foreclosure

by Matthew O’Brien

When he reached for the gate opener that was once clipped to the visor of his car, he finally came to and realized what he’d done: backstreeted around rush-hour traffic, turned into a blind driveway, and arrived at the condo complex where he and his wife had lived for three years. The gate opener had left an impression on the visor. His thumb was already there, so he ran it over the grooves. The sensation was soothing. Hand returning to the steering wheel, he exhaled and smiled sarcastically into the rearview mirror. Over the past several months, he’d found himself staring into mirrors more often than usual—questioning, cringing, condemning, consoling, reconsoling, and sometimes out of boredom. His red-eyed reflection had been his closest, most trusted associate during this time.

He swung wide to make a U-turn, then straightened when he saw the callbox on the left. (He’d used it for several weeks while courting his future wife, before moving into the condo and being granted the clicker.) He pulled up to it cautiously, rolled down the window halfway, punched in the code. The box beeped and the arms of the iron gate opened reluctantly. He wasn’t surprised that the code had not been changed; Las Vegas is in flux, but he was always struck by how many things stayed the same. However, he was surprised that he remembered the code. Though he was only in his mid-thirties, his memory was fading—but that’s not necessarily a bad thing, he’d acknowledged, given his nostalgic nature and the events of the last six months.

He liked the idea of reincarnation, but had never been able to bridge the concept and the realities of it. Scientifically, it didn’t make sense. Yet as he drove into the complex, he recognized the smooth, moist street, the freshly shorn communal lawn, and the palm trees, but as if from a life that preceded his. He’d conceded that the divorce had changed him and his perception of himself. Now he wondered if he were even the same person. He surveyed the two-story homes: blank driveways, stucco exteriors, black windows. The signs that jutted from the stamp-sized yards seemed as prominent as those marking the casinos: “Foreclosure: House for Sale.”

He made a sharp right turn, and his former home slowly came into focus at the end of the street. Head swiveling, he noted that “The Stripper” and “The Personal Injury Attorney” were no longer living in their respective residences. (He and his wife didn’t know any of their neighbors, but had given them nicknames.) In fact, except for a bulky, brand-new trashcan and a sun-bleached satellite dish, there were no signs of life on the east side of the complex.

He eased into his driveway and cut the engine. With the exception of the “Foreclosure” sign, which reminded him of a distress flag affixed to the bow of a sinking ship, the condo looked much like he’d remembered it: utterly bare. Scooping his workbag from the passenger-side floorboard, he climbed out of the car and was greeted by the oven-like, late-afternoon air, but he didn’t seem to mind it. As he started for the front door, he squinted toward the double window above the garage and smiled and waved.

His momentum was stopped by the door, which was locked, apparently to his surprise; he nearly kissed it as he jerked the knob. He took a step back, bowed his head, then turned to the overgrown hedge and the gravel that bordered the walkway. Identifying a large, round “rock,” he knelt and picked it up, its plastic exterior confirming his hunch: The spare-key holder, disguised as a stone, had not been discarded. He peeled the piggy bank-like seal from the bottom of the container and removed a key. It flickered in the dying daylight. He inserted it into the keyhole, hand shaking slightly, and turned. The lock gave way. He shook the key loose, returned it to the “rock,” and placed it back among the gravel. With a sweaty palm, he twisted the knob … and the door creaked open, a slowly expanding triangle of light exposing the dusty, concrete floor of the living room and dining room.

The interior of the home, though stuffy, was several degrees cooler than the exterior, or at least it felt that way to him. He closed the door and locked it, then faced the formidable emptiness.

“Sweetie?” he said.

He waited as the word traversed the rooms, hallways, closets, and crannies of both levels of the condo, and returned to him unanswered.

After discarding his workbag in the coat closet, he entered the kitchen tentatively, leaving footprints in his wake. The kitchen had been her space. She was the more willing and skilled chef, and she’d bought the condo (for $250,000) a few years before they met. (When they separated and the condo went into foreclosure, it was valued at $100,000.) He’d always felt more like a tenant than a resident. Perhaps that was part of the problem, he speculated, before turning his attention to the white wood cabinets and their tarnished steel handles. He ran his hand over the marble countertop. Reaching the stove, he paused. She was stirring tomato soup. He placed his hands on her shoulders, pressed the front of his body against the back of hers, kissed her neck. The hairs on her neck stiffened. She spun around and kissed him, as the spoon sank into the soup. When he moved out—or, rather, was evicted—the fridge was obscured: letter magnets, with which they wrote each other love notes; mementos of their various trips and adventures (e.g., a postcard from Zion National Park); photos from when they were dating, of their wedding, of the baby. She swept it all into the trashcan, magnets clattering against the floor.

Catty-corner to the kitchen, the living room was large, bright, and square. When he lived in the condo, it was furnished with an IKEA sectional couch and matching natural-wood coffee table and end tables. A Pier 1 throw rug and modern art injected some color into the space. Here, he and his wife had slow-danced to classic R&B. It was also the site of raucous, couple-versus-couple Trivial Pursuit and Charades competitions. He approached the room’s east wall and, to the right of the TV nook, stood face-to-face with a shallow, smile-shaped impression. He traced it with his index finger and then his three middle fingers. Finally, he covered it with his hand and closed his eyes. It was past ten on a weekend night. After eating out, he and his wife had returned to the condo. The babysitter had left and the baby was asleep upstairs. They were having a nightcap—a glass of red wine—and an argument that had started in a booth at the restaurant continued on the couch. It was related to the fact that he kept in touch with an ex-girlfriend, and it escalated to the point where, no longer able to express himself with words, he scooped his empty wine glass from the coffee table and slammed it against the wall. The foot of the glass hit first, creating the ironic impression. The baby began to cry. His wife disappeared up the stairs. After sweeping up the glass and scrubbing the red splotches, and first noticing the scar on the wall, he exited the home and made his way on to the subdivision’s golf course, which he’d never played during the day, but had walked at night. He sat on a bench that looked out on to the eighteenth hole, the lights of the Strip dancing in the distance.

He removed his hand from the wall. For the fourth or fifth time, he asked himself if he had not thrown the glass would he and his wife still be together. Again, he answered no. Marriages don’t end because a wine glass was thrown against a wall. If they did, divorces would be even more prevalent than they are. There were other things at work, he reassured himself, though, six months after the separation and three after the divorce, he wasn’t sure what they were.

His thoughts ricocheted to the next residents of the condo. Would they notice the impression? If they knew its provenance, would they plaster it over? Or would they leave it exposed—a cautionary symbol of the fragility of relationships and the consequences of unbridled emotions? Before starting for the stairs, which seemed to him to lead to some celestial kingdom, he concluded that the blemish would, in all likelihood, remain visible and unnoticed on the wall, until the condo crumbled or was demolished.

He crept up the stairs, as if someone was home to disturb. Remembering the spots that creaked, he avoided them like land mines, while occasionally stealing glances at the living room below. Reaching the landing, he took half steps toward the hallway, looked both ways, and turned right.

The condo was characterized by square, white, naturally lit rooms. The guest bedroom was an example of this, but it was small and featured a soft-maple floor. When he moved in, it was converted into an office, which, as a journalist, he used to research and write stories and books. He completed the rough draft of his first book in this room; the draft was a direct reflection of his personal life at the time: messy, thin, erratic, but not without promise. When he and his wife began having problems, he wrestled a twin-sized mattress into a corner of the office and slept on it periodically. A few months before the baby was born, the room became a nursery.

He approached the double window, where his wife often stood holding the baby. When he’d arrive home from work, they’d smile and wave at him (his wife playing puppeteer), and he’d smile and wave back. Even when the window was obscured by a glare, he smiled and waved, in the event that they were there.

He was sitting at a table in a dimly lit conference room. To his right, at the head of the table, sat the publisher. To the publisher’s right was the human-resources manager. A manila folder, his name carefully composed in red on its tab, cut a square into the tabletop. As the publisher spoke, he remained silent and stared at the folder, which seemed to be the only thing in the room. It, not the publisher, told him revenue was down and the company had to cut expenses. It, not the publisher, told him his position was being eliminated.

Escorted out of the building by the human-resources manager and a security guard, he placed a cardboard box containing his possessions into the trunk of his car and started south on I-15. He was too numb to think and was relying on instinct, which guided him away from the city. As traffic thinned and strip malls gave way to the desert, he exited and parked on a dirt road that led to a housing development in the foothills. The sign out front promised homes from the $400s, but only a few wooden frames had been erected. The bulldozers slept like beasts that would never stir.

Leaning against the hood of the car, he surveyed the valley. The veil of smog had lifted, one of the few positive effects of the recession, and the stucco palaces looked like Monopoly pieces on a board. In the morning light, the Strip was exposed: flimsy, childish, a model on an architect’s table. This city is a mirage, he mused, a playground for fools and false dreamers. That was the lone cogent thought he had before climbing back into the car and merging on to I-15 north.

Not wanting to alarm his wife, he arrived home at the usual time. He hoped that she and the child weren’t at the window, but he could see their silhouettes behind the dark glass. He feigned a smile and waved halfheartedly, and left the cardboard box in the trunk. Entering the house through the unlocked front door, he locked it behind him and dropped his workbag in the closet.

He’d loitered in the other rooms, wide-eyed and with what could’ve been construed as a smile, but in the guest bedroom he wore a blank expression and his movement was stiff and linear. This room is haunted, he thought, turning toward the door. You can remove objects from a space, but not memories.

He hurried down the hall, slowing as he entered the master bedroom. He tiptoed across the hardwood floor, the dark smear of the master bathroom looming to his right and the double doors of the balcony to his left. Continuing toward the doors, he appeared more at ease than in the guest bedroom. The tightness had drained from his face and he’d regained most of his fluidity. After bracing himself for a tidal wave of nostalgia, he was surprised by how little this room moved him. He’d shared it for three years with a woman he loved. His only child was conceived here. When he moved in, the floors of the condo were being refurbished, and he and his wife were confined to the bed—a queen-sized island in a sea of glue and varnish; they played board games, told ghost stories, and read each other love poems.

The bed was also where, with the lights off and over a period of roughly a month, she presented what turned out to be a list of grievances: the ex-girlfriend, the wine glass, his lack of motivation and income now that he was freelancing. “We’re gonna end up on the street!” The grievances weren’t new, and he was confused about why they were coming up again, but he wasn’t startled or perturbed. He tried to ease her concerns, and felt that he had. But she finally told him the bank was taking possession of the condo and, instead of moving into an apartment together, as they’d planned, she thought they should live apart. He fought the idea, more for his son than anyone else, but his wife was adamant. She also said he could see his son whenever he wanted to. Assuming he and his wife would get back together, as they had so many times before, he rented a two-bedroom apartment a half-mile from her parents’ house, where she’d moved with the kid. A few weeks later, she filed for divorce.

The layoff and divorce combined to form a fault line in his once rock-solid confidence. His world was shaken. Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance—he experienced the same stages as someone grieving the loss of a loved one. The red rocks of the desert, his Camp David, seemed too isolating, coffee with a friend too intimate, so he holed up in the apartment and blazed trails across the carpet. Like the wind, loneliness leaned on the Spanish-tile roof and stucco and stick, working its way in; he couldn’t close the blinds or turn off the lights—the solitude was suffocating—and phone calls from telemarketers were a welcome surprise. At night, when a black ceiling dropped from the sky, his throat was too tight to swallow solid food. He sipped soup and lost twenty-five pounds. Sleep proved as elusive as a royal flush.

When he arrived at the gate of the condo complex, he was still scarred and breathing heavily from crawling out of that hell. But the sting of the bad beat had subsided. Lessons had been learned. He’d accepted some responsibility for the situation. And as he circulated through the condo like a wayward ghost, he could feel the wounds continuing to close. He could feel the hand around his throat loosening its grip.

He flung open the double doors dramatically, as if expecting to be greeted by an audience, and stood silhouetted in the frame for several seconds. He then stepped onto the balcony, which he’d done only a handful of times while living in the condo. In the shade, with the sun approaching the horizon, it was not unpleasant. To his right, a succession of balconies blurred into one. To his left lay the golf course. He took a few steps forward and rested his hands on the railing and followed the Spanish tile all the way down to the Strip. He surveyed the breadth of the valley, pinpointing downtown, the newsroom where he’d worked, his apartment, and the house of his former in-laws, where his ex-wife and kid, who he saw every weekend, still lived. Sunrise and Frenchman mountains bulged and rippled like muscles. Finally, he pulled himself away from the railing, and he closed and locked the double doors and started for the hallway.

Halfway down the hall, he heard what sounded like the jiggling of the front-door knob. He tilted his head and froze. Yes, someone was trying to open the front door. Long, low strides whisked him to the landing, where he pulled up at the railing, placed his feet shoulder-width apart, and crossed his arms, looking down at the door intently. A key rattled the lock. The knob turned slowly. The door opened to a forty-five-degree angle, and long, indistinguishable shadows fell across the floor. He continued to stare at the door, smiling and never blinking.

Photo of Matthew O’Brien (photographed by Gilberto Campos)

BIO: Matthew O’Brien is a writer, editor, and teacher who lived in Las Vegas for twenty years and is currently based in San Salvador, El Salvador. His latest book, Dark Days, Bright Nights: Surviving the Las Vegas Storm Drains (Central Recovery Press 2020), shares the harrowing tales of people who lived in Vegas’ underground flood channels and made it out and turned around their lives. You can learn more about Matt and his work at www.beneaththeneon.com.