From Pathetic Life #10
Thursday, March 23, 1995
There’s no heat in this apartment. I don’t mean that the gas hasn’t been turned on, or the baseboard panels aren’t connected to the electric, or the pilot for the furnace hasn’t been lit. No, near as Pike and I can figure it, there is no system for providing heat, period.
Frisco has a moderate climate, and the city never freezes, but it does get cold. I’m sure apartments are required by law to have heat. At the rez hotel, all the water pipes for all the building’s radiators ran behind my wall, so that room was always warm… or too warm, or sometimes too damned hot. Moving to this chilly place, the climate change has been so abrupt my lips are chapped.
Nobody needs me to work today, and at the rez hotel I would’ve been naked or shorts only, but at this place I had to get dressed, just to keep my blood liquefied. With no heat and no curtains on my big bay window, whatever warmth there is rises up up and away, so I finally bought a space heater for $19.99.
Pike likes it and says he’s going to buy one too, and we’re subtracting $40 from the rent. I’ve never even met the landlord. He doesn’t know I’m living here, but I’m reminded of the poet Tyrone Green…
Dark and lonely summer’s night.
Kill my landlord. Kill my landlord.
Watchdog barking. Do he bite?
Kill my landlord. Kill my landlord…
♦ ♦ ♦
Here’s the layout of the apartment, something I should’ve explained a couple of weeks ago:
After coming up from the sidewalk through the locked front gate, you climb a flight of stairs to our double-locked front door, which opens into the living room.
Pike lives in the living room, so when you step inside the apartment you’re looking at the couch, which is where he sleeps. No bed.
To the left is the kitchen, with our john beyond.
To the right is my bedroom, behind a door that’s been painted over so many time it barely latches, but it locks.
Every time I leave my room, to take a leak or make a meal in the kitchen, I walk through Pike’s room. If his girlfriend is riding him like Dale Evans on Trigger, I’m not supposed to notice so I don’t, but I’m not going to hold my pee until they’re finished.
The reason I mention all this is that there’s horseplay happening right now, and I’ve had no giddy-up since last summer.
Still, he seems like a nice enough fellow, and there are worse things in life than opening your bedroom door and seeing people fucking.
His girlfriend is here so much she seems to be almost a second flatmate, and that’s annoying, but I haven’t decided whether I hate her. Usually I hate people instantly, so not hating her yet might be a good sign.
And lemmetellyabout Pike’s wake-up ritual. He honks and hacks and blows, honks and coughs and wheezes, then honks some more. He has more morning congestion than the Bay Bridge. Maybe it’s bronchitis, postnasal drip, or all the pot and speed he lives on, but jeez it’s annoying.
Still, this is better than the rez hotel, where you never knew what you might find behind the john door. It’s a joy, here, being pretty sure there won’t be dried piss or puke or poop on the toilet seat.
There’s no elevator to wait for, only a few steps up from the street, and no building manager eyeing me every time I come and go. The rains stay outside, and haven’t yet dripped on my head, or on my zines. That’s an improvement.
The Rainbow Store is much closer. I can walk there and back with my groceries, without having to schlep the sacks on public transit.
And we’re getting a phone installed, one of these days.
And the rent is cheap. For all those pluses, guess I’ll get used to Pike’s weird honking noises every morning.
♦ ♦ ♦
I spoke on the phone again with the lady who stood me up on Tuesday morning. She says she has someone else to help clear her garage, she doesn’t need me, she has no intention of paying me for being there when she wasn’t, and she told me to stop calling.
Politely as fuck, I told her I wouldn’t push it, wouldn’t call again — and I won’t. Tried to sound like a very reasonable man, wished her a pleasant good evening, and hung up softly.
If I was a better man, as zen and laid back as I sometimes wish, that would be the end of it, but I’m not a better man. I’m me.
When we first talked on the phone, I told her my price and terms and she agreed and hired me, but then she didn’t show up, didn’t pay me, didn’t even apologize, and I’m not even tempted to let it go.
The first rule of getting even is, chill til it’s cold. If you act quickly, it’s obvious it’s you, and I’d rather be discreet than obvious. I’ll give her several months to make more enemies and forget about me, and to give myself time to reconsider, to realize that the twenty bucks she screwed me out of is just twenty bucks.
I’ve marked my calendar, though. Maybe I’ll be a better man by then, or maybe not.
I’m utterly non-violent, of course. If vengeance is mine, it’ll be a low-key, juvenile vengeance. Maybe she needs some shit in her mailbox, or a few marbles rattling around in her gas tank. I’ll think it over and let you know.
This is an entry retyped from an on-paper zine I wrote many years ago, called Pathetic Life. The opinions stated were my opinions then, but might not be my opinions now. Also, I said and did some disgusting things, so parental guidance is advised.
Leave a Reply