Home sweet home.
And it felt like it.
I can't really explain the feeling, but I just felt like I belonged.
Tears actually came to my eyes. Might have been from the stinging holy water, but they were tears.
And for a man like me, that was a feeling I have never had.
My parents died in a car crash when I was 15. I lived with an aunt and uncle for a couple years, but as soon as I finished high school, they literally threw me out in the streets.
Something about child support being cut off.
I stayed at a local community shelter for about 6 months until I built up enough money to get my own place, which was the windowless dungeon of an apartment at old lady Parsons'.
But it was my place and for the most part, I was happy.
Well as happy as a man like me could be.
I look at myself now, at 30 years old and wonder what I have accomplished.
I work a dead end job as a stock boy at a local Canadian Tire. No one there associates with me, which is fine for the most part, but I have to admit...
it does get lonely sometimes.
I have never had a girlfriend. Far too shy for that and in all honesty, you would have to go out in public once in a while to meet people.
And that wasn't me.
I went to work, came home, showered and lived on the computer.
I think I am a part of every social site there is. I know you are thinking porn sites, but really, they don't interest me.
Not that I am strange or anything. Its just that ...
Okay, I'm a little strange.
I have tons of friends on the internet, but even there, I stick to text only sites.
Okay, I am a lot strange.
Its not that I am ugly or anything. At least I don't think I am. I am a little tall, at 6'4" and maybe a little awkward, both socially and physically. Was never one for sports of any kind.
And maybe my shoulder length hair and beard turn some people off.
Sigh.
Face it. I am a loser.
When the lawyer contacted me about my inheritance, which I knew nothing about, I was shocked.
The first thing I remember thinking was ...
'I want my own place.'
And then I saw the listing for this house.
Immediately I got in touch with Mr. Whitesnake.
He sounded so excited about me looking at the place and he told me to come right over.
I did and, well, here I am.
I love this house.
Sure it is a little dusty and the doors and floors creak and it needs a paint job and the furniture and stuff is like a hundred years old, but ...
It is MINE.
I finally have something that I can call my own.
And I don't believe the rumours about murders and disappearances and suicides and ghosts and strange animals and things that go bump in the night.
Shit like that really doesn't bother me and in all honesty, except for the UFO sightings, I don't know if I really believe in all that shit anyway.
Although it still amazes me that at 11 o'clock at night, I still hear those fucking crows.
I am a little confused though about the old radio, here in the common room. No matter what station I try, it is all oldies from the swing and big band era.
Funny thing is I don't ever recall this area even having one station like that, let alone a dozen.
But, I found a nice jazz station and it is kinda cool.
And the old phonograph is the wind up type and all the records are what they used to call 78s.
And the booze I found on the bar,
the amazingly well stocked bar,
is to die for.
And there is even a fully stocked humidor with hundreds of cigars.
And they are all perfect.
Not that I am a smoker, but hey, when you are drinking some old vintage scotch, a good cigar is necessary.
So here I am, sitting in a huge, plush armchair, in the warm glow of a huge fire in my fucking oversized fireplace, sipping on, what I am sure is expensive scotch and smoking an expensive cigar, while listening to some of the mellowest jazz ever recorded.
Billie Holiday I believe.
It is perfect.
Well except for one thing.
The two idiots sitting on my big plush couch, across from me, laughing.