the desired effect, I re-queued the disc then cranked up the sound. “Sha-baba-ah-babah uh uh uh! Sha-baba-ah-babah uh uh uh!!! You done know me butcha know me nowwww! I seen yo bitch at my back door…Sha-baba-ah-babah uh uh uh…Say she lookin’ for sugar but I gah more…”
It took less than a minute for the living room lights to go fully on in the apartment across the way. I had just lit a cigarette and was sipping my Schenley refill.
A tall guy in boxers appeared across the way. I couldn’t see his face because it was obscured from me by his blasting wall lights. But I saw him scratch his head then squint out to locate the source of the noise. Finally, seeing me, he yelled out something that I couldn’t hear. So I walked back into my room and faded the volume slightly, then returned to my balcony.
“How ya doin’, asshole?” I yelled.
“Hey, man,” he snarled, “what’s your problem! You nuts or what?”
“Me? Nuts? Is trying to get some sleep an abnormal desire? Do you consider that nuts?”
“You’ve made your point, okay? Turn the sound down. We’ll call it even.”
“Fuck you,” I yelled. “I’ll let you know when we’re even. This shit goes on every night. Now it’s time for a free concert. I’ve got all the time in the world.”
“Look, asshole, kill the noise before I come over there and really put you to sleep!”
“Suck my dick!”
“Okay, how ’bout this: no joke. If you make me come over there I’ll take those speakers apart and shove them down your throat—one at a time!”
“How about this, Lucifer: Lick the shit off my dick after I fuck your mother up the ass.”
“Whad’ya call me? Wha’d you say?”
“I said fuck you, moron!”
“You’re making a mistake, my man. I don’t like mama-rippin’.”
“It was your mama that made the mistake. That mistake was not to flush you after she took the shit that made you.”
“Okay, you got it! Stay right there. I’m on my way.”
I hadn’t factored in the other neighbor’s reactions. Apartment lights in both buildings were now coming on. People began appearing at their windows. Balcony doors came open. But I was too crazy now and too filled with rage. It didn’t matter. I didn’t give a shit what happened now.
Captain Strobe appeared in the courtyard below wearing workout shorts and a cut-down college sweatshirt, carrying what looked like a pipe wrench in his fist. The sweatshirt was red. USC. Joshua, my ex-night dispatcher, had attended fucking USC! I’d flunked out of Santa Monica College and UCLA as a kid but I never would have attended that pissant school. Not on a bet. Dentists and engineers and wannabe psychiatrists. The offspring of the Los Angeles elite went to USC. Rich kids with family money. Those who considered themselves better than everybody else. Those who carried pipe wrenches in their hands to ensure their advantage.
He was standing directly beneath my balcony now, yelling up. For the first time I could see him and his face clearly. His round head and short, light hair and expression somehow looked familiar. Maybe I’d known him from a job somewhere, or a bar. Maybe we were once neighbors. Then it hit me. This asshole reminded me of myself.
I couldn’t hear what he was yelling because of the angle and my blasting rap music, so I went in and lowered Sam’yall K a little more.
On my way back to the balcony I ripped my computer’s monitor off the desk and brought it along.
“Hey!” I yelled down. “Lost your guts? You’ll need more than that wrench to deal with me. I’m waiting, fucker!”
“C’mon down here you little shit,” he bellowed, waving his pipe. “I’m going to adjust your speakers for ya.”
In a single motion I raised my computer monitor and threw it down at him. The guy’s reflexes were good and he ducked quickly. The thing missed him and crashed on the concrete patio, glass and plastic flying in all directions.
“You’re dead,” he raged. “You are a fucking dead man!”
“Maybe I am,” I said. “But I’ll take you with me. That’s a promise. Now I’m coming down. Wait right there!”
It occurred to me then that I wanted to die. The idea came simply and clearly into my head. I was tired—exhausted by my own unending obsessions and my scalding brain and the pain and empty absurdness of my useless life. Death would be a relief. Today—now—was as good a time and place as any.
I still held the advantage over