I hadn’t yet packed up my toiletries for the move, so I went into the bathroom and began tossing them in this dissat backpack I still have from when I was in high school. I packed up my glasses and my contact solution and my toothbrush and toothpaste and all the things I might need. I even packed some of the things I probably wouldn’t get to use if the power went out, like my straightening iron and my Mixplayer. I grabbed all the beer out of my refrigerator and threw it in there, too.

The wind had picked up outside, and people were walking down the street with their clothes pulled back tight against their bodies and billowing out behind them like sails. Some people looked worried, some looked like they were having a good time, drinking out of paper bags. But there were a lot fewer people on the street than there usually were. Cars were rolling by, nice-looking ones, and it was clear they were getting out. I noticed lots of people were going down into the subway, but nobody was coming out the other set of stairs, even when the train rumbled by beneath the street.

The front entrance of Jaden’s building has been all redone for the people like his new roommates that live there, so where there used to be a busted lock and a broken security camera, there’s now two locked doors and an intercom that rings up to each apartment. I’m just waiting for them to bust down the walls of the downstairs apartment and make a lobby out of it, with a doorman just standing there smiling as you go in and out, greeting everybody by name. I don’t know if they’d lose smash by taking out that apartment, or make more by raising everybody’s rent because now it was a doorman building. Figuring out ways to make smash has never been my strong suit. Just ask the people who sign my checks at the 24/7.

I pushed the button under Jaden’s apartment number. He’s the only one who doesn’t have his name up there. It’s like the rentbosses at that place are hoping that if they just will him out, he’ll go. But Jaden’s not going anywhere, not with the kind of rent he pays, and the laws in place that limit how much they can raise it. What’s he going to do, I always ask, when those laws go away, like they’re always threatening to? He doesn’t know, just like me. But for now, he’s okay.