One Man's Treasure...

I've been looking at repo's to buy and was astonished at the condition of the houses. This is the view from the other end of what I saw.

REPO

Their American dream came true the day they moved into their new house. Sal made a big deal of it, giving her the front door key in a velvet box like a ring, a promise. Then after she’d unlocked the door he’d tried to carry her over the threshold, a silly lovely gesture. But the kids pushed past them, knocking him off balance in a tangle of arms and legs and Josephine had to grab his shoulders to keep from landing on her behind. Screeches of delight were the first sounds they made in the house.

The boys ran up the stairs slamming doors open and shut, “Which room, Mama? Which room is ours?”

Two year old Felicia fell down the two carpeted steps into the living room but wasn’t hurt. She would fall down them many times, but would use those same stairs to keep her balance in the second year when she was learning to walk.

Twelve year old Maria went straight to the kitchen, where Josephine would teach her to cook her first meal for the family. Even though she’d burnt the chicken and Sal had made her eat the worst pieces, she was praised for her success. It was a big step on her way to becoming a woman and Josephine was very proud of her that night.

Sal had gone to Home Depot and filled the back of the pick-up with beautiful expensive Brazilian paving stones. He and the boys worked on the weekends digging out the place just beyond the sliding glass doors into the back yard. They lay the octagonal blocks carefully one by one until they had a ten by twelve foot patio. Josephine loved to walk on them.

Mario and Earnest insisted their room be painted green. When Sal agreed to this, Maria argued that the girl’s room should be painted too, which made Josephine think about changing the boring white walls in their room. Sal piled them all into the truck and off they went back to Home Depot to pick out the colors. The girls chose a bright pink for their room, and Josephine picked pale yellow for the master bedroom. She found a yellow just like that of the early morning sun, full of possibilities and the new day. It took them longer to clean up than to paint. The house stunk of paint fumes for weeks, but Josephine didn’t mind. It was a wonderful thing to wake up every day to the sun on her yellow walls. She would turn her head on the pillow, smile at her snoring husband, and say a prayer for all their wealth.

Then Sal hurt his back at work and had to take a few days off. When the days turned into two weeks he was laid off. The little money Josephine made babysitting and ironing didn’t cover the everyday needs of six people and pay all the bills. They had to dip into the small nest egg they had saved for emergencies. They struggled to make the house payments and Sal took side work as a day laborer which was beneath him but all he could get. They ate beans instead of chicken and tortillas instead of bread. They turned off the heater and wore layers of sweaters to keep warm.

One of Sal’s buddies told them about a new loan they could get on the house which would solve the money problems until Sal could find a good job again. They signed the papers eagerly not knowing it would end their dream.

Eight months later the bank ordered them out. The day the eviction notice was plastered on the front door Josephine wailed hysterically. The girls would not stop crying and clutched at her hips as though they were drowning. The boys stormed out into the back yard, threw dirt clods at the block walls, and kicked the beautiful red paving stones in fury. “I don’t want to move!” Mario howled.

“Can we take the green room with us?” Earnest begged.

Maria paced in the kitchen, tears pouring down her cheeks, stroking the counters, the stove, the refrigerator. She would never cook chicken there again.

They moved in with Sal’s brother and his wife until they could find a cheap apartment, cramming their furniture and boxed up things into the garage. The night before they had to turn over the keys to the bank, Sal, his brother, and a few friends went back to the house.

They disconnected the stove and refrigerator, tore out the dishwasher and loaded the appliances onto the trucks. They unscrewed every light bulb and even took apart the faucets. Sal said, “No family will love this house like we did,” and to insure that, he went into every room with a razor blade and cut big chunks out of the beige carpet. They splashed leftover paint everywhere and wrote graffiti on all the walls with thick black felt pens.

When the house was belittled and he thought his fury was spent, Sal stood in the front doorway and shouted back into the living room, “No Family!” He slammed the door as hard as he could and locked it.

Just before he got into his truck to drive back to his brother’s house he grabbed a branch of the Palo Verde tree in the front yard that he had nurtured for three years and bent it to the ground. It snapped off at the trunk leaving a jagged break. He got into the truck, put his hands on the steering wheel and stared out the windshield.

“No family,” he whispered and then he drove away.