People Live Here: VINCE - RENTROPY

✨ Content is free—but birds like snacks.

This story is told through the eyes of the Property Manager of the motel.

VINCE - RENTROPY 

The pain starts behind my right eye. 

A slow pulse. Deep, sharp, rhythmic. 

Like a tooth being drilled from the inside out. It always starts the same way. 

Maybe it’s the rain. The pressure. The season shifting. Maybe it’s dehydration. 

Maybe it’s bullshit. 

Maybe I already know why. 

I don’t count people. 

I count numbers. 

Rent. Occupancy. Projected increases. 

Evictions. Profit margins. Liquidity. 

Nothing else matters. 

Nothing else can matter. 

Three-oh-five. Five-oh-three. Eighty-four. Forty-eight. Dial. Busy signal. Hang up. 

Check the numbers. Dial again. 

Or— 

‘Vince@PalisadesMGMT.com.’ 

Don’t count on a reply. 

Count on rent rising.

Count on lights going dark. 

Count on black mold resurrection. 

"It's in process." 

"We’ll send someone out." 

"Must be the weather." 

The pipes spit for months. The cracks expand. Wood swells and shrinks. Emails fester, unread. 

Then—white envelope under your door. 

A Black BMW 5 Series pulls away. 

The specter in tinted windows with prescription blue blocker shades. No last name. 

No voice to remember. 

Just a shadow in the system. 

I watch the numbers move. 

Ceiling breach. Structural failure. Water damage. 

Mark it. File it. Forward it. 

No fatalities. No lawsuits. No urgency. 

Somewhere, a breaker trips. 

A room goes dark. 

A voicemail pings my inbox. 

From: Lena Marshall 

Subject: MARK’S OXYGEN KEEPS CUTTING OUT

I skim. 

Breaker trips at night. Machine shuts off. He panics. If we aren’t here to reset it, he could  die. 

The pain stabs deeper. 

I press my thumb into my temple. Rub slow circles. It does nothing. 

The breaker trips because the wiring in Building C is a fucking disaster. Palisades won’t fix it. Not unless they’re forced. 

Because this place was never meant to last. 

The Rosetta is a money-laundering pit. 

It’s one of three motels Palisades acquired under shell companies with fake names, all  through a revolving door of legal fuckery. 

Buy the property under an LLC. Sell it to another LLC. Flip it through so many layers of  paper, no one knows who really owns it. 

But the money keeps moving. 

And the tenants? 

Expendable. 

The Rosetta brings in cash. Under the table. Off the books. 

Weekly rent payments. No credit checks. No leases that hold up in court. No paper trail. 

And when it’s time—when the market shifts, when the property values creep up— They’ll bulldoze the place. 

Turn it into high-rent, low-income housing with a waiting list so long, the people who lived 

here will never get in. 

Palisades has done it before. 

They’ll do it again. 

But until then? 

Until the timing is right? 

They’ll let the Rosetta dissolve to its bones. 

I exhale slow. 

The pain presses harder, radiating into my jaw, my teeth, the back of my skull. My vision flares white-hot, slicing my optic nerve. 

I squeeze my eyes shut.  

Picture fork in a toaster. 

Picture yellow jackets on eyelids. 

Picture chewing concrete. 

Breathe. 

The storm gutters droop, spilling water over the walkway. The stream follows down and  pack toward the buildings and pools around the stoops. 

The doors sag in their frames. They've been crowbarred, kicked-in, and carved on. The  numbers never change. Black streaks vomitting down the bottom of the window units. A  rat with it's gut splayed open. The lead-based paint peels in long, curling strips and blends  with the mulch below the trimmed hedgerows. Water seeps from building A out into Mercy  street. 

The city knows. Officials know.  

Inspections happen. The Fire Marshal has been here. 

He walks through, nods at Gordon, marks violations that no one enforces.

Because he gets paid to leave. 

Because it’s easier that way. 

And because this is what happens to places like this. 

The headache rotates around the back of my left eye.  

It pounds. 

It claws. 

It keeps coming. 

I force my eyes open. I'm shivering. 

The email about Mark still sits there. Unread. 

His voicemail still waits. Unheard. 

I don’t have time for it. 

I don’t have the capacity for it. 

Because when you let it in, it stays. 

And I know that better than anyone. 

When I was seven, I sat in the backseat while my father collected rent in a place just like  this. 

The tenant came outside pointing a gun at his face. 

I don’t remember what was said. 

I just remember the gun.  

The flash of it. The way my father barely reacted. 

I don't know how he missed. 

He didn't run. I don't even remember him ducking. 

He just told the guy to pay up or get out. 

Then he walked back to the car, blood leaking from his neck. 

Like nothing had happened. 

And I remember thinking— 

Is this normal? 

I forward Lena’s email. 

Maintenance. Urgent.  

That’s the best I can do. 

The breaker will trip again. 

Mark will wake up gasping for air. 

And maybe, one night, no one will be there to reset it. 

I don’t think about it. 

I can’t. 

I mute the radio. 

The splinter behind my eye fragments every time I move 

I rub my temple. It seers deep to the center of my focus. The strobe of pain is all I can see  right now. My ears are ringing in the distance, then—Ping! 

Another email. 

Management Inquiry: Rosetta Lodging – Occupancy Report 

I exhale. Thumb the screen through tears.

Occupancy? 

That’s the only number that matters. 

The units are full. 

The waitlist is long. 

The city’s second-highest homeless rate keeps demand steady. 

The pain lulls.  

I type fast. Mechanical. 

87% occupancy. No vacancies. 

Profit stable. Projected increase Q3. 

Send. 

The headache pulses to back to full volume.  

The BMW glides through the streets, smooth, controlled, silent. The cabin is perfectly  sealed—no rain, no city noise, just the hum of the tires on wet pavement. 

I really shouldn’t be driving.  

The Rosetta is already shrinking in the rearview. 

Good. 

I need it gone. 

I turn down the volume. It's muted. 

I take a turn too hard. Grip the wheel too tight. The headache pulses, shoves back. My jaw  clenches. 

My vision goes hazy at the edges. 

I blink hard, focus.

I think of the old guy, the Vietnam vet. 

Maybe, I need oxygen. 

Or an injection. Or a bullet. Something to make this stop. Instead, I keep going. 

Because this is how it works. 

The world doesn’t stop because you hurt. 

Downtown is bright, too bright. 

The wet asphalt glows with neon streaks—red, green, blue. I pull into the underground garage of my building. Security cameras sweep, slow, mechanical. 

I pull into my reserved spot. Sit still for a second. Try to breathe. I turn the volume down.  

Still muted. 

The pain is getting worse.  

Faster this time. 

My fingers fumble at the glove compartment. Snap it open. Pill bottle. 

I shake out two. Swallow them dry. 

They won’t do shit. I already know that. 

But I take them anyway. 

The elevator ride is too long.

I can hear my own heartbeat. Feel it in my skull. By the time I step into my apartment, I’m shaking. The curtains are drawn. The space is clean. Quiet. Perfect. 

I should go straight to bed. 

Dark room. Ice pack. Wait it out. 

But I don’t. 

Instead, I sit down in my blue blockers. Open my laptop. 

And start drafting the next set of reports.