A $500 House in Detroit

by Drew Philp

  Reclaiming abandoned lots leads to reclaiming abandoned homes, leads to reclaiming abandoned community, leads to reclaiming our abandoned souls and agency. Any act of self-sufficiency in concert with community is an act of rebellion.

  Five more plants.

  Our planet is going to die if we cannot find a way to live differently and solve climate change.

  Four more plants.

  Capitalism is based on limitless growth in a finite world.

  Three more plants.

  Nature’s currency is life and is cyclical.

  Two more plants.

  The two will eventually become incompatible, and we are beginning to see the result with climate change.

  One more plant.

  I started with a garden.

  No more plants.

  No more plants.

  I was soaking wet and the dog was rolling in the newly forming mud. It was pouring, the crack of thunder right behind me. I loaded my tools in the wheelbarrow and headed back to the front porch. Gratiot leaped up out of the rain. He shook the water from his glistening coat and I sat with him cross-legged under the eaves and watched the tempest. It was one of those great midwestern boomers that make it understandable why so many in the middle of America believe in an angry and powerful god. Lightning pounded the sky and the thunder opened it and the water dripping onto the porch from the gutterless roof crept ever closer to my feet. I was unafraid and unashamed. If we were going to do this, we would have to get to know our neighbors.

  * * *

  The chimney needed to be done before the roof, which was still leaking onto everything and destroying my house. It seemed to be getting worse, too, the rain flirting with the drywall I’d optimistically hung. If the two were to meet, the whole thing would have to be done over again. But I wasn’t about to cut a hole in a brand-new roof, so the chimney was going to happen now.

  I had read all the books at the library about chimney building and Jake had finished his last summer, so I had some kind of idea about how it was going to go. But aside from some crude bricking on the foundation, I hadn’t done any masonry work. If it was built improperly it would topple over. As it would run through what would be my bedroom, it might topple over onto me. Through my research I had found pictures of fallen chimneys, and the damage was gruesome. Not to mention this would be carrying hot smoke and ash away from my tinder-dry wooden house. If I screwed up I had only myself to blame.

  Will helped me frame out the openings. The chimney would sit on the slab in the basement, travel up through the living room, through my bedroom upstairs, and out through the roof a full seven feet so it would reach high enough for a good draft and code clearance. Will and I had to remove some joists and reframe a bit of the floor to get it where we wanted, but generally we got pretty lucky, as you sometimes do. In all it would be 35 feet tall, have approximately 840 bricks, and weigh at least two and a half tons. I was going to have to lift all of that.

  In the areas where it wouldn’t be visible—the basement and through my bedroom, which would be drywalled—I would use chimney blocks for speed. The square blocks are made from the same material as cinder blocks, with a hole in the middle to fit the liner. The liner consists of two-foot-tall terra-cotta sections that get mortared together inside the chimney, creating a double wall like in a thermos.

  The rest would be brick. They came from a building in the neighborhood that had mysteriously exploded, the pile spewing across the road like vomit creeps across a subway aisle. The building had been at least two stories at one point, but the explosion or whatever it was had made the road impassable. Although they had a Dumpster and maybe some bricks were making their way inside, nobody ever seemed to be working on removing them and the pile in the road never seemed to get any smaller. Nobody seemed to care. Even the electric company. On closer inspection the power was on in the center of where the building would have been, and there was some kind of wire sparking deep within that nobody had bothered to turn off.

  I only took bricks that were on public property. I figured they were part mine, they’d been there long enough, and I couldn’t get through the damn street. So I loaded my truck until the back springs sagged. As they still had pieces of mortar stuck to them they would need to be cleaned.

  I awoke on Mother’s Day to James Brown singing “It’s a Man’s Man’s Man’s World,” the strings soaring and Brown’s careening voice wafting from the Terrys’ behind me. They had a tent erected in the empty lots next to their place, and dozens of people milled about. It was a sunny day and I stopped for a moment to smile at the friends and family together, but didn’t see either the mister or the missus, so headed off to Belle Isle with the dog. I didn’t want to get in their way.

  That next week as I was cleaning bricks, Mrs. Terry again sat on her back porch and called me over. We chatted about the neighborhood and then she looked me straight in the eye.

  “Why didn’t you come to the party the other day?”

  I stammered some reply about not wanting to bother them at a family event. She seemed kind of angry, actually. It wasn’t a disappointed kind of angry, just matter-of-fact.

  “Well, you live here now, you’re family.”

  That was all. I promised her I would be at the next one. She dismissed me, and I had a lot of time to clean bricks and wonder. Was I missing some social cues obvious to everyone else? Had the society I grew up in somehow poisoned me to mistrust genuine acts of kindness from neighbors? Maybe I was overthinking all this.

  Now that the weather had warmed some, I was able to open the interior doors and brighten up the house. I had moved my sleeping quarters into one of the rooms upstairs. My bed was on the floor, there were holes in the plaster, and I had little else but the dresser I had been given, but it felt more civilized to be sleeping in a designated room with a door and not on top of the workbench. It also freed up some space to work in the heated rooms downstairs. In between working on the chimney I had moved to drywall as well.

  Sheetrocking really isn’t any fun. The wallboard needs to be hung flat, any gaps have to be packed with joint compound, the seams get taped and then covered with at least three coats of mud. At the end everything gets sanded, an awful and awkward process that gets drywall dust everywhere. When using standard drywall mud, as I was, the minimum time any one wall could be completed in was four days, due to drying time.

  But once I finished this, including painting, it would mark the end of major construction in my three-room living space—aside from the chimney. There were still, of course, trim and switch covers and smaller things to take care of, but the big life-disrupting projects would be over.

  My trowel was loaded with drywall mud when I heard a scream. I ran outside thinking someone was being robbed. A neighbor was in the road holding a tiny dog, terrified. Gratiot was tearing across the yard toward her.

  Everyone was on their porch now. Gratiot must have jumped the fence to say hello to her dog, but she didn’t know that. She thought he was going to rip her apart.

  I leaped the fence myself and grabbed Gratiot by the scruff, apologizing profusely. The woman was nearly in tears as I dragged him back to the house. What a wonderful way to meet my neighbors. I yelled fire and brimstone at the dog inside, although I knew it wasn’t really his fault.

  Later that day I walked over to the neighbors’ house with my hat in my hands. I apologized. That was the day I really met the woman and her husband. They graciously accepted and gave me a lecture, but no hard feelings. They could have refused to speak to me. Sometimes mistakes make good neighbors, too.

  A few weeks later as I was applying primer, another neighbor, Mrs. Smith, had her house broken into. While she was at work as a nurse, someone had walked onto her porch in broad daylight and smashed her front window, gone inside, and stolen what little she had, mostly costume jewelry. I was home but didn’t hear any of the commotion. By chance, while I was getting the mail as an excuse for a break, I saw some of the neighbors milling about in the ro
ad. Mrs. Smith, who I had seen before and recognized, but had never really talked to, looked upset. I went over to find out what was going on.

  A tall man with a shaved head was attempting to fit a piece of plywood over the window. “They just smashed her in. I swear one day I’m a get one of those little niggers with my pistol,” he muttered.

  I offered my condolences and introduced myself. He said his name was King and he had seen me working on the house. He lived just a block to the south, and we would be able to see each other from our respective front porches. The sheet of plywood he was struggling with was too small, but he said it was the biggest he had. I took some measurements with his tape measure and told them I would be right back.

  I had a piece, once used to board up my own house, lying in the yard. After cutting it to size I brought it over along with some caulk. Most important, I brought a bucket of white paint. Mrs. Smith’s house was white and the piece of ply was kind of dirty, so I figured I’d give it a quick coat. She was a dignified lady.

  I set and caulked the board, but something changed with the quick coat of paint. The anger in the small crowd seemed to subside somewhat and everyone calmed down. Mrs. Smith reached for my hand.

  “Oh, I got paint on myself,” I said, holding the can and the brush.

  “That doesn’t matter, child.”

  I gave her my hand, and she held it in both of hers. She looked me in the eye.

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  Before I left, every single person in the yard said, in their own way, that my house was looking better all the time, and they would watch over it when I wasn’t there, and for my safety when I was.

  The paint was just an accident, a little bit of humanity between neighbors, not part of some plan. After then I never had to worry about whom I could wave to and who would wave back. I was still always extremely aware of my color, and I hadn’t proved myself yet, if I ever would, but this was a new step in getting to know the people I would be living beside.

  When my truck broke down, the guy who gave me the salt for my drain, Woods, lent me a hand. I was trying to change the brakes but it was proving difficult. I had read all I could about the job and jumped right in, as usual, but I was stuck. I needed a special tool, but didn’t know it. As I stood there frustrated, Woods strolled over with a buddy and told me what the problem was without even bending over. He had the tool and lent it to me.

  “Do I need to give you any money for that?”

  “It only costs money if I have to get dirty,” he said.

  Another guy from down the street, Scott, spent the better part of a day helping me when I broke one of the lug nuts off and had to repack the wheel bearings. He drove me to the auto parts store, gave me some of his own bearing grease, and set the new lugs at his home shop. He sat next to me and coached me through the rest until I had finished.

  Weren’t these the people who I’d been told were all drug dealers and criminals, people too stupid to leave Detroit? Why were they living here? Hadn’t all the good people moved out by now, the ones who could? Weren’t all the people living in neighborhoods this damaged broken themselves? Maybe they were all just stuck here and couldn’t escape.

  Or was it that they didn’t want to leave, and those things were misrepresentations at best, lies at worst? Maybe I had stepped into a real community, one tied together with memory and friendships, history, shared experience and relationships, something that could only be built from years and trust and mutual understanding.

  I’d had some time to think about that furnace again, too. It now sat quiet in the basement, made temporarily unnecessary with sun gracing the windows. Accepting that gift from my family was a relief not just from the cold but from the traditional masculinity I’d clothed myself in, the role of the provider, the American ideal frontiersman, the Man Who Needs No Help. It was a relief to admit I couldn’t do it all myself. I couldn’t be both above the community and of it; receiving gracefully was just as important as giving generously. If I was to truly embody the universal ideal, not just the classic American mythical one, I’d have to wash the shame of receiving help from my countenance, and in doing so any final subconscious judgment of others who took it.

  * * *

  The street leading to my house was blocked off by fire trucks and police. The house that was kitty-corner from mine was gone, but the fire was still going. There was a great column of flames spewing from where the front porch used to be. It looked like the gas main had ignited and they were working to get it shut off. I wormed my way through the trucks and explained to an officer where I lived.

  “If it wasn’t already gone, I’d tell you to let that one burn,” I said.

  The cop laughed. “I understand.”

  The fire looked like a jet engine turned upward, the flame close to the gas pipe blue, the orange reaching two stories to where the top of the house used to be. I could feel the heat from my back porch, and I was vaguely worried about my windows cracking.

  The house was being squatted by some of the local junkies, and they must have had an illegal gas hookup. We knew each other by sight but weren’t particularly friendly. I knew they were using the squat as a shooting gallery, and I knew that the woman staying there was called Sawtooth Betty. Matt, the junkie from Forestdale, knew them and went there to cop occasionally. He put in a good word for me, let them know I was cool and wouldn’t call the cops, but also to stay out of my way and I would stay out of theirs. These kinds of interactions were more important for safety than any gun or dog or policeman. Above all else, my relationship with the neighbors would keep me safe.

  It’s a strange thing to be glad a house burns down in your neighborhood, especially one you can see from your back door. I feel a bit guilty now that I know the former occupants better, can see them as individuals rather than just junkies, but the first feeling I had was to be pleased. That was one less drug house I had to pass on the way home.

  I watched the firefighters work for fifteen minutes or so and got bored. You can only watch so much stuff burn. They didn’t have it extinguished before I went to bed. The next morning the house was just a foundation and a tiny pile of ash. I wondered if the dog who lived there had made it out alive. Sawtooth Betty moved into another house just up the street.

  Whatever was going to happen, I needed to keep building. The next morning I started the chimney at the bottom. Mix the mortar, place the flue pipe. Butter the lower chimney block, slip the block over the pipe without disturbing it. Tamp it. Level it, tamp it again until it’s level. Repeat. The blocks get harder to lift as they get higher. Try not to bump the flue pipe or you’ll have to start all over. Start all over. Get the ladder. Hurry, because the mortar is drying. Climb the ladder with the chimney block and teeter over the fledgling chimney. Don’t touch the pipe. Make sure the chimney is going up straight. Measure from your marks and the ropes you’ve strung.

  Shake your head at yourself because it’s a little off. Swear to do better next time. Get another block. Place it at the level of your head while on the ladder. Move it just out of square to compensate for the last block you screwed up. But not too much. The flue pipe still has to fit inside. Get another block and climb the ladder. Feel each of the muscles in your back. Get a small hernia from the final block. Get worried a bit. Say fuck it and keep going, you have mortar drying. Think about yourself at fifty with a broken, worn-out body like your father and grandfather and his father before him. Wonder if you’re going to go deaf from the power tools like they did, need hearing aids at forty. The block hovers just over the mortar bed.

  Be too proud for hearing aids and don’t notice when someone yells four feet behind you. Set the block and level it. The four-foot won’t fit this time because of the floor joists. Get the torpedo.

  Lower the final block into place from the top, using a pincer grip. See your knuckles swelling. Don’t let the block fall. Just so. That’s enough for one day. Wait, you should set the next flue pipe with the
little bit of mortar you have left. Smoke a cigarette on the porch. Your hands are going to hurt later. They will crack and maybe bleed. Go downstairs and look at your work. Not bad. It’s not professional exactly, looks a little homemade, but it seems to be working. Not too bad. That’s ten feet. You only have twenty-five more to go. Be proud of yourself, just for a second. You have mortar drying.

  * * *

  I had gotten a job teaching year-round in a juvenile prison and was still working at the French restaurant on weekends. All that plus working on the house was killing me, but I desperately needed the money. I had to get that roof on. I worked five days a week at the prison, the other two at the restaurant, and every night I was able, on the chimney or whatever other never-ending project was at hand.

  I walked in from work one day to find the drywall on the kitchen ceiling—the drywall I had just installed, mudded, and painted—bubbling. I thought this was odd so I got up on a chair and poked it with a pencil. Water squirted out like it was an enormous pimple. This was bad.

  I’d learned a trick from a friend who had dealt with the same issue. Still in my good work clothes, I climbed back onto the chair with a drill and a bit an inch in diameter. Wet drywall is just about the perfect food for mold. They love it. I drilled a dozen holes in the drywall I had just hung and finished perfectly. It was all going to have to be redone. I still didn’t have the money for the roof.

  I decided I needed a day off. I went to visit Farmer Paul at the school for pregnant and parenting mothers where he taught, Catherine Ferguson Academy. I wanted to see how he had done it so well over the years. I still had only gotten sips of the man, and wanted to know how he became who he was, why so many people sought him out for documentaries or chapters of books, what made him one of the most innovative educators in America. I now had the excuse to corner him and he happily obliged.