This is a post about the man who lives across the hall from me. No, it’s not a fairytale. Usually it feels more like a nightmare.
Who knows what kind of hours this man keeps, because regardless of how late or early I get home, his tv is blasting (along with his voice). When I first moved in, he would simply talk to himself about football. I thought it was relatively normal. When you live in Philly, if you’re not crazy obsessed with the Eagles, the Phillies, the Flyers, or the Sixers, you may as well move. Thinking it would all end once the football season did, I didn’t let it affect my love for my tiny apartment. However, time went on, football season ended, and his madness continued and grew.
Usually he just sounds like he’s rationalizing some problem in his life: his social security check, his meds, when the mail comes, etc. However, occasionally, you’ll catch him on a bad day. If someone has truly upset him, you can hear him screaming in the hallway, usually foul language, sometimes he’ll add in his experience as a marine vet, almost always ending his sentences with “You’ll see, homeboy!” To give you a visual, the “hallway” I live in is basically a square in between my apartment and Crazy’s. There’s no one else on our floor. Sometimes he’ll be in a good mood and sing. One of my roommates can attest to his rendition of “Saturday, in the park, think it was the fourth of July…” He also sings “We are the Champions”.
He spends his days pushing a shopping cart around our neighborhood with trash bags filled with God knows what. I know this because I’ve seen it.
The first time I met Crazy, I was walking downstairs to the parking lot and heard someone talking downstairs. When I got there, I saw him talking to himself and when he saw me he instantly said “I’m not crazy!” I should have known then.
I rationalize that all of his antics are ok, because everyone needs a crazy neighbor once in their lives. I grew up in suburbia, and my neighbors were painfully ordinary, and in college my neighbors were my classmates. I’m about due for this. Hopefully it means that in my next home, I will have an AMAZING neighbor.
