86'd: A Novel - By Dan Fante Page 0,71

humiliated on camera by a self-righteous prick investigative reporter, then busted as they leave the house by the local Gestapo. Me and Tub watched five episodes in a row. Real quality TV snot.

But my brain’s peace had been restored. LeCash’s bulldog seemed to favor black Russians topping his all-beef canned burger meat, while I stuck with straight-blended whiskey after a couple of salami-and-cheese sandwiches.

Around midnight we took our evening walk. It was later than usual and I had to rouse Tub from a deep sleep. While getting my jacket from my room I noticed that a party appeared to be in progress across the courtyard. My neighbor’s two bright exterior wall lights were on and a couple was drinking and talking against the rail on the deck.

Half an hour later when Tub and I got back, the people were gone but the lights were still blazing. I took off my clothes and poured four fingers of Schenley and was ready to get some sleep, but as always, my room’s thin curtains were useless against the searing beams from beyond the courtyard. Just for once I wanted to sleep in my own bed. I didn’t feel like crashing on the couch again. The smell of Tub and his dog hair permeated the thing, even with a blanket slung over it.

I made up my mind. Screw it. Enough was enough. Out on my balcony in my shorts I yelled across the way. “Hey guys! You across the way! It’s almost one o’clock, would you mind turning off the lights? How about it? I’m trying to get some sleep over here!”

No answer. No response.

A minute or so later I tried again. “Hey, over there,” I yelled. “This is your neighbor! Turn off the goddamn lights! Do you hear me?”

Across the way the sliding glass doors were closed but the dim living room lights were still on and I could hear faint music.

Then, beneath my balcony I heard a glass door slide open. “Hey,” a man’s voice yelled. “Over there! You’re keeping me awake too! C’mon, give it up! Cut us all a break. Turn off the goddamn lights!”

I couldn’t see the guy below but he called up to me. “Yo, howz it goin’? You’re Ronny’s new roommate, right?”

“Right,” I said, “That’s me. I’m the new designated doggy sitter.”

“My name’s Victor.”

“Bruno,” I said. “Hey, tell me something, Victor; does this shit go on night after night?”

“No, once in a while they turn ’em off. But they’re dopers or some damn thing. Don’t know what to tell you. Sometimes those lights stay on for three or four days in a row.”

“Yeah, well, I can’t fucking sleep,” I yelled. “I’ve been on the couch for the last few days but tonight I want to use my bed. I mean, this is bullshit. How ’bout this, Victor: Let’s go over there and bang on the door?”

“Nah. No good,” he called back. “That’s a security building. I’ve tried it before. They never answer the freakin’ buzzer anyway. Hey, you sound like you been celebrating, Bruno? You sound ’bout half in the bag, my man.”

“I just set up my new bar. A move-in party kinda deal.”

“Well, good luck to you, bro,” Victor called. “Yo look, I’m done in, okay? I gets up early. I bought me some night blinders from the drugstore. Thatz what I use when this stuff happens. You should get you some too. Sorry I can’t help you, man. Good night.”

“Right,” I called back. “Okay. See ya.”

Then Victor was gone. I heard his balcony door slide closed.

Ten minutes later, still pissed off, after another tall whiskey, a solution came to me. Ronny LeCash, along with his granola and spinach leaves and microbiotic grains and health-food shit, was an audio buff. On either side of his living room’s wall unit were powerful twelve-inch speakers that were hooked into the TV. All the apartment’s electronic sound came through those speakers with annoying power.

It didn’t take long for me to unplug his audio speakers and system, then drag the stuff into my room to do a quick reconnecting job with my penknife. The speaker wires were just long enough for me to remount the units on my balcony wall, facing out.

Back in the living room I looked through my roommate’s stack of CDs. The rap disc I chose was by a singer named Sam’yall K. I’d never heard of the guy but I queued the disc up and pressed play on low to test my selection. Now satisfied of