The young stockbrokers across the hall are at it again, making sure everyone knows they're there. But oh, how can we miss you? Every Friday night, every Saturday night, after the bars close, they're drunk and yelling, slamming doors, slamming them so hard the walls shake and it wakes me, every time, jolts me like an electrical shot right out of whatever dream I was enjoying. Or not enjoying. Sometimes I'm awake, up with whomever I've invited for that particular night, and he'll say something like, "This is a real party building huh? But I guess it makes sense, you're a real party girl." And he'll squeeze my nipple or palm my ass. Then depending on where we are in the night, we'll either do it once, hard and fast, or he'll walk out my front door, into the late, dark night, never to be seen again.
But right now I am alone, because there is no one new on any of the five internet dating sites I frequent, looking for late-night play. It's just the same old desperados, dire men in their forties who wear ill-fitting oxford shirts and send pictures taken a decade ago of them in a
promotion
windbreaker on a coast, or them from the waist down, cock erect, and then a handful of younger guys, stoners in shell necklaces who are just looking to smoke pot with a lady, and then either give or receive some form of oral sex. They know who I am and I know who they are. We're not interested.
And I am awake. I can hear the Wall Streeters laughing their bawdy, wild laughs. They say, "Dude," a lot; they use the word as a punctuation mark. At some point in the night someone will make a barking sound. If I were the kind of woman who made wagers, I'd lay a twenty-dollar bill on it. There is always a bark. Then there will be a fight. Sometimes they take it outside. Not outside the building. That would be too much effort. No, they just take it outside their front door. Next to my door. It's almost enough to make me want to find a new apartment. I'm simply not getting enough sleep.
They moved in six months ago, greased the building superintendent's palms with thick stacks of twenties, or maybe fifties, and nabbed that highly coveted three-bedroom apartment with the deck and the view (I've only heard, never seen). It seems like there's more than three people that live there though, at least four, maybe five.
I'm looking for the coked-up indie-rock boy who has tattoos on his arms of things that remind how he's supposed to be in life.
They are a bunch of disgusting punks. They leave bags of garbage in our shared hallway for days, when it's not that hard to walk it down the stairs to the garbage room, and they are loud, so loud. And there are girls in the morning streaming out, looking like hell at eight a.m., ruining my morning coffee. At least I have the good sense to kick my men out after we're done. In and out in two hours or less. I don't pretend to be nice. I take what I can and move on. They should have the common courtesy to do the same.
The only one of them worth anything is the fourth — fifth? One of the extras, anyway — roommate. There's no way this kid is working on Wall Street. He's a shaggy, pretty thing with a slow shuffle for a walk, who comes in and out at all hours of the night, always on some sort of errand, getting a six-pack of beer, or late-night slices of pizza, dragging a backpack stuffed with mystery items that bulge out the sides. His thick, strong jaw and lips always seem to be working on something, chewing gum, or a cigarette, the inside of his cheek. Not that you can see much under all his hair, a twinkly blond shag that looks grey under the dim lights of the elevator. He's looked at me before, raised his head slightly, pushed his hair up, made that connection as he dragged his feet by me in the hall.
I'd invite him to play with me.
