His place reeks like he's been storing tuna fish under his mattress for years. It is a foul stench that seeps through my walls. I’m standing outside his front door and the smell is choking me. How he can stand that smell without throwing up around the clock is either an example of great nasal fortitude or evidence that his olfactory senses are shot.
"Peter, I think something might have died in your apartment," I tell him.
"Why is that?"
"It smells like..." I want to say putrid fish, rotting breast milk, the aroma of surgery, an unearthed grave.
I settle on, "It doesn't smell very good."
"I haven't noticed," he says.
Of course he hasn't noticed. From the view I have, peeking around his head, the man lives in unimaginable filth. Roaches cling to the petals of the wallpaper’s pastel flowers. A once-white plastic garbage can is covered in a stubble made of mold. His scabby dog tiptoes on crumpled, yellowed newspaper. The dog’s hair is unwashed and I think I see bugs scampering along it.
Peter is a drunk with a sloppy beard and greasy hair. The jacket he's got on is in shreds; the pants he’s sporting are sprinkled with fresh urine. He's got ashy elbows, a mass of earwax lodged in his ears. He looks to be in as bad a shape as his residence. I could probably drop a load of baby shit in his toaster and he wouldn't notice. He's assimilated to this hovel, adapted to his hell.
He promises to spray some Lysol and goes inside. I want to knock on the door and demand more. I want to call the EPA on this bastard. But me, I'm a coward. Just confronting him in the first place took several practices in the bathroom mirror. I think I might have been twitching the whole time we were talking.
I go back into my living room. I can hear Peter's TV as if it were strapped to my head. He's watching BBC. He is always watching BBC. And I am hoarding my resentment deep in the recesses of my chest.
I wanted to have the air in here bearable. I wanted to present this apartment as an actual livable space. I wanted to have company without having to provide airsick bags. Peter is making that very hard.
Tonight I am supposed to hook up with Loraine. She insists that she come over here. She is living with her ex-boyfriend so her place is out of the question. I say, what about we go out somewhere? There’s a park near my place and a good Nigerian restaurant next to the community college.
"I can't suck your dick at those places," she says.
Technically she could, covertly, illegally. But I see her point. She's told me she's not looking for something deep. I warned her about the noise and the stench and she says she won't be around long anyway.
"It's not like I'm coming over to play Monopoly," were her exact words.
Armed with bottled substances, scented candles and a new box of baking soda, I set up a barricade. Hopefully I can drown out that annoying, inconsiderate lush just for a few hours.
When she arrives, Loraine squats down and sticks her face in my open window. She tells me, hey. I open the door and hug her. She's beautiful. Loraine takes off her sunglasses and shows me her amber eyes. She is wearing tight jeans, a pink top with tiny spaghetti straps and a sultry smile.
"Your neighbor's apartment smells like a landfill."
"I know, sorry."
Loraine stands near my doorway, her eyes pointed toward Peter's place. She explains that he was staring at her through his window as she went by. I tell her that he does that.
"I mean he was standing still, and just staring, like a freaking robot or something."
"He's off his rocker, but I wouldn't pay him any mind," I say.
"You think he's got something against me?" she asks.
"Why?"
"I don't know. Maybe he can tell that I'm a..." she scrunches her face and waves her hands around, "I'm a...you know."
She is referring to the fact that she was born a man and after a mix of pills, surgery and a makeover, she is now very much like a woman. Her skin is smooth. Her breasts are magnificent. Her voice is sweet and high and gentle. She walks like a woman, she dresses like a woman. I mean if it weren't for the bulging rod in her shorts she could have lied to me and I'd never have known.
But I like T-girls. I like that they smell like flowers and springtime but can still put a good one in your ass. I'm into stockings and skirts and panties, but a wiener really completes the ensemble. I guess I like chocolate with my bacon, dick with my titties. Whether that makes me gay or semi-straight, greedy or just indecisive, I don't know.
