You'd be so nice to come home to

A thin-gray pipe lined the space between the ceiling and walls of the apartment. Steam precipitated out of the pipe and dark-green mold grew both a foot across the ceiling and down the wall. It was worm in the apartment. It was cold outside.

It was early December in Lucerne Valley, California.

The only furniture in the apartment was the dining-room table, four folding chairs around that table, a television and a stereo. The television was on top of a coffee table and the stereo was under that. A Nina Simone song played, “You’d be so nice to come home to ...” There was a fire in the kitchen. A flame burned high from a gas stove, the cook handling food in a pan, throwing spices and humming the tune. “You’d be so nice to come home to ...”

-- Apple Valley, CA

11/27/2010