June 15, 2002

My wife says my BLOGS are too long. They are going to get shorter.

Act 1, Scene 2

Setting

Inside the Old Man’s house. The Young Boy and the Old Man are sitting in a badly cluttered room. The Young Boy is feverishly rummaging through stacks of stained and tattered papers thrown around the floor. The Old Man is at a distance as far from Young Boy as the room will allow. He is nursing a cocktail and smoking a cigarette.

Old Man – (loudly) Go ahead, fuck. You are not going to find anything in that bullshit worth a squirt of piss.

Young Boy – Not true. That’s not true. I can hardly believe my eyes. There are literal volumes of unpublished material here. (reading from various papers) “Cocks and Socks”. “My Old Lady is a Cunt”. “Tortured Virgin”. This a mother lode of beauty and eloquence. A savvy publisher could reap millions from this floor alone. Look at this. “God and Existence”.

The Old Man leaps up from his chair.

Old Man – (grabbing the paper) Give me that, you slimy piece of shit!

Young Boy – (startled) What?

Old Man – Some of this shit is private. Sometimes you write bullshit for yourself. To remember shit. (he begins to read silently from the paper)

Young Boy – Please, Mr. Blow. I want to know every cracked floor and hiding place in your brilliant mind. Every word that comes from your soul can teach me more than a university full of college professors. Please, let me read the poem. I understand your reservation. Every man is at least a little uncomfortable about bearing their hear and soul to the world. But, please understand, I worship at the alter of your genius. I am sure that whatever you have written is a glimpse of the holy of holies.

Old Man - OK, you whining fuck. I’ll give you a taste of the cum shot of God. (reading) “God and Existence”. God don’t exist, and you ain’t shit. You try to talk about your philosophy and you sound like a half crazed retard. Priest, Rabbi, Garbage man. You can all suck my dick with your mouth full of bullshit knowledge and wisdom. I don’t know the answer but you don’t either, cocksucker.

The Young Boy sits stone faced and silent. The Old Man looks up directly at the boy. After a long pause, the Old Man shouts.

Old Man - (loud) Well, you God damned idiot, are you going to just sit ther like a retard with no fucking tongue.

Young Boy – (through tears) That was absolutely beautiful. Not even Shakespeare could have summed up man’s eternal struggle with mortality and the futility of day-to-day life so poignantly. God bless you for sharing your insight with me, your humble servant.

Old Man – Cut the crap, kid. You can sling that bullshit as well as any young Dostoyevsky I have ever met. If you do not make it as a scribbler, you will always have a career waiting for you in politics. (laughs wickedly) So I can write about God. Big fucking deal.

Young Boy – No, It is a big deal. Thought is advanced through writers like us. What you did in “God and Existence” is exactly what I want to do with my life. Man and his stuggle to hear the higher calling is the most noble effort that thinkers and writers can undertake. I want to explore the nature of God through poetry. I want to dissect man’s natural tendencies towards good and evil through short stories and essays. Novels will be written about the modern age and man’s inability to function along with technology. Limericks will be published blasting the Church and organized religion as a whole. You have showed me the potential that the written word can have for shaping the constructs we all live by. I can only hope that my struggle with the pen and the word will be as fruitful as yours. The Writer – mover of men and shaper of the public consciousness. God bless you sir, Writer – the noblest of earthly professions.

Old Man – So you think you can change the world by jotting down some free verse? Do you think that some half assed story is going to do anybody one lick of good? You are an asshole, kid. People don’t even read anymore. The fucking idiot box is where it is at. If you want to reach the fucking masses, write a sitcom.

Young Boy. – I can understand your jaded viewpoint, sir for I was once a cynic and the times have, indeed, changed since you last published. People don’t read as much as they used to in the Fifties. So what?

Old Man - Even if people read as much now, they don’t want to read your bullshit about “Man’s struggle with mortality and futility”. People want fucking. People want killing. People want to laugh at people that they think are more stupid and fucked up than they are. They want mysteries about lawyers. They don’t want any philosophical bullshit. They want fart jokes, you asshole.

Young Boy – It is up to men like us, men who do not fear the spiritual, to captivate the audience through superbly crafted iambic pentameter verse and bring them to the fold of the thinker. As writers, we have a responsibility.

Old Man – The only responsibility you have is to put food in your mouth. Bullshit is what sells. I learned a hard lesson, son, back in the Fifties. That is why I stopped publishing. I had more than my fair of poems published in my day – pulp novels and magazine stories too. All of the large publications were after my ass. I had “City Swinger” on the phone, “Super Swank” sending me desperate letters. “Nasty Temptress” flying me to New York City, the Big Fucking Apple, to do a series on leather fetish bars. This was the Fifties, mind you. I was way ahead of my time. My editors at LeNoble and Company were planning on translating my shit into 75 languages, that includes some of those bullshit third world languages that nobody evens speaks anymore. My work was it. I was running with a fast crowd. It was a great time to be a writer. (pause) But then the bottom fell out. I don’t know what the fuck I was thinking. Somehow I convinced myself that I was an artist. I stopped all of my stuff from being published in the girlie magazines. I stopped appearing in public and locked myself away in the hills of West Virginia. I was going to write the Great American Novel. I called it “To Be In America”. It was part Steinbeck, part Nietsche, part Plato and part Moe Howard. I thought it was great. It explained all of man’s philosophical struggles through a series of comical sketches involving an everyman Swedish plumber. I thought to myself: “This is fucking going to fucking advance the fucking psyche of America. Jesus Christ, this is going to help the poor fucker at the auto body shop who is wondering about all of this bullshit. Dim witted housewives will be able to talk about this instead of how to properly Shake and Bake chicken.” Boy, was I ever full of shit. The book barely got published an the critics trashed it. It didn’t sell for shit. My editor started barking in my face about the product. I finally said fuck it and quit the business. I took my money and bought a dog track and here I am. People don’t want the truth. They want “Porky’s”. The audience is worse off than you think. They would not their assholes from holes in the ground.

Young Boy – It is up to the writer to show them the difference between the asshole and the hole in the ground. It is up to the writer to elevate the audience to a level of comprehension that will allow them to understand higher callings. It is our job to take the public by the hand and guide them to enlightenment.

The Old Man jumps from his chair and lunges quickly towards the Young Boy.

Old Man – (grabbing the boy) I am going to take you by the back of the neck and guide you out of my fucking house.

The Young Boy struggles to get away.

Young Boy – Please, Mr. Blow, allow me to stay just a little while longer. I am just getting to get a clear picture of your soul.

Old Man – I am going to give you a clear insight of the pavement.

The Old Man leads the Young Boy to the edge of the stage. The Young Boy finally breaks free.

Young Boy – Sir. Leader. Wise Man. Why do you insist on showing me the worst possible hospitality when all I am interested in is basking in the glow that radiates from the sun that is your talent and master’s sense of perception? Admittedly, I am a poor excuse for a writer. I have not even been able to get published on the poetry page of my college newspaper. But that does not mean that I am not an eager study and a humble serf on the fief of your glory. Even though I pay you every respect that is due your eminence, you treat me like a bothersome idiot. It would mean so much for me to finish my character study of you, sir. Please allow me into the inner sanctum of higher thought. I promise you that one day you will be proud to call me your student. I am more than willing to act as a boy slave to you – fulfilling all of your physical needs - in order that I may please have just one more moment with your mind.

Old Man – My mind is telling my ass that you are giving it a great pain. You are shit. You are not a writer. You are a God damn imbecile. I have less important things to do with my time than sit around here with a half wit like yourself. A writer needs solitude and we are both going to get ours.

The Old Man kicks the Young Boy off of the front of the stage.

Old Man – So long, fuck face. Come back when you get something in print. Your handwriting sucks.

Young Boy – (from the floor) I will be back, my Lord. I will earn your respect. I will make you proud.

(1996)


posted by Thea at 9:57 PM

June 14, 2002

I am burning out. I think that I am going to have to slow down for a while. Something has got to give. I can’t keep this up. I am tired of working.

This play in three scenes is the last thing that I wrote in script form. Over the next three days, you will see why.

I Want to be a Writer

Act 1, Scene 1

A teenage boy is walking down a nondescript suburban street. The street, like all others in the neighborhood, is a line of white bungalows with various colered trims. The boy is staring at a small pocket notebook and intermittently looks up at one of the bungalows trying to find himself. He is carrying a bundle of small notebooks. His pace is quick and determined. After walking nearly the length of the street, he stops at one of the driveways for a long moment. He gathers himself and walks to the front door. Another long pause. Eventually, he rings the doorbell. Ring once. Ring twice. In the middle of the third ring, the door flies open. An old man answers.

Old Man – What the fuck do you want, asshole?

Young Boy – (stammering) Are... are... are you...

Old Man – Spit it out, shit for brains.

Young Boy – (almost crying) Are you Joe Blow?

Old Man – So what if I am?

Young Boy – (still very nervous) People around here say... you know how people talk... I was at Denny’s and this fat guy at the counter... he... he said...

Old Man – (loudly) Talk, fuck face!

Young Boy – He said... You are a writer.

The Old Man scratches his head and spits on the floor.

Old Man – I ain’t no writer, dickless. I am a retired dog track owner. Now get the fuck out of here before I sick my dog Kerouac on you.

Young Boy – Are you Joe Blow?

Old Man – I am Joe Blow but I ain’t no piece of shit fucking writer. I never had any use for any God damned scribbler.

The Young Boy pulls out a scrap of paper from one of his small notebooks. He begins to recite from it.

Young Boy – “Big Love for Small Girls” by Joe Blow. I have a big love, For wee small girls. I like them as big as my penis. I have a big love, for school girls in curls. Their tiny heads as big as my fist. I have a big love, for girls with no breasts. Their skin is baby bottom soft all over. I have a big love, small girls are the best. I’ll do them while they are still young.

Old Man – (a tear breaking loose from his eyes) You did your homework, you stupid shit. How did you find that poem?

Young Boy – It was published in the 1954 by “Super Swank” magazine. My grandfather is a pack rat. He had it lying around in his basement.

Old Man – A pack rat and a fucking pervert. So what the fuck do you care about some old bullshit poem?

Young Boy – I really respect your work.

Old Man – Don’t give me that respect shit. Save it for your teachers, school boy.

Young Boy – You are a writer. I want to be a writer. I want you to teach me what it is like to be a writer. I want to know about bars. I want to know about coffee shops. I want to know about Paris. I want to know about syphilis.

Old Man – So you want to be a writer. If I had a nickel for every notebook carrying piece of shit pussy that knocked on that door wanting to get a piece of the old man, I would be a fucking millionaire. I can’t teach you to write, moron. You have got to live it. You don’t get to the pages of “Super Swank” magazine by carrying a fucking notebook around. You have got to live, punk. Asshole, you have go to do it.

Young Boy – If you would give me a few minutes of your time I would be eternally in your debt to your kindness. I could learn so much by just sitting at your feet. I live by your teachings. “My Dick is Burning” changed my life.

Old Man – Has your dick ever burned?

The Young Boy stand silent.

Old Man – Has it? (the Young Boy is visibly shaken) Well, has it? (silence) Tell me boy, has your dick burned?

Young Boy – (long pause) N... n... No!

Old Man – Well, it is going to.

(1996)
posted by Thea at 11:50 PM

June 13, 2002

Thea has her small notebook and Jamie from Boulder has his average size notebook. Today, I have no notebook. I had tons of notebooks when the Assholier than Thou Good Times Happy Friends Monday Morning Radio Show started. And then that known heroin addict broke into my house and stole a couple. And then I stopped writing in a notebook. And then I started typing up my writing and data that were previously written in a notebook. And then I started throwing things out that I had written in a notebook that were no longer important to me. And then I had no more notebooks. Today, I typed up the last bit of data from my last old notebook and got rid of it. That is all. No more notebooks.

I used to think that carrying around a notebook would make me a writer. I was wrong. Writing makes me a writer.

Honey and Sugar - How Sweet it is

Cast

Sugar – a surly construction worker
Honey – her husband

Act 1, Scene1

Scene – Honey is at home working in the kitchen preparing dinner for the family of four. The home is a modest suburban bungalow although it is handsomely decorated.

Honey – (speaking thoughts aloud) What to make? What to make? I just went to the market. Why does it seem like we run out of food as soon as I put it on the shelves? Maybe a delicious quiche. (yells to his two school age boys off stage) Spike! Roscoe! What do you two want for dinner? (pauses for response) Is quiche OK? How about stuffed cabbage? (pause) I don’t care what your mother makes when I am away. If it were up to her, it would pizza or burgers seven days a week. She is going to die of heart disease just like her father. Like I say: eat responsibly, live eternally – almost. We have not had vegetable chow mein in awhile. Chinese gourmet it is. (begins preparing vegetables for dinner) (to audience) Do you ever get the feeling that we are all on some cosmic exercise bicycle? I mean – we peddle and we push, clock our speed versus the miles we travel, exert a load of energy, sweat it out, but never seem to get anywhere? (pause) Oh, I suppose it is just me. Day in and day out. I work around this house. Washing clothes, cleaning up after the boys, cooking meals. And do I ever get any rewards, any gratitude? I think not. Sugar comes home, complains about the food – slop as she so eloquently puts it, eats, watches TV and falls asleep on the sofa. Never a thank you. Barely an I love you. I try and keep a stiff upper lip – really I do. I try and think that she really does appreciate what I do around here but her day is slightly more difficult on the job than mine is at home so she is probably a little bit justified in overlooking what I do. I am totally concerned with how her day went and I ask her about it. Does she ever seem interested in one of the poems that I wrote for her? She used to listen to me recite. Now, whenever I pull out my latest work, she yawns and fidgets and eventually tries to get me to stop reading by pulling me in bed with her. What am I, her stud? She is so God awful rough on me too. It used to be fun but now it is work. A duty – so to speak. But she pays the bills and (imitating someone) you’ve got it pretty god damn good around here. (pause) I have needs too. Why can’t we just cuddle sometimes? I need affection. It is always just wham, bam, thank you, man. (excited) I need warmth for Pete’s sake. (softer- realizing his outburst) I am sorry. Is a hug too much to ask for? (phone rings). Hello. (pause) Sugar, will you be home soon? (pause) No, I don’t mind if you go out for a beer with the guys. (pause) uhh... chow mein. You don’t have to get Taco Bell. I can reheat it. OK. OK. Hurry home. I miss you. (to audience) That was Sugar. It seems as if she is thirsty and needs to wet her whistle. I don’t mind, really, but some of those friends of hers are such a rowdy bunch. Once, they were over on a Sunday watching a football match and something happened with the game or something that got one the gentleman, Tank I think his name was, so upset that he smashed a beer bottle on the coffee table. The sad thing was that Sugar began a litany of curse words that would have raised the dead but it was not in anger directed at Tank, it was in some sort of twisted praise of him and his boorish behavior. She encourages that kind of behavior in Spike and Roscoe too. Boys will be boys she says. They are boys, indeed, so they should not act like animals. (yells offstage). Spike! Roscoe! Get ready for dinner.

Act 1, Scene 2

Scene – a young woman is sitting at a barstool talking to the bartender. She is dressed in working clothes. The bar is a typical corner bar watering hole. She drinking beers quickly.

Sugar – (barking offstage) You dudes are pussy whipped! One beer. One fucking beer doesn’t even make you piss. You don’t see me running home to my man. A lady has to have some get loose time. (to bartender) Get me another fucking beer. (pause) Can you believe that shit? What ever happened to the days when we would come in here after work and stay until last call? We would get so fucking shithoused that driving home would be a real bitch. Speaking of bitches, my husband, Honey, has been giving me so much shit lately, (pause) You don’t spend any time with me. You don’t love me. Boo fucking hoo.

(1996)

posted by Thea at 9:48 PM

June 12, 2002

I think I pieced together what happened in 1996 that made me write so little. I started off the year living with Joel and Viv on West 104th and Baltic – estranged from my wife (girlfriend [ex-live in] at the time). The Revelers played 47 gigs that year starting on January 13, 1996 with the New Salem Witch Hunters at the Grog Shop. That would account for some of the time. And they recorded “Better Get Hit in Your Soul” at Kramer’s noise New Jersey Studio during four of the drunkest days of my life in February. I drove the band’s van through Midtown Manhattan during rush hour blind drunk and unable to see out the back window – one of my finest hours of drinking and driving – during the recording sessions. In April, Joel and I mistakenly made the twenty-four hour round trip to Brooklyn, NY and back for The Wedding of Tom and Cassandra Ericsson. “Beautiful. Beautiful. Beautiful,” toasted Andrej. I drank a couple of Scotches and drove the first leg home through Pennsylvania. The Revelers played with Gaunt a couple of times that summer as well as a couple of times at Geauga Lake, the Cleveland Bicentennial Celebration in the Flats and on the “Live from Studio A” program on WRUW 91.1 FM (08/29/96) before he who shant be mentioned on the program ever again dropped a lifetime ban on Andrej. Also, the Revelers, Quazimodo, Satan’s Satellites and Bill Fox celebrated Thea’s birthday on August 3, 1996 at Speak in Tongues. I think that the Mice reunited for some songs at that gig but I am not totally sure. I cleared myself completely of debt in November and my wife and I got our own place again freeing George Frank (ex-Boogie Man Smash) to move into my old room at Joel’s house and me to have to kick little Matty Bumpo out of the band for the second time (my bad, dude) after he got stuck playing both the wedding of my dog Tim and John Doobie’s sister because George could not learn all of those songs in time. The year ended with the band planning to move to New York City and me planning on going back to school. That was why I did not write so much in 1996. Oh, did I mention that I was drunk for all of 1996 and the song “Second Best” by the Mice (I am listening to it now) still gives me goose bumps after all these years.

Father and Son - A Reunion

Cast

Father - a lecherous and rotund man of 46 - a bar owner
Son – his son
Pops – Father’s father – a police officer
Mother One – Pop’s wife and Father’s mother
Uncle Bobo – Father’s brother – a cement contractor
Mother Two – Uncle Bobo’s wife
Uncle Curley – Father’s other brother – a cement contractor
Mother Three – Uncle Curley’s wife
Roscoe – Uncle Curley and Mother Three’s son
Spike – Uncle Curley and Mother Three’s other son
Dutch – Uncle Curley and Mother Three’s third son – the hero

Act 1, Scene 1

The play opens with a knock on the door of the Son’s hovel in an urban sub-ghetto.

(knock)

Father – I am looking for my son.

Son – Look no further, it is I – the fruit of your loins.

Father – Don’t say the word fruit around me, son, for it just so happens that I am homophobic. Gays, black gays especially, give me a violent rash that is rather discomforting.

Son – Father, I am gay.

Father – (laughing) I see that you have inherited my quick wit. You are as speedy with the humorous retort as I am. I am especially glad that I decided to look you up after all these years considering this humorous revelation.

Son – Father, evidently your memory is not as sharp as your wit for, contrary to your misinformed notion, it was I who called upon you.

Father – It makes no never mind, son. All that matters is that we have finally come to the realization that we need each other and twenty years is not that long of a gap to bridge. (Father looks around the poorly furnished hovel) So tell me son, what has brought you to this lowly state?

Son – I am a drug addict. I spent all my money trying to score drugs. The reason I wanted to see you again, father, is that I need some money to score. I need some drugs – bad.

Father – (laughing loudly) Enough with the jokes, son. Let’s go to Pops and Mother’s house. Today is Pop’s retirement party.

Son – (overjoyed) Free eats. Splendid.

Act 1, Scene 2

In Father’s car on the way to Pops and Mother’s house.

Father – So, I suppose you are wondering why Ellen and I split up.

Son – Actually, no. Mommy Dearest told me she divorced you because you were lecherous and rotund. She also said that you were critical of her career as a rodeo clown.

Father – (in shock) I am shocked. Your mother has as hard a time dealing with the truth as she does with being faithful to an honest and hard working spouse. I caught your mother rolling in the hay with Texas Tim – the rope trick expert – after a Longhorn Rodeo in 1973. I looked at her tied up like a hog being defiled by a side show man and I could never return to out marital bed again. It is a wound from which I have never fully recovered. How is Ellen these days?

Son – She is fine. Texas Tim is involved with the trick Yo-Yo circuit. He really is quite good.

Father – That is tragic. Just tragic.

(1996)


posted by Thea at 10:11 PM

June 11, 2002

I don’t know what movie Thea and I saw first, “Clerks” or “Reality Bites” (I am too fat and lazy to look it up) but we saw both of them at the theater and said, immediately upon exiting the theater after both movies, that we could write a better script than either of those. It was that thought, and the knowledge that the movies are the most lucrative of all of the show business enterprises, that has kept Thea and I talking about writing a movie together since forever. Thea is very enthusiastic about the whole thing. I, for whatever reason, am not. I mean, sure, I would love the money and I think that Thea is completely hysterical and all of her ideas are fresh (the title “Super Fat People” is hers) but I just can’t seem to get really into it. One reason is that I don’t like movies that much. I don’t have the patience to sit that long. And another is that I just can’t seem to write anything remotely script like. I don’t know what my problem is. I just can’t do it or get into it or want to do it or anything. I have a script writing block or something. Who knows?

Anyway, these are the first couple of the tiniest of micro scraps of script ideas or plays or whatever that I had in 1996. They are pathetic. Spirit of Joe Esterhaus (sp? – again, too fat and too lazy), come over me.

Oh, and by the way, I used to live in a Cape Cod bungalow, which is why they come up all of the time. I hate houses that look like that or that all look alike on the same block. That is how the block that I grew up on looked.


Super Fat People

Ext. Farm in the Country

Pigs are wallowing in the mud backed by a picturesque American farm house. A farmer is walking towards the pig pen. The pigs are excited by the sight of the farmer and the prospect of getting slopped. The farmers throws the swill at the pigs. The pigs are whipped into a frenzy over the food. The eat the filth and continue to get filthy in the pen.

Ext. Post World War II Cape Cod Bungalow in Suburban USA

This house is your house in the suburbs. It is white, non descript and non threatening. Horror movie music is played as the camera slowly approaches the house.

Int. Same Bungalow

The horror music increases in volume as the camera slowly enters the front door. The music increases tension as the camera moves through the living room, dining room and into the kitchen. A big fat person, CHUCK, is sitting at the kitchen table with a huge spread of food in front of him. He is eyeing the food seductively and licking his lips.

CHUCK

Goodness is to prepare a meal. To eat it - divine.

Chuck tucks a napkin into the neck of his shirt. He pauses for one last moment to savor the event. He begins to eat. The feeding frenzy begins.

Ext. Farm in the Country.

The hogs continue to be slopped.

Int. Suburban Bungalow.

Chuck digs in.

Roll Credits – Super Fat People

Int. Suburban Bungalow Bedroom

Chuck is sleeping in his tiny child size single bed. The bed is hardly detectable underneath his massive frame. His huge belly is rising and falling with each breath. The phone rings several times before the answering machine picks up the phone. The voice on the answering machine is another super fat person – Chuck’s friend Lloyd.

LLOYD

Hello. Chuck. Are you there? It is me – Lloyd.

Chuck’s eyes open to the sound of Lloyd’s voice.

LLOYD

Chuck. I was thinking of heading downtown today to Super Hero Comics. Do you want to go? Call me when you get in.

(1996)

Ladies night. Every Night.

Cast

Donnie – 47 year old mother of Mickey and Danny – a nurse
Billie – 46 year old sister of Donnie – a nurse
Mickey – Donnie’s 22 year old daughter – a nursing student
Danny – Donnie’s 21 year old daughter – a nursing student
Hugo Popvich – Danny’s 21 year old suitor

Act 1

Setting

Donnie’s house in suburban Cleveland, OH. The working class suburb of Garfield Heights to be specific. Most houses in Garfield Heights are of the Post World War II Cape Code cookie cutter bungalow variety. Donnie’s is not the exception. This scene and all scene take place around Donnie’s kitchen table littered with cigarette butts and empty Pepsi cans.

(1996)

posted by Thea at 9:31 PM

June 9, 2002

The bad thing about the new office – and it is really bad, damn tragic, horrific or any other word you can think of to describe an awful situation – is that I don’t get any AM radio reception. That means I am not going to be able to listen to Jim Rome. I cannot fucking believe it. I think that it was only a couple of weeks ago on the show that I said that I would have killed myself or something if I could have not listened to Jim Rome the last two years. That was a true statement. It seams like this job is going to be better but I just don’t know. I brought in a boom box to my office with a CD player because the man doesn’t want you listening to CDs on the computer. I have some best of Assholier than Thou clip work to do for awhile and then it is going be going back to Lenny Bruce records or maybe I will start listening to Howard Stern again. Who knows? This is a major bummer and I really don’t know if I am going to make it.

I spent the day doing home repairs and thinking about writing a memoir of my home renovation experience: Small Skills/Big Balls - The Assholier than Thou Guide to Home Repair.

This is the last thing I am typing from 1995. It is based on a true story.

Tomorrow: The Assholier than Thou Good Times Happy Friends Monday Morning Radio Show – 6:30 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. on WCSB Cleveland 89.3 FM.

The Neighbors Upstairs

One

Chuck needs a beer, man. Anything to calm his fucked up rattled nerves. Tonight is the fourth night in a row that his neighbors from upstairs have woke him up in the middle of the night. They come home from some bar in the Flats, at least that is where he thinks that they go every night, at around 2:30 a.m. and start pounding. A beer would help, Chuck thinks, even though he got completely shit canned the night before and they still woke him up from a deep liquor induced slumber by stomping all over the place and laughing like two half crazed mental patients.

The bed is squeaking. The headboard is pounding against the wall. He grunts. She moans. He laughs loudly. She giggles. They keep on fucking.

Chuck turns over from on his side to his back. He always sleeps on his side but it is way too uncomfortable to lie like that, awake, for a long stretch of time. It usually takes an hour or so before the neighbors upstairs are too fucked out to continue. There have been a couple of nights, though, when it when on for longer but it usually takes an hour.

On his back, Chuck stares at the ceiling and tries to imagine what the two sex doggies look like boning. She is a nice looking mulatto. She got Chuck’s attention – hard, when she first moved into his building a couple of months ago. Her long black hair was pulled back into a ponytail. The earth girl soul sister look suited her well. The ponytail bounced as she carried her boxes up the stairs. Chuck asked her if she needed any help carrying boxes from the back seat of her 1978 Delta 88 Coup Royale that was illegally parked in front of a fire hydrant. She did need help – though she did not have much. All that was left to carry was some boxes and piles of clothes. The perfect roundness of her ass kept Chuck’s attention away from asking too many questions or getting the details of her life while he followed her up and down the stairs from the car to the apartment – his eyes glued to her butt. Chuck was not good at dealing with anybody, let alone fine ladies with sweet asses. He did not even get her name during the half hour that he helped her move. That information was acquired when he started getting her mail. When he broke her mail box. When nobody was looking.

She lived above Chuck for a month without incident and rarely any contact. He saw her once in the basement once while she was doing her laundry. She had a cell phone attached to her ear and Chuck was hardly able to make eye contact enough to say hello. She greeted Chuck with the same warmth that she would have given him if he shit in the spin cycle. Chuck took in all in stride figuring that she was way out of his league anyhow. But that did not stop him from daydreaming about her, however, when he heard hard steps – too loud for a lady, cross the floor above him. She clunked around her apartment like a giant fat man with an unnaturally quick step. She was always moving around the apartment and she was always home. When she ran to get the telephone, Chuck thought that vibrations from her trot were going to knock his CDs off of the shelf below. For such a small girl, she sure did have a big walk.

For the first month that she lived above him, Chuck entertained many fantasies about what she did for a living or what she did with herself all day. There were a few times he saw her coming into the apartment building by herself or with an equally attractive friend carrying a gym bag dressed in workout clothes. She didn’t seem to have a job. Maybe she was a stripper? Strippers kept weird hours. Once, after returning to the apartment building from a beer run with his buddy Lloyd, he saw her and a girlfriend dancing all over her apartment to some heavy new disco music. Chuck and Lloyd cracked open a couple beers and stood on the front lawn of the apartment building enjoying the show. They stopped dancing after noticing that they had an audience outside. Chuck thought that strippers liked to be watched.

“Ow! You’re hurting me. Ow! Ow!” he yelled.

She giggled. She is always laughing. After a few more ows, he starts laughing too. He has a deeper laugh than the other guy – her steady – if she really does have a regular man. Chuck wonders where the other guy is tonight. The bed is squeaking loudly. It starts shifting and thumping across the floor. Her security deposit is going to be lost when her floor has to be refinished before they can rent her place again. She might as well use a screwdriver.

Chuck is tired of lying awake. He gets out of bed and grabs a cigarette off of the nightstand and lights it. He walks down the hallway to the kitchen and opens the refrigerator and grabs a beer out of the lettuce crisper. He opens the beer and takes a sip. Chuck walks to the living room and opens the blind to the ground floor picture window. He does not notice her regular man’s Toyota parked on the street. Where is that guy? What does he do for a living? It is possible that he is some type of traveling salesman. That would explain the long stretches of absence and down time. Maybe the guy is a drug dealer. Whatever the two of them do with their time is not normal. Their hours are fucked up. Chuck has nothing but empathy for the alternative lifestyle but these hours are killing him loudly.

He looks out the window for a few more minutes before shutting the blinds. Clifton Boulevard is almost deserted at this time of night. Or is it morning? The clock on the VCR says 4:14 a.m. There is room for debate. He puts the cigarette butt in the half finished beer. He can still hear her and her dude loud enough a couple of rooms over and downstairs. She is a fucking machine. She has no limits. Chuck’s awe of her stamina and fear of the situation getting worse have been the only two reasons not to go upstairs and bash the shit out of whatever dude was in bed with her.

The squeaking and pounding stops and the laughter continues in full force. Ten minutes of solid laughter is followed by two minutes of silence and then more laughter. After a few more giggles and a couple of hardy haws, they finally fall asleep. Chuck eventually gets back in bed after a few more minutes when he is reasonably sure that there was not going to be any more noise. He falls uneasily back to sleep.

Two

It is eight in the morning. She is up. She is clomping on the floor. She is running the vacuum on the hard wood floor. She is banging pots and listening to Bob Marley’s “Legend”. The bass is so loud it is rattling Chuck’s windows. She screeches at the caller and then starts laughing like a fucking idiot. Only three short hours ago she was just falling asleep. She is superwoman. She will never stop.

Chuck is, once again, wide awake. His stomach is clenched up with nerves and hate. He lies in bed and curses underneath the no comforter. It is Sunday – the day of rest that Chuck never can get. It is pointless to lie in bed anymore. Chuck gets out of bed and drags his feet to the bathroom. He hates her with everything that he has inside of him.

(1995)


posted by Thea at 6:10 PM