It was 1967, I was 18 years old, and I was asking my parents if I could move into my own place. I would have a roommate, a woman I’d met recently named Lois. The rent was $37.50 a month, I said, I was sure I could handle paying that. (I was lying. I wasn’t sure at all.)
My parents said no. Later that night, I sat at my desk and wrote them a letter, saying, in effect, that I had only asked them to be polite. I was moving out, no matter what they said. Sorry. They were a little angry for a while, and then they were not.
The place was a tiny apartment in the back of a tall, narrow house, near the university of Minnesota campus. The paint on the house was gray and peeling, and the entire structure leaned disconcertingly to the left. A tiny strip of lawn on either side of the house had gone to dust.
You climbed a few rickety, outside steps, then opened the door into a largish kitchen, which led to a smaller living room/bedroom. The bathroom had two doors because it was shared with the four boys who lived in the apartment next to us. When I bathed, the first thing I did was stuff the keyhole of the boys door with Kleenex. This did not prevent one of them from once serenading me through it with an old vintage song. I lay nervously soaking while he crooned, “Beautiful girl, walk a little slower when you walk byyyy me.”
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