Writings » Apartment 4E

Apartment 4E

By Buttermilk Baby at 2007-11-25 | Ridiculous!, Comedy, Horror | Printable version

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            "Shut the hell up, you fat bitch," he mumbled, clasping his hands over his ears in a vain attempt to silence the bestial cries.  He started pumping his feet in aggravation, which lead to a flipped coffee table and subsequent spilled glass of orange juice.  "Every Goddamn day, every, single, ONE!!!" His cries could be heard from the hall, but that didn't change a thing.

            Theodore Grumfeld had lived the last month of his life in constant agony.  Not because of sickness or disease, financial problems, or even loneliness; it was because he had to listen to two fatties in the next apartment banging all morning long.  It was Lips Macmillan's wife from 4D and some dude he spied on the fire escape one morning.  Theo didn't know much about the dude, just that he lived on the ninth floor, and that he wasn't Lips Macmillan.

            The angry grunting and howling, and slapping bodies had gotten so bad that Theo contemplated telling Lips about his wife's betrayal.  But seeing he himself was stepping out on his own girlfriend, he just couldn't find the spine.  He often thought it was God punishing him for cheating, but his "side project" was just so sexy he decided to stick it out for a little longer.

            He pulled the window open with force, then the next, and finally the small one in the bathroom, rattling the panes.  He was willing to do anything to diffuse the sound.  He had already cranked his television to full volume to little avail.  The speakers didn't work well, they never had, and all that passed through them was a low and muffled plastic vibrating hum of disappointment.  He'd gotten the set used and from a friend, but a free TV is a free TV, and it was all he could really afford.  But it wasn't enough, he could still hear the clout of two slippery manatees colliding in the next room.  It was as psychologically damaging as it was physical.  It was like listening to Rocky going to town on one of those hanging meats, but hearts where certainly not on fire, just Theo's stomach.  He'd thrown up four times this week already, and it was only Wednesday.  It affected him so deeply that everytime he was in bed with one of his two women he was in a constant state of fear; that somewhere, somehow, someone could hear and was being driven insane.  It influenced his performance to say the least.

            He forced the cotton deep into his auditory canal, deep enough to risk hearing damage, but no hearing at all was better than this, at least in his opinion.  Grim Sansom from 4C, on the other side of the "crime scene" had always found the sounds soothing.  They reminded him of his childhood, but he couldn't remember why exactly, but he was sure it had something to do with his mother.

            Theo was trying desperately to study for an upcoming midterm exam, one he couldn't afford to get less than a "C" on.  He was paying too much for college to blow it, and the pressure sat upon his shoulders so heavily he found himself crying some nights.  No matter what he did he couldn't focus on his text book, he just kept picturing what was happening a mere eleven feet from him.  It was like two ugly mountains colliding, and little bits of them crumbling off and getting lost in the blankets.  Or like a bowl of red Jell-o getting quickly poured out onto a bowl of green Jell-o, and they just bounce off each other.  The images kept coming, and before he knew it he was back on his knees in front of the toilet, screaming as regurgitated orange juice violently refuted back out of him.

            He spit the oozing remains from his lips and flushed the tangerine emission back to hell.  He washed his face before sitting down in front of the book again.  European literature was bad enough without the resonance of hate filling his soul, and Jessica Macmillan's moans filling his ears.  "Ahhh, bitch, I hate you!" he despaired.  "I've got to get out of here," he deliberated, but was quickly pulled back to the reality that the test was in four hours.  There was no time.

            He read the words aloud as to mute some of the fury happening on the other side of the non-insulated barrier at his back.  Nothing separated him from the chaos besides two paper-thin sheets of gypsum purchased wholesale by the Super Attendant, known only as Walker.  Two years back there was a mold problem on the fourth floor; due to a burst pipe down the line from Miggy Barton of 4B.  When Walker fixed everything he decided to skip insulation and pocket the difference.  Had there been a thick layer of pink foam and fiberglass, perhaps Theodore Grumfeld would be sparred the clash of the titans; just another thing he could thank the Super Attendant for.  The list included three suspiciously missing Bruce Springsteen CD's.  "Anglo-Norman literature was brought to England in, in... dammit!!!  Screw William the Conqueror, screw the Norman Conquest, and screw sitting here listening to these two whales screw each other."  Theo slammed the book closed and stuffed it into his book bag.  He grabbed his keys off the dresser and pulled the door closed behind him.

            In search of a quiet place to study, he tried his girlfriend Linda's place.  She warmly greeted him with a kiss on the cheek but much to his dismay revealed it wasn't going to be so quiet there.  She was babysitting her two nephews and baby niece, and just as soon as the words escaped her lips Tommy the younger boy ran by in his underwear, quite literally waving a pair of scissors in the air.  "Oh my God, Tommy!" she wailed and gave chase after him.  Theo sighed, pulled the door closed, and went down into the alley.

            Aside from a sleeping homeless guy, and the raw stink of eggs emanating from the dumpster he was leaning against, the alley was doing the trick.  A little street noise, but after living in a city for a year, he barely heard it.  Just as soon as he got on a roll, a gust of wind swept through the narrow, ripping his notes from his grasp.  "No, no, NO!!!"  He bounded after them, wildly clutching and reaching for them as they danced out into the avenue.  He got a hold of one sheet, but in a stack of five it did little, especially when he realized it was the one where three quarters of the page was a sketch of 1993 Texas Senator, Florence Shapiro.  The papers were scattered and torn down the road by an endless number of taxis and mid morning traffic.

            Theo stood there, on the sidewalk, staring, emotionless.  Three hours until test time, and no closer to passing it.  Further probably...

            He passed by apartment 4D on his way back to his own, and he could already hear it, if not with his ears, than with his heart.  Two animals tearing into each other, hairy and overweight, and making brutal harmonic carnage.  He dumped out his bag, scattering his books on the couch.  It was louder than ever now.  He started slamming his fist against the wall shouting, "Keep it down," as to pretend he didn't know what was happening in the room.  But this just seemed to make it louder.  The hard breath and angry battle cry of the dude from the fire escape was more prevalent than ever, as if to spite him.  Theo threw his head back and started to scream, not words, just anger.  Sobbing whelps of pain, and anger, and hate.  After a few seconds the whelping turned to crying and Theo fell to the floor. 

            He closed his eyes and tried to picture something else.  Linda, his girlfriend since his first week at school.  So kind and gentle, and loyal.  But it wasn't enough, it's never enough.  Nothing is enough to block out these screams of sweaty lust!  Nothing can drown the biting agony of animalistic ecstasy between these two corpulent behemoths!!!  He could only cover his ears and whimper in tears.

            Theo's other girlfriend Sara came over later, and found him catatonic on the hardwood, in the fetal position slowly rocking back and forth.  He'd missed his test and had thrown up several more times without ever moving from where he lay.  She tried to snap him out of it, but after several minutes she didn't know what to do besides call an ambulance.

Things got awkward at the hospital, Linda being his emergency contact, and neither knowing of the other.  Theodore Grumfeld lost more than his dignity this day; he lost his college career, both girls, and more importantly, his sanity.  All because he couldn't stop hearing the brutality, and picturing the writhing meaty bodies of Jessica Macmillan and her secret lover from the ninth floor.  And now he is trapped with them, in the prison of his own mind...         

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