Daring to Dream a Vision of a Future
While the engine was out on another dumpster fire the agent dropped by with a list of properties. Roy explained that Marco wasn't there and invited the young man in to wait when the PA over head announced that the engine was being called out to yet another dumpster fire just a block away from where they were currently fighting a trash fire.
"Well, we have an appointment to get together tomorrow," the man at the door explained. "I just wanted to stop by and give him a list of available properties. I thought that this way he could pick a few that he wanted to see so we can make our day as productive as possible."
"In that case I can certainly give him the list," Roy took the papers from the young man who looked younger than his partner. "He does have your phone number so that he can get back with you if he has any questions, doesn't he?"
"I'm sure he does since he called me this morning," the young man spoke with a slight amount of annoyance in his voice. "But if he's lost it I stapled one of my business cards to the papers you have right there in your hand."
Roy was slightly surprised by the young man's attitude but politely guided him back to his car in the parking lot before returning inside and hurriedly taping the papers to the front of Marco's locker before racing to the squad to respond to a call.
Marco found the papers a few hours later and spent most of his spare time before lights out reading through them and checking the addresses against the big map in the bay. It was true what Captain Tollins had told him, that the prices were lower that others he had been looking into but Marco was nervous about what condition these homes would be in and his ability to recognize something serious as far as structural damage. He managed to talk about those fears at breakfast the next morning and Johnny and Chet were quick to offer to join him in looking the houses over. Then Captain Stanley recommended he call in a home inspector before he finalizes any deal. He even recommended a neighbor of his as a trusted person who would give them an honest appraisal of the properties condition.
Marco added the captain's friend's contact information to the back of his papers.
Johnny had looked over the list as well as Marco and there was a small horse ranch that caught his eye. The asking price was slightly higher than he could qualify for at the moment but he still wanted to look the place over. That was where Marco, Johnny and Chet agreed to meet with the real estate agent the next morning.
The place had been vacant for years; it was obvious when they were yet two blocks away. None of them were surprised to see a citation from the fire department taped to the door declaring the place a fire hazard in need of being cleaned up. The barn and corral were filled with over grown weeds and dried tumble weeds were piled against every structure and in one corner of the fenced in pasture. The young agent let slip that his grandfather had tried to subdivide the area into a housing division but he had been unable to change the zoning. Still, Johnny had to walk through the place and after stomping up and down on all of the floors and checking out the furnace and plumbing he put in a bid for the maximum amount he could qualify for loan wise. It was a far cry from their asking price but John just couldn't come up with any more right then.
The three men then traveled to see a dozen other homes that had been on the list. Four of them had been within a two block radius and the neighborhood around them was very run down. One of the houses had two broken windows, another the door had been pried open and the door jamb damaged. There was evidence that someone had been living in another one even though there hadn't been running water or electricity for over a year. It was an easy consensus that they all wanted to keep looking. This was not an area that seemed safe for anyone to live if they were going to be away from home for up to 72 hours at a time. The odds were just too high that whatever they owned wouldn't be there when they came home from work.
The next few houses showed promise. Like all of the houses they were sorely neglected, the yards were overgrown and the places were all in need of new carpeting, a couple of coats of paint and a lot of yard work. However the men were starting to see possibilities and Johnny started getting an idea about buying one, fixing it up and then reselling it for a profit in hopes of being able to make a better offer on the horse ranch that he really wanted.
One of the properties was a duplex, something Marco had considered to have someone around while he was at work to watch the place. Once he saw it though he wasn't thrilled with the place. It was set up so that one living space was behind the other, making it so that one two bedroom apartment faced the street the other was entered into by driving around back.
Chet loved the idea and talked about the merits of the place while they visited the next four or five places. They finally agreed to go back and give it another look but at the end of the second walk through neither Marco nor Johnny were interested.
Chet tried one more time to point out his vision of the place once it was fixed up just a little. Marco and Johnny looked at each other and sighed.
"Chet, if you like it so much why don't you buy it?" Johnny finally made it clear he wasn't interested in the place. Chet walked through the place once more on his own and then put in a bid based on what Marco had been told he would qualify for. He then excused himself from the group to go to the credit union to start his loan process while Marco and Johnny continued on to look at the rest of the houses on Marco's list.
The last of the houses all showed some promise but Marco was afraid to get too excited. There was one that caught Marco's eye and he asked to go back and see it once again once they were finished.
Johnny made an offer on a house just a couple of blocks away but made it clear to Marco that his intentions, if he could get it, were to fix it up quickly and resell it to earn money to go toward the horse ranch, or another like it, if that place sold before he could get enough money.
Knowing that making an offer wasn't a signed contract Marco calculated what he had to offer minus what he would need to fix the place up enough to live in it. Still most of the work would have to be done over time, if he did indeed buy the place.
After the agent and Johnny went their way, Marco drove back to the house and just sat in his car looking at it. He then got out of his car and walked up and down the street looking at the other houses and the families he saw coming and going. Then he sat back in his car and looked at the place a little longer. It wasn't his dream home but it had possibilities. There were two large trees that were very over grown and would need to be cut back, one of which Marco hoped could be taken out altogether without damaging the foundation. Thick clusters of weed trees had grown up along one fence and around the back of the house. The odds were good that he'd have to remove the fence to get them all out and then replace it. The concrete driveway was broken up and would need to be replaced. And the garage, although structurally sound, was in need of a new door and the outer wall on one and a half sides. Marco was sure that the missing lumber was what had been used for the ramshackle tree house in the tree on the fence line that was shared with one of the neighbors. He had to wonder who had built the tree house; it was pretty obvious that it was someone who didn't have a lot of carpentry skills.
He hadn't seen those neighbors yet. He wasn't sure how they would be as neighbors or how they would feel about him moving in next door. He guessed he could always do what Johnny was planning to do and sell it again once he had it fixed up if the neighborhood didn't work out. He was also very undecided as to what he should do with the tree house.
That plan gave Marco the peace to think on the house more. The house was a four bedroom with two baths. One wall in the living room area had a large hole in it but Marco was thinking of taking that wall out rather than repair it, giving the place a larger living room and maybe allow for a formal dining room, something that would impress his mother. There was attic space that Marco felt could be made into another bedroom and he wondered if a bath could be put in to serve that room. He'd have to look into it.
The carpets would all need to be pulled up and replaced and Marco was thinking in terms of wood flooring or tile. The kitchen cabinets were in pretty good shape, the doors could use a little paint or something. Of course the whole place needed a fresh coat of paint both inside and out. Marco decided to go to a cabinet store and the library to get ideas.
That's when he heard the tapping on his truck window and turned to see two police officers trying to get his attention.
Marco didn't recognize the police officers standing outside his truck so he was insecure and frightened enough to be very slow in getting out and made sure he kept his hands in plain sight the whole time he moved. He also made sure to tell the police officers of his intentions to get his identification before he made any move to reach into his back pocket.
After he provided proof of who he was and what he did for a living, Marco explained why he had been looking over the neighborhood and admitted to being parked there for some time. He then talked to the two police officers about the kinds of calls they responded to in this neighborhood and was pleased to hear that there were a few neighbors that called in for every little thing.
All and all it sounded like it could very well be a good neighborhood for a man who would be away from home for twenty-four to seventy –two hours at a whack. But, would the neighbors accept him? Would his bid on the house be accepted? Only time would tell.
The next day the three off duty firemen thought hard about what they were going to do. While laundry was being done at three different laundromats, each man sat down with a piece of scratch paper retrieved from a waist can and listed the pro's and con's of the places they were looking at. For Johnny it was a list of things he thought would help the one place sell the fastest, giving him a better chance at the horse ranch that he really wanted. He already had a horse so if he were to get that place he wouldn't have to pay for stable fees, but he would have to find someone to take care of his horse while he was on shift.
Marco had agreed to cover for the C Shift lineman until he was off the injured list so once again he reported for duty the day before the rest of his regular crew. Captain Tollins raised cheers from his men by announcing that the police had apprehended the group of eight twelve and thirteen year olds who were setting fires in the dumpsters. Seems it had all started when a group of store owners had banded together to deny them the privilege of roller-skating and skateboarding on the storefront sidewalks, so the group of preteens set out to get even.
The shift before had had a late fire so the first order of business was to clean up the gear and then mop out the bay. As the men worked the topic of discussion was how Marco was coming with finding a place to live. When he told them about the house he had put a bid on all kinds of offers came out of the woodwork. The other lineman on C shift worked for an uncle, who was a general fix it man, on his off days. He knew from previous experience that his uncle would let Matt's friends from the fire department use his contractors account with several supply houses to get discounts on things like fencing, paint and other construction supplies. "If all three of you get your homes and coordinate your repairs you can buy in bulk and save even more," Matt had explained to Marco.
All the talk got Marco thinking about his uncle who did landscaping for a living and he was sure he'd help them all get the yards in good shape and install sprinkling systems that would run on timers so that the lawns and gardens would be watered even while they were at work.
When A shift reported for their next shift all three house hunters were still thinking positively about going through with the purchase of their individual houses. Marco shared the offer and information he had gotten from his overtime shift and the enthusiasm and anxiety started growing among the men.
They were nearing the end of roll call the stations doorbell rung and Captain Stanley sent Mike to answer it while he finished up the beginning of shift business. The man Mike led in looked familiar to most everyone else on the shift but they all recognized his annoyance at having to wait until the leader of the group was finished talking before he could get down to business.
Hank allowed his men the time to deal with their guest but made sure the young man knew that if the alarm went off they would have to leave weather he was done or not so he better not beat around the bush.
The young real estate agent took the hint and made short work of informing Chet that his offer for the duplex had been accepted and then presented counter offers to both Marco and John on the houses they had bid on. As expected, the bid on the horse property was not even being considered at the moment and after that proclamation nothing further was said on the matter.
All three men synchronized taking in deep breaths and blowing them out as they thought. That's when Hank stepped up. "It sounds to me that it's time to get my neighbor involved before you go any farther. At least I'm sure there would be no objection to these men getting a building inspector's complete evaluation of the properties?"
It was instantly obvious that the young man did object but they all knew there was nothing he could legally do to stop them. Hank didn't even wait for his men to agree to his suggestion he just moved forward and picked up the phone on his desk and pulled a business card out of the top drawer before dialing. They barely managed to make arraignments between the inspector and the agent to look over the properties before the station was called to a fire in the loading bay of a nearby trucking company.