I, Fucker

Living in close proximity to other people is always a pain in ass. Still, I cannot do as Thoreau did (and countless others have claimed they would someday do) and isolate myself in the middle of the damn woods. I hate camping. On a similar note, I’m not moving to Canada anytime soon because of the damn election. I’m staying in Chicago indefinitely and who knows, maybe I’ll die here, deep-dish pizza within reach. By admitting this, I am willing accept that my city, my country, my world, is overcrowded and thus I will bump into many disagreeable humans. As I have often said, you can’t step out into the pouring rain and bitch about getting wet.

Prepare for a wet man’s bitch.

I love Chicago for many reasons. I love living in an urban environment with exposure to culture, excitement and all night coffee houses. I love the dive bars and the pawnshops. I love the filthy lake and the fake beach. I love the skyline at night as I drive south down I-94, gunning it as fast as I can past the indifferent cops. I love the taquerias and the vegetarian friendly kitchens. I love the Soup Box on Broadway. I love waking up early on Sunday to grab a pound of nopalitos and fresh, hot tortillas for less than 4 bucks. I love Powells and The Bookman’s Corner and even the pretentious-as-fuck Myopic Bookstore (they host god awful poetry readings and have Draconian policies about re-shelving books). What I hate are the people who share my beloved city.

A few weeks back I was driving in the heart of Lincoln Park. I try to avoid the area these days, but it is smack dab in the middle of town and sometimes I find myself there anyway. Approaching the uncontrolled intersection of Lincoln and Seminary, I saw a yuppie couple fresh from the gym, crossing against ongoing traffic, namely, me. I applied the breaks and honked at them. My intention was partially to alert them that cars were coming and partially a knee jerk reaction rooted in anger. The ape-man pulled his frumpy blonde back to the curb and I took my foot off the breaks. But no, she decided she was still going to cross the street where there was no stop sign or streetlight in sight. Again, I applied the breaks, but this time after nearly hitting her. We engaged in the old standoff, me in my car, in the middle of the street with cars starting to line up behind me, and they in front of me with confrontational looks on their faces. The blonde reached into her purse and I decided not to stick around and find out for what she was searching. I swerved into the left lane and went around them.

I made it to the streetlight on the tri-corner of Lincoln, Diversy and Racine when I saw the blonde running, her sweatpants and gray shirt fluttering over her sagging frame. She ran to my car, took out her cell phone and called the cops. I could also hear her reading my license plate number over and over. Her ape made it to the other side of my car a little after (apes run slower than blonde broomsticks) and I rolled down the window and asked him what the hell was the problem.

“That was a cross walk!”

“You can’t walk in the middle of the street,” I said.

“You have to let pedestrians cross!”

“It’s not a controlled crosswalk. You can’t just run into traffic like that.”

“You’re in lot of trouble, you little piece of shit!”

That was enough for me. I gunned it the hell out of there. I heard the girl saying, “He’s trying to get away!” as I turned on Racine. To this date, nothing has happened with the police (knock wood). Quote Bukowski: “The problem with these people is their cities have never been bombed and their mothers have never been told to shut up.”

I might be able to deal with spoiled, self-important yuppie scum oozing down the streets and across the intersections of Lincoln Park, but annoyance in my own backyard is harder to take. Not my backyard, but underneath me.

I live in a nice apartment. After years of living like a roach, I am finally in a position to afford a decent set of digs. It helps that I do not live in Lakeview, Wrigleyville, Wicker Park or any of the other areas where moderate rent gets you “vintage” living. My place is nice and rehabbed and I like it that way. I have space, a bathtub and a shower, tall ceilings with big windows and plenty of natural light. And I live in an area that is just starting to see gentrification. Thus, there is only one Starbucks in sight and still some local color. Sadly, there is also a University within walking distance. As a result, the downstairs apartment has been rented to dumb, white college kids. I believe they all hail from some farm town buried deep in the Midwest. I cannot tell one from the other as they all dress alike and sport the Fred Durst bushy chin-hair and backwards ball cap combo. And they love the fake metal.

When I first met the kids, they seemed like nice enough idiots. Nothing unusual-all a bit slow, terribly unoriginal and basically resembling kids of every generation, minus the applicable (lack of) fashion. We exchanged pleasantries and our mutual coexistence seemed to on a fine track. Within a week they were blasting Dave Matthews. There may be no bigger offense (maybe Coldplay). A few days later, Blues Traveler wafted through the floorboards. Dear god, someone under the age of thirty bought a Blues Traveler CD?

Time passes. My girl and I are trying to get some rest on a Thursday night. We, of course, have work in the morning. I have to be up by 6:00 to get to my job on time. I tell the kids as much, only I say it with a little less composure. I think I scream. They are having a party. Scores of potential date rape victims wander in and out of their door. There is no shortage of bad facial hair and dim eyes on the young men. The soundtrack to their soiree is nü metal. It is pretty scary.

An aside: now, I grew up in the ‘80s. I listened to plenty of crap music, but I also think I have good taste. If you’re going to listen to metal, listen to Slayer, early Metallica even. Listen to the first two Ozzy records. Listen to Napalm Death. Listen to Tool if you must. Listen to something that isn’t completely derivative. Thank you for your patience during this interlude.

Okay, where was I? Right. So I end up going back downstairs three times to ask them to shut the fuck up. There is no compliance with my request. Even my girl went down, again to no avail. Finally she decided that enough was enough. She called the cops.

I have to say, it is quite a sight to see a river of blonde girls running through the back alley of your building. Hilarious. Eventually I got back in bed and tried to sleep through the sound of the cops questioning these dolts. I really felt pretty bad about everything. I generally don’t care for cops and would never think to call them. My girl, on the other hand, does not fuck around. Her justification: we warned them.

It happened again last week. They were loud, she went down and warned them and they failed to turn it down. She called the cops. It will probably happen again.

A few weeks after the first incident, I was coming home around the same time as one of the kids. He was in his apartment with the door opened and heard me struggling with my keys.

“Who goes there?”

“Me,” I said.

“Oh the neighbor. He’s a fucker.”

“No, you must be thinking of the pricks who live on the bottom floor.”

And so on.

Two days after the last incident, I came home and saw three of the kids coming out of my building. One confronts me and goes so far as to call my girlfriend a bitch.

“That’s fucked up, don’t call my girlfriend a bitch,” I say just as she comes to the door. “Oh look, here she is, you want to say that to her face?”

“You sackless piece of shit,” she says, and goes on to chastise the lad. He maintains his Limp Bizkit attitude and, meekly, calls her a bitch again. His friends tell him to shut up and I contemplate hitting him. I think my girl wants me to but in the end, I say some authoritative words about keeping it down or else and give the little fuck an angry look. He looks pretty shaken, despite trying to maintain a tough façade. I go upstairs and feel old.

In the past month I have been called a little piece of shit and a fucker. By strangers, no less. This bothers me more than I admit. I don’t want the world to hate me, even the dumb kids and belligerent yuppies. I might hate them but that doesn’t mean I want it back. And besides, I only hate them now after their hate for me has been etched in stone. My hate is reactionary. So I suppose I need to calm down, to accept that people are flawed and very very annoying. I need to study some Zen or something.

I am merely the pool that reflects, not the object itself. I am a fucker but only after being fucked.

Goodnight. Keep the noise down, you pricks.