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  A matter of twenty dollars threatened Mr. Huggerson’s universe. This universe was fifteen feet by twenty-three feet long, on the second floor of a dingy building on Fourth Street: namely, a ten-dollar-per-week room in Harry Troyden’s flophouse. Mr. Huggerson had inhabited this particular corner of the universe for close to eight years, and it suited him just nicely.

  But now, from the blue, Ralph had written him a very polite note—well, not written; typed, and at the bottom Mr. Huggerson had seen RH:et and that meant Ralph’s secretary had typed the note—and with understanding of the letter had come the cold wash of fear for Mr. Huggerson.

  He lifted the single sheet of paper for the hundredth time that day, and read it through once more. He knew nothing would have changed on the paper, but he read it again, in hopes the shock might diminish if he searched the words many times. It did not, of course, but again he read:

  “Dear Dad:

  “You will notice that this month’s check is slightly less than usual. I’m really sorry about this, but I’ve had some awfully big expenditures out here on the Coast, and with that new McDonald’s I told you about opening up here, right across from the Van Nuys stand, giving me such stiff competition, every penny counts. And with the recession and all…

  “So I’m sure you will understand, and not think too unkindly of me. Greta and the kids are just fine, and they send their love. Let us hear from you more often.

  Love, Ralph.”

  The check had been for only fifty dollars. Slightly less? Twenty dollars less! With seventy a month, Mr. Huggerson had been able to pay his ten dollars a week for the room, and have thirty left over for food, cleaning and the newspaper every evening. But with fifty dollars, oh that was something else again. It had been just impossible to think what it meant at first; then the truth had slowly dawned on Mr. Huggerson.

  It would mean Harry Troyden would turn him out if he could not pay the rent each Saturday. Turned away from the few friends he knew—the aging and toothless men who had, with almost lemming-like magnetism, come to Troyden’s to die away their last years.

  Mr. Huggerson was a special case at Troyden’s. Where most of the other twenty-seven old men who resided there were kept in room and board by social security pittances, old army pensions, small returns from investments made years before, or company pension plans, Mr. Huggerson was supported solely by the gratuitous doles of his West Coast son, Ralph, owner of the Starburger chain. A chain of two stands in Los Angeles.

  Mr. Huggerson had owned and operated a small grocery on the corner of Elm and Mitchell Streets for forty years, and had saved considerable money, which he had used to put Ralph through college and merchandising school; then, soon after Ralph had borrowed the remaining ten thousand in Mr. Huggerson’s account, to open the first Starburger, the conglomerate had opened a gigantic shining supermarket in the new plaza half, a block away on Elm.

  Mr. Huggerson had gone out of business within a year.

  There was very little loyalty in the world these days.

  After a frightening period of dislocation, and the eventual sale of the home Georgette and he had shared for twenty-nine years—and in which he had resided after her untimely death from pneumonia—he had come to Troyden’s. Ralph had been faithful about sending the seventy dollars each month, and Mr. Huggerson had settled into the warm sun and solitude of the flophouse, thinking this might not be such a bad way to end his days after all. For the other old men of the place were mild and interesting companions, bound together as they were in a sheaf of weariness and weak bladders and bannister-holding as they walked upstairs. They spent many evenings around the radio, listening to the remaining few shows they remembered from the old days. And when the air waves were filled with music, rock n’ roll and classical, they turned inward and poured warmth and reminiscence at one another. And, occasionally, television; but not often.

  There were pleasant walks in the street, and gin rummy with Mr. Bonheim and Mr. Zeckhauser who had once been in the garment industry, and who talked knowingly of crushed velvet and cutting on the bias. All summed, it was a pleasant life; at seventy dollars a month.

  But fifty dollars was the end of the universe.

  Mr. Huggerson let the slip of paper fall from his fingers. It slid though the air and landed atop last evening’s newspaper. It lay beside the check, drawn on the Western State Security & Trust.

  Mr. Huggerson ran a shaking hand up his face. He could feel the wrinkles that rolled up from his thin chin and made shaving so difficult these days. He had the terrible, overpowering feeling that he was a chipmunk on a treadmill.

  It was, of course, impossible to try and live on ten dollars a month for food and cleaning and the newspaper. Since he could not talk the grocery or the dry cleaner or the fellow in the newsstand into cutting the price of their respective wares, there was only one way out.

  He would have to go to Harry Troyden and ask him to lower the rent on the room.

  The room was on the side of the building facing the street; and though grit came in through the open summer windows, still, the breeze and the sun did the same, and Mr. Huggerson was willing to suffer the one to obtain the others. He had a bed that was not too hard and not too soft, though it was built on a low metal frame and squeaked hideously during Mr. Huggerson’s nightly coughing fits. But even that inconvenience had its advantages: when Bonheim or Zeckhauser heard the noise, they came to see if their old friend was all right, and then would follow some quiet, pleasant, late-night reminiscing.

  In addition, there was a table, an imitation fireplace that had been built when Troyden’s was a fashionable apartment house in the Twenties, an easy chair much the worse for many tenants having taken their ease in it, and a low bookshelf that contained four books: a Gideon bible, a copy of Dreiser’s “Chains,” Zane Grey’s “Under The Tonto Rim” and the Fall 1948 edition of the Reader’s Digest Condensed Books.

  It was a familiar room, a warm room for Mr. Huggerson; all the universe he needed.

  True, it was well worth the ten dollars per week he paid for its use, and the use of the bathroom down the hall, but he would have to go to Harry Troyden, and make him lower the rent. It was the only way.

  The decision had not come to Mr. Huggerson in an incendiary fashion; he had considered it for two days, since first reading Ralph’s letter. Had he not been a proud man, seeking respect and peace in these final years, he would have packed up and moved to another—cheaper—rooming house. (If such a miracle existed in these days of spiraling inflation. My God, a 13¢ loaf of bread cost 49¢ today! How could any small market stay in business? Impossible!) But eight years in this room, with his friends about him, had brought a slightly vegetable aspect to his life. To move now would be the end; he knew he would die inside a month, should his roots be torn free of even such poor soil as Troyden’s had been.

  So he knew, after two days of contemplating every possibility, that he must go to Harry Troyden’s room on the third floor, and discuss with him the lowering of the rent to meet the reduced finances allocated to Mr. Huggerson. But first, he had to summon his strength.

  He spoke to Mr. Zeckhauser over that evening’s chess match in the other’s room on the first floor.

  “I heard from my son, Ralph, the other day.” He opened the conversation in a distant fashion.

  “Ah-hm.” Mr. Zeckhauser bent his buglenose to the chessboard; he was a serious player. Every game was a life and death struggle; victory meant freedom of breath and the head held high; defeat meant momentary but painful oblivion. “Ah-hm.”

  “He, uh, says money is very tight in California,” Mr. Huggerson said, pointedly. It was his move. He interposed, blocking Mr. Zeckhauser’s attempt to yoke two pieces.

  Zeckhauser looked up, his rheumy eyes settling on a point between Mr. Huggerson’s thin, wrinkled, half-shaven chin and the knot of the wide, flowered tie. He disapproved of that tie—holdover that it was from the Forties—but he had made a point of concealing his distaste out of respect
and friendship for Mr. Huggerson. But conversation during a chess game was another matter.

  He sat back on the bed and folded his veined hands across his wide stomach.

  “What is the matter this evening, Mr. Huggerson? You seem singularly distracted. Is there some problem with which I can be of service?”

  Mr. Huggerson pulled at his nose in confusion; he had not expected such perceptiveness so quickly.

  “Well, sir, I do have a bit of a problem…I find myself in a singular quandary.” He had picked up many of the flowery speech habits affected by Mr. Zeckhauser. And he looked up to Mr. Zeckhauser, for that worthy rented the ne plus ultra of Troyden’s rooms, the fabulous fourteen-dollar-a-week extra large room with private bath; the only one of its kind in the building, located on the first floor. Each of the other twenty-seven men in the flophouse coveted that room—Mr. Huggerson no less than any of them—and it was only because of his investments from pre-bankruptcy days in the garment district that Mr. Zeckhauser was able to afford the room, thus lending him superior status in their ranks. He was, in fact, the elder statesman of the group, the oracle to whom all problems were eventually brought, a garment center Solomon without portfolio.

  “Is it your boy, Ralph?” Mr. Zeckhauser always probed adroitly.

  Mr. Huggerson looked down at the board and nodded back and forth, just the way Mr. Horowitz did when he dovened over his nightly prayers. “Yes, Ralph has, well, run afoul of some business difficulties, and was forced to cut down my check. I don’t think…that is, I’m not sure I can manage here with what he sent.”

  Mr. Zeckhauser puffed out his thick lips knowingly. “Ah-hm. And—?”

  “Well, sir, I was merely considering the possibility that Mr. Troyden might consider lowering my rent.”

  The plump Mr. Zeckhauser pushed away the straight-backed chair on which the chess board rested, and stood up. He clasped both hands behind his back, thrust his round little belly out, and paced the room. It was indeed spacious enough for heroic pacing. Mr. Huggerson envied the living space.

  “You now pay ten dollars the week, Mr. Huggerson. Is that not so, sir?”

  Mr. Huggerson admitted it was so.

  “To what do you wish Mr. Troyden to reduce your rent?”

  Mr. Huggerson had given that problem a great deal of careful thought. He could pull in his belt a bit on his weekly expenditures, but since they were virtually nonexistent already, he could not trim too much. He had been doing satisfactorily on thirty dollars, after rent. Now if Harry Troyden would settle for six dollars per week, that would be twenty-four dollars; leaving him twenty-six on which to live. Only a four-dollar cutback, as Mr. Zeckhauser would phrase it. He could stop having his underwear and socks done at the laundry, wash them himself—though the water would certainly affect his arthritic fingers—and do very nicely. If Mr, Troyden would settle for six dollars a week.

  He conveyed his reasoning to Mr. Zeckhauser.

  “Sir, as we say in the garment industry, ’You are in a serious bind.’ I would suggest a great deal of thought on the matter before ever speaking to our worthy landlord.”

  This was no help whatsoever.

  They resumed the game; Mr. Huggerson’s opinion of Mr. Zeckhauser’s opinions was greatly reduced.

  However, later in the game, the plumper of the two dropped a bit of gossip that resolved Mr. Huggerson to see Troyden at once.

  “I overheard Troyden with his son, that Oscar or Oswald or whatever his name is, this afternoon. They were discussing raising rents here. I was, of course, appalled at the mere mention, and was pleased to hear it had not gone beyond the conjecture stage. But then, one never knows.

  “Consequently, Mr. Huggerson, sir, ah-hm, I would seriously recommend you not mention your scheme to Mr. Troyden, but try to work out some other, more amicable solution on your own.” And he put Mr. Huggerson in check.

  Later, Mr. Huggerson bade farewell to his chess partner and started upstairs to his own room.

  He did not stop at the second floor, but continued up to the third. He found himself at Harry Troyden’s door, and almost without volition, found himself knocking softly. From within he heard the sounds of a television set blaring in the room. The Carol Burnett Show.

  He knocked a bit louder, and a moment later heard a grunted curse, and the sounds of Harry Troyden heaving himself to his feet. “I’m comin’, dammit, I’m comin’, don’t bang the damned thing down—oh, whaddaya want, Huggerson?”

  That was one of the things Mr. Huggerson disliked most about Troyden. He always spoke with such profanity and such deprecation, never using the prefatory Mister that all the residents of the flophouse affected in due respect to one another’s age.

  “I would like to speak to you a moment, Mr. Troyden.”

  The landlord was a good head taller than Mr. Huggerson; he looked over the old man’s head as he snarled, “Well, okay. C’mon in fer a second.” He stood aside, allowing Mr. Huggerson to pad past him into the room. Mr. Huggerson’s bedroom slippers made a silken whispering on the carpet.

  The room was quite dark, with only the blue-white square of the TV set casting weird shadows along the walls.

  Harry Troyden lived in this less-than-sumptuous place, instead of one of his more regal properties uptown, more out of habit than anything else. He had started here, and had extended his holdings only through his son Omar’s sharp dealings; he lived here because he had always lived here. Harry Troyden, like his tenants, was a creature of habit.

  He flipped on the lights in the room.

  The naked bulbs shone down on him.

  Mr. Huggerson marveled anew, as he did each time he saw Harry Troyden clearly.

  Troyden was a subterranean creature brought up from the depths. He was squat and fat, built like a bloated cave-dwelling fish, with eyes that were mere puckers in the fish-white flesh of a totally bald head. He gave the impression of being a human toadstool of some kind. From the top of his ridged hairless scalp to the soles of his thick shoes, Harry Troyden was a completely repulsive creature.

  Yet, to be sure, Mr. Huggerson reminded himself, he was the landlord.

  “What can I do fer ya, Huggerson?” Troyden asked with half-interest, slumping back into the chair in front of the TV set. The chair groaned agonizingly, then settled to keeping its misery to itself.

  “Well, Mr. Troyden…” Mr. Huggerson said slowly, “…I—I was wondering how business was, these days, what with—”

  “Lousy, bud, just lousy! All them new condominiums goin’ up, they’re alia time tearin” down an’ makin’ the section so hotsy-totsy, ya’d think they’d offer me a little gelt fer my locations. But do they? Hell, no, they don’t. You know what my kid Omar says to me just this morning? He says—”

  Mr. Huggerson cut Troyden off, with what he hoped was not a brusque or rude sound. “Er.”

  It brought the pale creature back to his late evening visitor. “Yeah. What is it now, Huggerson. I got the thing goin’ here an’ there’s a show on I wanna see what happened. So, what’s up?”

  “Well, Mr. Troyden…” His voice faltered and he was embarrassed but decided to bull it through regardless. “I’ve found my finances aren’t what they were, and I know it isn’t the best thing to ask you, since you’re a businessman and this is your livelihood, but since I’ve been here eight years and we’re friends—” It was an assumption Mr. Huggerson was making for the first time on either of their parts. “—I felt, well, it isn’t so much to ask, but I was wondering if you might consider lowering, that is, slightly lowering my rent. You see, if I could pay six dollars a week, instead of ten, I could manage to make ends mee—”

  Troyden came out of his chair like a porpoise breaking water. “Whajoosay?”

  The sudden onslaught brought Mr. Huggerson to instant fright and contrition. He had sinned. More softly, he tried again. “Well, sir, you see, six dollars would be—”

  He was poleaxed in mid-sentence. “Whaddaya talkin’? Whaddaya, crazy or somethin’? Yo
u know goddam well I can’t cut no rents. I been losin’ money on you buncha’ creeps fer years now. I onny letcha live on here at the old rents cause it was a sorta what? Status kwo, what my kid Omar said just this mornin’l He warned me, dammit, whyn’t I lissen ta him, he says ta me, Pop, he says, this here status kwo gotta change around’ here, these old cockers been livin’ here, no dough an’ like that—well, lissen, Huggerson, I’m gonna tell ya somethin’…” He drew a great blast of air.

  “Mr. Troyden, I—”

  Troyden catapulted on without break. “You lissen here, old man. Lemme hand you some news. You ain’t gonna have to pay no ten no more. From now on, damn you old ingreats, you’re all gonna pay up rent. From now on that room a’ yours is gonna cost ya fifteen bucks a week. An’ that starts day after tomorra’ Satu’day. An’ if ya cant pay, out ya gol Fifteen?” He stopped the length of time it took Mr. Huggerson’s heart to beat a million times—an instant—then shouted, “Fifteen, my ass! Your room costs thirty! Thirty bucks a week!”

  He turned away in anger, crimson blotches in his subterranean paleness. He slumped back into his chair and mumbled, “Howdja like that? How’s ’at for ingreats. Omar was right about that status—”

  He never quite finished. Mr. Huggerson had moved with the precision of a zombie as the fat man had turned away. He lifted the metal ashtray with the heavy weighted base, and moved in behind Troyden’s chair.

  Without sense or reason or actual volition, all energy had drained from him as the cruelty and unreasonableness of the landlord’s words struck him forcibly. To not get the reduction was bad enough—but to pay twice again as much! It was horrible, it was torture; he had to put a stop to those words that were terribly, mercilessly destroying his universe. He had to stop the torment of this man. He had to!

  Strangely, there had been no blood. The skull was crushed, of that he was certain, but the edge of the ashtray was clean, and there was no blood on the carpet where Troyden had fallen.

  Then, and only then, when he had replaced the ashtray, did the horror of what he had done strike him.