the_goren_show

I've been thinking in this vein for a couple of weeks now and it disturbs me. Yes, my thinking can be a little twisty but I tend to do things like obey the law. Partly, this is because to keep my job I can't be convicted of a criminal offense but it's mostly a fear of failing. Failure to follow the rules leaves me feeling guilty and I have guilt issues aplenty without piling fresh ones on top.

So, other than the odd turn through the growing up phase where I smoked pot, drank too much, sometimes drove while inebriated, and did other things I'm not very proud of, I'm just about as straight an arrow as they come. I don't speed through residential areas or playground zones. I don't text or answer my phone while driving. I always try to just go along and get along. But this new development makes me ramble and froth at the mouth so click the cut at your own peril.

I've lived in apartments most of my adult life and with the rising housing prices, it's looking as if I will always live in apartments. I don't mind this in a way - or I hadn't until we got the new management company. The old one that had taken care of the place for the five years we've lived here quit because the owner wouldn't approve the installation of a new roof on the 50 year old apartment building. I've written about the roof disaster in this blog, long story short is that the new company wouldn't take over the building unless the roof was changed. Okay, whatever, at least that's done. Everyone gets back to living and let living in the pretty damned thin walls of our suites.

Except the new company has filled the empty suites that were in need of renovation and repair with people I wouldn't live next door to in the worst of all possible situations. This little rathole building is now a mix of good people desperately trying to get off the last rung of the ladder before homelessness and people being helped by social agencies to get off drugs and drink and get a home. I don't begrudge them that. I really don't. The part that worries me is the stink of pot in the hallway and the asshole who lives directly underneath our apartment who happens to be one of those people the bleeding hearts are dropping into places without thought for the people living there.

Yeah, I get that I sound like those uptight people that shriek "Not In My Back Yard!!" when a rehab or halfway house opens down the street from them. I hate that I sound this way, it's mealy and bitter in the mouth because I do believe that people deserve a hand up and not a hand out. It would be nice if the existing tenants of the building had been asked about this change before it was implemented so we could have had the option of moving out. Wishful thinking with this new management company though I know for sure the old company would never have allowed these people in, not the least reason of which is the cheap assed passageway doors that double as the front doors of the suites.

But to get to the point of my rant - Friday the 14th, I got gently rear-ended on icy roads. There was no damage to the car but because I saw it coming and braced, I was sore for a while. Most of it had faded by Sunday night and I spent the evening curled up with the ladies (cats and human interlopers) then headed to bed where I couldn't sleep because of the anxiety I had over driving to work Monday morning. In the end, I slept a couple hours and headed out but when I got home tat Monday afternoon, I sat down, turned up the television to watch the 5 p.m. news over the traffic from the busy street that passes under our third story walk-up window. Then, I fell asleep and caused a shitstorm.

A little after 8:30 p.m., the lady arrives home and as she is turning to hang up her coat someone rings the doorbell. She jumps but doesn't think anything of it. The other new charity case with anger issues across the hall and She had a run-in after he gave all his friends our suite number instead of his own, leading to them ringing our bell and She walking down to find out who it was, give them the riot act for ringing the wrong bell, and then deny them access. In her bathrobe no less... the lioness is scared of very little. So the first bell She ignores and goes about her business, turning down the television and leaving me dead to the world on the sofa. The second time the bell was rung, she answered it, mostly because the ringing was accompanied by the thunder of fists on cheap plywood doors.

Outside was the very large form of the asshole downstairs and he breaks into a rant (not all aimed at us, the fucking walls are VERY thin - I can hear the guy next door to us taking a piss in his bathroom if I'm up watching television at night) about being sick of the fucking noise, the fucking television is too loud and he shouldn't have to fucking take sleeping pills to live here. The Lady, in her own words, just stares at him like he's fucking retarded but has done retail long enough to know that screaming back never calms these situations down. She calmly apologizes, says the television has been turned down and says little else though She notices at this point around the jackass in the hall that the front door of the jerk across the hall is wide open.

Does this calm down the jackass living under us? Nope, buddy boy who is taller than the lady by a good bit continues to try and intimidate her and she keeps giving him this look I can only imagine would be translated 'Are you seriously having a tantrum in the hallway?' She doesn't intimidate easily and this apparently egged him on because he went on to rant at her about us not dragging things across the floors in the middle of the night because he shouldn't have to live with this fucking level of noise.  She is stunned and says to him "Well, we have two cats, they sometimes knock things over in the middle of the night...." It's as far as She gets before he says "It's the fucking cats huh? Maybe I should get a gun and put the cats out of my misery."

He finally breaks the not afraid of anything wall by threatening the girls. I'm still out on the sofa at this point - I stay there the whole time to my shame. She blinks and as he leaves ranting at her about keeping the cats and television quiet or he'll report us to the management company, she closes the door. I wake up not too long after, and dazed, find her on the bed shaking. She recounts the conversation, varying between terror and rage and I'm ready to go thump his ass and my job be damned but She begs me not to in case he comes up after the girls. One kick to the front door and he'd be in the suite before 9-1-1 could be dialed. I relent and try and get her to call the cops.  That is also a no-go due to them going to confront the jackass to take a report and I finally get her to write it all down and then agree to contact the management company in the morning.

The next morning I send off the letter from work along with a comment that I don't believe we should have to live in fear that a cat knocking something over is going to end with bullets coming through the floor... and nothing happens. In the meantime, the Lady is living in mortal terror. I talk to an ex-cop who lives where I work to get his thoughts and he says buy a can of bearspray to give her and tells me when She is allowed to legally use it on him (after he's come into the suite) and to work on getting her to talk to the cops. That afternoon, Tuesday, I go pick her up and we go to the local cop shop to make a report. The desk sergeant listens politely, says we do have a case as threatening a pet is a crime in Canada and tells us we can't make a report at the station but have to go home and call for a cruiser. That does not happen Tuesday as going to the cop shop has used up all the courage in the Lady's body. She lives with the fear until Thursday and just as she's ready to call the cops again when i get home, I have to deal with a plumbing emergency at a house I'm looking after while the owners are in India. No call that night either.

By Friday, She's finally afraid of living in fear and even so it takes an hour to get her to press send on the Blackberry and call the non-emergency number and start the report process. She's in a panic on the phone and I do my best to keep her on track. They agree to send a car and state anywhere between a half hour and five hours. It takes four and a half hours and the cops only stay for ten minutes, one calming She down and the other lurking in the hallway and eying my collection of police collectibles. It was a colossal waste of time but at least it's on file they were called out even if She wasn't willing to have them talk to him in the end. We never heard from the management company in that week and the first thing the cops tell us - get ahold of them and tell them until they do something. You pay your rent and they have the obligation to keep you safe.

Monday, the actual manager of our building contacts me via email to tell me he's spoken to this guy and doesn't think he's an issue. I think otherwise but I'm not willing to fight this battle while at work so thank him for his (belated) input and fume about how this guy just likes to get his face on the nightly news (I've seen him no less than three times in a month) for anything he can regarding rental properties.  Then I get to thinking about the jackass who is getting all the help he can get from social agencies when the lady and I have fought for every tiny thing we have and I start to get mad. This jackass has taken away any sense of safety we had in our own apartment and stripped the joy out of living in one place for a long time and shaken the one person I thought was unshakable in the doing. Ultimately, he has also underscored that you can be a jackass and get away with anything up to and including threatening murder and go unpunished, whereas if I did any of the same things, you can bet I'd be cooling my heels in jail.

I'm waiting for the next time this one dares to come up to harrass us. I don't intend to confront him but if he starts in on me, I'm not going to be afraid to finish what he started and job be damned.

I think I get why criminals are criminals now. They are because they can be, because they've never had to or don't care about the people they hurt or the consequences of their actions. By defending my untraditional family, I will be at risk of becoming a criminal, but you know what, it don't fucking pay to be an honest citizen so why the fuck not.