Her name is Julie. Her father is one of the Southeast Asian handymen who barely speaks English. She has a New York City phone number. That is all I know about her. That is the entirety of the knowledge I have about the personal information regarding my landlord.

I know she is listed as the owner of the laundromat next to our seven-unit apartment building in the East Village. Even then, the sign with the listed name of the owner of the laundromat has a number next to it that just reads “Julie.” I text with her every once in a while. I’ve tried calling her. She doesn’t pick up but will apologize over text for missing the call.

If there is a leak somewhere or a door needs fixing, I text her. She responds pretty quickly. “Let me call my maintenance guy. Will you be home for the rest of the night? He said he could stop by later.” Then she sends one of the Southeast Asian men up to my fourth-floor walk-up, breathless and with a magic touch to fix the problem, and that is the end of it. She may check in with me to see that the job is done right. Otherwise, it’s radio silence.

“Oh, well, Julie is out of the country,” the manager of the laundromat tells me. “Julie? She’s my daughter. Not here,” is what one middle-aged handyman told me once. The last few times I’ve asked the manager, he smiled and said nothing. When her “father” came to fix my bathroom sink, I called him “Julie’s dad.” He smiled and looked confused.

I have been late on my rent payments at least a half dozen times. Three of those times were by accident, the rest have been an experiment. Julie responded professionally three of those times with “Hi, I have not received your rent.” I sent it in. All good, all forgiven. Last fall, I was late every single time. Sometimes by up to two weeks. No message, no complaints. No late fees, nothing. There was no change in my credit score, no notice of late payment, or threat of pending eviction. I paid it late. Julie stayed mysteriously quiet.

To be fair, I don’t think that I actually pay Julie. On the first of every month, I send an egregious amount of money over Venmo to someone named Thanh. That is a gender-neutral name from Vietnam. Is it Julie? She claims that the Venmo belongs to her. A cursory bit of research into the web of New York City housing and property management produces a few relevant results. None of them link back to my apartment building or the laundromat next door. Maybe “Julie” is the name she chooses to go by in the United States, where she evidently does not live.

“Julie” must live in Southeast Asia. Her permanent address could be in Shanghai, even. Maybe she is a high roller in London or Paris, and this skinny, five-floor apartment building-laundromat combo is just a side hustle for her. It could be a project that her “father” wants to do during his retirement, and she is financing it. You know- the masculine urge to run a laundromat-apartment building combo in New York City while your daughter is absent.

Do not think that in all this I have a deep admiration for “Julie,” whoever she is. She still charges me out the ass for a place that in just about any other city would run for half of what I pay for it. It’s a fourth-floor walk-up shoebox, but a nice fourth-floor walk-up shoebox, as far as New York City goes. I’ve only spotted three cockroaches there in a year and a half. It has AC that doesn’t sit in the window. The kitchen area was recently repainted a royal blue. It’s a one-bedroom, courtesy of a sliding door that technically separates it from the kitchen. The fridge works. There is a long, granite patio that runs the length of the unit outside, covered from the elements. It even has hard “wood” floors.

She was even kind enough to only raise the rent by 5%. “Julie” could have doubled it, and New York City would continue firing on all of its rusted, degraded cylinders. I’d head for cheaper living somewhere in Queens or go for a windowless basement studio in Bushwick that only knows fluorescent lighting. Someone from tech or finance would move in and play the silken bohemian for a while. They’d gripe about it to save face and draw attention away from their deep pockets. But Julie was nice enough to go easy on me. It still costs me an arm and a leg, but the bleeding could be so much worse.

I don’t believe that “Julie” is a woman. I don’t believe that “Julie” is a man, either. I think that “Julie” is a shorthand moniker for a rotating cast of characters. I think it is true that Julie does not only live in the United States, but that “her” reach extends across the oceans. There is a Julie in New York City and a Julie in Hanoi, and another one in Boston, just in case New York Julie needs help. There is probably one who claims to live in Texas but is committing tax fraud in California.

Between them, all these Julies buy property under the name “Thanh” across the city of New York and in their respective zones of operation. There is a Julie buying up new, soulless apartments in Plano, Texas, while another looks for cheap stuff in South Boston. At the same time, the one in Hanoi is arguing with the Julie in Los Angeles. Hanoi Julie wants LA Julie to stay in the city and see what property can be fleeced from the roaring wildfires ravaging the area, regardless of LA Julie’s asthma. That’s easy for you to say, LA Julie retorts, you don’t live here. Hanoi Julie reminds her that the capital of Vietnam is the most polluted city on earth. LA Julie grumbles, stocks up on respirators, and charts the course of the flames.

But New York Julie is a special one. She is not just one person. I imagine that she is every man who works around “her” properties. The apartment superintendent is Julie. The maintenance men take turns being Julie. The guy behind the counter at the laundromat is Julie when the manager isn’t in. The group of men who speak broken English and handle the operations are all Julie. In that way, Julie is a superhuman: she fixes washing machines while checking for roof leaks, takes
out the trash and recycling of twelve humans down five flights of stairs, and dry cleans dozens of dress shirts in the same moment. Julie is greedy. Julie is busy. Julie doesn’t exist in the conventional sense. She is everywhere. In that way, I have met Julie. I’ve seen Julie every day. We’ve spoken and shaken hands. Two Julies think I’m a decent guy and a good tenant. Another Julie thinks I’m just like the rest of the East Village crowd. And there is a Julie who sees me, nods and thinks, rightly, “Sucker. There goes my rent money.”

Contributor Bio:

Garrett Owen is a journalist and writer in New York City. His work has appeared in Byline, Time Out New York, Brooklyn Magazine, and others. He is a freelance staff writer for the Manhattan-based newspaper, Our Town.