MEET THE NEIGHBORS If you live in New York, you've got neighbors everywhere. And chances are, they're either the sweetest people you'll ever meet, or stark-raving lunatics. Here, Special Features Editor Steven Seighman introduces you to some of them, in a week we will always remember as... Meet The Neighbors. º º º MAKIN' BACON By Ken Krimstein When I first moved to New York I had a neighbor who a) always left his door open b) was always cooking bacon and c) I never saw. Friends would enter my apartment, their noses scrunched up, their eyes watering. "Hey," I'd say, "don't ask me." He seemed to especially enjoy cooking his bacon late at night. So many times I stumbled home, Jack Daniel's bouncing off the walls of my stomach, to be greeted by sizzling and hickory-smoked aromas. Finally, one day after living there about seven months, I saw my neighbor walk out of his apartment. He was six-foot four, bald and hunched over, leaning on a club carved out of what, to my untrained eye, looked like hickory. I smiled up at him. He looked past me. I never saw him again, but I ran from my door to the elevator every time I left my apartment--wondering what human flesh smelled like when it was broiled. º º º 98.6º OF KEVIN BACON By Richard Grayson When I lived in the West 80s in the 1980s, I constantly saw celebrities who lived on my block. Whether I encountered Yitzhak Perlman walking his dog, or John Lithgow lugging home groceries, I prided myself in making sure not to gawk. They deserved privacy, and besides, I felt I was being cool when I passed Mick Jagger and didn't stare. One morning I was headed toward Broadway when I noticed Kevin Bacon coming toward me, carrying a huge mirror. Lost in thought, I forgot he wasn't someone I really "knew," and I boomed out, "Hey, Kevin, how ya' doin'?" Not missing a step, he replied, "Good, yourself?" "Fine," I said, and then I was completely embarassed about making a fool of myself. A few weeks later, I saw Kevin, his wife and their kid approaching me as I walked down West End Avenue. Determined not to make the same mistake twice, as they got closer I made sure to look straight ahead and ignore them. "Hey!" Kevin Bacon called out in my direction. "What's doing?" "Um...great, great," I stammered as our paths crossed. Had my previous greeting led him to believe that he knew me from somewhere? Did he now think I was trying to snub him? Was I going to have to say hi to him every time I saw him now? Would he remember that he remembered me, or forget and think that I was some annoying fan? The next time I saw Kevin Bacon, I crossed the street to avoid him. º º º MODEL U.N. ON SECOND AVENUE By Kittenpants I am the U.S.A. of my building. My neighbors (the Europe of our building) totally hate me. Every day I sit on the stoop and smoke. They walk by, avoiding eye contact, ignoring my hello and going out of their way to make sure the front door locks behind them. I have keys, assholes. Some are especially douche-baggy, like the two little Brazilian kids who talk shit in front of me, as if I don't speak English. Even if I do something nice, like hold the door open, or refrain from kicking them in the face, they just yell "Stranger!" and run away. But the best is Dogfucker. Dogfucker is a writer from Australia with a big dog who, apparently, wrote a novel about a writer who fucks his big dog. I guess there could be worse things than being hated by these creeps. º º º WHAT LIVES NEXT DOOR By Steven Seighman He is left over from the seventies, Motor City, with feathered hair and a big, bushy mustache. He's pretty quiet--you only occassionally hear the faint echoes of BTO or MC5 coming through the paper-thin walls. He seems nice enough. You've never really talked to him, though. Sure, there's been a nod hello in the hallway, but it isn't until the day he knocks on your door that you know what is living next door. Him: Hey. You: Oh, hello. Him: Can I borrow a hundred bucks? You: Huh? A hundred bucks? Him: Yeah. You: For what? Him: For coke, man. I need to get high baaaaad. You: Um, no. Him: Rock on. He then goes door-to-door down the hall, asking everyone the same question he asked you. Two weeks later, the apartment next to yours is empty. º º º MY NEIGHBOR GREG By Eric Spitznagel I've always known my downstairs neighbor, Greg, was a little eccentric. But lately, I've begun to suspect he may be clinically insane. The most obvious clue is the pair of women's formal shoes laid out by the front door, which belong to his dead mother. "She comes to visit," he's told me, "and she hates to walk around barefoot." Apparently, the afterlife does not provide footwear. But far more disturbing are the noises that echo from his apartment at night; I hear muffled shouting, furniture being dragged across hardwood floors and the occassional shattering of glass. One might assume he was involved in a violent scuffle, if not for the knowledge that he lives alone. Evey morning he runs upstairs to apologize. As he's explained repeatedly, his late-night fits are just "sleep-waling." Or, more specifically, sleep temper-tantrums. "I'm not sure what I get so angry about," he says with a sheepish smile. "I guess there's just something about sleeping that pisses me off." I'm writing this at 2am and, below me, Greg is having a heated disagreement with his couch. I will get no rest tonight. º º º THE SCRAPER By J. Daniel Janzen He lives across the airshaft, alone, with two black cats, who pace the kitchen counter as he prepares their meals. Although a fair number of CDs and LPs are visible in his apartment, we've never heard a single note, or TV, or any other sound. Almost, anyway. This allows us to believe he can't hear anything from us, either. Not our sloppy-drunk, loudmouthed parties, or our embarrassing terms of endearment, or all those farts. Though he may just be the quiet type, we've never seen another person over there; only his wiry gray goatee, huge head and pointy shoulders stooped over the sink through one window, and the right side of his bony, R. Crumb frame slouched in an armchair through the other. It's from this latter vantage point that he might see me, ambling, post-shower, down the hallway, darting into the office to check my email along the way. Have I no consideration? The air conditioner answers that question, pumping our hot air right into his window all summer. No climate control for him--just a Brita pitcher on his desk, next to a small mirror angled upward, presumably to catch the sky above our roof line. He never breathes a word, not on the phone, not to his cats, not to the specters lurking in the shadows. Then, each evening, after his dinner and before ours, we hear the familiar clink of flatware on plates and pots as he scrapes every last trace of solitary food from his dishes into the trash can, his face lowered into his work.
TO MY NEIGHBOR IN 3A-A HAIKU By Harris Bloom I really don't care
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