Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town, Cory Doctorow [big ebook reader .txt] 📗

a
tight t-shirt that he could count her ribs through, shuffled into the
living room. Alan got to his feet and extended his hand. "Hi there! I'm
Adam, your new neighbor! I brought coffees!"

She shook his hand, her long fingernails sharp on his palm. "Natalie,"
she said.

The other young woman passed a coffee to her. "He brought coffees," she
said. "Try it before you add anything to it." She turned to Alan. "I
thought you said your name was Alan?"

"Alan, Adam, Andy. Doesn't matter, I answer to any of them. My mom had a
hard time keeping our names straight."

"Funny," Natalie said, sipping at her coffee. "Two sugars, three
creams," she said, holding her hand out. The other woman silently passed
them to her.

"I haven't gotten your name yet," Alan said.

"Right," the other one said. "You sure haven't."

A young man, all of seventeen, with straggly sideburns and a shock of
pink hair sticking straight up in the air, shuffled into the room,
wearing cutoffs and an unbuttoned guayabera.

"Adam," Natalie said, "this is Link, my kid brother. Link, this is
Arthur -- he brought coffees."

"Hey, thanks, Arthur," Link said. He accepted his coffee and stood by
his sister, sipping reverently.

"So that leaves one more," Alan said. "And then we can get started."

Link snorted. "Not likely. Krishna doesn't get out of bed before noon."

"Krishna?" Alan said.

"My boyfriend," the nameless woman said. "He was up late."

"More coffee for the rest of us, I suppose," Alan said. "Let's all sit
and get to know one another, then, shall we?"

They sat. Alan slurped down the rest of his coffee, then gestured at the
sack. The nameless woman passed it to him and he got the last one, and
set to drinking.

"I'm Andreas, your new next-door neighbor. I've just finished
renovating, and I moved in last night. I'm really looking forward to
spending time in the neighborhood -- I work from home, so I'll be around
a bunch. Feel free to drop by if you need to borrow a cup of sugar or
anything."

"That's so nice of you," Natalie said. "I'm sure we'll get along fine!"

"Thanks, Natalie. Are you a student?"

"Yup," she said. She fished in the voluminous pockets of her jeans,
tugging them lower on her knobby hips, and came up with a pack of
cigarettes. She offered one to her brother -- who took it -- and one to
Alan, who declined, then lit up. "Studying fashion design at OCAD. I'm
in my last year, so it's all practicum from now on."

"Fashion! How interesting," Alan said. "I used to run a little vintage
clothes shop in the Beaches, called Tropicál."

"Oh, I *loved* that shop," she said. "You had the *best* stuff! I used
to sneak out there on the streetcar after school." Yup. He didn't
remember *her*, exactly, but her *type*, sure. Solo girls with hardcover
sketch books and vintage clothes home-tailored to a nice fit.

"Well, I'd be happy to introduce you to some of the people I know --
there's a vintage shop that a friend of mine runs in Parkdale. He's
always looking for designers to help with rehab and repros."

"That would be so cool!"

"Now, Link, what do you study?"

Link pulled at his smoke, ashed in the fireplace grate. "Not much. I
didn't get into Ryerson for electrical engineering, so I'm spending a
year as a bike courier, taking night classes, and reapplying for next
year."

"Well, that'll keep you out of trouble at least," Alan said. He turned
to the nameless woman.

"So, what do you do, *Apu*?" she said to him, before he could say
anything.

"Oh, I'm retired, Mimi," he said.

"Mimi?" she said.

"Why not? It's as good a name as any."

"Her name is --" Link started to say, but she cut him off.

"Mimi is as good a name as any. I'm unemployed. Krishna's a bartender."

"Are you looking for work?"

She smirked. "Sure. Whatcha got?"

"What can you do?"

"I've got three-quarters of a degree in environmental studies, one year
of kinesiology, and a half-written one-act play. Oh, and student debt
until the year 3000."

"A play!" he said, slapping his thighs. "You should finish it. I'm a
writer, too, you know."

"I thought you had a clothing shop."

"I did. And a bookshop, and a collectibles shop, and an antique
shop. Not all at the same time, you understand. But now I'm
writing. Going to write a story, then I imagine I'll open another
shop. But I'm more interested in *you*, Mimi, and your play. Why
half-finished?"

She shrugged and combed her hair back with her fingers. Her hair was
brown and thick and curly, down to her shoulders. Alan adored curly
hair. He'd had a clerk at the comics shop with curly hair just like
hers, an earnest and bright young thing who drew her own comics in the
back room on her breaks, using the receiving table as a drawing
board. She'd never made much of a go of it as an artist, but she did end
up publishing a popular annual anthology of underground comics that had
captured the interest of the *New Yorker* the year before. "I just ran
out of inspiration," Mimi said, tugging at her hair.

"Well, there you are. Time to get inspired again. Stop by any time and
we'll talk about it, all right?"

"If I get back to it, you'll be the first to know."

"Tremendous!" he said. "I just know it'll be fantastic. Now, who plays
the guitar?"

"Krishna," Link said. "I noodle a bit, but he's really good."

"He sure is," Alan said. "He was in fine form last night, about three
a.m.!" He chuckled pointedly.

There was an awkward silence. Alan slurped down his second
coffee. "Whoops!" he said. "I believe I need to impose on you for the
use of your facilities?"

"What?" Natalie and Link said simultaneously.

"He wants the toilet," Mimi said. "Up the stairs, second door on the
right. Jiggle the handle after you flush."

The bathroom was crowded with too many towels and too many
toothbrushes. The sink was powdered with blusher and marked with
lipstick and mascara residue. It made Alan feel at home. He liked young
people. Liked their energy, their resentment, and their
enthusiasm. Didn't like their guitar-playing at three a.m.; but he'd
sort that out soon enough.

He washed his hands and carefully rinsed the long curly hairs from the
bar before replacing it in its dish, then returned to the living room.

"Abel," Mimi said, "sorry if the guitar kept you up last night."

"No sweat," Alan said. "It must be hard to find time to practice when
you work nights."

"Exactly," Natalie said. "Exactly right! Krishna always practices when
he comes back from work. He blows off some steam so he can get to
bed. We just all learned to sleep through it."

"Well," Alan said, "to be honest, I'm hoping I won't have to learn to do
that. But I think that maybe I have a solution we can both live with."

"What's that?" Mimi said, jutting her chin forward.

"It's easy, really. I can put up a resilient channel and a baffle along
that wall there, soundproofing. I'll paint it over white and you won't
even notice the difference. Shouldn't take me more than a week. Happy to
do it. Thick walls make good neighbors."

"We don't really have any money to pay for renovations," Mimi said.

Alan waved his hand. "Who said anything about money? I just want to
solve the problem. I'd do it on my side of the wall, but I've just
finished renovating."

Mimi shook her head. "I don't think the landlord would go for it."

"You worry too much," he said. "Give me your landlord's number and I'll
sort it out with him, all right?"

"All right!" Link said. "That's terrific, Albert, really!"

"All right, Mimi? Natalie?"

Natalie nodded enthusiastically, her shaved head whipping up and down on
her thin neck precariously. Mimi glared at Natalie and Link. "I'll ask
Krishna," she said.

"All right, then!" Alan said. "Let me measure up the wall and I'll start
shopping for supplies." He produced a matte black, egg-shaped digital
tape measure and started shining pinpoints of laser light on the wall,
clicking the egg's buttons when he had the corners tight. The Portuguese
clerks at his favorite store had dissolved into hysterics when he'd
proudly shown them the $300 gadget, but they were consistently impressed
by the exacting CAD drawings of his projects that he generated with its
output. Natalie and Link stared in fascination as he did his thing with
more showmanship than was technically necessary, though Mimi made a
point of rolling her eyes.

"Don't go spending any money yet, cowboy," she said. "I've still got to
talk to Krishna, and *you've* still got to talk with the landlord."

He fished in the breast pocket of his jean jacket and found a stub of
pencil and a little steno pad, scribbled his cell phone number, and tore
off the sheet. He passed the sheet, pad, and pencil to Mimi, who wrote
out the landlord's number and passed it back to him.

"Okay!" Alan said. "There you go. It's been a real pleasure meeting you
folks. I know we're going to get along great. I'll call your landlord
right away and you call me once Krishna's up, and I'll see you tomorrow
at ten a.m. to start construction, God willin' and the crick don't
rise."

Link stood and extended his hand. "Nice to meet you, Albert," he
said. "Really. Thanks for the muds, too." Natalie gave him a bony hug,
and Mimi gave him a limp handshake, and then he was out in the sunshine,
head full of designs and logistics and plans.

#

The sun set at nine p.m. in a long summertime blaze. Alan sat down on
the twig-chair on his front porch, pulled up the matching twig table,
and set down a wine glass and the bottle of Niagara Chardonnay he'd
brought up from the cellar. He poured out a glass and held it up to the
light, admiring the new blister he'd gotten on his pinky finger while
hauling two-by-fours and gyprock from his truck to his neighbors' front
room. Kids rode by on bikes and punks rode by on skateboards. Couples
wandered through the park across the street, their murmurous
conversations clear on the whispering breeze that rattled the leaves.

He hadn't gotten any writing done, but that was all right. He had plenty
of time, and once the soundwall was in, he'd be able to get a good
night's sleep and really focus down on the story.

A Chinese girl and a white boy walked down the sidewalk, talking
intensely. They were all of six, and the boy had a Russian accent. The
Market's diversity always excited Alan. The boy looked a little like
Alan's brother Doug (Dan, David, Dearborne) had looked when he was that
age.

Doug was the one he'd helped murder. All the brothers had helped with
the murder, even Charlie (Clem, Carlos, Cory), the island, who'd opened
a great fissure down his main fault line and closed it up over Doug's
corpse, ensuring that their parents would be none the wiser. Doug was a
stubborn son-of-a-bitch, though, and his corpse had tunneled up over the
next six years, built a raft from the bamboo and vines that