Pressed to the wall
I need a name for my apartment. The lack of vermin (yay!) has rendered Flytonia West inappropriate. I miss not having a name.
I also miss having solid walls.
My next door neighbor is insane. This is also new; I'm not used to having neighbors that I speak with; my old building was fairly large, plus we all live in fracking New York where you're not expected to have to make the tedious kind of small talk you do at work, where you're paid for it. She glomped me the moment I moved in, trashtalked everyone in the building, and since then has developed the rather annoying habit of popping out of her door when I come home, asking me if: I am putting my garbage downstairs too early because That's How We Got Mice One Time; if the boxes in the recycling area are mine; if I normally work this late; if I heard the music from the boys in #5 night before last. I've gone from being friendly to being polite to just saying, "Not mine/not my problem/no" and shutting the door in her face. Sometimes she just asks if anything is bothering me.
She is bothering me. But that's not what she's asking. What she's asking is if I can hear her and her husband/boyfriend go at it at. I can; in fact, I've spent many a night with my ear pressed to the wall, trying to figure out exactly what the hell is going on over there. There is shouting. There is banging. There is screaming about money. There is sobbing. There is more banging. There is "I can't take any more of this."
But I don't know what "this" is. Her husband/boyfriend is a very overweight man who labors up and down the stairs with a cane. She is solicitous with him when I pass them both. But later, there is all the banging and screaming and crying. I can hear, but not enough.
Is he hitting her? Is she hitting him? Are they just volatile? She's clearly nuts -- is she nuts because she's being abused or is she an abuser?
If I hear something that I think is something...I keep thinking of Rear Window. Jimmy Stewart wound up being right, but he easily might not have been.
I also miss having solid walls.
My next door neighbor is insane. This is also new; I'm not used to having neighbors that I speak with; my old building was fairly large, plus we all live in fracking New York where you're not expected to have to make the tedious kind of small talk you do at work, where you're paid for it. She glomped me the moment I moved in, trashtalked everyone in the building, and since then has developed the rather annoying habit of popping out of her door when I come home, asking me if: I am putting my garbage downstairs too early because That's How We Got Mice One Time; if the boxes in the recycling area are mine; if I normally work this late; if I heard the music from the boys in #5 night before last. I've gone from being friendly to being polite to just saying, "Not mine/not my problem/no" and shutting the door in her face. Sometimes she just asks if anything is bothering me.
She is bothering me. But that's not what she's asking. What she's asking is if I can hear her and her husband/boyfriend go at it at. I can; in fact, I've spent many a night with my ear pressed to the wall, trying to figure out exactly what the hell is going on over there. There is shouting. There is banging. There is screaming about money. There is sobbing. There is more banging. There is "I can't take any more of this."
But I don't know what "this" is. Her husband/boyfriend is a very overweight man who labors up and down the stairs with a cane. She is solicitous with him when I pass them both. But later, there is all the banging and screaming and crying. I can hear, but not enough.
Is he hitting her? Is she hitting him? Are they just volatile? She's clearly nuts -- is she nuts because she's being abused or is she an abuser?
If I hear something that I think is something...I keep thinking of Rear Window. Jimmy Stewart wound up being right, but he easily might not have been.