Chapter 1A-James

When a man loves a woman in silence, he loses everything, including her. When a woman loves a man in clamor, she loses everything  including him.  For in love, silence is a mans crime, and clamor is a woman's.

 It was imperative that the part line running through James hair was straight. He would not be made to look a fool on first impression for a cattywampus part. Nor for the likes of an unpressed suit or shoes poorly shined. 

His placed his watch and glasses from the bureau onto his wrist and face. Aftershave. And finally he sat down to his ledger at a small desk beside the bed of his small room. He added his wages to a growing line of sums on the page.  Subtracted an amount of ten dollars and wrote a check for his rent and taking it, his briefcase and coat he left his room and went downstairs.

The parlor was a bustle as always. A boarding house was was a mixture of things changing and staying the same.  Fruit and oatmeal was always served for breakfast and one could help themselves to it. For an extra cost on Fridays there was Bacon and eggs, which James never indulged. The cat was always sure to purr up against him, sullying his pant leg with fur.  She was a long haired Taby, apparently unusual.  He did not like cats and resented that it was kept on the premises. The cat, Shelby, was the talkative and hated to be ignore, not unlike her owner Mrs. Melby the boarding house keeper, also a redhead.

As one of the longer staying tenants James had wanted to make a case for ridding the house of the cat altogether. There was sometimes a smell of scat in the parlor, a dead mouse on the porch and fur...always fur everywhere! A widow, Mrs. Melby loved the cat and talked to it which James found ridiculous.  He pitied Mrs. Melby and knew that she would never let the cat go. So in place of complaining, he silently resented the thing and kept quiet on the matter.

Mrs. Melby loved to fuss over the tenants and was nosey. She asked where they had been when they came in late, where they were going when they left early. She was always asking if they wanted coffee or cake, which seemed a cordiality but it came with an upcharge and she always kept record of extra charges on her notepad which she kept in her apron.

Like James, there were tenants that had been there for a year or two, There was Mr. Calvin who was older than anyone and mostly sat on the porch and made small talk.  He greeted other tenants as they came and went. He was good for a chat, the kind James didn't mind, weather and that sort of thing.  He often asked James about stocks and interest rates, as James was in finance, and they would both comment about the goings on in the paper on Sundays. 

Then there was William.  He received a reduced rate for keeping the grounds and was always busily keeping to some task or another; hedging shrubs, fixing pipes a fresh coat of paint. William ate Mrs. Melby's cake at no extra cost.

Most people came and went by weeks or months. This always changed the landscape of the house, for better and for worse. There were flamboyant musicians who sometimes passed through and every variety of traveling salesman.  There were opinionated politicians who drank late into the evenings and ranted with other tenants about this and that. James mostly kept to himself.  It would be wasted time to blather on about things he was impartial to with people he would likely never see again.

"Would you like a slice of cake today James?" Mrs. Melby asked, knowing well his reply.

"No thank you Mrs. Melby" It was always his answer.  

The first time she had asked him and after a days of saying yes please, he was given a bill for a weeks worth of slices which he had thought he was being served out of kindness.  Although he was surprised by the bill, he paid it without an outward fuss. Afterall, nothing was free. Everything good came at a cost.  He was a moderate man for good reason and although it was a sting it was a good reminder.

James finished his oats and excused himself from the table at no extra cost that morning.

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The walk to work took him ten minutes at most. He took the side streets to cut time which also meant a more quiet walk down ally's and private quarters.  He kept his head tucked under his hat and his collar up to keep to himself.  Walking through the neighborhoods, he often encountered an open window or a private conversation of a tenant therein. It was the guiltiest pleasure he had and one he could hardly admit to himself that he enjoyed and it was always awkward to make eye contact.

He emerged at the city center park and climbed the stairs of the accounting firm he worked for precisely at five to eight as always.

His desk was on the first floor which was entirely set in monochromatic rows of desks with green lamps and a share of sharpened pencils. 

James sat. Turned on the lamp, and placing a work visor on his forehead he set to his file of numbers.