This blog is for snark. I send the serious literary fiction and memoir to other organizations to publish. They send it back, and I send it out again. On the rare occasions when something is accepted, I put it up here after the rights revert.
Some months ago, I wrote a piece called Lenny, Lucid about a guy I call Lenny who lives in my park in central New York. Lenny is an electrician who works at the local college. He is my age or a few years younger. He is white, has salt-and-pepper hair, is of medium (say, 5’10”) height, and medium build, with a few extra pounds. I would guess his weight at around 195. Ever since his daughter lost custody of her two elementary-school-aged daughters, they have lived with him. Taking care of two high-maintenance small grandchildren alone and working full time seems to have taken its toll. Whenever I knock on his door, he is polite, but frazzled.
He lives next to an old guy with an opinion about everything named Vergil. Once, one of the granddaughters put a large rock on Vergil’s steps and Vergil’s wife tripped over it. Lenny and Vergil do not talk to each other now.
Lenny usually pays late. Most months, I begin to noodge him around the fifteenth. He answers my texts. I give him some slack. He pays before the end of the month. He had a good run in 2019-2020 when he paid on time for almost a year, but then he wrapped his car around a tree and was out of work for a few months. In the months after the accident, he hung around his home, nursed the staples in his skull, struggled, and went back to his old payment habits.
Around the fifteenth of this month, I texted him. Mr. Jenner – you have a balance of $488.66. When will you pay it? Thank you.
Radio silence.
On the twenty-fourth, I texted again, Mr. Jenner – I am following up on my previous text. When do you think you can pay your August balance?
Bupkis.
So, on the twenty-fifth, I drafted a five-day demand and sent it to him by certified mail and regular mail. I entered a charge of $4.91 to cover postage into his tab in Rent Manager. I drafted a thirty-day notice, signed it, scanned it and sent the PDF to the process server that I use for that park. And then, two days later, I received an email titled “Substitute Service Completed on L. Jenner” from the process server. Here’s what the affidavit of service said (‘Deponent’ is the process server; ‘Defendant’ is Lenny):
Person Left With: Tom Jones
Title: Occupant
Comments: Deponent spoke with a man who answered the door stating the defendant wasn’t there, that he was babysitting and that he didn’t live here. He wanted the document. Deponent told him the document couldn’t be left with him unless he resides at this address. He then stated he resides here and that his name is “Tom Jones”.
Description of Tom Jones:
Sex: Male
Hair: Salt and Pepper
Age: 48
Skin: White
Height: 5 ft 10 in
Weight: 195
Other:
Here’s the Wikipedia entry for Tom Jones – the other Tom Jones, the one who was knighted by Queen Elizabeth:
Sir Thomas Jones Woodward OBE (born 7 June 1940), known professionally as Tom Jones, is a Welsh singer. His career began with a string of top-ten hits in the mid-1960s. He has toured regularly, with appearances in Las Vegas (1967–2011). Jones’s voice has been described by AllMusic as a “full-throated, robust baritone“.
His performing range has included pop, R&B, show tunes, country, dance, soul and gospel. In 2008, the New York Times called Jones a musical “shape shifter”, who could “slide from soulful rasp to pop croon, with a voice as husky as it was pretty”. Jones has sold over 100 million records, with 36 Top 40 hits in the UK and 19 in the US, including “It’s Not Unusual“, “What’s New Pussycat?“, the theme song for the 1965 James Bond film Thunderball, “Green, Green Grass of Home“, “Delilah“, “She’s a Lady“, “Kiss” and “Sex Bomb“.
Jones has also occasionally dabbled in acting, first making his acting debut playing the lead role in the 1979 television film Pleasure Cove. He also appeared as himself in Tim Burton‘s 1996 film Mars Attacks!. In 1970 he received a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Television Series Musical or Comedy nomination for hosting the television series This Is Tom Jones. In 2012, he played his first dramatic acting role in an episode of Playhouse Presents. Jones received a Grammy Award for Best New Artist in 1966, an MTV Video Music Award in 1989, as well as two Brit Awards: Best British Male in 2000 and the Outstanding Contribution to Music award in 2003. Jones was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1998 and knighted by Queen Elizabeth II for services to music in 2005. Jones experienced a resurgence in notability in the 2010s due to his coaching role on the television talent show The Voice UK from 2012.
Here is what Dee Dee, the manager of that park, emailed me when I told her that we had a Las Vegas lounge singer living at four Digamma Street:
He called me at 8:30 p.m. after he had been served and ranted about you giving him a notice when he told you he was going to pay, and that he always does. I assured him that you were just covering your legal basis and talked him down off the ledge. It honestly sounded like his feelings were really hurt
To which I responded,
Erm – I ordered the service because he _didn’t_ answer when I asked him when he would pay.
So, Tom Jones has been talked down off the ledge. But that is only one data-point. I do not mean to suggest that Vegas lounge acts make crappy residents. Wayne Newton lives at six Epsilon Street in the same park. If you ignore the gaggle of sixty-five-year-old women who cycle through the occupant ledger each month, he is a model tenant. He pays before the first of the month, every month, keeps his lawn looking sharp, and can often be seen in his driveway, washing his car and passing the day with his neighbor, Celine Dion. The kids from Cirque du Soleil make noise late at night, but they are actually pretty mellow for Canadians. Siegfried and Roy have a cute double-wide on the corner of Delta and Kappa Streets. They objected to our service animal policy, but we resolved the issue by allowing to keep their service cats provided they increased their insurance policy’s liability limit. I only wish I could say good things about the new kid who lives next to Mr. Newton. His name is Elvis. He gyrates his body in suggestive ways, eats peanut-butter-and-banana sandwiches, and has not paid us a penny since he got out of the army.