Bright Lights, Big Ass

by Jen Lancaster

  “Well, you’re too loud.”

  Fletch crossed his arms and folded them against his chest. “No, we’re really not. If you hear us moving around, sorry, but you chose to live on the first floor.” I saw him once at the pool with his shirt off and I had to pretend I’d stubbed my toe because of how I’d screamed. And then when he’d dived in, the water slicked everything back and I swear to God his hairline started half an inch above his eyebrows. Correction, eyebrow.

  “Are you saying you’re not going to keep it down?”

  “Yes, because there’s nothing to keep down.” Is it that hard to manscape? You know, get an electric razor, trim up your shrubbery, blow out your front yard a bit? Maybe he’s overheating because he’s too well insulated?

  The neighbor began to nod quickly. “So—so—that’s how you’re going to be, huh? There’s a child downstairs and you can’t knock off all the racket? Really? Really. And what if I called the police?”

  “Listen, pal, I’ve got a right to have a conversation with my girlfriend here in our apartment. We’re not partying, we’re not listening to loud music, we’re playing a motherfucking board game on a Friday night at nine p.m. If you don’t like it, call the police and get yourself a citation for falsely reporting a noise violation. Good night.” Fletch closed the door on the neighbor, who at that point had begun to vibrate with agitation, and I loved that he was able to resolve the situation without violence or intimidation.

  “And maybe you should buy yourself a helmet while you’re at it, you hairy jackass!” I shouted through the closed door. What can I say? Fletch is a better man than I.

  Fletch sat back down in front of our game board. “Was that necessary?”

  I thought about it for a moment. “You know what? It was.”

  Yadda, yadda, yadda, the guy swore revenge on us, prompting me to purchase and stomp around the house in an ungainly pair of clogs. He and his family moved out a month later, leaving a lovely L-shaped couch in the Dumpster, which we immediately claimed for our own. Yes, he certainly showed us. However, our exchange skewed the way I looked at those living around me, and started me on the road from passive to aggressive neighbor relations.

  The longer we’ve lived in the city, the less tolerant I’ve grown of sharing my space with other people. Sometimes I get so tired of existing a wall, floor, or ceiling away from strangers. I hate having no choice but to smell what they’re cooking for dinner or to hear what they’re viewing on TV. (Plus they never watch good stuff like 24, as I wouldn’t mind hearing my boyfriend Kiefer Sutherland in stereo.) The only way to not let it get to me is to act like I’m in an elevator, tuning out everything but what’s happening in my square foot of personal buffer zone, but in neighborhoods—like in elevators—there’s always some ass-clapper snapping her gum or cutting his lawn at six thirty a.m. and I can’t ignore it. What Fletch and I need to do is move ourselves to a desolate, windswept mountaintop somewhere in Wyoming, but then I’d probably bitch about how long it took me to drive to Target. ’Til then? It’s Sweet Home Chicago.

  When Fletch and I lived in the sketchy area during our unemployment, most of our neighbors were immigrants more intent on fostering the rodent population than assimilation, so we weren’t exactly a hit at the block parties. Chasing them down with steamy sacks of their dogs’ abandoned poop, saying, “Ja pomýsléc ty zapominal twój drugie ´sniadanie u mój polana!” also did nothing to improve our popularity.8

  The hippie vegans who lived downstairs were American, but I managed to inadvertently alienate them when the female half of the couple told me she was a poet. Apparently it is not flattering to blow Dr Pepper out your nose and yelp, “Oh, sweetie, it’s okay if you’re unemployed! All the cool kids are,” and then ask if she knows any words that rhyme with “severance.” Couple that with their anything but noise-proofed ceilings and we had the recipe for an Israel-Palestine level of hostility. And it probably didn’t help when I’d hear said hippie vegans having organically grown sex and would shout through the floorboards the male half of the couple might last longer if he added some meat to his diet.9

  The thing is, I accept responsibility for the problems I created for myself in previous living arrangements. I never should have admonished the hippies about smoking so much pot that my kids would be born with webbed feet. In Lincoln Park, maybe the college kids around us would have liked me more had I not thrown their beer cans back at them. And when we lived in the Bucktown penthouse, things may have gone better with the cool people next door if during our evening of The Big Lebowski and White Russians I didn’t drink so much I lost my shirt. And my dinner.10

  Upon moving into this condo complex, I feel like we’ve been given a second chance and I want to do everything differently. (If you’ve ever gone from being a six-figure-earning asshole to begging your parents for grocery money in less than two years, you’ll know what I mean.) I can’t change my past, but I can avoid making the same mistakes going forward. I’m going to try making some friends…or at least not creating more enemies. Somehow the idea of passing from home to car without danger of being pelted with rotten tomatoes appeals to me. To be a good neighbor, I needed to change my M.O., which means no more spying, no more booby traps, and no more throwing things. Hence, I put away my Gladys Kravitz–model binoculars and little catapult and folded up my Don’t Tread on Me yard flag.

  Now, instead of my prior policy of glaring and mocking, I smile and wave. I make small talk. I compliment new outfits, hairstyles, and patio furniture. I hold the parking lot gate and allow everyone to pull in ahead of me. Honest to God, I’ve been on my very best behavior and have made every effort to be nice even though almost no one responds in kind. For example, despite the fact I’d like to tear down and pee on the Socialist Party campaign signs posted on every square inch of unit C’s patio,11 instead I call a cheery hello whenever I see him hauling in hemp sacks of pesticide-free groceries from the local food co-op, even though he’s yet to acknowledge me with a nod.

  When the anachronism otherwise known as Greg and Maggie dance out of their corner unit in their tennis togs with their eighties hairstyles after hosting one of their eighties Jacuzzi parties in their eighties black-lacquered, polished-chrome, glass-tabled, leopard-printed travesty of a domicile, I attempt to start a weather-based conversation while they scuttle off to their jobs as junk-bond dealers.

  Honestly, I could catalog each respective snub from the gay guys I call the Giggler, Poo Diary, the Pitcher, and the Catcher, the mean woman across from us also known as My Big, Fat Manic Mommy, and Queen of the Harpies in the center unit, but I think you get the point. (Ahem, people? Maybe if you introduced yourselves to me I wouldn’t have to nickname you.) In an entire year I’ve made no progress, causing me to exclaim more than once, “Damn it, why don’t you jackasses like me?”

  It’s not like we’ve crapped up the joint; our yard is freaking immaculate and beautifully landscaped. I’ve spent every single penny I’ve touched in the past two months creating a garden paradise in the front of our town house. There are twenty-eight different types of budding plants between the patio and balcony alone, not counting all the vines and ferns. Big variegated violet and white petunias spill over the sides of the window boxes, nestled among white phlox and multihued vincas and dotted with velvety fuchsia geraniums, the blooms the size of fists that I’m not presently using to shake at neighbors. Because of careful pruning, dinner-plate-sized hibiscus flowers blossom daily with coral-colored petals surrounding their borderline obscene pink and yellow stamens. My gardenias make the yard smell like paradise itself and the area around my spotlighted tree where the red and white tulips grew after first frost is now covered in rich green climbing ivy and burnt sienna mulch, perfectly matching my well-grouped terra-cotta pots. Each flower was planted with my striped teak patio umbrella in mind and all the shades of yellow, orange, pink, green, and purple have been strategically placed around the property in perfect harmony.

  But are we appreciated for my swea
t equity, which has done nothing but improve their property values? Hell, no. From the way we’re tacitly ignored, you’d have thought we’d adorned out patio with old auto parts and a clothesline full of pit-stained undershirts, not cascading sprays of wave petunias and lush asparagus fern.

  Why?

  Because we—pearls clutched, gasp, the horror!—are renters. Even though we pay the same amount of rent as their mortgages for the privilege of living around these awful people, we’re shunned for not being our townhome’s rightful owners.

  Making matters worse, we’re the only family who rents at the moment. Another renter lived in the unit next door, but she moved out earlier this spring when the owners sold her place. She was a sweet young widow and occasionally we’d exchange pleasantries. She was great—friendly but not intrusive, enthusiastic without being overbearing, and blissfully quiet…until she bought the drum set. For nine long months she played thump the thump same thump damn thump riff thump for thump hours thump on thump end thump. Previously such behavior would have led me to plot her painful demise, but I’ve really committed myself to being a better person. Plus, I couldn’t be mean to a widow. I gritted my teeth and listened to her bang away, not improving even one iota despite constant thump resounding thump soul-rattling thump practice. When her movers showed up last month, I hugged her good-bye and told her to take care of herself. And then I cracked open a bottle of the finest $8 champagne I could find.

  Anyway, I’ve been scheming to get my neighbors’ attention for the past few weeks, figuring that if they’d just talk with me they’d like me. I am likable, damn it. Sure, I told Fletch I hate these folks, but that’s only because they show no interest in me. Truthfully, their rebukes hurt my delicate little feelings and have driven me to distraction. They can’t really not want to meet me simply because I write a check to my landlord instead of my lender, can they? According to the gal next door, my landlord was an exhibitionist and used to do it every day, blinds open, lights on, and generally wearing a role-playing costume.12 I imagine not seeing my bare butt flying around the living room in a Red Riding Hood cape would be a huge selling point, so how are we worse neighbors than that?

  Maybe that’s just how life is in the city? When I was a kid, my family knew everyone in a four-block radius. We celebrated holidays with them and attended their children’s weddings. If they were young, we sent casseroles over when they had babies. If they were old, we shoveled their driveways without asking. But, here? I have no idea how to interact and it’s hard to connect—no roles have been established.

  The old me would have said, “Fuck ’em,” and I’d have found a nice sawed-off bathtub and placed a figure of the Virgin Mary next to my baby pool and pink flamingos right in the center of the patio. And despite my almost crippling modesty, those bedroom curtains would be open 24/7 for the All Jen’s Naked White Ass, All the Time Show. But the new Slightly Kinder, Slightly Gentler Jen instead creates a foolproof turn-neighbors-into-friends scheme.

  I’m outside executing said plan when Fletch comes home.

  “What on earth are you doing?”

  In our household, Fletch asks this question a lot. “What do you mean?” is my stock response. Generally whatever I’m doing is patently obvious, whether it’s having the dog try on my niece’s birthday tutu13 or painting the room earmarked for Fletch’s den cotton-candy pink after we’d agreed on taupe. (Oh, come on, who wouldn’t like to work in Barbie’s Dream Office? I mean, except for Fletcher?)

  “Clarification; what on earth are you doing out here?” Fletch sits next to me in one of our teak chairs and places his briefcase on the slatted table.

  “I’m reading. Duh.” I wave a stack of papers at him. A writer friend asked me to look at a manuscript and possibly give a quote for the book’s jacket, so I’m out on our patio perusing its pages. I take a slug of my Pinot Noir and attempt to get back to work.

  Fletch lights a cigarette, grabs a sip of my wine, and continues. “You’re going to make me spell this out, aren’t you? Why are you reading out here in the dark?”

  I close my manuscript with a thud. “Because the people across the parking lot are having a party and I want to be invited. I figure if I sit here with my glass of wine, two things will happen. One, they’ll ask what I’m reading. Then I’ll get to imply how cool I am, what with reviewing this manuscript and all. And two, when they see the wine they’ll ascertain I’m in the mood for a cocktail and they’ll insist I join them, again, what with me being so cool and all. Then they’ll be my best friends and I will be the most popular girl in the neighborhood. After all, who doesn’t want a soon-to-be-famous author at their soiree?”14

  Fletch takes a moment to digest what I’ve just said, fortifying himself with yet more of my wine. “Posing is your master plan? This is what you’ve been scheming about behind closed doors for a month? And you’re expecting success? By just sitting here with paper in front of you? You’re a bucket of black paint shy of turning into Wile E. Coyote. Hmm, perhaps you could drop Acme-brand anvils on all their heads if posing doesn’t work. Meep, meep.”

  “Honey, what you fail to realize is I perfected my ‘get invited’ strategy thirty years ago and I can’t believe I didn’t think of it sooner. The simplicity is the key to its brilliance! See, when I was in second grade, my neighbor Brenda Mitchell used to swim with her friends every day at noon. Because she was an older kid with no time for ‘babies,’ she never wanted to hang out with me. And yet I managed to swim with her whenever I wanted.”

  Fletch looks skeptical, so I continue.

  “See, Mrs. Mitchell was really nice. So I’d knock on the door to ask if Brenda could come out and play, knowing full well she was in the water. Mrs. Mitchell would insist I run home, put my suit on, and join them, never once suspecting I was a seven-year-old Machiavelli. Lather, rinse, repeat, once a day, every day, for the entire summer. The end.”

  “Did Brenda ever try to drown you?”

  “Oh, sure, on a daily basis. But hey, you can’t be drowned if you’re not in a pool!”

  “I knew you were a master manipulator; I didn’t realize you’d started so early. But back to the matter at hand—you hate those guys across the street. Why are you so desperate to join them?”

  “They have banana daiquiris. With drink umbrellas! I’d sell state secrets to the Taliban for a good banana daiquiri.”15

  “Then make your own instead of sucking up to people you don’t like. We’ve got rum, bananas, and some mix in the freezer—we may even have a few umbrellas left in the junk drawer. Come on inside; we’ll try out the new blender.”

  “Yeah, I could…” I trail off.

  “What? You have a big ‘but’ in your voice.”

  “It’s just that…” I sigh.

  “It’s just that what?”

  I nod and gaze longingly across our brick, U-shaped parking lot. “Honey, everyone over there is either a fat chick or a gay guy.”

  “What’s the problem? I thought those were your kind of people.”

  “Yes, exactly! They totally are my kind of people. But those guys are ignoring me, when by all rights I should be their queen.”

  Speechless, Fletch stubs out his cigarette, collects his bag, and retreats into the brightness of the house. The sun has long since set and the mosquitoes are biting in earnest. I watch as the people across from me gather up daiquiri glasses and bottles, extinguishing torches and citronella candles, and file inside. The last one closes the front door and with nary a wave or nod in my direction turns off the porch light. I’m left alone in the dark with an empty wineglass, a stack of paper, and my thoughts. Considering I live within walking distance of the Sears Tower, it’s eerie how quiet it is out here.

  Generally I prefer the anonymity the city offers, which is why I’ve yet to take off for the ’burbs or that Wyoming mountaintop. I like not being defined by silly incidents that happened in the neighborhood ages before. Case in point, twenty-one years later, Kim from across the street still teases me
about the time my brother flew out of the car and kissed the ground after taking me for a driving lesson. It’s nice to dash out for a gallon of milk wearing no makeup and glasses, knowing you won’t run into anyone. I relish the fluidity of upgrading apartments by moving and never once mourning the place I just left. Residing in the middle of this big, beautiful city gives me the sense of freedom and independence I never had growing up in Huntington, Indiana. Yet once in a while, it would be nice to be offered a damn banana daiquiri.

  Looks like I’m never going to be able to join these neighbors, so I resign myself to beating them.

  Now, where did I put those binoculars?

  * * *

  To: angie_at_home, carol_at_home, wendy_at_home, jen_at_work

  From: jen@jenlancaster.com

  Subject: greetings from the job

  What up, bitches?

  I’ve been working a decent temp gig for the past few weeks, hence the sporadic contact. At first I thought I’d get some really fantastic material out of the job because the administrative assistant who was training me hated the other admin with a passion and spoke at length about their whole East Coast–West Coast gangsta level of animosity and I was sure caps would be placed in respective asses, except by “caps” I mean dirty looks and snide comments about the craftsmanship of the other’s shoes whispered at a barely perceptible level over by the Diet Coke machine. Alas, the first admin went to her new job once I was trained and the admin who is left is really pleasant, incredibly competent, helpful, and professional. So I guess she wasn’t the bad guy.

  Anyway, I’m not going to bitch about the company because, again, I landed somewhere nice. They have free flavored coffee creamers in the lunchroom—which, by the way, is as nice as a restaurant—plus they stock Splenda and NutraSweet. Also, they have a crushed-ice machine and real silverware for the employees to use when they eat their lunch. You could say that having been jobless for so long I appreciate the little things. The more likely explanation is that I’m easily impressed.