Young Writers Society

     The new tenant, Pedro Garcia, banged on the apartment door until the landlord, Mr. Gordon, a man who suffered from a spinal deformity appeared.

     “What do you want?” he barked hoarsely.

       "You should know what I want,” Garcia, a young, short, dark-complexioned, Mexican-American of strong Mestizo facial features responded.

     “But I don't!" the landlord bellowed.

     “Mr. Gordon, what did I ask you when I was applying for an apartment?”

     “Be specific and cut to the chase dammit!” the hunchbacked landlord shot back.

     “OK, I will. Why did you rent me the apartment when I very clearly said that I was looking for a quiet place to live? A place where I could feel safe and get some sound sleep?”

     “Why did I say that to you, you ask? Simple! Because this is a place where you can feel safe and get sound sleep. Has anyone here stopped you from getting sound sleep?” he asked, suspiciously jutting his Kirk-Douglas chin and squinting one green eye.

     “Don’t play the innocent with me, Mr. Gordon," Garcia immediately responded.

     “You know exactly what I am talking about. If you had told me who lives here, I would never have agreed to sign that freakin' lease and given you a deposit."

     “I certainly did not mislead you! Have any of my tenants messed with you-eh?”

     “Well, directly? No, I can’t say that they have,” Garcia responded sheepishly.

     “Then case closed and up your nose with a rubber hose! Bye!”

     “No! The case is not closed, Mr. Gordon!” Garcia kept the hunchbacked landlord from shutting the door in his face by pressing on it with his hand.

     “Get your fat hand off my door!” the landlord said menacingly.

     “I’ll take it off your door as soon as you tell me why you lied, Mr. Gordon. I had a right to know.” Garcia, who strongly resembled Erick Estrada, said squinting a brown eye right back.

     “To know what? Dammit! Spit it out already and be done with it. I have other things to do than stand here listening to you griping and whining and bellyaching all morning!”

     “Alright Mr. Gordon, I'll tell you why. Very simple! You rented me an apartment next to someone who behaves and looks like some damned vampire.”

     “Vampire? Vampire? What vampire? Ohhhhhh, I know who you might mean. You probably mean Vladimir Petrescuvich, the immigrant from Romania. Heh! Heh! Heh!” 

Transylvania? Garcia was about to ask but refrained for the sake of keeping the conversation on an even keel.

     “He is more or less a recluse and keeps pretty much to himself.”

     “Really? Why is he so pale?”

     “Why? Does everyone in your immediate vicinity have to have a suntan? This isn’t San Antonio California, Guadalajara or Chihuahua Mexico Mr. Garcia, you know?”

     “No, I’m not talking about just a mild pale. I’m talking about an extremely, abnormal deathly pale similar to a Caucasian cadaver drained of blood. An impossible kind of pale.”

     “Gee! I don’t know,  Mr. Garcia. Maybe he has pernicious anemia? Vitiligo? Why? What exactly is it that you are imagining that Vladimir has? As if his paleness were any of your business anyway.”

     “Well, how pale a person is becomes my business if whenever we bump into each other in the hallway the person stops and stares at my neck as if he wants to bite and slurp!”

     “Vladimir bite and slurp?" Mr. Gordon scratched his pate as if to indicate total disbelief.

     "Vladimir hasn’t bitten anyone in this building and he has been living here for a full three months. No one else has ever complained about him staring at them in the way you say he did you. Not only that, but he always pays his rent on time and goes to work every single day at his job as a mortician. He also never--”

     “He’s a mortician?”

     “Why? You have some personal gripe against morticians?”

     “Of course I don’t have anything against morticians, as long as they aren’t as pale as death itself and don’t stare at my neck as if they want to bite and slurp.”

     “So why bring this to me? Why not take it to Vladimir himself? You are both adults. I’m sure you can both work this out?”

     “Because you rented me the apartment and you are to blame for the situation.”

     For a few moments, the landlord stood there as if pondering what Garcia had said, silently shaking his head first in the negative and then nodding in the positive as if weighing the prose and the cons. Then finally, after heaving a deep, tired sigh of resignation:

     “Alright Mr. Garcia. Alright! Let’s go upstairs to Vladimir’s apartment and clear up this mess. How does that sound?”

     Seeing that Garcia was nervously hesitating he added:

     “It’s better than having to move before the lease is up and losing your deposit.”

     “I just don’t like getting involved in messed-up situations,” Garcia responded.

     “But there really isn’t any situation, Mr Garcia,” the landlord said finally removing the chain-lock stepping outside into the semi-dark hallway and shutting the door behind him.

     ”But since you insist that there is a situation, then let’s take the matter up with Vladimir personally. What do you say?”

     Pedro Garcia hadn't noticed just how hunchbacked Mr. Gordon was when he first applied for an apartment. Mr. Gordon had been seated behind an huge, oaken office-desk and the hunch had been more-or-less hidden. Neither had Gordon shown him the apartment. That task had been assigned to Willie the handyman who ambled with a pronounced limp. So it was with a severe shock that Pedro observed Gordon emerge so hunched. It coordinated too much with the image of his neighbor Vladimir and made Pedro feel as if he had just entered a dungeon of sorts and given the keeper money for renting him a cell.

     "Thank you Mr. Gordon, but maybe this isn't such a good idea after all?" Garcia responded nervously.

     "Why not? Is it cause you got a good look at my hunchback?"

     "No that has nothing--"

     "Let me assure you, Mr Garcia, being hunchbacked has nothing to do with being good or evil."

      "No that isn't--"

     "What do you think? That I'm going to slap you on a torture wrack once we get to Vlad's apartment and let him feast?”  Mr. Gordon grinned, partially exposing some yellow-tinged teeth..

     "No I Would--"

     "Or that I'm gonna stab you in the back as you walk up the stairs with this?” Mr. Gordon seemed to have whipped out a machete from seemingly nowhere.

     "That never--""

     “Or maybe set you on fire after dowsing you with this?" Mr. Gordon produced a jug of what Garcia perceived as being gasoline.

     "Madre de Dios! Keep the rent money!" Garcia screamed and bolted as Mr. Gordon stood with a broad smile on his face and took a few swigs from the jug full of filtered water.

     "Wow! Why do people have to be so skittish?" he mumbled as he ambled back into his apartment where Vladimir greeted him with a brotherly hug.

----

BTW

Please note that if some commas are omitted it's because that's the way I want the character involved to speak. It's part of characterization.

https://www.dailywritingtips.com/showing-not-telli...

Under harrowing circumstances we tend to rush our sentences and pauses come less frequently. Creating grammatical pauses just for the sake of grammar comes across as artificial and self conscious. 

[quote]I had a right to know.[/quote]

Garcia is referring to the right he had to know when he applied for the apartment rental.