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We Want to Buy Your House

Adam Mac

    Lots in this legacy neighbourhood of this wealthy bedroom community in the Toronto orbit were going for $1.5 to $1.9 million. Yes, the market was hot ... hotter than it had ever been. Who would have thought ... in the middle of a global pandemic that housing prices in Fauxville would skyrocket.
    Art didn’t. Art had had little foresight and way too much hindsight. In fact he lived the better part of his octogenarian years in the past ... with all his familiars ... people, places, and things. Living in the present was a prickly affair. No, that’s wrong. Art was prickly, and living in the present was excruciatingly painful in a mentally torturous sort of way. All these newcomers. High end—conspicuously so—young families, teenagers, and street kids. He was surrounded by excess youth, vitality, and affluence, although for him it was incessant playfulness, silliness, and outright childishness. Snowmobiles driving down the side streets after a goodly snow. Go Karts and ATVs running amok on and off roads and through and around and around in town parks. Large parties late into the night, streets crammed with cars parked on both sides of the road leaving one lane open, and LOUD music ... what forty years ago was good Rock-n-Roll. But for Art’s sake, it needed to be peaceful and quiet at night time. Too much noise, too many visual nuisances disrupted the serenity in which his memories blossomed in the hazy mistiness of years gone by.
    He’d said the last place he wanted to live was in Fauxville, but he meant that in a positive way; however, as he grew closer to his terminus and as house prices rose higher, Art began to experience a re-birth, a rejuvenation, a renaissance as the prospect of a gargantuan money haul seeded his mind with the avaricious thoughts. He had a wonderful lot—private among the mostly lot-sized MacMansions that were infilling Fauxville at an accelerating pace. With a little finagling, he figured he could get $4 million. He knew the town councillors and had a pretty good rapport with the development-minded mayor, so he calculated that by severing his property, he could get up to three good sized lots for the two-storey frat house or dormitory design so common. Yes, Art was feeling very confident and exuberant, as much as an octogenarian can, and he made it manifest in so many startling ways in his little community.
    First, he began saying ‘Hello’ to people. That was the first BIG hump he had to get over. He couldn’t retreat into what the neighbourhood enfants terribles (upscale brats, guttersnipes, and urchins) called ‘the hermitage’ if he wanted that cash haul. Then he determined to take morning and evening walks through the neighbourhood to increase his contact with the ‘new people.’ Schmoozing, however repugnant at this stage in life, had been a way of doing business for decades, so he could put up with it for a little while until he could cash in ... then, to hell with the neighbourhood. He’d be gone. A house on the east coast of Labrador, another somewhere on the Pacific Coast. Not sure yet whether North or South America. And he began sprucing up the place, bringing contractors in to update his modest raised bungalow and spiffy up the landscaping on the property. He bought himself a sporty little German sedan and suddenly he was fitting in. It wasn’t as difficult as he’d thought. And the rewards ... ah, maybe even a roommate. He was often told he looked years younger than his age, and he was feeling it, too.
    One Sunday morning, at the height of the fall colour, he was taking stock of his property—not in the way he once had of puttering around fixing things here and cleaning up a little there, but just basking in the pleasure of ownership ... his mind wrapped around 7-digit dollar signs—when a young couple came cycling past ... slowly. They were so cute in their matching cyclist gear and friendly—they were certainly that, too.
    He’d never seen them before—not to recollect anyway—but they looked the sort he had been falling in with of late. Youthful, energetic, and successful. The young woman revealed the purpose of their passing visit with charming innocence as she said quite directly, “We’d like to buy your house.” Acquisitive, too, mused Art. Years before in his blue period, Art would have abruptly and insultingly ended the conversation right then and there, but this was a new Art, and he who had nearly died living in the past was now eagerly anticipating the unfolding of a future, partly under his control. Art invited them in for a cup of coffee.
    The couple nodded approvingly taking in the development potential of the property as they glided up to the front door. Art noticed this and he didn’t play coy. He acknowledged quite matter-of-factly that the property was roughly the equivalent in size of three neighbouring properties, adding that the town was becoming very accommodating towards land severances.
    The young couple seated themselves in the middle of the black leather sofa, which commanded a broad view of the lot through the front, rear, and side windows. Art brought in the coffee and the three of them, seated, looked at one another as if to say, “Who would like to speak first?”
    The young woman eased into the conversation by asking a few prompting questions to invite Art to reveal something of his attachment to the house and yard. Art obliged. He condensed 50 years into a few minutes—impatient to get a glimpse of his new future—and as he spoke he observed a slight twitch in the young woman’s left eye. He didn’t mention it, but she observed that he was observing and so she preempted him by saying that she just had a fleck of road dust or debris in her eye. “Comes with cycling,” she said, “even when I’m wearing goggles.” Art nodded.
    Here the young man stepped in to resume the conversation, shifting it closer towards the true object of the impromptu coffee klatch. He praised Art for his sense of modern lighting and lightness, and inclining his head towards the front picture window and then the side and rear floor-to-ceiling blinds-in-the-glass windows, he marveled at the extraordinary view of the park-like backyard with its layering of bushes and small trees, revealing foliage and fruit in multiple shades of red, orange, and green and purple. And in the distance, brilliant yellow gingko and orange-berried mountain ash, crimson maple and drooping willows fronting a tall deep green cedar hedge that ran along the edge of the property. No houses were within 100 metres, and the two that would be partially visible in winter would be mostly blocked by the dense network of tree branches that reached upwards and above the houses.
    Art sat listening and reminiscing, occasionally stealing a glance over at the young woman whose tic continued. A spark. What? He glanced again at the young woman’s face. Her left eye was still twitching but now inside her blue iris, it was arcing. The young man tried to divert Art’s attention, but Art unable to maintain propriety stared at the arcing eye.
    “We want to buy your house,” said the young man, standing as he said it. Art shook his head as if to clear cobwebs, then the young man added in a firm monotonic voice, “We WILL buy your house.” The eye and now the voice. Who are these people?, thought Art. They’re not like the young couples in the neighbourhood.
    The young man moved to the front picture window and drew the cream-coloured velvet drapes closed, and the young woman closed the blinds at the back. Now, in the dull light of morning excluded, Art’s heart raced. His breathing kept pace. Turning to face one then the other, Art watched in spasms of terror as the young couple peeled the skin back from their shiny metallic faces.

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