i had gotten a dog, so the dog was a factor. dogs have to be the right size and shape. under 50 pounds. please see our restricted breeds list. he sleeps most of the time, a well-behaved menace. he's big because i'm single in the city and it gets dark here early - but i've had to trade that sense of safety for scrambling-for-housing.
cheerfully i report that i live in a hole! because humor, like vicks, soothes what-is-horrible. the windows are painted shut. the fridge sometimes just shuts off for no reason. there are only 2 working stove burners and they're not in the front. for some reason, rust is everywhere, no matter whether it makes sense for an area to rust. the door in the bathroom has a very badly-patched hole; white-yellow stark against the bad cherry vinyl.
okay. it's what i can afford. the pamphlet had said new england nepenthes(TM) apartments: a beautiful place to grow up. and yes, it's ground-floor, which isn't ideal. so we (my dog and i) have successfully secured the door with one of those big prybars that are 50 dollars. also i usually balance something heavy near any possible entrances - i want to be awake when they fall. you know, during the break-in.
for the first four months, i didn't notice. there had been so much to do in those four months. okay, our (okay, my, he doesn't pay rent) kitchen is literally four tiles wide and undivided from the other spaces. the dining room and office are also the living room (which is. also the kitchen). my bed is too big for the bedroom; i can either have it weirdly against the wall with a door (horrible) or i have to give up opening my closet all the way.
my mama raised me on martha stewart, so. it's quiet here, i love the location, and even if it's rundown, i can make it work. i buy peel-and-stick reusable wallpaper that has long lines to make it look like everything is taller. i move the plants around, trying to get them into the most sun. i put up shelves and hope that i'll have enough spackle later to cover up the worst mistakes i've made with the nail gun. and hey! the location. like the pamphlet said: a beautiful place to grow up.
it's in the middle of putting up our new wrought iron plant holders. i have adhd, time when i'm focused can pass ephemerally. oh shit, i realize. it's 9:30 in the evening. i am probably keeping people awake with all the drilling. fuck. my bad. i tilt an ear upstairs, waiting. nobody slamming the floor with a broom. nobody shouting. maybe quiet hours are at 10 and they're just waiting.
the holders are real wrought iron because my plants weigh a lot. i press the last one above my head, against the pilot holes. now i feel bad about the time. i should just wrap up this last one i'm attaching and then go to bed. if i wait, i'll forget in the morning. distracted, i look down to where i've left the screws on my desk (which is often also my dining room table and art station), and, as if the wall spat the screws out, the iron slips out of my grasp and cracks me hard against my nose before tumbling down to the floor.
one of the worst things about living alone is when you get hurt. sparks jump in front of me. my eyes start tearing. fuck! i've broken my nose before, this feels like that. fuck fuck fuck. maybe it's not broken?
i have to hobble off the stool, trying to hold my nose while also not wanting to touch it. i do the first adult thing i can think of - call a bigger adult.
hey mama. i pant into the phone. no worries but how do i know if i broke my nose?
30 minutes later, we have decided it hurt but if i don't have a black eye, the nose is fine. it was already out of alignment anyway. i say the whole sordid story to her, and then i add i just feel bad i lost track of time, it's weird none of my neighbors complained.
as soon as i hang up, i hear the upstairs neighbors, with their quiet feet and soft, muffled voices. i hear people to the right and left of me. i hear them murmuring to each other. someone watches bad tv, i can hear the reality show music-to-dramatic-shouting.
i put ice on my face. i google nose break again just to be sure. i ask my dog if he thinks i look ugly, he responds by putting his three paws into the air and asking for a tummy rub. as part of our nightly ritual, i examine and worry about his amputation, even though it's completely healed up. i still do the physical therapy exercises with him. just in case. just to keep him warmed up.
later in bed, i am reaching to turn on gentle rain for white noise before i realize - huh. i think this evening is the first time i've ever actually heard anyone.
you ever have a thought that gets inside of you? i mean, yeah. of course you do, i guess all thoughts are inside you. but once in a while, don't you get one of those haha funny! thoughts that turns. bad. you know, when you've watched a scary movie and close the laptop and think it's not likely there's a killer in there, but have i ever really checked that deeply in the kitchen sink?
i was always the type to check. just in case. to put my mind at ease.
the thought is there when i wake up, like i'd had it for a while: i never actually see anyone coming and going.
the apartment complex is 12 buildings, staggered like spokes on a clock. i live in 6, the furthest from the road. we are spaced unevenly, but when i first saw it, i thought huh. what a nice quiet community. the grass is green and there are never any leaves. i've never seen someone come mow it. there are cars here, plenty. when was the last time you counted which cars are in the communal lot?
isn't it weird how you're always able to snag that one last spot?
i keep weird hours, is all. i laugh at the thought of it. there was a post on tumblr once that asked how long would it take you to realize the building was entirely empty. but it can't be empty, right? at night, when i can see into other people's apartments, i catch sight of the thousand ways other people decorate. blue LED lights or tapestries or nice curtains. so it is silly to think about that post, when i know other people are here. this is someone else's home.
i mention it to my sister when she comes over to help me move the couch purposelessly around before we both decide it was better where i'd originally had it. nobody, like, lives here. i say. it's weird. i've been here for five months, and i don't see anyone.
she shrugs. maybe it's too expensive for the area, or not really advertised enough. maybe most people my age keeping my hours don't like to live in apartments. who is to say.
after that, the shadows start. my dog and i go on our nighttime walk, and then i see the apartments come to life. the flickered silhouettes of them. the flash of tvs and laptops. the gauzy shape of others just-far-enough i can't quite make out their form. they walk away from the windows if i get close enough.
they must not know how to do it right. every third day, the animations repeat.
oh, i get it. i think. i'm living in a horror novel.
i'm cuban. my culture can be superstitious, yes. but it also means that i have been taught to keep my head on a swivel. we do not fuck with this shit. we do not oujia board the spirits for fun. we do not make a joke about the killer. we do not ever tempt fate, her ears are open-and-listening.
my lease is for one year. it's been five months, that's not that much longer. i can't afford to break it (or to move) at the moment. and, again, the dog factor. and i do love the location.
but once it is obvious, it is so obvious. i try to pay my rent by check just the once, but when i swing by the rental office, the whole floor of the building is dark. there is no cheerful team of realtors, only a single dark panel over door. due to unexpected circumstances, we are currently operating elsewhere. i go online and pay there instead.
no one here hosts parties. the mail truck never seems to come to any of the other buildings. my dog doesn't like going near certain places. i discover a 5-foot radius where my phone will always hang up on the person i'm talking with, even if i have service.
i watch carefully, while also pretending i am not watching. i check my mail, waiting for the electricity bill that never comes calling. in the front hall, amazon packages come with names too smudged for me to ever quite read. sanchez, maybe. then, to the same apartment a week later: tawny reed. it's different again the third week. i stop looking, feeling like i'm prying.
i mention how quiet it is here during the day to one of my bosses, and then the upstairs neighbor appears. her alarm goes off when mine does, almost like an echo. when i change my song, it takes her a few days to keep up. i had said something offhand about how i'm the only one with a dog. then, upstairs - the little patter of dog paws.
at night, i start seeing people on my dog walking route. they pace, insubstantial, something black at the end of their lead. their waving arms always bent at right angles, like they are figuring out how to navigate being 3D. i always wave back, cheerfully. i keep my headphones in. they are over there in the mist that-does-not-belong, and i am over here in the light-that-flickers-on-and-off. i do not need to make a scene about this. there are many reasons people might dissolve into nothing. it is not any of my business.
the upstairs girl smokes. i see her with her (pomeranian? poodle?) little rat-rabbit-dog (? dog in the loosest sense of the word), her legs up on the stoop. she always goes inside when i show up to our building, after giving me one of those straight side-to-side waves. i can never quite make out her features. she won't be there when i leave for our walk, but she'll be there when we get back, no matter how long my walk takes. she watching me, her eyes dark. she sits there, smoking, wearing galaxy-print leggings. the little dog running near her. (sometimes the dog is not there, until i look again, and it is. i must have just missed it, or maybe it was hiding under one of the trim little bushes. not my concern, whatever it is.)
i know she smokes, i can see the red glow and smell it on the air after. but there are no places to dispose of the butts and she never leaves behind any litter. so she must be careful with them, which i appreciate. cigarettes are bad for the environment. i am in no place to judge someone for their vices anyway. during the day, sometimes i hear her dog (a corgi? a terrier?) whine, this thin, reedy sound, like someone gasping for breath. like someone buried alive. a howl like dread. sometimes it even sounds human; garbled and anxious, bow wow wow warping into help help help.
but i'm sure my dog whines when i'm gone, too. i will not report her for this, because it's not her fault. and i don't want to get her in trouble. after all, we all love our dogs so much.
when i write a request for maintenance to help me with ants, i get a bounce-back error. three days later, we wake up, and a sea of dead ant bodies litter my carpet. an inch deep, they float on each other's backs, a black blanket.
i vacuum them up. i feel bad about their little ant souls. i tell them i am sorry. i will light a candle. i tell myself - this is no different than calling an exterminator. to remove yourself from the process is an act of careful self-duplicity - we would have been killing the ants another way, and just anticipating someone else handle the transaction.
how do i call someone about this? i cannot break the lease because i think the others here are ghosts. or my other theory: maybe the whole thing is a carnivore, and i am in the belly, already beginning to rot.
we cannot afford to move, it's only been six months. the heat and the lights stay on. i never invite others over. it feels wrong. we are alone here, the way we should be alone here. this is our place, for me and my dog and the rest of us. we are supposed to be here. we are supposed to live here, in this little hole-in-the-ground apartment.
we are not under any form of threat, anyway. i light candles and say the prayers our father taught us. we keep our distance from the mist ones, and adopt their way of waving, side-to-side. it is starting to look less like a wave and more like beckoning. come on, come on. something keeps us locking our door. we put up more wrought iron, even after it hit us so hard-on-the-face, which wasn't fun, and was very mean. maybe we should take it down - except i know it was so much effort to put up.
oh the tub leaks and the freezer has begin to lock while it's shut. our boss says we look pale these days. we blame insomnia. it's just that it's so quiet here, sometimes. we like to make ourselves go very-quiet too, like a mouse. and then we turn that horrible white-noise machine on. we are so strange; we push salt down the drains and into our doorways, which is a waste and a bad thing to do. we do not look into the electricity problem. we fix the lightbulb without complaint. we do not send in new notices to maintenance, even when the rust on the walls starts running. we get fabulosa and scrub everything. we do not make a fuss. when our neighbors that have-no-jaw open the door for us, we keep our eyes on our dog and say thank you! and make polite small-talk. when they garble their responses let your welcome out, (no throat but the sound's so loud?)-we say haha yeah and scoot by the cold spot. we help others get their groceries out of the car even though the bags smell rotten. we do not use the basement laundry room with the single pale yellow lightbulb, even though it is so friendly and warm and free; we drive elsewhere for that, which might be lazy of me. whenever we leave, we take our dog, even though he would be fine alone, surrounded by the strange creep of rust.
we are kind, and not frenzied. isn't that strange? shouldn't we be frenzied? there have been so many odd things here, shouldn't we be reacting? instead we sit in our apartment and say, casually - oh, i'm fine. how fun! how interesting. are we waiting for something? if we're waiting, which of us is hiding and which of us is hunting?
we count our days on the lease - six months left! we can grow to enjoy it here. it has its quirks, but hey. sometimes staying for the location is reason-enough.
and we love it here. it's a beautiful place to grow up.
