when she arrived at the motel on Saturday afternoon. It had been an exhausting morning, and she knew the hardest task still lay ahead—finding a permanent place to live in the next day and a half. Outside the motel, she noticed a crowd of men standing off to the side of the building next door. They all looked lost and lonely. Many wore shabby old clothes and were unshaven. She looked at the sign above the door outside which they waited. St. John’s Hospice. It was a shelter for homeless men and a soup kitchen. Alessa held her purse closer to her body, fearful one of the men might snatch it from her and take all of her money.
As she passed by, her presence hadn’t even registered with them. Relieved that she was invisible to these men, Alessa entered the motel, one door down from the shelter. Once inside the lobby, she felt safe and couldn’t wait to get to her room and rest, before starting her search for an apartment. The woman behind the counter wore black pants, a white blouse, and a black vest. The vest had food stains on the front that resembled baby vomit. The dark ring around the open collar of her white blouse turned Alessa’s stomach. The woman’s fingernails were painted, but the polish had chipped.
“What do you want?” she asked Alessa with a sneer.
“I have a reservation for Zoe.”
The woman grunted and blew her nose. Then she slowly moved down the counter to where the keys and paperwork were kept. Reaching for a key, she turned to Alessa again. “You look a bit young. I’d like to make it clear that we don’t tolerate parties or prostitution at this motel. You understand?”
“I understand. You don’t have to worry about me.”
The woman handed Alessa a key and pointed to a room only ten feet from where she was standing. Alessa unlocked the hotel room door and stepped inside. It wasn’t the greatest room, but it looked like it had been cleaned. The tub in the bathroom had mold around the edges, but overall, there was nothing about the place that Alessa couldn’t handle.
She put her duffel bag on the dresser and lay down on the bed, stretching her thin frame across it. Her room’s window faced the street, where she could still see the men lined up, waiting to be allowed into the shelter. Even with the window closed, the noise of the city was audible. It seemed as though the walls were made of cardboard. Alessa could hear people passing through the lobby and could decipher their conversations. Still, she reveled in being there, in that rundown place, instead of being at home with her uncle and his friends. She fell asleep on the bed. The noise of people milling about outside her door and window made her less lonely.
She woke up an hour later, disoriented. She could not recall where she was. Her heart pounded in her chest. Then the reality of her situation came flooding back to her and she was paralyzed with fear. Pushing her apprehensions aside, she stepped out into the lobby and picked up the free copy of a local newspaper that lay on a battered wooden table off to the side of the reception area. She looked through it and found a small listing of apartments for rent. New to the city, she turned to the woman behind the desk and asked for a map.
“Here,” the woman said, handing it to her, “that’ll be a dollar fifty.”
Alessa handed over the money and took the newspaper and the map back to her room.
She sat in the dimly lit room with its cream walls and scoured the section for apartment rentals. Most were well above six hundred dollars a month. There was only one she thought she might afford on Dauphin Street in North Philadelphia. The rent was three hundred dollars and included utilities. She lifted the receiver of the telephone on the nightstand and dialed the phone number listed.
A woman with a husky voice answered. “Hello?”
“Hi, my name is Alessa. I’m calling about the apartment you have for rent.”
“Yeah, what do you wanna know?”
“Is the apartment available? Can I come to see it?”
Unimpressed, the woman asked, “Yeah, when do you want to come?”
“How about now? I’m on Race Street and I can be there within the hour,” Alessa said excitedly.
“Okay, I’ll be here. Knock on the front door.”
Alessa hung up, feeling hopeful. She quickly combed her hair and washed her face. Then she stepped out again. Rushing through the lobby, she noticed a woman in high heels and a short denim skirt ripped to the tops of her thighs. The woman turned to eye up Alessa before going back to talking to a short, heavy man staring at the woman’s almost exposed breasts.
“What did I tell you? Get the hell out. We don’t want any whores around here,” the woman behind the desk yelled.
Alessa was out the lobby door before she could hear the woman in the mini skirt respond. She hailed a taxi and gave the driver the address.
The driver turned to the back seat and stared at Alessa for a long moment. “Why do you want to go there?”
Filled with excitement, she had butterflies in her belly. “I’m going to see an apartment I wanna rent.”
The driver shook his head. “Whatever, kid.”
Within fifteen minutes, the taxi had turned onto Dauphin Street and pulled over a block later. The neighborhood was seedy. Alessa noticed that several houses were boarded up with plywood, while others appeared to be lived in. They were old row homes that stood three stories high. Trash lay piled on the streets and sidewalks, and teenagers hung out on corners. Alessa was uneasy when the taxi driver turned to her for his fare. She asked him if he could wait for her, and he agreed but told her if she took longer than fifteen minutes, he would be gone.
The groups of teenagers were already staring at the taxi, watching to see who would get out. As she stepped out onto the curb and looked at the house that could be her new home, she caught sight of an old woman peering through a ripped curtain in the first-floor window. She climbed the four broken cement steps to the rotting wooden porch that felt like it would give way beneath her feet. Then she knocked softly on the door. The old woman in the window pulled it open.
Alessa smiled brightly. “Hi, I’m Alessa. I called about the apartment.”
“I’m Lea, the owner, and the landlady. Come on in. The apartment is on the second floor, third door to the left.”
Alessa went up to the next level of the house with the old woman trailing behind her. When she got to the third door, written on the wall in black marker next to the door was: Apartment 2C. The woman unlocked the door, and Alessa stepped into a small room. About ten feet into the room, a kitchen sink was mounted on the wall, with three cabinets hanging over it. To the right of the sink was a small refrigerator. Against the far wall stood a rectangular metal table flanked by two wooden chairs. Alessa’s stomach dropped when she stepped up to the sink and saw the filth inside it. Half-empty soup cans and waterlogged cereal were floating around the bottom in a quarter inch of dirty brown water.
When Alessa opened the refrigerator, the handle came off in her hand. The old woman told her it could be easily fixed. Food had spilled inside the refrigerator. Something was round and moldy on the top shelf. It smelled like the corpse of a small animal. A single naked light bulb hung from the middle of the kitchen ceiling, casting a glow around the room that resembled horror movie lighting.
Alessa stepped through the door that stood between the refrigerator and the kitchen table, into a small bedroom with a single bed. The mattress was worn and stained. The walls were painted gray. Across from the bed was a four-drawer dresser standing against the wall. The bedroom floor was linoleum throughout and looked like it hadn’t been cleaned since the house was built. A curtain strung between two nails hung over another doorway off the bedroom. When Alessa walked through, she saw a toilet with rings of black inside and a tub overrun by mold and mildew.
The apartment was a slum, a disgusting mess, but Alessa figured it was the best she could do until she found something better.
She turned to Lea. “It’s kind of dirty and it needs some work.”
The old woman pulled her shoulders back and jutted out her chin. “Listen, honey. It doesn’t look like you’re in a position to be too picky. Either you want it or you don’t. If you want it, I need nine hundred dollars. That’s three hundred for security, three hundred for last month’s rent, and three hundred for the first month’s rent. Let me know what you want to do.”
Alessa stared at Lea and realized that she was not as old as she had first assumed. She stood five feet tall and had a rounded body. She was missing several teeth, and those that had survived were rotting. Alessa could smell the stench of her breath, even from three feet away. Lea’s housecoat was stained with food, and on her feet were old, ripped slippers.
An image of Rhonda popped into her mind, and a smile hovered on her lips as she thought of the things her friend would have said about Lea’s appearance. She could hear her say, “Look at that old bat. She hasn’t seen a toothbrush since she finished teething, and Granny needs a hot bath, new clothes, and an attitude adjustment.” It reminded Alessa how much she missed her friend.
Lea left her standing in the dingy apartment. It was barely an apartment and not a place you would call home. As Alessa stood in the center of the kitchen, she felt a chill pass through her. This was where she would live now. The inside of her apartment was almost scarier than what she had seen out on the street. She was certain, however, this could be no worse than the house of horrors she had fled.
Alessa had to leave the motel in the morning. She needed a place to go to and it looked like this was it. It was the only apartment she could afford. She figured if it didn’t work out, she could look for a new place later. Besides, even this dump was costing her nine hundred dollars to move in. She knew that anything nicer would not be affordable. She had less than eleven hundred dollars to live on until she found a job. Alessa decided she would move in the next day and look for a job on Monday morning.
She went down to Lea’s apartment and knocked on her door. The old lady opened the door and peered into the hallway. “You decide?” she asked.
“Yes, I’ll take it. I need to move in tomorrow, though.”
“Fine with me, honey,” Lea replied. “I need nine hundred in cash now. I don’t want any pets. And no boyfriends here. You pay each month, as you go. If you don’t pay for one month, you’ll find your stuff on the sidewalk. I don’t take any shit and I don’t put up with a lot of noise. Another thing—the streets are crawling with hoodlums. Don’t bring any of them in here. You got it?”
“I got it,” Alessa answered politely.
As Alessa stepped off the broken-down porch and into the sunlight, relief surged through her. But she quickly noticed that the taxi driver hadn’t waited. Panic rose in her as she looked up and down the 800 block of Dauphin Street.
Lea opened her window and rasped, “The bus stop is at the end of the block on Fifth. A bus should be there in five minutes. So you better get moving. It’ll take you back into the city. Mind your business and they will leave you alone.”
Who will leave me alone? Alessa thought.
As she started down the street, she saw exactly whom Lea had been referring to. Men stood at the bus stop, laughing and pushing each other. As she got closer, she noticed they were teenage boys. One middle-aged woman was sitting on the bench off to the side. They all lapsed into silence as she approached, and her heart raced at the memory of Lea’s last words of advice. When she got to the bus stop, Alessa stood facing the street and tried not to make eye contact with the boys.
“Look what we got here. Pork, the other white meat,” one boy cackled.
The crowd laughed. Alessa was vulnerable and she knew it. She looked over at the woman sitting on the bench and slowly walked toward her. Alessa sat down beside her, assuming proximity to the woman would spare her further attention from the boys.
The moment she sat down, the woman glanced at her. “If you’re looking for protection from me, you’ve come to the wrong place. I don’t get involved. I leave them alone and they leave me alone.”
Alessa didn’t acknowledge the woman. She sat there quietly and slipped into the special space in her head, the silent place she had discovered when she was a child. It was how she coped. She had been using that place throughout her life, and she was happy that it now belonged to her. There she had learned to separate mind and soul from the body. There she had become resilient and emerged a survivor. A few minutes later, the public bus pulled to a stop and the boys rushed on. Alessa went in last, taking the seat closest to the driver.
When she got back to the motel, Alessa went straight to her room and locked the door behind her. She undressed and took a shower in the lukewarm water the motel provided. She planned out her next steps while the water cascaded over her.
***
Alessa woke early the next morning and headed over to her apartment. She bought the Philadelphia Inquirer and went through the “Help Wanted” section.
By five thirty that evening, Alessa was famished. She walked the short distance to Chinatown, where colorful signs and lights lined the streets. The aroma of the food was irresistible and made her mouth water. Having no clue which restaurant would be the right one to choose, Alessa followed three young couples into the House of Chen. She was greeted by a short Asian woman in her mid-fifties, who seated her immediately at a table in the small first-floor dining room.
After dinner, Alessa walked back to the motel slowly, taking in the sights of the city. Although it was mostly dirty and life seemed fast-paced, people appeared to enjoy being there. On her way back, she passed the homeless men lined up for the night at the men’s shelter. They were chatting among themselves and sharing stories. They may not have had a home to return to, but Alessa got the impression they had each other and drew comfort from that fact. She wondered if her perception was based on reality or merely the outcome of her desire to believe these broken people had something to fall back on, a form of bonding and kinship that would provide them with emotional sustenance. As she watched them, she wondered if these destitute men could find friends and a sense of family in each other’s company, maybe she, too, could one day find the happiness that continued to elude her.
Alessa went back into the motel to call Zoe and tell her about the progress she had made since they parted ways. Zoe sounded pleased that Alessa had found an apartment so quickly.
“Did anyone from my family get in touch with you and ask about me?” Alessa asked apprehensively.
“No,” Zoe said. “I haven’t heard a word from them. But, Alessa, I want you to be careful. I don’t know much about the city, but I do know that North Philadelphia has a reputation for being tough. Don’t trust anyone and keep your door locked at night.”
“Okay, Zoe, I will,” Alessa reassured her. “I’ll call you tomorrow night after I get settled into the apartment. Maybe you’ll be able to come and visit me soon. We could spend some time together in the city.”
“Sure, that sounds nice,” Zoe said.
When she had hung up the phone, Alessa changed into Rhonda’s favorite T-shirt. It was a garment she had slept in often, but wearing it now, she felt closer to her dead friend. She slid under the covers and fell asleep to the sounds of the television. She didn’t dream that night. She was finally about to start a new life for herself—with a clean slate. No one here knew who she was or of her shortcomings.
She woke up the next morning, brimming with excitement. Ready to get her life on track, she prepared for the new day. Alessa believed the day would mark the beginning of progress and hope. She was convinced that her life was about to improve.
