Like
a lot of cheap apartment buildings, this place has thin walls. Often
I hear my neighbors. Drywall and hollow space is the only separation between units.
One night a while back, I woke up and needed to do a #2 at around three in the
morning. Maybe I wouldn’t have heard, if I’d turned the bathroom fan on, but I hadn’t, and as I sat on the porcelain, there came a grunting that wasn’t mine. My neighbor was sitting on his toilet at the same
time I was sitting on mine.
3:00 in the morning, alone in my apartment, wishing I
was asleep, a stranger’s grunt wasn’t welcome. In a don’t-give-a-shit mood even while taking a shit, I said, “It doesn’t want to drop, huh?” Said it at my
normal speaking volume, neither loudly nor softly, but knew it would
carry through the wall.
There was silence, and I wondered whether I’d regret making
conversation on the crapper. Bad manners in the middle of the night, and maybe
dangerous — I’d never met this neighbor, but I’d seen him. Big guy. Maybe he’d holler at me, or pound on my door and then pound on me.After a moment’s pause, though, there came
laughter from behind the wall. More to my surprise, it was a woman’s laughter.
My neighbor is a man — I’ve heard him singing in the shower. Maybe the man next door was married? Or he’d moved out, and the woman next door had
moved in?I said nothing more, she said nothing, and the night was silent, until a splash came through the wall. That sound is
unmistakable — you’ve heard it when you’re in a public
stall, but home alone when the splash comes from your
neighbor’s toilet, it’s funny. I laughed, she laughed, and a moment later she flushed and said, “Good night,”
through the wall.I said “Good night,” and that’s the first and last time my neighbor and I have spoken. It’s
been months, and I haven’t met her, and have no desire to. This is not
the set-up for a romantic comedy, and we’re not going to become friends.
We’re just two shits that passed in the night.
12/10/2020
Republished 4/27/2024
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