I help you?”
“I’m having trouble with my mortgage,” I said, “the bank wants to foreclose.”
“Oh I’m very sorry to hear that, let me see if we can start assisting you today. Can I have your name?”
“Febbe Freudenshaud” I said.
“Hi Mx. Freudenshaud, my name’s Shalicia. I’m just going to ask you for some information to make sure I can help you. How many months are your payments past due?”
I told her my story. I told her how I really started to get into trouble with the bank when I missed that first payment, the one after the big down payment that I made in cash. I know I signed all the paperwork, but I’ve never taken contracts seriously. I’m the kind of person that thinks that age is just a number and the same goes for a credit score. My identity, in that regard, is like wet bread to me.
I plunked down the change to move in, painted a mural in the kitchen, and didn’t think that much more of it. I went to work, lined my shoes up by the doorway, bought a 12 pack of toilet-paper. It was where I lived.
Shalicia said she could help. “I understand that a lot of people in your position are really dealing with a crisis in their lives,” she said, “and I want you to know that I’m going to help you get your money back and save your house. You can trust me,” she said, and then she said “hang on one sec.” I heard her press her phone to her chest and shout “MAWM, I AM ON THE PHONE-UH!” down the stairs. I looked at my watch, it was just about dinner time.
“You think you can help me?” I asked. She was sweet. I imagined her wearing chipped green nail polish. I imagined her room to be covered in dirty laundry and hamster droppings. But she was smart, I could sense that. At least she knew how to build websites that showed up when you googled “help with foreclosure.”
“The first thing we need to do is start a file with all your info, OK? I’m going to put that into the computer,” she said.
Then she asked me everything about myself, more than anyone has ever cared to ask. She started with the kinds of questions that are on the forms for loyalty clubs at the grocery store: name, DOB, address. Then she asked the same things the bank asked when I got the loan in the first place. Then she went into things you’d tell to the doctor when you’re getting tested for STD’s. Then she asked things you say in your first meeting with a psychotherapist. I really needed to get going, so I walked down the street towards the bakery to get scones while we talked. I was just explaining to her about how my parents had never married and my father had children with another woman and one of them was really cruel to me when we were kids but then he’d found God and called me to apologize one Sunday afternoon about the way he’d acted when he was young, and I said I really didn’t resent him, and then I told the cashier “Oh and throw in some of those donuts, please.”
“How is your relationship to food?” asked Shalicia. I said that it wasn’t great but I’d stopped beating myself about eating carbs a while back.
I was so grateful for her help that I didn’t even feel weird about telling her how many bowel movements I typically have in a day. “One if I’m lucky,” I said.
“OK” said Shalicia “I think I have about all I need for right now. I’m going to put this information together and send you over some forms later tonight. I think this will be a pretty easy case. We’re going to save your house Mx. Freudenshaud.”
I stood on the corner of Tubby and Tubby and watched a man in a cherry picker fastening an oversized Christmas wreath to the side of a building. “Thank you Shalicia,” I said. “Thank you so much for your help.”
Walking to Ariel’s house I had a contented smile on my face, like a hard shell of worry had been peeled back and there was my succulent fruit bursting up underneath it. It was just that easy I thought. One minute I could be scared that I’d done everything wrong in my whole life, and the next I could be floating through the streets like a helium balloon.
All through our discussion of Debt by David Graeber my mind would slip back to my conversation with Shalicia. She hadn’t responded with any judgement when I told her about my sexual history, how my bouts of promiscuous behavior had come fast and loose since the age of 15, or how my need for validation by strangers had caused a number of embarrassing incidents. I thought that maybe she was so understanding because she’d grown up on the Internet. She knew more about how life works than I did at that age. She seemed to know that it was always more complicated than it sounded.
As the second round of wine was being served, Jarnica said, “what do you think Febbe? You’ve been so quiet tonight.” I took a sip of my wine.
“I think,” I said, “I think that people are inherently good. People in general want to help other people.”
“Oh” said Jarnica, “so like, our finance economy stems from this tendency towards communal free exchange that we have?”
“ Yes,” I said. Jarnica thought that that was a very interesting take on the book.
The next afternoon I received an official document in the mail. Dear Mx. Freudensheud, it read, this notice is to inform you that your claim to quit the warranty of your house has been received and that the deed for 1808 E Prospect St Seattle WA 98112 will hereby and henceforth be found under the ownership of one Mx. Preciosa Maxwell. I had to put my glasses on to make sure that I was reading this right. I didn’t remember signing any claims, just the forms that Shalicia had sent over. And I didn’t know any Preciosa Maxwell, I didn’t think. But I was running late to meet friends for happy hour, so I slipped the letter into my purse and nearly forgot about it. The whole way home from drinks with Rapley, Bontia, Swen, and Selly I was worried that I would be arrested for drunk driving and reckless endangerment.
As I pulled into the parking spot in front of my house, I saw a dark figure standing on my doorstep. For weeks I had been saying to myself that I should get a pepper spray or taser for self-defense, and now, as I imagined my feet tied together and hung from the ceiling of my new house, I wished I could do the things I said I was going to do, for once in my life. I dialled nine and one on my phone like I’d seen the women do in movies. I got out and slammed my car door. From the street side of the car I shouted CAN I HELP YOU? hoping that maybe one of the neighbors would hear me and would run out in their slippers.
“Hi there,” the intruder said. “Are you Febbe Freudenshaud?” He walked down the steps, looking at his feet.
“Yes,” I said.
“Mx. Freudenshaud, I’m here to tell you that you have one week to move out of your house.”
“What?” I said, putting my elbows up on the roof of the car. “Did the bank go through with it?”
“No no, I’m representing Preciosa Maxwell, the new owner of the house? She wants you out within the week.”
“Fuck,” I said, and used some more expletives that I’m not proud of. I stalked back and forth in the street, my hands shaking with anger.
Before, when I had imagined Shalicia, she struggled with her body image and was socially awkward when she was not engaged in a meaningful task. Now, she was proportioned perfectly, and was so precocious that adults often mistook her for a college freshman. I felt rage and violent thoughts towards her, and I was disappointed that I had lost one more friend out there in the virtual world. Of all the things that were turning through my head the most final was this: Oprah had just done a special on victims of online predators, they wouldn’t be interested in my story for at least another season.
“Do you work for Shalicia?” I asked the man in leather who was standing on my front walk jiggling his keys in his hand.
“I know Shalicia.”
“Don’t you think you should be a better role model for her?” I took the stance of a high school principal in a hard knocks district.
“Shalicia has her own thing going. We’ve met like twice.”
“Still, how could you let a young girl like that fall into such untoward behavior. It’s reprehensible.” The man looked at me like I was an old woman counting pennies at the cash register, unable to keep the total amount in my mind long enough to get there. I went back over to my car, opened the passenger door, and pulled a Diet Coke out of the cup holder. “Don’t you think you have some responsibility,” I said, untwisting the cap, “to our youths?” I maintained eye contact as I took my first sweet swig.
“Shalicia is her own person,” the man said.
“Oh is she?” I retorted.