In the last installment of Moving Up, Avery began his planning for his street fair, enlisting the aid of Cecilia Chavez, a local baker, Kevin Butler, a former baseball player and owner of a neighborhood barbershop, and Henri Ferdinand, the owner/editor of a local weekly newspaper. He also befriended Jerome Williams, the father of one of his employees and an amateur historian, offering him a chance to present a lecture in the library.
*****
The next few weeks were intense ones at work. One of the student workers who Avery had hired had to quit due to a combination of family issues and school work, which left the department short-handed, at the same time that a large new delivery of books arrived. Sorting, tagging, and shelving those books consumed many man-hours of labor over those weeks, and Avery found himself putting in overtime almost every night. On the one hand, this left him frustrated with work and overly tired in the evenings. But on the other hand, it gave him something to occupy his time, since Kate had gone to Washington D.C. for a long research trip. She was staying with an old family friend. And though she called Avery daily, she was far too busy to talk at length. Avery's heavy workload thus helped to allay his boredom and loneliness.
Despite all of the work at the library, preparations for the festival were proceeding apace. Avery now had four food vendors, a ballfield for the softball game, three musical acts, and two major confirmed sponsors (as well as a handful of smaller ones). What he still didn't have was a permit for the fair. He had visited City Hall one afternoon to discuss a permit with the Commissioner of Parks and Recreation, but the Commissioner was out of town at a meeting. His secretary, trying to be helpful, had provided Avery with the full six-page permit application, as well as the seventeen-page instructions that went with it. The application was filled with questions about the event's impact on traffic, sanitation, crime, and almost every other facet of urban living, and it had to be signed off on by the heads of six different departments. Avery, overwhelmed, had put it to the side, hoping to be able to devote more time to it once things calmed down at work.
The first week of April, Avery was having a particularly rough day at work, and so he stepped out onto the dock to have a cigarette and get some fresh air. The weather that week was typical for Wisconsin in April - fluctuating between the last gasps of winter and the first hints of spring. That particular afternoon tended more towards the latter, as it was sunny and the temperature was inching up towards 60 degrees. As he smoked, Avery tilted his head back and felt the warm rays of sunlight on his face. The calming effects of the pleasant weather allowed Avery to organize his thoughts a bit. He realized that the only way to handle the onslaught at work was simply to slog through it, slow and steady. He decided that he wasn't going to work any more overtime, even if that meant that the work would end up taking a few more weeks to complete.
Having decided that he wasn't going to let work at the library dominate his time, Avery felt better about devoting time again to planning the festival. Finally giving serious though to the fair after all this time, he decided that he needed a strategy for approaching the permit. Up till he actually saw the application, Avery figured that his handful of contacts at City Hall would be sufficient to obtain the permit. But now he knew that he was going to need someone not just with the contacts, but with experience in obtaining the permit. Mulling it over, he suddenly realized that he hadn't ever called Martin Price, one of the organizers from the old festival who Kevin Butler had recommended.
Finishing his cigarette, Avery headed back to his office to search for Price's phone number. When Butler had called about having reserved the ballfield, he had given Avery Price's number. Now Avery just had to remember which little scrap of paper it was written on. After a short search, he found the number, and decided to call Price once he got home.
*****
Arriving at home that night, Avery found Rob in the living room with his girlfriend, Melinda.
"Hi, Avery."
"Hey, Rob."
"Hey, there was something that I wanted to talk to you about."
"Yeah, sure, no problem," Avery answered, walking into the kitchen. Rob followed.
"Hey, I spend a lot of time over at Melinda's place, and so, um ... Melinda and I decided that it's finally time to take the plunge and officially move in together."
Avery was a little surprised to here this. Not because it didn't make sense, but mostly because he never figured Rob would be decisive enough to actually move in with Melinda. "Oh, I see."
"Yeah, so ... I realize that this could make things hard for you guys, so I just wanted to give you some time to figure things out."
"When were you planning to move?"
"I was thinking I'd move out at the end of May."
Avery thought about it. Between his promotion (and raise) and Kate's grant money, money wasn't near so tight. Losing Rob's $300 a month wouldn't be fun, but it wouldn't be the end of the world, either. "Yeah, Rob, that's fine. I mean, we never had a proper lease anyhow, so two month's notice is more than fair."
"Good, good. I didn't want to make things hard for you and Kate. Anyway, Melinda and I are headed out. I'll see you tomorrow or whatever."
"Okay, see ya," Avery replied, as Rob and Melinda were already halfway out the frontdoor.
Avery started some water boiling for spaghetti. His eating habits had been pretty bad with Kate out of town - frozen pizza and fast food, mostly - so even something as basic as spaghetti seemed like a nice change. As the water boiled, Avery grabbed the cordless phone off the wall, fished Martin Price's number from his pocket, and dialed.
After five rings, Avery was about to hang up when he finally heard an answer.
"Marty Price's office!"
"Oh, hello, Mr. Price. My name is Avery Key."
"How can I help you, Mr. Key? Are you looking to buy or sell a house?" Price asked. Avery had forgotten that Price was a real estate agent.
"Oh, um ... neither, actually."
"Oh ... I see ..."
"Actually, I'm looking for some of your expertise regarding street fairs."
"Street fairs? I'm after that you must have the wrong person."
"Oh, really? I'm sorry." Avery felt slightly silly. "Kevin Butler had told me that you were one of the organizers of the Holton Street Festival and that you might be able to offer me some help."
"Oh ... Holton Street, hey? What makes you bring that up?"
"Well, I'm trying to revive the fair. I've already organized several sponsors and vendors, and recruited some friends to help."
"Really? Wow ..." There was a pause. "Wow, I never thought anyone would try to restart our fair."
"So you are one of the former organizers?"
"Yes, I am. But, boy, I haven't thought about that fair in about - oh, I don't know - eight years or so."
"Yeah, that sounds about right."
"So, what did you say you've done so far?"
"Well, I've got a couple big sponsors, a few food vendors, some live music, and a ballfield for the softball game."
"You don't have a permit yet?"
"Uh, no. I only just got the application. That's part of why I called you."
"I see. Well, first of all, you'd better get that application filed ASAP. It can take months to approve one of those things, so you don't want to get struck with you event scheduled and the permit still not approved."
"What about all the impact statements for traffic, crime, etc."
"Well, those look hard, but they're really not bad at all. Really, you just need to make it sound like you've put a little thought into these things and that you have some sort of plan to help. It doesn't even have to be a good plan. Just anything."
"See, but I wouldn't even know where to start."
"Hmm, well ... how did you say you knew of me?"
"Kevin Butler gave me your number."
"Huh." There was a pause. "Is he a good friend of yours?"
"Well ... I mean, I wouldn't say a good friend, but we are working together on this fair."
"Well, okay. Kevin and I go way back. If he's involved, I'd be happy to help you out with the application. Are you free evenings?"
"Yeah, definitely."
"Okay, I'll come by your place tomorrow and we'll got over the ins and outs of the form. I know what they're looking for on these things, and I still have some friends at City Hall to smooth over any problems."
"Wow, that would be great."
*****
The next evening, Price came by Avery's house. With Kate still out of town, Avery had asked Price to come over at 7 o'clock so that he'd have a little time to put together a decent dinner. Unfortunately, Avery's cooking skills left much to be desired, so instead, Price found a meal of Iranian take-out when he arrived promptly at 7.
"It's really good of you to come by."
"No problem, really. I'm a real estate broker, so I'm pretty used to working evenings and weekends with my clients. This isn't too different."
"So does that mean you'll be expecting a 6% cut?"
Price laughed, by didn't respond to Avery's joke. "Anyway, let's sit down and go over the details of this application."
Over a dinner of khoresht and lamb kebabs, Avery and Price discussed the precise details of the fair planning as it stood at that stage. Price took copious notes, even of details that Avery had barely remembered to mention. After an hour or so, Price seemed satisfied.
"Okay, it sounds like you've got most of the major issues ironed out. I think we'll be able to get this approved by Park & Rec." Price skimmed over his notes as he spoke. "I'll fill out the application in my office tomorrow and then I'll take it down to City Hall tomorrow afternoon. I have a couple condo showings in the Third Ward at 1pm, so that should work out well."
"Excellent. Thank you so much, Mr. Price."
"No problem. I have to admit that I was pretty skeptical when I first heard about that, but the more I hear, the more excited I get about it."
"Well, I'm glad that I have your blessing ... and your help."
"Sure," Price said, pausing. "Hey, there's one thing that you hadn't mentioned. What are you using as you staging area for the festival?"
"Staging area?"
"Yeah, you know - the place where you have ovens for the food vendors, prep and storage area for the musicians, and various and sundry other things like garbage cans, first aid kits, and the like."
"Oh ... boy, I hadn't really thought about that."
Price had already half gotten out of his chair preparing to leave, but now he sat back down. "Really? Wow ... um, a staging area is very important to a good festival. It's basically your headquarters."
"Yeah, I see ... I don't know how that never occurred to my before."
"Well, good thing that I'm here to help."
"Yeah." Avery was thinking. "Problem is that of the various shopkeepers who are participating, none of them have big enough store to accommodate anything like that. And my house is too far away to serve as a headquarters."
"Hmm." Price seemed deep in thought. He opened up and started flipping through his binder. "Let's see ... oh, here it is! Are you familiar with that large vacant storefront on the east side of Holton, near Center?"
"The one on the same block as The Hot Corner?"
"Yeah, that's the one. That place has been for sale for months now - close to a year, actually. I'm thinking that they might be interested in renting to you for a month or two just to get some income from the property. That place would be a great stage area."
"How much do you think something like that would run?"
"Well, with the place empty and unsold, it's costing them a ton of money. If you were able to put up enough to cover the taxes and utilities for the time you had it, I bet they'd go for it."
"With our sponsorships, I think we could swing that."
"Excellent. I'll give the listing agent a call tomorrow, and have her see if he clients would be interested in a short-term rental."
"Wow, thank you so much, Mr. Price."
"Alright, now I need to be running. Thank you for the dinner. I'll be in touch with you tomorrow afternoon."
*****
Price was good to his word. Avery received a call the following afternoon at ten past four. Price had filled out the permit application and already had the approval of four of the six necessary officials. And he hadn't been able to talk to the final two only because they were at an out-of-town conference. Price assured Avery that he'd have the entire application signed and the final approval granted by the middle of the next week. Avery, frankly, wasn't terribly concerned now that Price was handling this part of the process, and so told him to take his time.
With the permit nearly in-hand, Avery decided to go back to the Riverwest Beat's offices to meet with Henry Ferdinand and discuss the advertising for the festival. They had already picked the last Saturday in August (the weekend before Labor Day) as the date for the festival, because, Milwaukee being the City of Festivals, every other weekend was packed with at least one, and sometimes two, festivals. And though word-of-mouth had already spread the news of the impending return of the Holton Street Festival, Avery and Henry decided that serious advertising in the Beat and participation from local businesses was the only way to ensure a good turnout.
When Avery arrived at the Beat, it was already a quarter past six. All of the lights were out, but Avery noticed a newsboy leaving the building.
"Excuse me! Hold the door!"
"Oh, sure."
"Thank you. I'm here for a meeting with Mr. Ferdinand."
"Sure, no problem. Are you Avery?"
"Yes."
"Sure, he's back in his office, waiting for you."
"Hey, wait! Don't I know you?"
"Uh ... I don't think so."
"Yeah, you look familiar ... do you also work at a place on Holton?"
"Yeah, I work at the stationary station on Holton and Center."
"Right! Right, you're in Flamesnake."
"Oh, no. Not anymore. We broke up weeks ago."
"Oh, sorry to here that."
"Yeah, but we put together a new band with a new singer and drummer."
"What're you called now?"
"Good Behavior."
Avery chuckled. "Trying go more mainstream?"
"It's short for 'time off for good behavior.'"
"Oh, I see. What kind of music do you play now?"
"Y'know, alternative rock or whatever. Indie."
"Huh. Like who do you sound like."
"Oh, I don't know ... like, New Pornographers or whatever - Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, the Smiths, R.E.M."
"Are you as good as them?" Avery asked.
"Well, we don't have a record or whatever, but yeah, I think we're pretty good."
"Cool. You still looking for a gig?"
"Yeah, sure."
"Cool. Here, give me a call," Avery said, handing the kid a business card, "and I'll give you more details."
"Awesome, man."
"Hey, what's your name?"
"Carlos de los Santos."
"Okay, Carlos, like I said, give me a call and I'll see about getting your band a chance to play at the street fair. Assuming you're still together at that point."
"Cool, man, thanks."
Avery headed inside and back into Henry's office. Henry was sitting with a cup of tea, reading over copy from several articles destined for the next issue. Other that Henry's office, all of the lights were out and the rest of the staff had left for the night
"Evening, Henry."
"Hello, Avery."
"So, I've got good news. I met Martin Price, and he's been helping with the planning."
"Marty? Hey, how's he doing?"
"Very well. He's a realtor now and appears to be doing pretty well for himself."
"Oh, good. He was really instrumental in organizing the original festival. I would have told you to look him up earlier, but I had heard that he moved to Minneapolis. I guess I heard wrong."
"Yeah, he's been really great was the whole process for getting the permit approved."
"Oh, that's really a bear. I once tried to throw a party for my staff and some of the neighbors - a small thing really, though it would have required closing down the alleyway. But God, City Hall was not having any of it. I spent weeks trying to get the application approved, and they just kept throwing up new roadblocks. I finally just gave up and held the party in the offices here."
"Yeah, I think without Marty's help I would be stuck that way too."
"So has the application actually been approved yet?"
"Not quite. But Marty said the middle of next week at the latest."
"Okay." Henry paused. "Well, if you've got the approval by Wednesday afternoon, I think we'll be able to get the advertisement into next week's issue - it goes to print Thursday morning. But if you don't have the approval, we'll have to bump it - it's illegal to advertise street fairs that don't have permits."
"Okay, then we should probably go over the wording and the layout for the ad."
"One step ahead of you." Henry pulled out several 12" x 14" full-page sheets, with possible wording and graphics. All of the sheets featured a rough sketch of people dancing. "I threw these together this afternoon."
"Did you do this art yourself?"
"Yeah, but these are just rough sketches. The final ones would look a lot better than this."
"Oh, no. Don't sell yourself short. These are really good." Avery examined the sheets carefully. "I especially like this one," he said, gesturing at the third of the four designs.
"What makes you pick that one?"
"I don't know." Avery perused the sheet. "The lettering is bold, but also fun. And the graphics are fun, too. It just says 'party' more than the others."
"Great. Good. Then we'll go with that one. I'll just finish the picture - make it a bit more polished."
"Actually, I don't think we need to change it a bit. I like the rough look of it - I wouldn't want it looking too slick," Avery explained. "Where'd you learn to draw like that?"
"When you're self-publishing a weekly newspaper, you learn to do a bit of everything."
Avery laughed. "Yeah, I guess so, huh?"
On his way out of the office, Avery's cell phone rang. It was an unfamiliar number, but the out-of-state area code gave him an idea of who it might be.
"Hello?"
"Hey, Ave. It's me."
"Hey, Kate. How are you tonight?"
"Good, I guess."
"You guess?"
"Well, the research isn't going quite as well as I had hoped. I'm having problems getting a hold of some of the documents that I need."
"Are they top-secret or something?"
"No, not at all - they should be public record. And I have all of my Freedom of Information Act forms completed. The Defense Department just won't turn them over."
"Hmm."
"Yeah, I just don't know who to talk to. My friend Sara works for Homeland Security, but she doesn't have any contacts at the Pentagon to help out." Kate paused. "Whatever happens, I think I'm going to be in D.C. for a while - longer than I expected. I already canceled my flight back."
"Yeah, I kinda figured," Avery said. He was already halfway home. "But, hey, have you considered our Congressman?"
"What about him?"
"Well, I don't know - I mean, you always hear stuff on the news about people getting their Congressman to solve this problem or that problem."
"What am I supposed to do, just call Gary Hofstra's office and say 'Hey, I'm one of your constituents - please help me out?'"
"Sure, why not?"
"You're so retarded," Kate said, deadpan.
"You are," Avery replied, laughing.
*****
Two weeks later, Avery found himself in the vacant storefront on Holton Street, along with Marty Price, Sheldon Herbert - the building's owner - and Cecilia Chavez - Esmerelda's daughter. Avery had brought Cecilia along because he needed her to verify if the building's kitchen was sufficient for her uses. The other food vendors for the festival were all businesses along Holton Street, and so had easy access to their own kitchens. The festival headquarters, therefore, would have to serve as the kitchen for Esmerelda's baked goods tent.
The building consisted of a large open room in the front and a spacious kitchen in the rear, accessible by two sets of double-doors. There was a bar along one side of the room, and in a corner near the kitchen was a counter that divided off a small area of the room where there were several electrical outlets and phone jacks. The building clearly had been a restaurant of some sort, and the corner area was likely where the cash register had been located. Avery surveyed the room and, doing some quick mental calculations, figured that it would be sufficient for their purposes. Assuming, of course, that the kitchen was up to the task.
"What sort of restaurant did you say this had been, Mr. Herbert?"
"It was an Italian Restaurant - Famiglia Rosselli's - so the ovens in the kitchen are all sufficient for making pizza, bread, lasagna, whatever. The works!"
Avery shot a glance at Cecilia, who was listening to the conversation quietly. He was trying to read from her face if Herbert's claims about the kitchen were even relevant to their needs. "Can we take a look at the kitchen, Mr. Herbert?"
"Sure, I'd be happy to show you."
"Actually, um ... actually, can Cecilia and I look at it alone?"
"Oh," Herbert paused. "Ah, sure, okay. I guess."
Avery nodded at Cecilia and they walked across the room into the kitchen. Immediately, Avery noticed that there was a rather foul smell coming from the sinks.
"Oh, god."
"It smells like there's something rancid down there," Cecilia said, pointing at one sink in particular. "They probably dumped grease down the drains after the restaurant was shut down."
"Is that a problem?" Avery asked.
"Well, yes."
"Well, I mean - big or small?"
"Depends. You ought to have Mr. Herbert get Roto-Rooter in here. It could be bad."
"Hmm." Avery surveyed the room further. "What about the refrigerators?"
"Well, they look pretty old. But otherwise ... well, I see no reason why they wouldn't work. I mean, there's nothing obviously wrong with them."
"Okay, that's good." Avery turned towards the ovens. "What about these? Do they live up to the billing?"
Cecilia examined them carefully. From what Avery could tell, they were fairly new. After a once-over, Cecilia looked back at Avery. "Only one way to find out how well they work." She turned the dial on the first oven to 500 degrees. There was a hiss of gas, and then a whoosh of flame. Opening the door, they could see the burners were all operating correctly. "Looks good."
Cecilia turned off the oven and walked with Avery back into the main room.
"Well, Mr. Key, how do you and your wife like the place?"
"Oh ... um ... she's not my wife."
"Sorry, sorry. Girlfriend, or, uh ... whatever."
"No, no. She's just a, um, business partner." Avery looked at Cecilia. She was blushing, and he felt his own face turning red, though he wasn't quite sure why. Maybe it was that Cecilia was his friend's daughter, and though he couldn't help but notice that she was quite pretty, there were so many things wrong with the thought of them being together. First and foremost, Avery was married, of course. But Cecilia was also twelve years younger than he was, and he had known her since she was fifteen. "No, I'm married. My wife is out of town."
"Oh, my apologies. Just thought it was a May-December thing." Avery glared back at Herbert. "May-October. May-June." Avery couldn't believe that Herbert was still digging this hole.
"Okay!" Marty Price suddenly interjected. "What sort of terms are we look at on this place?"
Herbert looked relieved. "Terms! Right. Um ... I'm just looking to cover my costs for the time you're here. So, I figured you pick up all the utility bills as well as the tax bill. So, we're looking at roughly $1,000 for the month."
"Okay. Does that sound good to you Avery?"
"Yes, I think that fits our budget just fine."
"About the sink?" Cecilia chimed in.
"Yes?"
"Well, you realize of course that the sink in the kitchen is going to need to be un-clogged. In its current condition, it's very likely to back-up as soon as we try to use it."
"Oh." Herbert was clearly caught off-guard by the question. He was likely not aware of the problem. "Well, we'll have to have that checked out. So, we'll include that in the bill as well."
"Mr. Herbert, you are the landlord, and we have not signed any lease as of yet, so I believe that is your responsibility to take care of," Cecilia said, sternly. Avery was surprised. "Such an obvious defect needs to be remedied before we even think about renting this building."
"Of course, Miss ..."
"Chavez."
"Right. Yes, of course, I'll take care of it."
"Then it's decided," Avery said. He was very glad that he had brought Cecilia along.
"I'll draw up the papers and send them along to Mr. Price here," Herbert said.
There were handshakes all over before Avery, Cecilia, and Marty left, Herbert staying behind to lock-up.
"I'm got a good feeling about this," Avery said. "I've really gotta thank you both for your help. I think this festival is going to be a real good thing for the community," Avery said, staring out at Holton Street and mentally picturing the street teeming with people from the neighborhood, listening to music, dancing, eating, and drinking.
