The Old Lease Put A Blue Line Through His Bill

The demand included a $75 administration charge.

Harlan had also added a form with two boxes. One said I admitted unauthorized use. The other said I refused to cooperate.

There was no box for being right.

"Efficient system," Inez said when I showed her the next morning.

I gave her coffee in a chipped mug and spread my old papers across the bench. Beside them sat a gear with one missing tooth.

Inez pointed at the gear.

"That's him."

"The gear has an excuse."

My original tenancy had begun eleven years earlier, under Ada Bell, the previous manager. Before I moved in, Ada had offered me a choice: pay a monthly share of common electricity, or buy a dedicated installation and pay my own utility account.

I had chosen the bill I could measure.

The receipt was for $6,400. It covered a separate meter position, a feeder, a small panel, and two courtyard outlets for workshop use. I didn't own the utility's meter. I had paid for the circuit behind it.

More useful than the receipt was the lease attachment.

"Read the last bit," I told Inez.

She moved her glasses down her nose.

"Exclusive tenant use of the installed feeder and listed outlets. No additional loads without written tenant consent."

Ada had signed it. So had the owner's representative. When the property changed hands, the new owner had sent me a letter accepting the existing lease and its attachments.

I put that letter beside the receipt.

Harlan could wave his office key at a whole building. I held something quieter: a paid circuit and a signed promise about who could use it.

The installation diagram showed the route in blue pencil. From my meter cabinet, the feeder rose into the covered passage, made three tight bends around an old beam, then came down to my panel.

"Three bends," Inez said. "I remember that beam. Had a nail in it that wanted my ear."

She had worked on the utility side when the new service was connected. She hadn't drawn this plan or installed the private wiring, but she remembered the crew waiting while the wall was opened.

"Will this prove the lounge is using it?" I asked.

"It proves what was supposed to be there. We'll need someone current and licensed to tell us what is there now."

We photographed every page, including the backs. I made copies at the print counter on Third Street for $8.40 and kept the originals in the tin.

Then I called the utility.

"I'm disputing a landlord's power charge," I told the service clerk. "There's a possible shared load behind my meter. I need the account and equipment checked."

She gave me a case number. I wrote it on the envelope Harlan had pushed under my door.

The arcade's owner had an office in Raleigh. I sent its property director, Celia Voss, copies of the lease pages, the padlock photos, and Harlan's bill. I asked for my equipment to be released and for all work orders and electrical records to be kept.

Her first reply said Harlan handled daily operations.

My reply said, "Your manager has locked customer property in my cage. Please read the attachments."

At noon, the tailor came in carrying a small paper bag.

His name was Owen Pike. Inside the bag was a phone charger, as if he needed a reason to visit a repair shop.

"I filmed most of it," he said. "Including him putting the lock on."

"Would you send me the original file?"

He looked through the glass toward Harlan's office.

"He said people who supported you might get a review of their shared charges."

"What did you say?"

"That I didn't remember being asked to support anybody. I remembered being asked to watch a film."

I wrote his words down and asked him to check them. He corrected one small thing. Harlan had said immediate review.

That word stayed.

The utility arranged a visit for Tuesday, with a field worker to check its equipment and a licensed electrician to trace the private side. Celia agreed the owner would pay the electrician's $380 callout fee.

She still hadn't answered about the lock.

I had a museum job due Wednesday and a school projector due Friday. I called both customers before they had to call me. The museum would lose its event deposit if I missed delivery.

At four, Harlan appeared at my open door.

"An investigation won't improve your standing," he said.

"It might improve your invoice."

He placed a photocopy on my bench. It was an equipment schedule bearing my name and a shaky copy of my signature.

Under AUTHORIZED SUPPLY, someone had added: FRONT HOSPITALITY UNIT.

"You already agreed," he said.