The Hitman

A Storytime With Amy Special. Part 1 of 2?

I’m sort of loving the new town slogan. You can’t do worse am I right?

Toledo, Ohio, USA.

September 2001

In the early fall of 2001 I had finally bought my first ever place to live. It was just a tiny single wide 10 by 55 trailor that I had scrimped and saved $3500 for, housed in a park with $195 lot rent, but it was the only affordable place that would allow my dog Nemo to stay with me. I spent weeks painting and staining the nicotine soaked wood panelled walls white and spent another bit of time securing a bed and TV and desk for my computer. I moved my cat and dog in, turned the furnace up to full blast on a chilly fall night in 2001 and danced and sang in my underwear and bra alone. Me and my boyfriend had been so on again off again over the years that outsiders could never keep track of whether we were an item at the moment or not. I’d finally pulled the plug on that and told myself it was time to take a break from relationships as I focused on my graduate studies. I thought I would love living alone.

The feeling did not last. I walked my dog every morning around the trailer park before heading to graduate school. There was a guy about my age who lived some doors down. I’d made friendly small talk and he’d asked me out. I shot him down in a gentle but firm way. I was not interested in a relationship right then.

A few nights later somebody was pounding on my door at around midnight. I woke up groggily and answered. The man stood there, clearly drunk and disheveled.

“Why don’t you like me?” He asked me in a biting, slurred tone. “Do you think you’re too good for me because you’re in college or something?”

“I don’t want to talk to you right now. I’m just not ready for a relationship!” The man, undeterrred, was trying to push his way into my trailor. “You’re drunk!” I said as I pushed his foot out of my door. I locked both locks as he pounded on the other side of the door furiously.

“Just talk to me!” He slurred. “Am I not good enough for you?”

“Good night!” I yelled from inside. I heard the man mumbling incoherently from the other side of the door for what felt like hours. Finally he went away.

This incident terrified me. The man in retrospect was probably fairly harmless, but it triggered a long ago memory I would have preferred to forget. What if he came back with a weapon? What if he got to talking to friends and then a whole gang showed up? I no longer felt safe alone there. The nightmares of being suffocated came back with a vengeance, the ones where I couldn’t move and I couldn’t breathe in real life. I was scared to go to sleep.

I wanted a roommate and immediately told this to all of my friends. I could certainly afford the modest lot rent from what I made delivering pizzas after college. But I didn’t feel safe staying alone.

The small trailor had two bedrooms, though admittedly the smaller one was a perhaps 7 foot by 8 foot joke of a tiny area. Still I figured if I moved my computer desk out of there somebody could set up a small single mattress and a nightstand and put a small clothes rack inside. All I was asking for was $100 to split the rent. I’d have taken the right candidate in for free.

After a few days I got a nibble on my seeking roommate situation. BFF 1 came over after her work at Libby Glass one afternoon. “I have somebody who is looking for a place to stay.” She arched her eyebrow. “But is it okay if it’s a man?”

I hadn’t given that prospect any thought. I’d imagined maybe some young woman perhaps working her way through college as I was, in a type of strength in numbers situation. But I hadn’t directly excluded guys I had many male friends and had dealt with roommates of both my brother and my boyfriend when I had stayed with them.

BFF 1 must have noticed the look on my face. “I mean, he has a girlfriend.” She told me then. “But he just can’t stay with her right now. I guess he just came out of the military and wants a temporary place while he settles in and looks for work.” She was getting warmer.

And thus my journey with the hitman started.

“Yeah bring him over. We’ll see if we can make an arrangement.”