Today Ndusen struggles to figure out his way in the world with his boss Axlerod in the mix, Rube narrows in on his target and Mioko and Dorian see the world in a whole new light… or lack thereof. Thanks for all of your amazing support on the first 25 chapters! If you missed any, here’s where it begins... CHAPTER 01 You’ll also find a table of contents below. And now without further ado here’s...

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CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHTAppeal to Reason

Moshe Axlerod entered the foyer of his Ludlow tenement surprised to see a familiar face pasted to the inner door. "This is Rube Carbia and he is stalking me." It had the ring of a job well done. Axlerod smiled as he ripped the image and note off the glass.

Walking around back, Axlerod strolled into the rear courtyard of his building, shocked to find Ndusen and his family working a vibrant vegetable garden. Seeing his boss, Ndusen's solar plexus instantly seized up.

"Jesus Christ," Axlerod said. "This what you spend your time on? The Axlerod family paying your bills so you can fucking garden all day?"

Ndusen put down his shovel and walked towards Axlerod. This was not how he pictured sharing the news of his reimagined space. He had planned on inviting the elder Axlerod, Mr. Cyrus, over for a family dinner at his table and revealing the source of their rich nourishment with an after-supper tour of the garden. How could any earthly man resist his family's creative reversal of what was, after all, a useless garbage heap? Still, Ndusen knew there was an exception to every rule, and by the looks of it, the younger Axlerod was far from won over.

"My guy checked on 9 and 10 yesterday. I tell you I want the water shut off in an apartment, it stays off till my man gets there. I got enough to friggin’ deal with here."

Ndusen decided that it was time to try and appeal to reason, "Four days she had no water--"

"Shit doesn't start getting done 'round here the way I'm asking, Ndusen, I'm gonna need to see a rent check. My father, the sentimentalist, he had a real thing for your situation. The Malawian in exile, and all that charming shit. Me, I don't give two turds about your exotic little history. I just want the job done."

"But this aggressive pushing out of tenants--"

"This ain't even up for discussion. What're you gonna do, move? Where you gonna put your frigging family? In refrigerator boxes with the rats?"

Ndusen stood as upright as he could. Axlerod peered around the garden.

"This all has to go. Who said you could do this?"

"Mr. Axlerod, this was a garbage deposit."

"No, no, no. Enough. This's the modern world, Ndusen. You gotta drop your little tribal mentality. Technology, my friend. Advancement. High finance. That's what drives this country. We’re gonna clean this space up, but not like this. Next thing I know you’re gonna have a market out here selling goat feet or what-have-you. Go to the friggen' grocery store, you need a zucchini."

Ndusen nodded, his lungs clamping in around his organs.

"I come back here, next time. I don't wanna see any of this crap."

"Yes, sir."

Axlerod took a last scan of the garden, with a little snicker.

"Some nerve," he said glancing at his watch. "Alright, let's do this."

Ndusen followed his employer out of the courtyard.

On the second floor, Axlerod walked through an empty apartment, followed by Ndusen, who scribbled notes into a small pad. The telephone was tolerable, but actually having to be in the same room as Axlerod was another story. Ndsuen remembered Mr. Cyrus telling him once of how he could see anger the first time he looked into his child, "his little Moshe's face," the day that he was born. At the time Ndusen did wonder if perhaps that had colored the way Mr. Cyrus had treated his son, always expecting anger before it had even materialized, which had in turn effected the person that Moshe eventually became. In any event, it wasn't so much anger, but an unswerving detachment that defined Moshe Axlerod now--and served to throw Ndusen entirely off balance.

"All these walls primed and repainted," Axlerod was saying about apartment #7. He pointed to the bathtub, sitting prominently next to the sink in the middle of the dining area. "Bathtub's gone. We're gonna put a glass shower stall and a sink in the ensuite." Pausing at the refrigerator, he opened the door. He turned to Ndusen, "This is relatively new, right?"

"Her old refrigerator stopped to function two years ago, I believe."

Satisfied, Axlerod shut the fridge.

"Keep it."

He looked from one end of the ancient room to the other.

"Everything else: stove, counter tops, gas heater, kitchen sink. That's all gotta go."

Ndusen scribbled quickly in his pad. Axlerod pointed to the ceiling.

"And we're gonna do track lighting throughout. You show me samples."

Ndusen scribbled and nodded.

Axlerod stopped pacing. He appraised Ndusen with his eyes.

"Think you can handle this, Ndusen?"

"Yes, Mr. Axlerod."

Hours Rube had spent deliberating over whether or not to surrender his piece to the East River, now that the pistol had the potential to link him to what he considered a highly justifiable homicide.

Not that he was complaining. He liked daydreaming about that shit. Just thinking about his chump-extinguisher finally being put to some good use testified to the fact that Rube was now one badass motherfucker. But at some point a decision had had to be made. He'd told fat boy to keep his flabby lips sealed about the hostilities with the three negros on Eldridge. But he couldn’t be entirely sure that cocksucker wouldn't down a pair a forties and start blabbing to some ho to try and get some. So, late in the afternoon, Rube had finally taken out a slick insurance policy. Ingenious. He'd thoroughly wiped down his 9 mil wearing a fresh pair of sanitary gloves (his dago wop Rosarita's bosses would have been so proud to see him wearing them for once), then he'd paid Deucey a nice visit down at his ma's nasty-pad.

They'd smoked some vape. Then when Deuce had gone off to take his obligatory post smoke shit--that kid was beyond predictable--Rube had wiped the piece with a pair of Deuce's grubby boxer-briefs (for the nutsack DNA) then taped his Glock 19 'The All-Round Talent,' to the back of Deuce's headboard, behind that fool's stank-ass bed. That way, if 5 − 0 ever dropped Rube's door, he could tell NY's finest he hadn't even been at the scene that night, and if they started up on some "we heard otherwise" mierda whispered to them from a cornrow wearing chump fatass, he could say, "Oh yeah? Well guess what Mr. Dumb Ass Police, that cornrow wearing chump be the one pulled the damn trigger, and I know exactly where he be keeping his chalk."

Another plus, if he was ever really in a jam, he'd still have his burner stashed just down the lane for his own use. Keep the heat, beat the sheet. Genius.

Something bout the suave reversal reminded Rube of the time they were kids and D got himself a fresh pair of Taekwondo sparring gloves for Christmas, before Deuce's ma succumbed to the gin bottle full force, pickling her liver day and night. Dropping by that afternoon, Rube had wanted to have himself a nice spar, see some of Deuce's Korean combat technique. He’d thrown on the left glove, giving fatty the advantage with the right-hander. But Deuce had kept yelling "you can't hit a friend, you can't hit a friend," while Rube just kept on poppety-pop-poping him in the face with his left hand. His nose was bleeding all over the carpet, hands barely able to block, let alone jab. Hey, what were cousins for? Poppety-pop-pop biaatch.

Rube's only regret now was wishing there'd been some more lamplight glowing up the block that night so he knew for sure he'd actually tagged that negro. Or if that pussy fuck just dropped from piss soaked fear. Which wouldn't have surprised Rube one iota. And if he did ice the kid, a little illumination would have at least allowed Rube the pleasure of an indelibly burned commemorative facial expression as that mayate’s heart beat out. Next time he'd keep his eyes peeled for a streetlamp before he popped off a shot on some dickrider.

But either way, Rube had other matters to attend to this evening as he now leaned casually across the street from 168 Ludlow, watching a young debutante unlock the front door of her building. The Blonde sashayed inside the modern glass facade, disappearing behind the door. Rube made his best efforts to look casual as he raced in her direction, slipping his foot in before the door latched shut, and he slid inside.

He took the stairs of the upscale domicile two at a time, breaking out onto the rooftop. Rube pushed towards the edge until his favorite tenement arose from below. Kneeling, he whipped a pair of tiny binoculars from his pocket and focused up a view through a third floor window. From his perch, the view was unobstructed into Mioko's apartment. There she stood in a black lace bra and a pair of shorts cooking dinner at the stove in the summertime heat. He could even see her lips pulling crimson from a glass of wine, his mind quickly conjuring what else those lips could do. First a bar, now drinking alone. She was coming undone. The edges of Rube’s own lips curled towards the orange light pollution blocking the universe above.

His elbows resting on the facade wall, Rube squinted into the binoculars, inhaling through his nostrils--breathing her in.

Mioko walked down Stanton at a quick clip. She was unbelievably late for work, but there was always the off-chance Jake was having some kind of meltdown and hadn't gotten out of bed all day. Regardless, her legs slowed as she passed an unfamiliar site at the corner of Stanton and Eldridge. A large laminated photo hung on the brick wall above a collection of beer and liquor bottles, religious candles and flowers. The wall was covered with messages of mourning and a blown-up school photo of a scrawny Black kid, wearing his Sunday best. Dozens of smaller snapshots of the scrawny kid lined the wall.

A little girl of about 5 took a tiny roll of masking tape from her tearful young mother, then moved towards the wall. Mioko held up her Mamiya as unobtrusively as possible and snapped a photograph as the little girl reached to paste up her colorful sign.

Another printed sign already on the wall above the girl read, 'Cowards die many times before their deaths... but the brave only know death once.'

In the elevator heading up to Jake's studio, Mioko stood sweating, crammed in among the arty freelance designers, entrepreneurs, and filmmakers, a rolled up Village Voice under her arm.
Mioko entered the studio to find Jake seated at his desk, staring at the full page Lamerica ad on the back of the Voice.

"Can you believe this heat?" Mioko said hoping her nervousness wasn't apparent.

"It's seven in the evening, Mioko," he sneered. "Why do you even bother to show up?"

Mioko motioned to the paper on the desk in front of him.

"So you've seen it."

"Some bastard poached the Lamerica account."

"Yeah, I've been meaning to tell you about that."

Jake finally looked up at her.

"Tell me what? That you knew they'd moved with someone else?"

"No. Not exactly."

She eyed the floor.

"Excuse me? So you didn't know?"

"Well, I was meaning to tell you--"

Jake glanced down at the add. He squinted at the image. His expression changing.

"No. Not possible."

"Shit, Jake, how can you really expect loyalty, the way you treat people?"

And it was true. He would have done the exact same to her if the roles were reversed. But a hell of a lot sooner.

"You've got to be fucking kidding me."

"I guess they wanted a different style for this campaign. Something a little more raw. With feeling is what they said..."

Mioko suddenly had an incredible urge to twist the knife even further, for all the torturous years she'd spent babysitting such a repugnant excuse for a human being. A man who walked all over her, sprinkling the word mentor around like it was some kind of justification for the infliction of endless pain. An arrogant little man who hesitated at giving her a spare aspirin if she had a headache, let alone a shot at making some kind of name for herself on his watch.

"I pulled you out of the muck." he was saying now. "You could barely hold down a meal when I took you on."

"Jake."

He was starting to tear up.

"You little cunt."

"Jake, my world doesn't begin and end with you. I know I should have told you when it happened, but this is something I had to do. Maybe you should be proud of me--"

Suddenly the electricity snapped off. A patchwork of green and red grain filled their eyes. The office was black.

"What the fuck?" Jake said as he stood and shuffled towards the window, slamming into a desk chair on the way.

"Oh my god!"

He was starting to get even more worked up now.

"First you steal my client, now it's the bloody apocalypse."

"You're nuts."

"Look out the fucking window!"

Mioko stood up, approaching her disturbed boss. She peered out the window at a completely dark city.

Fifty blocks away, on the roof of the Ludlow tenement, the Lower East Side skyline was devoid of electricity. Having run up from his apartment, Dorian now stared out in nothing but his soiled bathrobe and a pair of boxers. He couldn't have been more invigorated at the sight of the blackened tableau.

A solitary word dropped from his lips…

"Blackout."

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Dwelling chapter Illustrations by the wonderful @opheliafu.

If you missed the first three chapters of Dwelling the Novel, here is the table of contents:

CHAPTER 01	CHAPTER 13	CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 02	CHAPTER 14	CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 03	CHAPTER 15	CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 04	CHAPTER 16	CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 05	CHAPTER 17	NEXT - CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 06	CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 07	CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 08	CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 09	CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 10	CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 11	CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 12	CHAPTER 24

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BEHIND THE KEYBOARD

Shortly before I moved to New York, the 2013 blackout covered the city in darkness. My best friend and business partner Eddie Boyce painted in the color and the excitement of New York in the dark. It was something I felt I’d missed. And the ideas of it haunted me. Electricity gone. The city was forced to just be. Interactions became primal and direct again. How very refreshing.

It became part of the lore for me of the Lower East Side, I’d often imagine it as I spent my days and nights in downtown New York, and it took on a life of it’s own in my head… until it began to percolate and infiltrate the world of Dwelling.

Light

Old School Night

Yours In The Chain,
Doug Karr

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SPECIAL THANKS to my wife @zenmommas for years of support during the writing process, @ericvancewalton for his trailblazing, inspired collaboration and incredible guidance, @andrarchy for his mind blowing insight and friendship, @bakerchristopher for being an inspiration as a human artist and bro, @complexring for his brilliance and enthusiasm, Masie Cochran, Taylor Rankin and @elenamoore for their skillful help in editing the manuscript, and to @opheliafu for the fantastic illustrations she created exclusively for the novel's launch on Steemit and to Elena Megalos for her wonderful character illustrations. I’d also like to thank Eddie Boyce, Jamie Proctor, Katie Mustard, Alan Cumming, Danai Gurira, Stephan Nowecki, Ron Simons, Dave Scott, Alden Karr, Missy Chimovitz, my dad Andy Karr and late mother Wendy, and everyone else who helped lead me to this moment.

DWELLING BLOCKCHAIN COPYRIGHT © DOUG KARR, 2018

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I am a Brooklyn based writer, film & commercial director, and crypto-enthusiast, my projects include @HardFork-series an upcoming narrative crypto-noir and my novel Dwelling will soon be premiering exclusively on Steemit, and you can check out more of my work at dougkarr.com, piefacepictures.com, and www.imdb.com/name/nm1512347

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10% of all profits from Dwelling will be donated to Amnesty International.