In the days following Malcolm’s departure, Lou followed through with a series of annoyingly responsible tasks. Foremost, Lou needed new roommates. Rent was due soon, and he needed to split that expense. Nearly anyone was okay now. If they didn’t get along, he would hole up in the step van. Lou updated the information with Switchboard, revised his “roommate wanted” flyer, and stapled up notices in all the usual places.
He also moved his stuff from upstairs down to the step van. The old furniture stayed. He did an overdue deep cleaning, corralling two dust bunnies and one dust kangaroo from the neglected corners of his room. His workbench went to the curb, available to anyone with the gumption to take it away. From now on, Lou would only do typewriter work on-site.
Since there was no practical way to keep a telephone in the step van, Lou hooked up an answering machine in the apartment. While he was messing with the phone, Lou gave Victoria a call. No answer. It was two weeks since they’d spoken. It occurred to Lou that she should get an answering machine.
At the end of the hallway, hands in her pockets, Tomoko looked left into Lou’s old bedroom and right toward the room that had been Billy’s. It was the last stop of her grand tour of the apartment.
“So the rooms are basically the same?”
“Pretty much.” Lou pointed to the window in Billy’s old room. “There’s a south view here. You can see Spencer Butte. But this room gets hotter in the summer. The other room has a view of the three-story house next door.”
“And you live in the truck?”
“Well, it’s my bedroom. I still use the bathroom, kitchen and living room up here.”
“It smells like pot.”
“I guess. Do you smoke?”
“Just pot.” Tomoko nodded and looked around Billy’s room, stopping to face the beige wall. “Would it be okay if I painted the room?”
“Yeah, sure.”
“Just one room. I don’t think Nobody cares. Anything is fine for Nobody.”
Having a roommate named Nobody would be interesting. Maybe not that weird for Eugene.
“What else should I know? Does everything work okay? Are there cockroaches?”
He was going to say No, the rats ate all the roaches, but held back. What he needed, soon, were roommates who could pay rent. A compatible sense of humor wasn’t his problem.
“Nope, no roaches. Things are pretty much working.” The dry summer had put the leaky roof out of mind.
Tomoko looked straight at Lou. “Are you some kind of weird pervert?”
There were so many clever ways to reply to that. Lou kept it simple. “Not yet. You?”
“No. Not yet either.”
They went into the living room and Tomoko looked over the same sparse furnishings as when she had arrived. “I like that it is simple here. And Nobody is fine with any place. Do you want to meet Nobody first?”
“Yeah, or Nobody should meet me.” He was bemused by his own words. Yes, he would definitely need to get used to that name.
“I’ll tell Nobody to drop by. Tomorrow okay?”
“Sounds good.” Lou wasn’t sure what he agreed to, but he expected to be home, nonetheless.
Great subtle humor again. Interesting, the advent of answering machines back then. And someone named "Nobody". That's so Eugene, like other characters we've had, like "Stupid".