The other night Hubby and I were lying in bed, plotting the demise of our upstairs neighbors. They're the worst, you see.
It's was 2am on a week night. We'd finally gotten our sweet bambino back to sleep after he'd been awoken for the umpteenth time by a mysteriously loud banging. What was going on up there? Were they...
Practicing boxing moves on a punching bag?
Rearranging furniture?
Walking around in combat boots?
Incidentally, when I was growing up it used to be considered a serious insult amongst the neighborhood kids if someone were to tell you, "Your mother wears combat boots!" I'm not sure who came up with that one.
The really weird thing about our upstairs neighbors is that we have no idea how many people are even living up there. There was that middle aged couple who helped the leprechaun-ish man move in back in January, but we haven't seen them since. In addition to this leprechaun, who is always very pleasant, there's a tough looking, lanky kid who I've spotted smoking butts on the front porch; a muscular guy with wire rimmed glasses who once offered to carry my stroller downstairs; a blond girl who comes and goes and a twenty-something brunette who sat smoking in her car one day before coming into the house carrying a white garbage bag. About twenty minutes later she was gone.
All of these souls have keys except for one guy (possibly the muscly armed lad), who asked Hubby to let him in one day and told him, by way of explanation, "That's my dog that stays up there."
Um, what?
There's no way around it, the situation is beyond strange. But who am I to judge?
"Well," I yawn to Hubby, "Whatever it is they're doing right now, noone could ever be worse than Charles was."
I've told you about "Charles," Dear Reader, do you remember this post from back in 2007? About my NYC neighbor who used to dance macabre in the wee hours of the morn? (I'm not using his real name, of course, for fear of being killed.) This pale, gothic person provided many nights of free entertainment for our out of town guests, who'd make guesses as to what on earth he might be doing up there. Was he...sacrificing wildlife? Killing hookers, perhaps? We never could tell.
Mostly he was just annoying. After all, who wants to listen to rhythmic banging over their heads at 3am?
One night things really came to a boiling point when, right smack dab in the middle of his Dance Macabre, we heard him chant, "Do you want me to fucking kill you????!!!!! Rain, Fire, Rain, Fire!"
I tried my best to imagine a scenario in which this sentence would not make me want to crap myself. Nope, couldn't find one.
Now initially, I thought he said "Pain, Fire, Pain, Fire!" In the end, I decided to go with the weather theme because I found it slightly less threatening. In any case, I've never stopped wondering who (or what) was on the receiving end of that dreadful question.
"Hey, I wonder if he's on Facebook?" I hissed into the darkness. "Let's Google him!"
Why had this never occurred to us before?
One quick search on Hubby's Droid and we'd found our goth.
Hubby's voice was a whisper, and the words that came out of his mouth made something in the pit of my stomach turn over, as if on cue: "He's a writer. He writes horror novels."
Of course he does. A sickening chill went down my spine. How perfectly terrifying.
"Can I see? Give me the phone, I wanna see!"
But Hubby resisted. "No, it's too creepy. His book covers are really creepy. You'll be scared."
Creepy? What exactly did he mean by creepy? He was right, I would be disturbed. Maybe not now, but soon, and for the rest of my life. I'm the type of person who can read the description of a scary movie on the TV guide and be awake all night thinking about it. Which was precisely why I wanted to see what that damn website looked like!
I let out a silent giggle. "I wonder if any of his stories are about a sax player and an aspiring actress?"
I couldn't sleep that night, thinking about what it could be, specifically, that made those book covers so eerie that Hubby didn't want me to see. The next day I went online and discovered that our reclusive former neighbor is a celebrated author. He's published a plethora of horror novels, some while we were living below him, and he's also a teacher. I also gathered from his facebook page that he's ten years our senior, and that he shares a birthday with one of my closest friends.
Who knew?
At least we can finally say we've solved the mystery of what in hell was going on up there. Hubby and I are pretty sure we've figured it out, you see:
He was getting into character. Oh sweet Jesus, now I'm scared again.
