The Evil Beneath Us Saturday, February 22, 2003

In the South, when a young man is ready to start making his way out into the world, he first has to secure a home.  He goes out and survey the terrain, finds some property, makes a bid, and he builds a house on it --- that's how you begin a life down there.  We don't have land here in Manhattan, or terrain, or even grass --- just concrete and housing units --- so instead, you have to take that "Get me some damn land!" mentality and urbanize it a bit.  You get your bank on, get your paperwork in order, and set out to find the best rent-controlled space ever created.  This may require you to first weather all sorts of horrifying living situations (as most of us have) in order for you to realize that ultimate goal you must obtain in order to achieve true happiness in New York.  So you keep looking and hunting, and when you find that apartment of your dreams, you throw down your bags, sign the lease, and fucking dig your heels in for life.  That's how we roll it here in the Naked City. 

I've lived in my apartment for almost 3 yrs.  It's a bigass one bedroom apartment with high ceilings, a full kitchen, dining room, lots of closets, and a sunken living room.  I pay practically nothing for it, compared to what most of my friends pay for their places.  It's on Broadway and faces a gorgeous park across the street.  The building itself is big and beautiful with green hedges in the front, it has six floors and three sections, HUGE entrance and has elevators and a laundromat in the basement.  I have survived a series of shit-filled living situations, roommates from hell, and I realize that what I have here is gem. 

Since the day I moved in, since DAY ONE, I have endured relentless bitching from the people who live underneath my apartment.  It started first with really random little things like knocks on my floor and little notes slid underneath the doorway.  And it would have been one thing if their complaints were valid, but they were always these outlandish accusations.  They'd accuse us of "clogging" on the wooden floors, like we were a bunch of gypsies practicing our vaudeville act or someshit.  It just got ridiculous, I am NOT a noisy person -- I'm never even home!  At first, I felt so awful about it.  I'd apologize my ass off in a letter and assure them that we'd try to keep it down.  This never proved good enough b/c soon they'd be @ it again, banging on the floor and graffiting my door with more notes.  Really lovely notes too, really passive agressive ones written in gold caligraphy atop black (recycled) artbook paper with the date written in roman numerals.  In response to a cute (albeit false) invite we'd sent them regarding a party my roommates and I were going to have, they replied: "No thank you.  Please try and keep the sounds of merriment down, as we will be spending the evening within the peaceful solitutde of our home.  Please feel free to stop down and join us for some tea."  How freaking passive-aggressive can you get?  This was an obvious ploy to get us to cancel our party, but the bash went on as planned and it only ended up making everything worse.  They'd slyly threaten to write the landlord about us, they'd try and get our surrounding neighbors to say that we were noisy (no one ever sided with them).  It was just DUMB.  The thing is, there's no tenant living beneath their apartment, it's just commerical space.  So if they had ppl beneath them, they'd see our point of view.  There's gonna be noise, it's a big building and we face Broadway, afterall!  But these ppl are hellbent on making everything difficult.  They began to come UP to the apartment to complain and it wasn't until then that I beheld what fucking FREAKS these ppl are, total dried-out hippies stuck somewhere between 1967 and hell.  The woman, Monique, has this huge mess of flame-orange hair and she always wears these big, flowing toga-looking gowns.  It's wild, I keep expecting to see a flock of sheep behind her or something.  Her manbitch (or her "life partner" as she calls him), who's name I still don't understand, is a Eurotrash bastard and I swear to you he wears 18th century poet-style shirts complete with the big lace-up collar and puffy sleeves.  He and BJ got into a huge screaming match one morning and I don't think I understood a word of what he said besides, "Theeese eees booolsheet!"  He looks like a fucking pirate and she looks like Stevie Nicks on crack.  They recently had a baby and I see that ugly little fucker everywhere I go.  BJ insists that he can hear it squealing like a demon at all hours of the night.  Monique shuns all forms of modern technology, I know this b/c the last time she came up to complain about the music noise, she explained that she doesn't listen to electronically reproduced music and opts for strumming the lyre instead.  The bitch won't buy a stroller so instead, she straps that baby to her back in a fucking papoose like she's Sacagawea or someshit. 

It's been okay for the past few months, but lately they've been getting restless again.  It's like they're these two midevil dragons, stirring, and now they've awaken from hibernation and are looking to devour us.  The banging on the floor, the complaints, just too much drama -- it's even inspired a short film from BJ entitled "It Came from 2B" (currently in preproducion).  I'm not really sure what to do anymore so I try and just ignore it, but it gets hard... and annoying. You feel like you can't move in your own space.  Ugh, I dunno...  It took me 8 long months to get my name on this lease. I went the full-on textbook route, totally by-the-book with the landlord.  We're talking paystubs and letters of recommendation, credit checks, the whole nine yards.  I do NOT have one of those "Ohh my God, I got so lucky finding this place" stories (those stories make me puke).   I fucking fought tooth and nail, even payed off the shady little watchdog (i.e. the super) to secure this place --- and I finally have it now, I have my name on the lease and I finally have a roommate that I like (sort of).  My point: I love my apartment.  It's big and it's cheap and it's MINE, dammit.  I will NEVER give it up.  Even when I am rich and famous and crushing everyone underneath me, I will still hang onto this place b/c it sort of marks a big step in my ongoing quest to be a grown-up.  I am grown -- hear me roar. 

Here me now, you evil creatures beneath me in 2B, I will not be intimidated.  

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