My uncle is a landlord in Philadelphia, and I am his assistant. When customers descend the steps into his basement office, he jumps to his feet, rocks back on his heels, listens patiently while they request a safe apartment with a front view, spits a piece of cigar over a trash can stuffed with bills, and then asks, "Students?" If they answer yes, he says, that's good, because I only rent to students. If they answer no, he only says, that's good. Then he digs into one of the cigar boxes stacked precariously on his desk, emptying keys from little brown envelopes into his palm. After staring at them thoughtfully, he slides the keys back into their envelopes and starts the process over again with other packets. When he's gone through every box, cursing his workers for not returning the keys, he will smash the mound of utility bills, summonses, repair lists, payments, leases, screwdrivers, nails, and styrofoam cups, scraping together a fistful of keys, dropping them into my hands, and discharging me into the street on my mission.

I've promised my father that I will help Uncle Sid for the summer while I'm home from college, and now I wait in the office for him to return. Willie and Oliver are in their places. Willie slumps in the old easy chair that swallows him up like a pickle barrel. Oliver sits hunched over on the wicker stool in the corner. Because Sid's checkbook has been stolen once, and because whenever it slips behind his desk he accuses one of these men of stealing it, I have to stand guard in the suffocating basement room. The men, on the other hand, choose to wait here, believing the closer they are to Sid's checkbook, the better chance they have of getting their money.