A $500 House in Detroit

by Drew Philp

  The Mister Blister was blistering beautifully and I had begun to strip the door naked, coats of paint representing years and tastes and residents. I’d gotten what was going to be my kitchen sink from the basement of the bar where I’d borrowed the paint stripper, a rebellious little place of loud, ugly punk rock.

  The sink was cast iron and covered in white porcelain, a style that was old and fairly common, but this sink in particular was anything but. Built before the turn of the century, the building had always been a bar, and the basement room I was redoing had been a speakeasy during Prohibition. The sink was from around that time. In the late ’60s and early ’70s the bar—then named Lilly’s—had become an important spot for the burgeoning proto-punk movement, both the legendary MC5 and Iggy Pop playing there regularly. I liked to think that some drunk night one of those original Detroit badasses had thrown up in the sink that was about to go into my kitchen.

  Legend was that Fred “Sonic” Smith, the MC5’s guitarist, had met Patti Smith, the Most Holy Godmother of Punk Rock, at the Coney Island downtown, where I’d taken Cecilia a few days before. Coney Islands—hot dogs with chili, onions, and mustard—are our regional delicacy, and when I mentioned to the kind woman chatting with us in line that Cecilia had never had one, she said, “You ain’t never had no Coney Island,” her eyes bugging out of her head.

  Cecilia told me that when Fred Smith died, Patti spent an entire year in bed grieving for the man she loved. I wasn’t sure if that was true, but Cecilia sure talked a lot about love—

  “God damn it!” I’d burned my thumb on the damn Mister Blister. This was going to be a bad one. I ran it under cold water inside and returned to the porch to smoke and look over my work. Not bad, but the heat gun couldn’t get into the molding, and I was going to have to use chemicals. As I smoked, Molly walked by, inspecting the strands of yarn, and shouted across the fence to quit working and come to the Hillbilly Yacht Club.

  Every summer Sunday, the HYC was a party centered on the pool she made from hay bales. During the last week of baling, she asked us to dump a few dozen in her backyard, behind the chicken coop and next to the rabbit cages. With an idea borrowed from Paul, she was going to build a pool. I didn’t see how this was possible, but I listened.

  Toward the end of her life, Paul’s wife, the mother of his children, developed a degenerative disease and didn’t have much time. The doctor told them that swimming might ease her pain. But because of all of the budget cutbacks and the exodus from the city, there were very few public swimming pools. In what has got to be one of the most romantic gestures of all time, Paul used what he had and added to it his ingenuity to build her a pool in the backyard. He stacked bales in a rectangle, threw over a blue roofing tarp, created a frame with leftover two-by-fours, and filled it with water. It held. When all was said and done, the hay from the bales was used to nourish and protect the soil.

  Molly’s was built on the same principle, but in a circle. There was a ladder made from logs, and she had bought one of those floating chlorine cones and a filter that made a peeing noise. The price of admission to the Hillbilly Yacht Club was a fifth of liquor. (This rule, along with all the others, was rather laxly enforced.) The local brewers would bring plenty of beer and enough good cheer to last all day.

  I quickly took her advice and moved from the half-stripped door to Molly’s backyard. I ate some of the coq au vin she had made for the occasion while Garrett floated on an inner tube lazily holding a bottle of wine and singing a song I had a suspicion he was making up as he went along. He stopped only to take swigs from the bottle or burp. I sat next to Will on a creaky aluminum chair in a circle with some of the others who had just exited the pool and were toweling off.

  The conversation had moved from the yarn gilding the block to the street artist Banksy. He had recently been to town, unable to resist the postindustrial pull of Detroit, and had painted a number of works. Some of them were immediately sandblasted, but there was one left, inside the Packard plant. It depicted a boy holding a paint can and brush, who appeared to have just scrawled “I remember when all this was trees” on the wall.

  Some of the members of the gallery that had given me the lumber to board up my house had gone into the abandoned plant with gas-powered stone saws, sledgehammers, and a Bobcat and removed the whole chunk of wall, preserving it behind glass. They put it on display in the gallery. Some people, most prominently graffiti artists, thought this was sacrilege and were rather upset. Others liked the anarchic and preservationist spirit. I thought it was an interesting little act of performance art myself, and decided the whole conversation surrounding it was a silly little act of mental masturbation. The gallery promised not to sell it, to keep it always for the public to view. The conversation moved on, as did the participants, and I was alone with Will.

  “The school made a bid on my house,” Will said out of nowhere. The price, he said, was in the tens of thousands of dollars.

  “What are you going to do?”

  “I’m not sure I have a choice.”

  * * *

  That summer the United States Social Forum, a sort of ideological precursor to Occupy Wall Street, was held for a week in Detroit. More than 20,000 people came into the city from around the world, slept in tents, went to classes and discussions, drank and partied, networked.

  I didn’t have much time to participate, but one of the events I couldn’t get away from was a march staged by professional protest coordinators who had come in from California. They were marching in opposition to Detroit’s trash incinerator. Generously, one of the neighbors had allowed them to use the YES FARM to stage the protest, and some of the organizers had come in early to set up home base and begin building the props, hundreds of spray-painted sunflower pickets, miniature incinerators, signs.

  The protest would march down Detroit’s main thoroughfare and past the incinerator, presumably raising holy hell and sticking it to the man—who would probably just hide until they left again.

  There was an energy to town when the people started rolling in. The vibe wasn’t unique, but this time it was bigger. Folks would come from all over with art and social projects and such, and inevitably they would ask for help. I came home from working on the house to find the doors of the YES FARM thrown open and music and white people with dreadlocks spilling out into the street. Cecilia was also working in the YES FARM in a separate room on one of her projects and I went in to say hello.

  “Helllo, Dreeew.”

  “What’s up? How’s it coming?”

  “It is good. I am almost finished.”

  “Good.”

  “Can you help me hang the sign tomorrow?” Her project involved some trading of business signs between Rome and Detroit, and she needed help screwing the sign to the building here.

  “Sure. What’s going on over there?”

  “I do not know. A protest, I think.”

  I had gotten the majority of the fencing up and I had, in fact, taken the red gate from the abandoned house down the block. It worked well, even if it was a bit saggy. The fence would keep little Gratiot from escaping, and anything else from getting in. The fence meant protection, that I had divided up the land and staked my claim. That, like John Locke had written, by mixing my labor with the natural resources of the earth I had created ownership. With all these new people in town splayed out on the sidewalk, I was feeling a little protective of the city itself.

  Cecilia and I went outside. Colorful kids spotted the sidewalk, spray-painting circles of cardboard and stapled them to wooden pickets, all of which had been bought at the local big-box store. One of the guys was busy painting sunflowers on the concrete. I looked at him for a minute as he worked. Eventually he noticed me and when he looked up he smiled.

  “How you doing, brother?”

  “Who told you it was okay to paint on the sidewalk?” I noticed the fence around the YES FARM had been done as well.

  “Oh, it’s okay, it’s just art. Who doesn’t like art?” />
  At some point I felt I had made a transition into a Detroiter, whether I was or not. Maybe I recognized a little too much of myself in these kids spilling into the city. Maybe I was trying to differentiate myself from these people who were going to leave, protect myself from getting too close, but I was rather cold and unhappy with the proceedings. Maybe I was worried they reminded me a bit too much about Cecilia, who would have to go home soon herself. Maybe I was worried I was making the same mistakes. Living in Detroit and being part of a relatively small group gave my life meaning, and I was just feeling the beginnings of losing it to an influx of people who may not have had the same values.

  Nevertheless, it didn’t seem like anyone saw the irony in cutting down real pine trees to make fake sunflowers. Or that a protest for clean air would use so much aerosol spray paint. I wondered what was going to happen to all this stuff once everyone left.

  I asked Cecilia if she wanted to go to a bar to see a popular band with me that night, one Jennie, Molly’s roommate, sang in.

  She kissed me and said, “Of course.”

  The bar was an armpit and it was especially sweaty that night. A veteran’s bar by day and a punk rock venue after, it was packed with the majority of the young, hip white kids in the city, only a handful at that time. The walls were black and crammed with all kinds of war paraphernalia, machine guns, helmets, medals. The crowd was turbulent, happy, and drunk. I was on my way.

  I salmoned my way up to the bar and asked Cecilia what she wanted.

  “I think beer.”

  “You want something nice, or shitty?”

  “Something good.”

  “I want a shot. You want a shot?”

  “A shot?”

  “Yeah, liquor.”

  “I don’t think I should mix them.”

  “Beer and whiskey? They go together like peanut butter and jelly.”

  “What is this peanut butter and jelly?”

  An opening band wailed over the warm crowd. The drummer had his shirt off and was sweating, his fists reaching above his head to smack the skins of the drums.

  “You’ve never had peanut butter and jelly?”

  I ordered two beers and two shots. We walked outside and clinked our glasses to Detroit, downing the whiskey. She asked me about peanut butter again, clutching my forearm.

  “It sounds too sweet for lunch. Maybe for breakfast.”

  “I’ll make you one sometime.”

  We had a couple more drinks and the headliner started up inside. I could hear Jennie singing.

  “Let’s go inside and watch the band.”

  Jennie had a crazy look in her eye, and with every word she sang she shook her head and bared her teeth like a prizefighter who knows she’ll win.

  The crowd roiled. Pushing one another, slapping one another on the back, hugging. I was sweating, and momentarily lost Cecilia. A fat dude with his shirt off, who I didn’t know, was really rocking out next to me, all sweat and hair and energy. He banged his head.

  I got turned around and found Cecilia. I pulled her toward me with my forefinger hooked into the dip in her yellow shirt. The band was at full force, and the crowd undulated, completely under their spell. Jennie had taken off her guitar like she was revealing a gift, and I had my hands at the nape of Cecilia’s neck, kissing her, tangled in her coarse shaggy hair, a sodden wreck.

  My eyesight was a bit twisty from the alcohol, and the lights had tracers, and her arms wrapped around my waist and up to my neck.

  “Do you want to get out of here?” I was drunk.

  She grabbed my hand in reply. “Can we smoke a cigarette before getting on the bikes?” she asked.

  The air outside was cool and the concrete cooler, as we sat against the cinder-block building.

  “I need one of yours,” she said, and I rolled it for her because I knew it would be faster than letting her do it.

  I said something about folding love letters into paper airplanes and sailing them across the Atlantic.

  We rode drunkenly back to my house and made love. I fell softly asleep.

  * * *

  “Wait, what did you just say?”

  “Maybe I should go.” I was lying with Cecilia in my bed that same night, having awoken just a few hours later. I reached over and clicked on the light.

  “I always feel bad when this happens.”

  “What do you mean you feel bad? What do you mean always?”

  “I have a life in Italy, a house, a boyfriend. We are engaged.”

  “You’re engaged? Oh fucking Christ. What? I just— What? Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Why didn’t you ask?”

  “Oh, fucking hell. Get out of my bed. Get out!”

  She started crying and I thought I might throw up all that whiskey I’d had.

  “What the hell, you couldn’t have told me this, like, weeks ago? What the fuck.”

  “I will leave.”

  “No, don’t leave. I, I don’t want you to leave.”

  “I’m going to go.” She got out of bed and started to root about for her clothing.

  “Please, don’t go. It’s, like, two in the morning and you’re on your bike. I’ll drive you at least.”

  “I will be fine.” She had gotten a pant leg on and was hopping around trying to swing the other in.

  “This is fucked up, you know. How did you not tell me in, like, the month we’ve spent together? Why the hell did you wake me up to tell me this tonight? This couldn’t have waited till morning? Fuck you.”

  She slapped me. I was momentarily stunned and she snatched her shirt from the floor. She turned and resumed angrily weeping.

  “I am starting to fall in love with you.”

  “Well, yeah, me, too. But why now?”

  “Because it is no longer play. Loving is dangerous.”

  “But, but. Ahhh! We can find a way to work it out. Wait, you’re engaged?”

  “You are so young.”

  I protested, and she cut me off.

  “How old are you, twenty-three? You know nothing of love. You have no idea how hard this is. How do you think I feel? It is much more complicated than you make it out.”

  I drove her home in silence and woke up alone.

  * * *

  She sent me a text message the next day.

  “Hello Drew . . . I wanted to say I am sorry about last night. I would still like to see your house. Will you invite me?”

  I ignored the text most of the day and attempted to busy myself framing out the bathroom, which needed to be expanded. The room had originally held only a small sink and toilet, and I wanted to add a shower. The bathroom upstairs had one, but was out of the area I was going to heat for that winter. On the south wall of the room I had bricked up the window opening with glass blocks, which would be in the shower itself. I planned to tile the wall in mosaic—I figured I could get cheap or free ceramic tile, smash it up and arrange it, create something beautiful. I was going to tile the window in the shape of the sun, but I wasn’t feeling so beautiful or sunny at the moment.

  I had brought the scale drawings of the house I had made with my grandfather. I’d set a rock found in the yard and a pair of pliers on the edges to keep them from rolling up. They’d become dirty from bringing them here to work, but were still legible, although the crisp pencil lines were now smeared and fading. The plans my grandfather had gently walked me through at his kitchen table, the ones he wouldn’t do for me, but made me learn myself, would dictate how big to frame out the toilet, the sink, the shower. I wished he could gently walk me through what to do with Cecilia, but the men in my family didn’t discuss that kind of thing, just how to build houses.

  I decided my grandpa was wrong about where to put the toilet and the sink, so I switched their places. Years later I would realize he was right all along, but it would be too late to switch them back. For now I felt good about making a decision on my own, one I thought smarter than the knowledge of those who came before me, those with more experience.


  I did a half-assed job and was listless. How can you not tell someone you’re engaged? Had I missed something, was I just that stupid and inexperienced? I replayed our conversations in my mind, looking for an inflection or an offhand comment I might have missed or willfully ignored. What should have been easy and fun on the house was turning into a drudge. Every few moments or so my internal monologue would swerve back to Cecilia, and each time a little inarticulate jolt would pass through my body as I remembered what had transpired and how stupid I’d been.

  I was embarrassed for not thinking there might be a catch to all of this, that it wasn’t me who was interesting or fascinating. It was Detroit. Cecilia just wanted someone to show her around. Of course, she wanted to nibble on this place, slum it for a bit and take off to where she came from, to this other man, who, I later learned, was fairly famous in Italy. It was Detroit that she wanted, not me. But what the hell? You can’t help who you fall in love with, and I might as well try. The text was searing a hole in my pocket, and maybe, after all, she’d change that plane ticket and stay just a little longer.

  I called and she picked up right away. I told her if she wanted to see the house, now was a good time. She agreed, and would head over.

  When she arrived I grabbed her hand and helped her up onto the porch, as I still hadn’t built any stairs. She left her bike unlocked resting against the house and stepped through the threshold ahead of me. The door, which was supposed to be hanging in the doorway, was still sitting on sawhorses on my porch, half-stripped. I was still screwing myself in and out past a piece of plywood.

  “Well, this is it,” I said, stepping in behind her.

  “It is nice.”

  She lied. I led her through the kitchen and we didn’t speak. I hadn’t even accomplished half of what I had needed to before I was to move in. All the utilities still needed to be hooked up, and the sink from the bar stood forlornly on the unsteady stand I had quickly built for it. The floors were dark; the windows, still covered with plywood, were dark; my mood was dark. I’d spent so much time showing this woman around the city that I loved rather than working on this house that I needed to love, and it showed. I had framed one of the studs for the bathroom a bit out of plumb, and the whole place seemed shabby and inadequate.