Neighbors

1/14/06

Two girls live upstairs and they are both named Jessica.
Our kitchen has no curtains, and I often see them while I cook or eat. Their back door is right next to our kitchen door, and I see them take their dogs to the bathroom, take their trash out, kiss their boyfriends goodbye. I have never met either of them, and that seems strange to me because I see their mail, and who they date, and I step in their dogs’ shit when I go to work in the mornings.
This afternoon the Jessicas had friends over to watch playoff football, and every time the Redskins did something right or wrong the ceiling would shake and I could hear the deep-throated shouting of what sounded to be a chorus of professional wrestlers singing madrigals. The Redskins eventually lost, and as I cooked my dinner I saw several of the young men walk to their Ford Explorers.

8/13/06
I recently moved to a new apartment building. Here I know a number of my neighbors, many of them from before I moved into the building. I recently met the lady upstairs but cannot remember her name, possibly because she is older and unattractive.
We met one Saturday night around eight o’clock when I was peeing in my new bathroom and felt water trickling onto my head from the light fixture above me.
“Hark, methinks the upstairs neighbors hath overflowed their toilet, or are otherwise engaged in some aquatic sport unimaginable to me. I shall investigate!” I said.
Upon knocking on the door I received no answer, and knocked again. A faint hello came from within, in a voice that couldn’t belong to an old woman but sounded as if it ought to.
I identified myself as the downstairs neighbor.
“Just a moment,” said she, and I heard movement, splashing. She answered the door in a towel, laughing nervously and apologizing for her nakedness. I felt as though I had stepped into a porno film with an unattractive, nervous porn star given to hysterical fits of laughter.
“I’m so sorry! Would you like to take a look and see if you can figure it out?!? I was taking a bath! HAHAHA!”
She was indeed taking a bath: candles lit all around the bathroom, a copy of He’s Just Not That Into You resting spine up on the closed toilet.
“It wasn’t that much water really,” I said, “I’ll call the maintenance people Monday.”
“Okay, HAHA, I’ll just avoid bathing until then! HAHA!”
I took a quick glance at her room. It was very similar to mine, but with an enormous bed with a dozen or so pillows carefully arranged in a geometric design. I tried to hide the fact that I was being nosy and stepped out.
I saw her a week later, and between outbursts of nervous laughter she told me she had indeed been showering at a friend’s house all week. I told her not to worry so much and returned to my room to play Vice City, leaving her cackling like the Joker on the front steps.