Some people, when trying to fall asleep, listen to soft music or simulated sounds of the ocean or a rainstorm.
I listen to my neighbors argue.
I live in a two-bedroom apartment in downtown San Diego. My living room window looks out onto the ocean and the airport, which makes it pretty easy to convince women to come home with me. I simply suggest sharing a bottle of wine while we watch the boats dock or the planes land, and before I can say “Santa Margherita Pinot Grigio” they’re flagging down the valet and ready to go. But that’s another story for another time.
So my neighbors. You can hear them from every room in my house. And you would think that their arguing would be a once, maybe twice, a week thing. But it’s every night. And it always starts at 10:00 p.m.. And it always finds it’s way into their bedroom, which happens to share a wall with mine.
You might wonder how such fights could go on night after night without complaint, if not by me by some other tenant in the building. Here’s where I tell you that the couple fighting is the building owner and his wife…
“You’re tired? From what?” she screams. “Sitting up here on your throne watching Maury Povich, waiting for the phone to ring from someone who needs one of their brand spanking new appliances fixed?”
It’s a brand new building, with brand spanking new appliances, plumbing, windows, doors, et cetera, et cetera. In other words, not much to be fixed.
“And you do so much,” he shouts back. “With all your free time, why don’t you take a cooking class? Stretch yourself a bit beyond Stouffer’s lasagna.”
“Fuck you!”
“No, fuck you!”
One night I actually was fucking a girl while they argued. A girl thicker than my usual taste, but pretty in her own way. “Fuck you,” I moaned. “No, fuck you,” she giggled. “No, fuck you!” I screamed back. “Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you!” she yelled, bouncing up and down on top of me.
“Fuck you both!” my landlord yelled while pounding on our wall.
But that’s another story for another time.
I don’t know why they stay together. The wife is hot. She could pull someone a lot better looking with a lot more money. Someone who could buy her some real pearls to replace the fake strand she wears with her leopard print tops and tight black pencil skirts.
One weekend they went out of town, to Chicago to visit her mother, I think. Well, actually I’m sure. There were several nasty fights about what a cunt her mother was and how he’d be glad when the bitch finally ate herself to death.
“Fuck you!”
I was so relieved that there would be two nights in a row when I could fall asleep to silence that I made no plans to go out.
On Friday night, I shit, showered, and shaved around eight, watched a couple Seinfeld reruns, and was in bed by ten.
By midnight, I was still lying there wide-awake.
No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t fall asleep. It was too quiet.
“Fuck you!” I yelled.
“No, fuck you!” I shouted back.
I fought with myself like that for an hour, replaying my favorites of their confrontations. But it wasn’t the same.
By two a.m., I couldn’t take it anymore. I grabbed my blanket and a pillow and set out to wander the halls.
It was Friday night, after all, and the bars would just be closing. There was bound to be a drunken couple somewhere in this building having it out…
