My Journey
It began in Toronto, actually in a
city called Niagara On The Lake, I was sitting at a computer terminal in the
local library a brief drive from the colonial mansion where I was staying. I
was nearing the end of a much-needed two-week vacation when I got the news. The
trip was as much a therapeutic retreat as it was a vacation so despite my
significant initial unease, I made my peace with the concept rather quickly
given it's potentially earth-shattering implications.
I was moving.
Unprepared, unexpected, poorly
timed, and against my will, for better or for worse, I was moving.
The timing of it was indisputably
poor as I was holding down two jobs at the time, ironically one of which I kept
only so I could better contribute to my family with whom I lived - I never got
the chance.
Having no experience with such
things, as I was handily kept out of the process the previous time I had moved
with my family, I started out with the most obvious source of information - the
newspaper - and understandably, or perhaps quite foolishly, went with the first
place I found.
Understand that this was a choice made not so much of inexperience and ignorance as necessity and inconvenience. At that point I was so busy, having just returned to my normal life after a two week hiatus, that I did not even have the time to pick up a paper myself, I had to wait for one to appear in the break room at my lesser job which thankfully one did in unexpected short order.
It seemed to me that on a grand scale
fate was conspiring against me while on a much smaller scale it was turning in
my favor. They say God is in the details so perhaps I had divine endorsement of
my chosen path but at the same time divine intervention would have been
somewhat more appreciated. Although I suppose victories won by such a means
with the odds so skewed in one's favor, would be hollow.
Regardless of all that the first
step in the right direction occurred while I was moonlighting. Many people, I
should mention, seem to think that moonlighting is taking ANY second job, a few
even think it refers to working at night, but the proper definition is a second
job taken at LESSER PAY - I'd like to take the opportunity to emphasize that
here.
Enthused that I had found a place
only marginally more expensive than my previous arrangement with my family, I
set up a time to view the shared basement suite.
I am a naturally optimistic person,
when I see a person, place, or thing I often see them in terms of their
potential to be more than they are. As an employer and a leader I find this to
be a useful attribute however as a prospective apartment hunter it is somewhat
less pragmatic, a dubious sort of virtue.
Upon first inspection of the shared
living quarters I had already envisioned a sitcom-friendly sharing of lives and
laughs with my fellow roommates, a view which to call naive would be an
understatement of epic proportions. The room, which was somewhat laughably
called �furnished�, seemed like something one might find in a dorm at a
university during the great depression although decorated with a far more
modern flare - the poster of The Doors was the first clue that insanity had
resided here.
The landlord, an Asian man named
Charles who did not quite seem to grasp how to properly introduce himself
without inciting a grammatical nightmare, often answering the phone with a
confused "I am Charles", simply said that the previous tenant would
be taking up permanent residence at a hospital.
I felt no need to press him for
further details on this matter.
It seemed, however, that the
insanity in this household was not limited to this former tenant but also
extended to a soon-to-be-former tenant as well. One of the two girls still
living there was apparently to be shipped off to a mental institution of some
sort at the end of the month.
Not the most promising of
beginnings, but something I thought I could work with.
The moving process I engaged in had
to be one of the most drawn-out known to man. Taking the better part of a month
I relied upon friends with divine patience and a vehicle. My summer job from
which I find most of my fulfillment was attempting something new that month,
something never before attempted and I was to be a leader in my department's
effort to get the program off the ground. It was after our regular season so
many of the staff had already moved on to other projects and it seemed left to
me and one other to spearhead this effort. As usual I looked forward to the
challenge and thrived in the new environment of P.N.E.'s Fright Nights but the
hours were quite demanding, anywhere from 16 to 60 hours a week were the norm,
and that was not my only job. I had already committed myself to both positions
so taking a day off was simply not in the cards.
I must take a moment to note my
profound gratitude that goes out to Rhonda, Lori, and most importantly Burton
and Warren without whom the move may never have happened.
Whenever I went to view the place or
see the landlord I always entered the building from the rear since the front
faced a highway and a major artery of traffic. It would have been safe to say I
did not even know what the front of the place looked like, which at the time I
did not see as a relevant piece of information. Thus when upon paying my first
month's rent, the security deposit cheque having already been cashed, it came
as a bit of a surprise when the landlord informed me that the house was up for
sale.
He told me the house had been on the
market for two months with no offers so it was unlikely that it would sell.
Even if it did, he assured me, 98% percent of new owners kept the old tenants.
Of course were the house to be sold who was to say how the new owners would
operate? Perhaps they would raise the rent or impose oppressive new rules.
This fact quickly faded into the
background as things started picking up at work, during the month of October I
worked every single day, the last two days of which were at overtime pay at my
already higher paying job.
It would be nice to say that my
tenancy went without incident during the increasingly cold month of October,
but that would be a lie.
Perhaps the first sign that all was not as it had first appeared was when the landlord revoked his offer to remove the goods euphemistically referred to as "furnishings". Citing the supreme logic of "where would I put them?" Charles ducked this particular responsibility but feeling myself equal to the task I found room in the shared living areas to store the undesired items, which is to say, all of them.
My schedule only coincided with
those of my roommates on the rarest of occasions and then without warning so
communication was sparse - we preferred to let our actions speak for
themselves.
The cleaning schedule indicated that
I was responsible for the maintaining of the washroom during the month of
October. It was, admittedly, the most concerning aspect of the place when I
first toured the locale. At the time I chalked it up to having recently been
used - I was wrong.
Always ready to turn adversity into
advantage I figured this would be the place where I would begin to showcase my
personality, demonstrate my responsibility, and open a dialogue. From such
humble beginnings are homes made, I figured. In simpler language I figured by
putting effort into the bathroom I could show them I was a good guy as well as
get them thinking of our arrangement as something a bit more than passing
bodies sharing a space and the odd utility.
I opened with adding a garbage can to the space that I recovered from my bathroom back at the old, as yet still not completely moved, apartment. This was reasonably well received, I was encouraged when I saw that others had used it, but not to excess. The beginnings of setting the groundwork for respect and mutual understanding seemed to have a promising start. They seemed to welcome my addition, made use of it, but did not take advantage of it. However I quickly wished one of my fellow tenants took more advantage of the new garbage.
I began to discover hair strewn over
the toilet seat and sink. Clumps of hair I could understand but this seemed
quite deliberate, the distribution of hair too even and the targets always the
same - this was not a random or accidental occurrence. It's meaning or motive,
however, was beyond my comprehension. I sought advice and insight from friends
and the Internet but found none. It just seemed as weird to them as it did to
me, but it was, at the time, of little consequence. Who would suspect hair
would be the harbinger of what was to follow?
During the move I met a man who
lived above me. Approximately 30 years of age he was a welcoming sort who
introduced himself to Warren, Burton, and myself. He seemed a rather agreeable
fellow were it not for the garish metal hanging around his neck. Gold, or what
could easily be mistaken for gold, seemed to be this escapee of the Fashion
Police's weapon of choice.
During my time living beneath this
rather odd person three things disturbed me.
Firstly, it seemed he liked to watch
sports of some kind, presumably football, on Sunday mornings...with
friends...who liked to yell at the television...and listen to loud rock music
during commercials. I tried to learn tolerance.
It seems this fellow's tastes were not limited to rock but often at the middle of the day he would listen to hard rap music as loud as he was probably capable of playing it. Advocating killing cops, robbing a variety of establishments, and I'm not even going to get into what they said about someone's mother, these self-titled �artists� were more difficult to ignore. Earplugs became my new best friend. At least the sports and rock music couldn't be heard from the bathroom...during a shower.
The third disturbance was somewhat
more humorous and endearing. I could hear much of his intimate encounters. He
surprised me both by having a partner and a female one at that. Thankfully the
exercises were sporadic and brief.
Poor Woman.
Peter
Fucking Frampton
Dateline New Westminster, 1am - Reading a novel, Patriot Games by Tom Clancy I believe, I was taken from the world of CIA agents and Irish Terrorists to discover a Troubles of my own. It began as a distant sound of music but soon became the loudest I had ever heard Baby I Love Your Way played on a simple sound system...and it wasn't even Big Mountain. At first I welcomed some music to provided some background to my novel, although Peter Frampton was hardly suspenseful. As the volume rose so did my other roommate�s temper apparently. I could tell the music was coming from the room then occupied by the so called "crazy" roommate and soon had my suspicions confirmed when my other, far more sane, roommate got up and started banging on the door from which the music was emanating. Katrina I believe her name was, the aforementioned mentally unbalance roommate, did not take kindly to the blunt criticism of her choice of music and decided to crank the volume even higher. Upon being reminded of her insanity and the late hour by my other roommate, Katrina began to oscillate the volume. My daring and far more stable roommate gave up on her quest and soon returned to bed, if not to sleep. The music stopped shortly thereafter but explanations weren't forthcoming.
The following week, at 4am, I was awoken with a start to the sound of screaming, woman's screaming. After a moment of panic my faculties returned and I noticed a decidedly Korean accent to the screams. Katrina, you see, was Korean. The screaming seemed to have a parallax effect to it, thus it was moving about the shared living quarters. This theory was given definite proof when the pounding on the walls began. I locked my door, rolled my eyes, and picked up my novel.
Despite the minor discouragement of
the hair issue I proceeded with my program for Washroom Reform. I moved my hair
products and some shower essentials into the bathroom. However my cleaning and
warming efforts were futile against a major logic flaw in the setup of the
suite. Two windows, one in the bathroom and one in the kitchen, were
perpetually left open. My best guess is that this was done for ventilation
reasons since there were no fans or vents in either location but this
arrangement had some unsavory side effects. In the bathroom this manifested in
the form of bugs - spiders and mosquitoes if memory serves. Everyday before
getting in the shower I had to inspect the washroom for insects before
proceeding. Not the best of ways to start one�s day.
I decided I would tolerate the open
window situation until it snowed or I encountered ice outside. At that point I
sealed the window in the bathroom confident that the defense �I was worried the
water in the toilet would freeze� would keep me out of any serious disagreements.
This logic did not, however, hold
for the kitchen window and since I never used the kitchen beyond storing goods
in the fridge, as I had my microwave hooked up in my room as part of my
entertainment center, I let the matter go. However, late one night this
resulted in a four-legged visitor. At approximately 2am I left my room to go
the bathroom and saw what I thought was a cat walking outside the window until
upon further inspection I discovered the cat was in fact in our kitchen. I said
hello but it was clearly not interested in opening a dialogue and quickly
departed.
It was later pointed out to me by a
friend that a thief could have easily made use of this open window. I can only
assume that this did not occur to whoever opened the window in the first place.
Working so much, moving became quite
a challenge. From a few boxes at a time with Rhonda to larger team efforts
orchestrated by Warren, Burton, and Lori it was a lengthy piecemeal process. At
last, with just enough time to get ready for work later that night, the final
box landed on Halloween.
Much later that night, 2am now
officially November 1st, exhausted, fulfilled, and accomplished I returned from
one of the busiest nights of the year to find an eviction notice giving me to
the end of the year to move out. The building had been sold.
Despite there only being at most two
months of tenancy available Charles had the remarkable luck of finding someone
willing to take Katrina's room. The fellow claimed that somehow this arrangement
would help him with work but as I later discovered work, for him, was a variety
of telemarketing jobs. How a 2-month tenancy could help with that I could not
fathom but I wasn�t curious enough to ask. He, on the other hand, had no
trouble asking me�for money.
It was only something like 3 dollars and thus was fairly inconsequential but he made a big production about how he would pay me back within a week because it was the kind of person he was. In point of fact he made an entire argument in favor of his strength of character based on this short-term interest free loan.
He never did pay me back.
It�s not that I blame him, or cared
overly much, because it turned out he was waging a court battle to reclaim
custody of his son. A noble goal to be sure however I have to say that in all
honesty, I�m not certain he�s the right person to be raising a child. An
indebted smoker who frequently skipped work for no good reason with a peculiar
sense of humour (I seem to recall a joke in poor taste about a recent death in
his family, hardly the most jovial of topics), he would likely find it
incredibly difficult to provide for someone else, particularly when providing
for himself was already a challenge. In fact the legal bills alone were
guaranteed to be at least $10,000 and he was already having trouble making ends
meet. I am likely the last person to judge the fitfulness of a parent but when
my level of income, responsibilities, and prospects made this man several years
my senior envious it was definitely a sign that he has, at the least, a
difficult road ahead. I had just moved out for the first time, was working one
part-time job and one seasonal job and found the current living standards
somewhat beneath my means. He had two full time jobs, at least that I was aware
of, and had plans to owe the amount of money I then had saved. Add a limp and
an obsession with Bon Jovi and this man had my pity and precious little else.
Not that there�s anything wrong with
Bon Jovi.
The answers to many of my questions
came in a most unexpected form. Eavesdropping is by no means the behaviour of a
gentleman, but nevertheless the deed is done and given the proximity of the
living space and the volume of their voices, I can hardly be held accountable. And
if it is my fault, I carry a handkerchief so that ought to count for something.
One day I awoke to voices in the
hallway, a not altogether uncommon experience. It appeared that the sane
roommate from before my time was talking to someone and from her tone of voice
she did not think too much of this person. Much to my surprise he was talking
about me.
"So how do you like the new
roommate?"
"The newer guy's not very
considerate, he doesn't listen"
"And the other guy? Down the
hall? How do you like him?"
"He's weird. I don't like weird
people"
Rather vague and none of my business
but clearly whatever vibes I was sending through my door, as I had not spoken
to her even half a dozen times, must have been "weird". Perhaps her
opinion of me was later revised after I offered her the classifieds section
from my newspaper to look for a new place to live since we were all being
evicted. However the new guy intercepted that paper before it got to her so who
is to say?
Having already adjusted to the
peculiarities of the new roommate I figured the abnormalities and unanswered
questions of Katrina had long since passed but I was mistaken. Apparently some
of the furniture in the shared living space was hers and thus she and a man
returned to reclaim them. I remained in my room during the exchange as I had
little interest in getting involved in the ensuing drama. I did, however, get
most of my questions answered.
It turned out that Katrina had been
the mistress of a married man. It was this situation that had driven her to the
brink of mental distress. As well it seems the wife of the adulterer in
question had a hand, possibly with the cooperation of Charles, in the effort to
have her committed.
Alas, many of my questions were left
unanswered but it seems the most important one of all had reached a conclusion
of sorts: It was time to get a place by myself and find out what living alone
was really all about.