“Custodian.”

Suzy Wang phoned from the office.

“What do you want on your business card?” she asked.

“Well, I didn’t even know I was getting one,” I replied. “Give me a moment to think.”

A week later I phoned Suzy Wang.

“Custodian” I said.

“Custodian.” Suzy seemed to echo. “OK.”

One hundred neat cards arrived. I still have at least seventy and ‘Custodian’ stares up at me in bold blue letters. I definitely wrote on the back of ten, may be more, which must mean about twenty were used legitimately. As it happens, I think it was the perfect choice, a nicely, non-committal umbrella title to cover a multitude of jobs. Anyway, it sounds better than ‘dogs-body’ and more accurate than ‘caretaker’ since, at the end of two years I felt I hadn’t really managed to take care of very much.

My street youth and similar tenants, when they finally filled the building, never used the word ‘custodian’. Either that or they all pronounced it ‘dude’. I didn’t mind because there was affection in their tone and besides, no one had ever called me ‘dude’ before. I figured it must be my ponytail. The first night I moved in to the empty building, which faced the now burnt out ‘Club Vancouver’ on West Pender, I got cruised by a hustler outside. He was looking up at my blind-less apartment window from across the street. I had hoped, because I had the lights off, he wouldn’t see me sizing him up. I hadn’t had sex in a long time, at least a week, and was seriously tempted. With no tenants and a choice of fifty-one empty virgin suites, no one need ever know. But my custodial self suddenly rebelled at the prospect of impropriety.

A month dragged on. I began to wonder what a custodian did apart from prowl about the building. I phoned Suzy and asked if she had any tenants for me or could I go free-lance.

“Just relax. You’re being paid aren’t you?”

Well I couldn’t argue with that and continued acquiring furniture and even blinds. I began to hope my hustler would park himself across the street again. By now I had unpacked my binoculars and kept track of regular clients I recognized disappearing down to the depths of Club Vancouver. There were a few surprises, well maybe not so much for me as their partners, but I kept quiet. It was proving an interesting location. Turn left out the front door and you soon walked into plush downtown Vancouver. Take the right and you were more or less smack bang in the middle of drug city. There were rumours my tenants might be dredged up from around here. Looking at the less than pristine bodies sprawled about the pavements I thought of my nice clean walls, the still virgin en-suite bachelor accommodation and taking custody of invading hordes. Suddenly I wanted to ask Suzy just how many suckers had applied for my job.

The first batch of five hopefuls arrived for interview a few days later. They were a motley crew, more worthy of interrogation and possibly hosing-down in the courtyard but I hoped their hearts were in the right places. Besides, by now, according to Suzy we needed rental income. The selection was easy. A woman I had never met before from the funding bank, and the laidback colleague from some housing association, got my vote to take on the five. They seemed delighted and soon moved in mostly without furniture and at least two roommates. The odd dog appeared. One peed in the corridor but was never found for eviction. Pungent smells enriched the pervading vapour of pot, which soon enveloped the building and thickened, settling like a welcome mat as the rooms filled up. Word was out and the building bustled. They said the ‘dude’ was cool, besides its operators had failed to fix any ground rules. I phoned Suzy.

“What’s with these kids? It’s like a zoo in here. I thought the board was making rules?”

“Just hang in there, Honey. Internal politics I think! I’m not getting feedback from the boss”.

I hung in and kept the common areas clean and cleared of bodies. One contortionist I found in a kitchen cupboard, another slept on the roof. Stacks of charity freebies were left in my office. I tactically distributed this largesse. Big burly youths who showed respect and had back up potential faired well. The hooker who left needles in the foyer was long time off my list, while the suspected owner of that dog never made it at all. After six months we had fifty official tenants. I reckoned on at least another fifty live-ins, including one pimp, later convicted of murder and an over age couple who took the tenant’s key in lieu of drug debts and kicked him out. Apparently we couldn’t evict them, but one day they left the door opened. I changed the lock, stood the big boys on guard and asked no questions.

A bond strengthened between the legitimate tenants and their custodian. I heard their stories and understood their hardships. Mostly abused and abandoned in their formative years, they weren’t really bad but sometimes, just bad news. Drugs screwed everything up. The paramedics claimed they knew the building better than I did. Nobody actually died, not that I know of. The police were often in attendance straining my mixed allegiance. I never knew what to expect. Returning one day from lunch I found the place surrounded and the pavement inexplicably wet. I strolled up to the officers and followed their focus skyward.

“What’s going on?” I asked innocently.

An officer looked me up and down.

“They’re dropping water filled condoms from the roof. An old guy nearly got hit.”

“I guess you want to get up there then?” I said.

“Sure do!”

I dangled my keys. The cops dashed in taking the culprits by surprise. They looked a bit sheepish by the time I arrived, silent on the scene.

Sleep became an issue, for me, not my tenants whose day started after 2.pm and ended about 4.am. Around midnight I hoped to hit the sack and dream of paradise some place in the country with birdsong and a pet dog that didn’t pee in doors. Instead I got a couple of hours shut-eye before the noise hit me. A drunken friend of a friend who used to be a friend of a tenant ran riot one night with his skateboard. There was blood in the corridor and a dent in the door but my boys had ushered him out, only to have him rush me from another direction. This time they were less gentle. Typically, the newly sober miscreant dropped by my office a few days later to apologise.

“Hey dude, like I’m real sorry man. I don’t normally drink that much man”.

The hell he didn’t, but there was worse going on, only Suzy recommended tunnel vision.

I drew the line at drug dealers in the lobby. I was woken one morning at three by an eerie silence that had descended on the building. From my window I could see lookouts posted across the street and followed that trail to a stream of ominous fellows quietly filing into a suite. The hushed buzz from behind the door stopped when I knocked. Eventually the legal tenant squeezed out, correctly appraised the look on my face and listened.

“What the fuck is going on?” I fumed.

“ On second thoughts I don’t want to know. If these guys are still here in ten minutes I’m calling the cops!”

I marvelled at the enterprise of some tenants. A good-looking girl got welfare to pay her rent and then some, while she supplemented with married men and panhandling on Davie.

“Why do you pan-handle?” I asked.

“It’s cool dude”.

I reckoned her income was twice mine but couldn’t cope with a change of career with winter coming on. A cute native boy appeared once for interview. By then Suzy had word from the boss I could do it alone. This kid didn’t need to open his mouth. His smile sufficed. I signed his intent to rent and never saw him again in the building. Another of life’s little disappointments I thought. But his welfare cheque arrived each month and the vacant room became a useful retreat for the custodian. Years later in the Dufferin we danced together and I told him of my disappointment and how his credentials got him a room.

By now I was quite attached to my tenants. An unintended aura of paternalism prevailed. I was the liberal older figure and they the naughty children who knew my limits and how to smile at the right moment. At Christmas they pooled resources, exactly which I’m not sure, and gave me an expensive winter coat. The smart ones learned fast but a few dummies needed coaching from their peers. I was out walking on a bright May morning when a formerly attractive youth landed off the car park roof dead in the middle of Pender. Instinctively I rushed over to make sure he wasn’t one of mine, while a middle-aged woman screamed hysterically as his brains seeped onto the tarmac. One pretty boy tried it on, lounging in my office chair to the point where his crotch was the pinnacle on the horizon of his body. But I hadn’t abandoned caution even if my moral fibre had been challenged as a custodian. One gets a little blasé about the whore giving head to a man in a wheelchair. He claimed to be her uncle. I didn’t see what difference that made. I just wished they didn’t do it in the garbage lock-up. I supposed I should be thankful they left little mess.

But as they say, all good things come to an end. The night a tenant dumped his smouldering mattress in the bath and went out to play I began to feel a little jaded. Perhaps it was time to move on. Somewhat reluctantly I phoned Suzy Wang.

“Hi Suzy.”

“Hey Honey. What’s up?”

“Not much. A tenant tried to burn the building down last night.”

“So what’s new?”

“The fire brigade found a family of cats in his suite. I have them penned up in the basement. Any suggestions?”

“No kidding! No pets allowed! He’ll have to get an eviction notice. Are they cute or what?”

Apparently the rules had arrived just as the custodian was leaving.

-30-