who waited each month for their SSI checks. Tobin had asked Rufus to pull out the microwave, refrigerator, dryer, and any other larger items. He was yanking on the dishwasher when Tobin walked in. Wearing pressed khaki pants and a polo shirt, Tobin narrowed his eyes. He was unfazed, having seen this kind of mess before. “Okay, Rufus,” Tobin said. “Let’s get this shit out of here and see where we stand.”
It took Rufus two hours to load everything into the bed of his old blue Chevy. Tobin didn’t pay him anything, but he collected almost $60 from the scrap yard. It took Mrs. Mytes five straight hours. Tobin paid her $20.
Once the trailer was cleared out, Tobin placed an advertisement in the paper. Soon, couples were coming to look, and Tobin offered them the Handyman Special. He apologized for the condition of the trailer—it still smelled of cat urine and smoke, some windows were broken, and the black grime on the toilet was still there—but as consolation he threw in a couple months’ free rent. A few weeks after Theo left, Tobin had a new pair of tenants in E-24. The couple began to use the money they were saving on rent to fix up their new home. Two months later, they began paying Tobin $500 a month in lot rent.
Office Susie thought Tobin had shortchanged Mrs. Mytes, but she didn’t say anything. She called Tobin’s other workers, who cut the grass or picked up trash for beer money, “regular trailer park tramps.” Tobin fired the tramps after Alderman Witkowski stipulated he hire outside maintenance help, but some kept on working out of boredom or the hope that Tobin would still pay them something. Troy, a bony, out-of-work motorcycle mechanic, was one of them. He had even helped mop up the sewage spill that had made the news. For that, he got nothing but an earful from his common-law wife, Samantha.
“What are we supposed to do!” Samantha had yelled in her uniform from George Webb, a Wisconsin-based chain restaurant that served breakfast all day long. They were behind in rent and were hoping that Tobin would credit them something for Troy’s eight hours of puke work, even if Tobin had not hired him for the job. “You cleaned up shit! Human shit!”
“I’ll tell you,” Troy said. “I’ve cleaned up horse shit, when I was shoveling stables. I’ve cleaned up chicken shit. But I ain’t never had to clean up human shit. It was terrible.”
“I know, ’cause you smelled bad!” Samantha took a breath. “I’m a bitch,” she continued. “I’m a bitch. And, Troy, you don’t got no bitch in you.”
Troy dropped his head in quiet agreement, taking a sip of a milk shake that Samantha had brought home from work. “Tobin wants to whine and cry all the time,” he said. “The guy’s filthy rich, and he still wants money. He makes more than a million dollars on this park.” He gestured toward the line of trailers. “Add it up.”
Alderman Witkowski had quoted a similar number, estimating that Tobin’s trailer park netted more than $900,000 a year. Both Troy and Witkowski arrived at that figure by multiplying Tobin’s 131 trailers by the average monthly rent ($550). It was a sloppy calculation that assumed Tobin didn’t have any expenses or vacancies—and that his tenants always paid their rent in full.
Tobin didn’t have a mortgage: he had bought the trailer park for $2.1 million in 1995 and paid it off nine years later.2 But he did have to pay property taxes, water bills, regular maintenance costs, Lenny’s and Office Susie’s annual salaries and rent reductions, advertising fees, and eviction costs. After accounting for these expenses, vacancies, and missing payments, Tobin took home roughly $447,000 each year, half of what the alderman had reported.3 Still, Tobin belonged to the top 1 percent of income earners. Most of his tenants belonged to the bottom 10 percent.
Troy finished the milk shake. “Did that hit the spot, baby?” Samantha asked, rubbing his shoulder.
14.
HIGH TOLERANCE
Scott had no intention of fighting his eviction. He skipped his court date and never talked to Tobin about it. Instead, he focused his efforts on finding another place to live. After several calls, Pito from Narcotics Anonymous came through. Pito worked with landlords, repairing and filling their properties, and vouched for Scott to one he knew. The two-bedroom upper was on the near South Side. It was small and bare with a treacherous balcony and no shower. But the landlord was
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