Chapter 2
On the drive home I began to reflect on what I had done. I knew that I had taken on a huge task and I hoped that it wouldn't cut into my studies too much. The apartment building needed a lot of work but I figured that I could have it fixed up in two years or less. In a few weeks the college students would be moving in. I had to get started.
I stopped by the Dan Longren's office to quit my job. I wouldn't have time to work for him and also fix up the building. It would hurt not having the money that I would make by working that summer, but with living rent free I would be able to squeak by.
Dan Longren was sitting at his desk when I walked in. Dan and I had always gotten along. He always treated me more like a son than an employee. He always watched out for me and I'm sure that he paid me more than I was worth. My father had worked with Dan at one time and that's how I came to meet him. I told him what I was doing and told him that I wouldn't be able to work for him that summer. Dan sat there after I had finished talking with a far away look in his eyes.
It was a long time before he spoke, "We're a little slack right now. I've got some of my men over at my place working just so that I won't lose them. Let's go over to this place that you agreed to fix and see what needs to be done. Maybe I can help out a bit and keep my men busy at the same time."
"Dan, you can't do that," I protested, "You don't have to do that. I made this deal on my own and I'll live up to it on my own."
Dan got up from his chair and grabbed his hat, "Let's go. I want to see this place. "
He walked out to his pickup and I had to race to keep up with him. I jumped into the pickup just as he started to pull away. I explained what had to be done before the students started arriving for the fall semester. He listened but I got the impression that he was only half-listening.
Dan Longren had gone into business at just the right time. In the fifties, Phoenix was a small to medium size city struggling to grow. Water was always a problem and the scarcity of it held Phoenix back. Although the canals had been put in during the eighteen-eighties, it wasn't enough to support rapid growth. After the Federal government chipped in some cash to bring enough water to Phoenix to support major development the city began to boom. Then Luke Air Force Base was made into a permanent military base and the Air Force dumped tons of money into the economy. Before that Luke was classed as a temporary facility and everything was built with the idea that it was only temporary. Dan and Abby, his wife, rode the boom and made a lot of money. A lot of Dan's contemporaries told him that he should grow into an international company but Dan loved Phoenix and stayed in the Arizona area. It turned out to be a wise move. There was more work for Dan's company in Phoenix than he could handle.
When we pulled in front of the apartment building Dan made a joke about getting several sticks of dynamite out of his shed. We walked to the garage and tried to peer in the grimy windows. Dan walked back to his pickup and got a crow bar and came back and pried the lock and hasp off of the garage door. When we opened the garage door it almost fell on us. Dan checked the structural integrity of the garage while I checked out the contents of the garage. There was a lot of junk that had to be taken to the dump but there were several pieces of furniture that could either be sold or used for my apartment.
Dan finished his inspection and stood looking into the garage, "Well, it's not as bad as I thought it would be. We can build up the floor and get a wooden floor put in. It'll be easier on the feet. The structure is Ok. We'll put up some walls and leave it open like a studio apartment. We'll close in the bathroom and kitchen though. The roof is Ok so we don't have to do anything there. I have most of the materials that we'll need in my warehouse. It's left over from other jobs. I need to get it out of there anyway. It's in my way. The biggest expense will be the plumbing. We'll have to locate where it goes into the apartment building and tie into it. I think that we can get this livable in two weeks maybe three. Let's go into the apartments and see what has to be done there."
Dan walked around the apartments taking notes on the major items that needed repairs. Several times we opened an apartment and Dan would stand in the doorway shaking his head. He made a few comments about how some people lived.
When we walked back outside Dan turned to me, "I'll have my dumpster brought over tomorrow. I'll have a bunch of laborers start cleaning out that garage. I want that garage cleaned out by noon so that my men can start working on the inside. My plumber owes me some money so I'll get his ass over here and start on the plumbing. If you don't get too fancy on me we can have you real comfortable before school starts. "
"Whoa, Dan. You can't be working on this. This guy doesn't have the money to put into it. His mother is in a nursing home and I'm not sure that all of the apartments were rented lately. Some of the apartments don't look like they've been used in a couple of years."
Dan put his arm around my shoulder, "Now, let an old man do something right for once. You're a good kid and I'm a little slack right now. There's no way that you can get all of the things done that need to be done. We'll be keeping my people working and I'll get some of that junk out of my warehouse. I'm not going to be able to do everything on the apartments that needs to be done. There will be plenty for you to do after school starts. Now let's go back to the office and get things rolling."
Dan's face lit up on the way back to his office. You could tell that he was really beginning to get into this project. Once he got back to his office he called in two of his foremen and started telling them what he wanted to do. After about an hour they both left and began assembling the crew and materials they would need the next day. Dan shooed me out of the office and told me to go home. He told me to be at the apartment building at six o'clock in the morning the next day and to be sure that the garage was cleared out by noon.
I went home and told my parents what Dan was doing. My mother started crying and my father got real quiet. I think that he was a bit ashamed that he couldn't be more help. I quickly turned his attitude around by telling him that I needed him and expected him to help out on the weekends until the fall term started. It turned out that my father did the work of two men on the days that he worked. He told everyone in Glendale that his son was going to college to become one of the titans of industry.
The next morning I arrived at the apartment about five thirty and the crew was there waiting for me. We began the pull all of the contents of the garage out onto the driveway that now served as a parking area for the apartments. Sometime during the night Dan had gotten the dumpster delivered. We threw about half of the contents of the garage into the dumpster and put the things that would be sold or used in my apartment in the basement of the apartment building.
In going through the garage I found a laptop computer still sealed in its original carton. Probably one of the tenants had left it there when he moved or maybe Mr. Cannon's mother had taken it in lieu of rent. Reading the outside of the carton I saw that it was about three years old, which is ancient history as computers go, but it would do until I could afford to get a newer one. All of the furniture was very old but in surprisingly good condition for sitting in the garage for God knows how long.
Just before noon a stake truck loaded with drywall and studs pulled into the driveway followed by three pickups filled with workers. Everyone piled out of the trucks and began to start unloading the studs. Several of the carpenters went inside and began planning how the building was to be laid out.
The garage had been built many years ago when the average car was smaller than the SUV's of today. It would be impossible to put a Lincoln Towncar into the garage and close the doors. My only salvation was that it was a two and a half car garage so I had a decent sized apartment. The bathroom would not have a tub, only a shower. The kitchen would be small since there would only be one person to cook for. I had seen how compact Ikea could make a kitchen when I had been in their Tempe store so I didn't have any worries about the kitchen size.
I walked into the garage to start helping and was promptly ushered out. The carpenters said that I should just leave them alone and they would be fine without my help.
I saw a few men walking into the apartment building and went to see if I could help out there. When I entered the building there was a bunch of people rushing around with clipboards writing down what had to be done and what materials that they would need. When I asked if they needed help, I usually just got a grunt as an answer. When I counted all of the people that Dave had sent I found that there were twenty-two people working on the apartment building. For the duration of the project Dan sent the men that he could afford to put on my project. Sometimes there were ten men, sometimes three, the next day there might be twenty.
By evening the garage was studded and waiting for the plumber and electrician to do their rough-in. One of the workers had told me that there was a conduit from the electric panel in the apartment building to the garage and that they would pull new wire and get a couple more circuits out to my soon-to-be apartment. One of them mentioned a heat pump but there wasn't a heat pump in the garage or the apartment building. When I asked what he meant he was called by one of the carpenters that needed help and he hurried away to give the carpenter a hand.
By the end of the week the apartment that used to be a garage was ready for the trim and fixtures. The kitchen was being worked on and was a model of efficiency. There was a large living area, a bathroom and a kitchen. By the end of the second week the apartment was almost finished. As I was admiring the apartment a truck pulled up outside and I was asked to sign for a load of furniture. When I went out to the truck I saw that Dan had bought furniture from Ikea so that I would have a fully furnished apartment. Anyone that knows anything about Ikea knows that you have to assemble most of their furniture. I spent the next two days putting furniture together with two Hispanics that couldn't speak or read English. We somehow got all of the furniture together though. My limited high school Spanish classes proved immensely helpful.
You couldn't stand to stay in the apartment building too long if you weren't used to it. The air compressors for the painters and the power nailers and the banging and shouting would wake the dead.
The crew had wisely started on the second floor of the apartment building. By the time that the first students came to move in, the second floor was done and the crew was concentrating on the first floor. The crew helped them move their things in; traumatizing the students in the process. Within an hour the students had been moved in. The students didn't know it but the crew wanted to get them out of their way. I heard months later that one of the carpenters had impressed on the students that they would meet with great bodily harm if they got in the way.
By the time the other students arrived the crew was putting the finishing touches on the building and I was moved into my own apartment. My first apartment! I was so proud of myself that I went and bought a digital camera and took pictures of everything. I emailed the pictures to Mr. Cannon from the local Kinko's.
Just as fast as they had arrived at the apartment building Dan's crew packed up and was gone. My apartment was complete, including a new heat pump that Dan said he had laying around his warehouse and an Ikea kitchen that Dan said came from one of his demo houses. I believe you Dan, I really do. Everything that was critical in the apartment building was either repaired or replaced. The plumbing fixtures were the same and might have to be replaced soon but they were serviceable now and should last at least two more years. All of the walls had been patched and repainted with off-white flat latex paint. New tile floors had been put down; again Dan "had them lying around the warehouse." All in all I had bought about six hundred dollars worth of material above and beyond what Dan had supplied.
As the last of the students began to arrive, I met each of them and
collected the first month's rent and the security deposit before I
would allow them into their apartment. I made sure that they understood
that I expected the apartment to be kept clean and in good condition
and that the rents had to be paid on time. I expected the apartment to
be in a rentable condition when the school year was up. If they caused
any trouble they had to answer to me. Since I was larger than any of
them I was sure that my words carried some weight. A couple of them had
seen me on the football field at Glendale High and they knew that when
I hit you, you were going down.