INTRODUCTION
Before I begin, I would like to first clarify that the following is not meant to be an amusing anecdote that pokes fun at the short comings of another. Nor is it meant to be a cautionary tale about the difficulties of outer borough dwelling. No, I’ve written the following piece for one reason, and one reason alone. I would like the world to know that when my body turns up, bludgeoned to death with a half empty Jameson bottle – it could have only been one person;
The drunk bitch that lives across the hall.
There’s only one other apartment in my building, and in the last six years, I’ve seen a lot of neighbors come and go. They’ve mostly been recent college grads – fresh from NYU – burdened with an illusion that they’re somehow special. On average, it takes them about a year to realize that they are not and that their degree in Media Studies has qualified them to do approximately nothing. I’ve always felt their pain and done my best to foster a pleasant neighborhood atmosphere between our two apartments. But despite my best efforts, they inevitably pack up and head back to wherever they came from as soon as their lease runs up. It was particularly sad to see the last tenants leave – the hippy couple in the master bedroom to pursue their dream of running a guided tour through the Alaskan wilderness, and their roommate, the lesbian bicycle enthusiast, to search for a neighborhood with more lesbian bicycle enthusiasts.
The apartment sat vacant for months – that is until kismet would bring my face to face with a she-devil that would torment me for the rest of my days (or at least until one of us decides to move out).
CHAPTER 1 – THE HOUSE HUNTERS
I remember well the afternoon when I first laid eyes on our new neighbors. It was a particularly lazy Saturday afternoon. I had spent the day in my underwear watching reruns of Tabitha Takes Over. I was about four episodes into a day long marathon, when I heard voices coming from the hallway. It was two female voices– accompanied by a man whose nasally baritone I recognized to be that of my landlord. I ran to the door as quietly as possible, and reached the peephole just in time to see the back of group’s heads as they opened the door.
The landlord gave them a tour of the two bedrooms, making sure to point out the fresh coat of paint and the recently refinished hard wood floors. Ponytail 1 was tall and thin, with beautiful wavy auburn hair and sharply dressed considering the heat. Ponytail 2 was shorter and stouter, with shoulder length brown hair. I never once saw their faces – but imagined them to be two beautiful young ladies– eyes mistakenly full of optimism. I did the same thing I always do when I first spy on new neighbors – I allowed my mind to wander, imagining us becoming best friends, walking arm and arm back from a night on the town. We’d lament about a time before we knew one another, right before we discuss who’s bringing what to our weekly neighbor potluck.
When I returned to reality, I realized how creepy this all was– a grown man in his underwear, breathing slowly as he spied on two young ladies through his peephole. It was terribly One Hour Photos of me. Besides, I told myself, becoming friends with the neighbors had bad news written all over it. I have trouble blowing off the friends I have now. What would I do with friends who lived across the hall – friends who could hear me watching bad reality television when I was suppose to be at their Murder Mystery Party?
When I returned to the living room, I noticed the cable box had frozen, leaving a giant image of Tabatha Coffey’s puggish man-face hovering on my TV. Her glassy devils eyes were staring into me, disgust weighing down the corners of her twiggy mouth mid scowl. I stabbed at the remote to try to make the awful site go away – but it would not. Panic came over me as I envisioned having to admit to my roommate that I had voluntarily watched Tabitha Takes Over. I turned the cable box off and on, but the face remained. I unplugged the TV and plugged it back in, but the face remained. If I were a superstitious man, I would properly identified this as an omen of the ugly things yet to come.
