A Legend's Legacy (and a Quiet Life)

The landlord’s increasingly frantic banging on my door had, until recently, been the soundtrack to my life. Now, the silence was almost deafening. I’d paid him, of course. Not just the back rent that had been looming like a particularly grim storm cloud, but the next three months’ worth, in crisp, unmarked bills that still felt a little unreal to the touch. He’d blinked at me, his usual scowl replaced by a look of stunned disbelief, like a dog that had finally caught its tail and didn’t know what to do with it. I’d just smiled, a little too widely perhaps, and he’d shuffled away, muttering about the good old days of desperate tenants.

My apartment, once a symphony of creaking floorboards and the gnawing anxiety of impending eviction, now felt… spacious. I even found myself dusting the shelves, a revolutionary act for yours truly. The dust bunnies, once proud inhabitants, seemed to be in a state of bewildered retreat. It was a strange sort of peace, this sudden solvency. It felt like I’d borrowed a particularly spectacular suit for a single, wildly improbable occasion and was now trying to figure out how to return it without anyone noticing it had been worn.

Brenda had been over, naturally. She’d found me staring blankly at a bowl of expensive cereal, the kind that promised energy and enlightenment with every spoonful, and had simply raised an eyebrow.