So it's been about six months in the new abode, and I wanted to share with
you a little background info about this place. Not because it's terribly interesting,
but because I do have an odd assortment of characters living near me, and one
of them is bound to do something crazy at some point, so consider this as a
reference point, something to refer back to when someone (my money's on Chaucer)
eventually flips his lid. This way if you turn on the news and hear about a
car backfiring, causing a neighbor to return fire; a man who, while being hauled
away for public indecency was heard to say, "Wait, I'm on the clock!";
or perhaps house mate conflict that "may have been racially motivated depending
on what the race of participants actually was," then you can stop and think,
"Hey, I wonder if that's at Rob E.'s place."
I live in a house that's been converted into apartments. I've given you the
layout, you can browse through the layout if you like or read through in a more
linear fashion. Beware of the links. Some of them will take you into the
past. Also be aware that the names have been changed to protect the innocent,
well, me actually.
This whole site is basically about me, so we'll leave that alone for now and
focus on Tom, the other of the "1stfloorlians." Tom is our token "normal."
At least as far as I can tell. He
has no quirks that I have noticed. He has a pleasant, friendly manner. I believe
I've seen him smoking cigars on occasion. And he has a car that's probably some
kind of classic, but which doesn't always run, and sometimes when it does run,
it gives off one of the gunshot-like backfires. Now, to be fair, while I say
he's our "normal," he is a 40 or 50 something year-old guy living
alone in a house of oddballs, but he's comparatively normal: Tom
has a job, although I've heard him express concerns about getting laid
off. Tom once made reference to having a date with an actual girl
of some sort. In our house, this makes him the most normal of all. All hail
our one-eyed king!
2nd Floor: Comic Books, Science Fiction, and Soft Porn
The second floor is a little quirkier. I haven't been up there
enough to quite get the layout, but from what I gather it's not divided up
into apartments. Instead there's individual rooms for rent combined with a
some communal areas, a bathroom and a kitchen, I believe. There are at least
four people up there. Sometimes when I count, I come up with five, so I may
have to add to this, but for now I'm going with four.
I've
already talked some about Hammy, so you can go
read that again if you like. All
I have to add is that since that post I have actually been in Hammy's room.
It's a good sized room, but even so, one couldn't help but be impressed with
what had been crammed into it. Hammy's a collector. One wall was all movies.
One wall was all music. One wall displayed comic books. One wall had boxes of
original artwork (comic book art, mostly, I believe) stacked up against it.
There
was huge television with attached audio system, and, just a few feet away, there
was a couch. Quite a nice setup actually, and it didn't occur to me to wonder
until after I left his room: Where is his bed?
Free your mind - And the rest will follow,
Be color blind - Don't be so shallow
So of course, I shouldn't make race an issue, and I usually don't, but there's
two John's in my building. It just seemed natural to refer to them as black
John and white John. Is this racially insensitive? If
so, I apologize, and if it's any consolations to you, my racially insensitive
labels did not stick. You see, John #1 (the John formerly known as black John),
does not consider himself to be black because he was born in England. If you're
not following the logic, I'm right there, not following right behind you. Now
if John didn't like the word "black," I could get behind that. Or
maybe he associated being "black" with having roots in one particular
location and felt that term belied his diverse heritage. Again, I can get on
board that thought train. But John #1 seems to be (I have never talked to him
and have only heard this through my other neighbors) basing the whole decision
on his blackness, or lack thereof, on his being from England. Apparently there's
a land somewhere that black people come specifically from, I'm guessing it's
called Blackland, and if you're from there, then you are black. John #1, presumably,
is "eng." My neighbors have now successfully skirted this issue by
renaming John #1 as non-Jewish John. Which means of course that John #2 (the
John formerly known as white John) is now known as Jewish John. He doesn't seem
to mind this even though, from what I know of him, he was born right here in
the U. S. of A., rather than in the fabled and far off Jewland.
John #2(a.k.a. white, Jewish John) has his own issues. While John #1 and I
have never gotten past the head bob and a hello stage of our relationship, John
#2 jumped right in to the deep end. He
just forgot to wait for me. I've only had a couple of conversations with John
#2, and oddly, they always seem to start in the middle. John has stopped on
his way in or out to tell me the score of the game. What game? I don't know.
But I do know that we were winning at the time, so that's good. Depending, I
guess, on who "we" are. The whole part with the introductions and
"Hi, how are ya?"s has been passed over by John #2, and he just loves
to pick up a conversation right where we never left off. "So when I went
to the doctor about my finger, he said..." Could easily be the first thing
John says to you. I choose to believe that John #2 is the ideal in "color
blindness." While I have been known to notice another person's skin color,
not for discrimination purposes, but just for recognition, John is above all
that. He doesn't see black and white, he only sees people. Likewise he fails
to notice fat and thin, male and female, young and old, bearded and clean-shaven,
tall and short, etc. No, I think John #2 just sees people, or, precisely, because
he overlooks any distinguishing characteristics, John just sees a person. One
amorphous person who follows John around all day, every day. That's what I choose
to believe. When John seems to start talking mid-thought, he is no doubt continuing
the conversation he had started earlier with someone else. That person may have
been of an entirely different build, race, or gender than I am, but it doesn't
matter to John #2. He's above all that.
Chaucer's Sister is Kind of a Whore
What to say about Chaucer? He rides a motorcycle. He's mostly bald. He wears
these big, biker boots and stomps around at all hours (I
may have mentioned that before). My friend, Rick, sometimes says something
intentionally stupid, and when he does so, he will use what I call his "idiot
yokel" voice. That
appears to be Chaucer's actual voice, so it's very disconcerting to talk to
him without imagining it's actually Rick trying to be weird rather than Chaucer,
being weird all on his own. And that is the least reason why it's disconcerting
to talk to him. The most prominent reason is the things he says. I ran into
him at a restaurant once during lunch. I thought I'd be friendly, so I sat nearby
and asked how his day was going. "Oh, not so good. My sister called me
up this morning. She was in an accident and wanted me to come help her out.
She's kind of a whore. She busted up her car and now she can't get to work.
She doesn't think she should have to work. She thinks a man should take care
of her, and one probably would if she knew how to treat a man, but she doesn't
know how to treat a man. She's got a job where she makes almost 10 dollars an
hour. I know men who'd be happy to make that, but she's not happy with
it..." And so on. It was the quickest lunch I ever ate, and I still learned
far more than I wanted to about Chaucer's family. On
another occasion, I locked myself out of my apartment and had to go upstairs
to call my friend who had a spare key. Chaucer was the only one at home, but
he was more than happy to lend me his phone. I dialed the number, and as I waited
for my friend to pick up, Chaucer started in on a new topic: "I'm thinking
of going into soft porn."
Friend: "Hey, what's up?"
Me: "I'm at the upstairs neighbor's. I locked myself out, so when you come
over, could you bring my key?"
Friend: "Sure, but I wasn't going to come over just yet. Are you okay where
you are?"
Chaucer: "A lot of famous people got their start in soft porn."
Me: "I'll just be on the porch waiting for you. Take your time."
Friend: "It's kind of cold out. You sure you can't just stay put at the
neighbor's till I get there?"
Chaucer: "I'm just not quite sure how you get a start in soft porn."
Me: "I'll be out on the porch. I'll see you when you get here."
And so I got out of there, but not before hearing a little more about Chaucer's
lofty aspirations. Here are some things I have gleaned from conversations with
and/or about Chaucer:
He believes his family has some prominence locally, and he's the black sheep.
He feels the government is too strict about what constitutes a church, which
explains the sign I saw on the door to the upstairs when I first moved in,
the one explaining that Chaucer's Church of something or other was located
at the top of the steps.
I think he fixes up and sells bicycles, causing him to ask me once as I
peddled up to the house and proceeded to lock up my bike, "Do you want
to buy a bicycle?" "Um, no, I actually already have one..."
He is no longer allowed on grounds of the local state university. I didn't
ask why.
There may have been an incident involving him being naked in the street,
an incident that involved the police. This may be what he refers to when he
mentions "some thing" in his past that was "blown all out of
proportion."
And that's all I have to say about that. Look for Chaucer, coming soon to the
back room of a video store near you.
It's a madhouse, a madhouse!
So those are my neighbors, my housemates. We have some unifying characteristics
that disturb me a bit: We're all men, whether or not John #2 is aware of it.
We're all in or just outside of the "middle age" zone. We're all single.
None of that is too disturbing, but what if the similarities don't end there?
What if I just don't see them because I'm on the inside? I
mean, in addition to being single, most of my neighbors appear likely to stay
that way because they don't necessarily have the social skills to succeed in
a relationship. If they have jobs, they don't have secure ones, and those jobs
would probably be defined as "dead end" jobs. My job might be one
of those. Between the six of us, there's only three cars and a motorcycle, and
Tom's car could go at any time, so could mine for that matter. My biggest fear
isn't that one day my neighbor's will do something crazy. That's pretty much
a given. My biggest fear is that the line that's been drawn in my head, the
one that separates sane me from crazy them, is completely unfounded. What if
I haven't just, through the luck of the draw, found myself thrown in with a
group of bizarre individuals? What if I've come home?
He has no quirks that I have noticed. He has a pleasant, friendly manner. I believe I've seen him smoking cigars on occasion. And he has a car that's probably some kind of classic, but which doesn't always run, and sometimes when it does run, it gives off one of the gunshot-like backfires. Now, to be fair, while I say he's our "normal," he is a 40 or 50 something year-old guy living alone in a house of oddballs, but he's comparatively normal:
Tom has a job, although I've heard him express concerns about getting laid off. Tom once made reference to having a date with an actual girl of some sort. In our house, this makes him the most normal of all. All hail our one-eyed king!
I've already talked some about Hammy, so you can go read that again if you like.
All I have to add is that since that post I have actually been in Hammy's room. It's a good sized room, but even so, one couldn't help but be impressed with what had been crammed into it. Hammy's a collector. One wall was all movies. One wall was all music. One wall displayed comic books. One wall had boxes of original artwork (comic book art, mostly, I believe) stacked up against it.
There was huge television with attached audio system, and, just a few feet away, there was a couch. Quite a nice setup actually, and it didn't occur to me to wonder until after I left his room: Where is his bed?
If so, I apologize, and if it's any consolations to you, my racially insensitive labels did not stick. You see, John #1 (the John formerly known as black John), does not consider himself to be black because he was born in England. If you're not following the logic, I'm right there, not following right behind you. Now if John didn't like the word "black," I could get behind that. Or maybe he associated being "black" with having roots in one particular location and felt that term belied his diverse heritage. Again, I can get on board that thought train. But John #1 seems to be (I have never talked to him and have only heard this through my other neighbors) basing the whole decision on his blackness, or lack thereof, on his being from England. Apparently there's a land somewhere that black people come specifically from, I'm guessing it's called Blackland, and if you're from there, then you are black. John #1, presumably, is "eng." My neighbors have now successfully skirted this issue by renaming John #1 as non-Jewish John. Which means of course that John #2 (the John formerly known as white John) is now known as Jewish John. He doesn't seem to mind this even though, from what I know of him, he was born right here in the U. S. of A., rather than in the fabled and far off Jewland.
John #2 jumped right in to the deep end.
He just forgot to wait for me. I've only had a couple of conversations with John #2, and oddly, they always seem to start in the middle. John has stopped on his way in or out to tell me the score of the game. What game? I don't know. But I do know that we were winning at the time, so that's good. Depending, I guess, on who "we" are. The whole part with the introductions and "Hi, how are ya?"s has been passed over by John #2, and he just loves to pick up a conversation right where we never left off. "So when I went to the doctor about my finger, he said..." Could easily be the first thing John says to you. I choose to believe that John #2 is the ideal in "color blindness." While I have been known to notice another person's skin color, not for discrimination purposes, but just for recognition, John is above all that. He doesn't see black and white, he only sees people. Likewise he fails to notice fat and thin, male and female, young and old, bearded and clean-shaven, tall and short, etc. No, I think John #2 just sees people, or, precisely, because he overlooks any distinguishing characteristics, John just sees a person. One amorphous person who follows John around all day, every day. That's what I choose to believe. When John seems to start talking mid-thought, he is no doubt continuing the conversation he had started earlier with someone else. That person may have been of an entirely different build, race, or gender than I am, but it doesn't matter to John #2. He's above all that.
That appears to be Chaucer's actual voice, so it's very disconcerting to talk to him without imagining it's actually Rick trying to be weird rather than Chaucer, being weird all on his own. And that is the least reason why it's disconcerting to talk to him. The most prominent reason is the things he says. I ran into him at a restaurant once during lunch. I thought I'd be friendly, so I sat nearby and asked how his day was going. "Oh, not so good. My sister called me up this morning. She was in an accident and wanted me to come help her out. She's kind of a whore. She busted up her car and now she can't get to work. She doesn't think she should have to work. She thinks a man should take care of her, and one probably would if she knew how to treat a man, but she doesn't know how to treat a man. She's got a job where she makes almost 10 dollars an hour. I know men who'd be happy to make that, but she's not happy with it..." And so on. It was the quickest lunch I ever ate, and I still learned far more than I wanted to about Chaucer's family.
I mean, in addition to being single, most of my neighbors appear likely to stay that way because they don't necessarily have the social skills to succeed in a relationship. If they have jobs, they don't have secure ones, and those jobs would probably be defined as "dead end" jobs. My job might be one of those. Between the six of us, there's only three cars and a motorcycle, and Tom's car could go at any time, so could mine for that matter. My biggest fear isn't that one day my neighbor's will do something crazy. That's pretty much a given. My biggest fear is that the line that's been drawn in my head, the one that separates sane me from crazy them, is completely unfounded. What if I haven't just, through the luck of the draw, found myself thrown in with a group of bizarre individuals? What if I've come home?
