Echoes of Flint in "Brief Encounters with the Enemy"

Thinking of Flint while reading Brief Encounters with the Enemy, a collection of stories by Said Sayrafiezadeh:

I came into a neighborhood that looked like it had been abandoned. The whole place was gray and rotting and lacking any trace of life. I sat down on the steps of a two-story brick house with an addition covered in aluminum siding, and the moment I did, a wiry woman appeared on the porch across the way and looked at me. She was wearing a nightgown that she clutched around her. An old man in pajamas came and stood at her side. I took out my lunch and ate it while I watch them confer.
 
"There ain't no one living in there now," the woman said.
 
"That's okay," I said.
 
They conferred again.
 
"Hey, mister."

"What?"

"There ain't no one in there now. "
 
"I heard you the first time," I said.