Apartment Angel
One day,while working in Florida, my friend Vasco called me and asked me to come pick him up as he had no car and we were going to work out. "How do I get to you?" I asked. The directions were very detailed:
- Come north on the turnpike
- Turn left on kendall drive
- Drive out a few miles and turn right on 142nd street
- Turn right when you see the sign for my complex
- Turn right into the driveway with the building that has a letter "h" on it
- Drive behind the building and park in front of the steps of the building with the letter "i" on it
- Come up the steps turn left
- Go to the third door on the right which will be 209
I followed the directions and found myself knocking on the door of 209. No one answered. On the way over my pager went off and so I figured that it was Vasco calling to say he had to step out. So I drove over the a convenience store to call in and see if it was him. It wasn’t. I drove back over to the "I" building.
As I got out of my van, I heard someone yelling down from the balcony above. "Did you find him?" I looked up to see a woman yelling down. "I’m looking for my friend Vasco," I responded. "Who ever lived in 209 moved out yesterday. But maybe they are not completely moved out. Come back up," said the woman. She was, if I was to guess, in her mid eighties, about five feet tall, and dressed in a nightgown that stretched from her neck to the ground.
I walked back up. That day I had been working on some construction projects and was dressed for that task. I was wearing ripped up jean shorts, a dirty tank top, sandals, and at that time I had a pony tail that went to the center of my back. I am six foot one and at that time about two hundred seventy pounds. To say I was scary-looking would be an understatement. The woman was not intimidated by my appearance at all and stayed with me as I knocked on the door of 209. She was looking through the windows trying to be helpful. "You were healthier when you were a vegetarian," she suddenly blurted out. "Excuse me?" "You were healthier when you were vegetarian" she repeated. Continuing, "You are meant to be a healer in this life and you can do that better if you are a vegetarian."
Over the next half hour we discussed healing, meditation, and homeopathy. All topics that I felt were out of the ordinary for a woman of her age. "You don’t meditate enough," she said, "I think you should go meditate right now." In awe of what was transpiring, "Yes Ma’am" I answered. Our conversation ended with her reminding me to be vegetarian and to the van I went to meditate.
Twenty minutes later I ended my meditation. I thought that I should go call Vasco. I drove back over to the convenience store and called. "Where are you?!" Vasco demanded from the other end of the line. "What do you mean where are you? I’ve been outside your door for a half hour," I answered. "Come back over and I’ll come out." Vasco said.
I drove back over to the building and still no Vasco. As I pulled back out, I thought maybe there is another sign for his complex. So I drove back over to 142nd Street and turned right. A little way farther down the street was another sign for his complex. I turned in. Before me stood a building with the letter "H" on it. I turn and drove behind the building and there was a building with the letter "I" on it. Walking down the steps was Vasco. He had lived in the complex for a number of years and no one had ever made the same mistake I had made. He had no idea that there was another "H" and "I" building.
About two months after this happened I was watching the television show Unsolved Mysteries. On this particular episode was a story about a young woman who was in an abusive relationship. She divorced her husband in a time when a divorced woman was not accepted by society. She had two young children. Thanksgiving came and she did not have enough food for a holiday dinner. So she made sandwiches and took her children to the park to make the best of the day.
After a day at the park she returned to her apartment. As she arrived a elderly lady came out and said that she’d been looking for her. "I have dinner ready come inside," the lady who was about mid-eighties and five feet tall said. The young woman and her two children went into the lady's apartment and spent a wonderful evening having a full Thankgiving dinner as the only guests of their new friend. At the end of the evening the elderly lady sent the leftovers home with them.
The following morning she transferred the leftovers into her own containers, washed the lady's containers and took them downstairs to return them. When she got to the apartment she was shocked to find that it was empty, no furniture, or anything. When asking the manager where her friend was the manager said that the apartment had been empty for six months.
Maybe I had run into the apartment angel.