Living in a boarding house, I have three flatmates. Dean is an extrovert who won’t shut up and drives me nuts. Robert is a gamer and a Christian, but he’s a nice enough human, and I’ll sometimes voluntarily talk with him for up to ten minutes at a time. Dean, Robert, and I are all old men, retired.
And then there’s ‘L’. He’s in his mid-40s, I think. His room has a private bath and toilet, so we don’t interact as often as Dean and Robert and I. ‘L’ and I have spoken perhaps a dozen times in the three years I’ve lived here. Not lately, though. Not for months.
At midnight a year or so ago, he banged loudly at my bedroom door, to berate me for not picking up a package that had been delivered and left on the porch. Until that night, he’d been just a face in the house. Since that night, he’s been drama.
Any of the four flatmates occasionally leave food on the kitchen table, intended for sharing — fruit, doughnuts, muffins, etc. It’s a niceness, and I’ve left about as many treats as I’ve taken. One day a few months after the midnight screaming, I took an orange from a large bag that had been left open on the table. At that moment, ‘L’ came into the kitchen and said, “Those aren’t for you.”
I burst out laughing, wondering whether he was doing a parody of himself. “I’m serious,” he said. “Those aren’t for you.” I returned the orange to the bag, said nothing, but bowed and giggled as I went into my room.
My gotcha moment came a few weeks later, when I came into the kitchen while ‘L’ was washing his dishes. “That dish soap,” I said, “is not for you.”
See, we don’t have any organized systems here at the house, but we all share the dish soap. When it runs low, sometimes I buy, and I’d bought the dish soap he was scrubbing with. He replied with a loud “Fuck you,” and started screaming at me. I screamed back. This was our second of three big screaming arguments.
The third was a couple of months ago. I came out of my room while he was putzing with his cat’s litter box, which is (inexplicably) next to the refrigerator ‘L’ shares with Robert. Never understood why he’d put his cat’s litter box in the kitchen, but he keeps it cleaner than I keep my cat’s box, so who cares?
Anyway, when I saw ‘L’, I said “Good morning,” all cheery. It’s something I’ve been doing since our first argument, a year ago — whenever I see him, I say hello, always extra happy. I’m an ass, and it’s a fun way to needle the guy.
“Don’t you talk to me!” he screamed, and then we screamed at each other for a few minutes about whether I have the right to say good morning. I’d been on my way to take a shower, so I closed the door on him while he was still screaming. Sudsing myself, though, I decided to honor his request, and cease speaking to him.
Now, we get along fine. When I come home, if he’s smoking pot on the porch, I say nothing, simply open the door and come inside. When we pass in the kitchen or hallway, it’s in silence. Once, we waited together at the bus stop, without a word. Honestly, I wish I could get such silence from Dean.
My take on ‘L’ is that he’s smoked too much marijuana in his life, and it’s made him paranoid. He imagines that I’m his enemy, but I’m not. If the house was on fire, I would knock on his door and let him know.
‘L’ hates me, but I’m lazy, and refuse to spend the energy it would take to hate him back. Why, when I spotted him washing dishes with my dish soap again a week or so ago, I didn’t even complain. Live and let scrub.
So why am I writing about ‘L’? Well, I just finished a refreshing bowel movement, and when I came out, Robert was waiting to take the seat I’d kept warm for him.
“Did you hear about ‘L’?” he said, and no, I hadn’t.
“No, I haven’t. What about ‘L’?”
“He has cancer.”
“Shitfuck,” I said. “Is it the kind they can treat?”
“No, it’s bad. Several different organs. I guess it’s eating him alive.”
“Well, shitfuck,” I said again, and then Robert went into the john to poop, and I came into my room to type this.
I have fantasized about Dean’s death, many times and many ways. Hadn’t occurred to me to wish ‘L’ dead, though. Next time I see him, out of respect for the man, I’ll continue saying nothing to him. Then he’ll die, and we’ll get a new flatmate who maybe isn’t nuts.
2/23/2025
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