The Neighbor
Original YouTube comment on Tobias Jesso Jr’s “How could you babe?”:
  Chris Okum              2 months ago           Â
I just poured myself a glass of white wine. Now I'm going to sit on my rattan chair and stare out my window. My apartment looks directly into the bathroom of my across-the-way neighbor, an 80 year old woman from the Ukraine who likes to get naked and look at herself in the mirror. That's what this song makes me think of: a naked 80 year old woman staring at her private parts. I guess I should buy some curtains and not look, but it's hard, especially when the Ukrainian woman has inspired me to write some songs of my own, which are cut from the same cloth as Benny Mardones and Billy Vera. Here are some of the songs I have written while staring at my Ukrainian neighbor: "My Ukrainian Neighbor is Naked And Staring at Herself Again;" "I Can't Stop Staring at My Ukrainian Neighbor's Naked 80 Year Old Ass"; "Oh, Yes, Please, Bend Over and Inspect Your Private Parts for the Third Time This Morning"; "Wiper's Lament"; "Is It Customary For Old Women from the Ukraine to Shave Their Ass But Not Their Vagina?"; "I'll Stop Looking When You Stop Getting Naked"; "Ode To Saggy Breasts;" "What, I'm Looking at our Naked Ukrainian Neighbor Again, So What?"; and, "I Think She Saw Me Looking at her and I Don't Think She Cared."Â
The room was dark, save for a floor lamp in the corner of the room. It was the end of summer and the evening air heaved with all that had happened during those sweltering days and long nights that New York excels at. The windows were open and the bustle of the city wafted through the apartment, exchanging glancing blows with the music coming from the record player.
Chris treaded lightly through the low light of the kitchen to pour himself the remainder of the bottle of white wine before moving to the rattan chair that sat by the open window that looked out on the street. He closed his eyes for a minute as the honk of car horns and yells of those refusing to give up on the summer rose from the street. When he opened his eyes he found himself looking at the ceiling, the light from the street painting shadows and figures for his mind to interpret. He rolled his head back towards his chest and stared out the window.
The other side of the street stood stoically across from him. There weren’t many lights on in the apartments above the stores. These early September days dragged people out as they clung to the hope of summer before it descended into the hunkering down of fall, which slopped into the hibernation of winter. Rhythms. Life was all about rhythm, he asserted, before lamenting a lack of rhythm in everything he had done.
A light flicked on, breaking his thoughts. The light was pale and rendered the room shallow. It was a bathroom. A shadow of a person threatened to enter before sulking off to another part of the apartment. The light flicked off, the room absorbed back into the dark facade of the building.
Chris was brought back to his room, ruminating on the summer’s stories and where they had gone. The names of the girls he met on the streets, in the bars, the chance encounters, the momentary glances that lasted the summer as fond memories, the subway sights and smells, the ideas and to do list crafted and broken and rebuilt on the journeys to work. The rhythm of the summer and the people who lived it. That girl who always wore the pencil skirts and blouses of various hues that he saw every morning, that he’d talk to if only she’d ever stop looking down at her phone. He wondered what she did, assuming it must be something to do with Wall St, maybe she was at a law firm. It all felt like a flicker for him now, his 28th summer. The summer’s had begun to feel shorter now he lamented, as if someone had caressed the globe with their hand and made it spin a little faster. Maybe it was the weddings’ fault. The solitary one of Alex and Martin two years ago had begun the snowball, a further three the year after and this year was the worst yet with four. Four times he had rocked up by himself, the questions of whether he was seeing anyone in the city or when would it be his turn. He didn’t seem himself there yet. Growing up he thought life would follow the path that his parents took; grow up, go to college, get a job, meet a girl, settle down. It wasn’t that life hadn’t taken that route; he had got the college degree and the job was kind of there, though he didn’t know if he would always be a web designer making banner ads. It was just that when he got to 24 with the career and the degree it seemed like everything else was very bunched together, as if the dominoes were just going to topple one after the other. Meeting the girl had been the one that refused to topple. There had been girls, something that he’d consider love or the closest to what others who pledged that they were in love that he had encountered. Mary was gone now though.
Mary. He drunk some wine and looked around him. He observed the bookshelf against the wall. He should buy more books. Get back into reading. Maybe there was a Yates novel he hadn’t read yet or maybe he’d try one of those titans of Russian literature. He had always wanted to be one of those guys, who read the great tales of love and war and strife but heir heft had always been the obstacle to bringing them to the sales counter. Hemingway? School had ruined Hemingway, too much reading into it rather than just reading. The thought of Mary was too long ago now to upset. Thinking of her didn’t elicit much at all now and for a moment he felt bad about feeling that way. Distance and time had eroded the hard edges of the breakup and what was conjured up when she was thought of was the warmth of her smile and that they had known fun and love at some point.