Boys Upstairs.
I moved into my first non-dorm apartment when I relocated to attend
university in a city far, far from my parents. It wasn't anything huge
or terribly fancy, but it was clean, and secure, and an absolute steal
as far as rent went. My parents helped me settle in, and when they
left, I sat down on my bed, and stared into space for a bit. I couldn't
believe I was actually, truly, really on my own.
I went to my new
kitchen to make myself dinner there, for the first time, and burst into
tears in the middle of my stirfry. I mean, I was actually, truly,
really on my own. I was excited, but I was also a little scared. I went to sleep with red eyes and a brainful of plans.
The upstairs tenants (it was a basement suite in an old house) were
due to move in the next day. It was originally to be a young nurse I
was living below, but she'd given her notice suddenly, and a couple
of students were moving in instead. I woke up at 8 am to hear them
stirring above, moving furniture, and dropping things endlessly on the
floor. I peered out my window, and spied two guys, who looked to be a
couple years older than I was, ferrying things in from a big black
pickup truck. They were cute.
I smiled to myself, and ran to shower so
that I could go and say hello.
They seemed really nice, in a slackerish,
early-twenties-university-boy kind of way. Not conformist enough for a
fraternity, but certainly not unique enough to be anything but classic
Molson-loving lunkheads. After making a bit of small talk, I helped
haul a couple things, then went off to meet a friend. I told my pal
that I felt pretty good about the whole situation and we breathed a
sigh of relief together. Being 'on my own' was going to be good!
That night, things were peaceful above. Todd was an Engineering
student (a lethal party faculty at my school), but he told me he was
really planning to "buckle down" that semester. Jason was a Recreation
major, which didn't typically bode well for minimal partying, either. I
could see why they'd moved in together. Still, they both seemed too
low-key to present much of an issue, so I figured things would work out
just fine.
I bumped into Jason in the basement laundry room the next day, and
showed him how to use the washer. The machines were right outside my
locked door, down the stairs from their locked door, in our common
area. It felt kind of strange that they would be right outside my place
a good portion of the time, but I trusted the knob-lock, the bolt, and
the chain to keep me safe, if ever I felt vulnerable.
"So good that we have a girl around..." Jason told me that
afternoon. "We're domestic idiots. If we don't know how to clean
something, can we ask?" It wasn't exactly a message
of feminist empowerment, but it made me feel good for the moment.
Right after school that Friday, I headed out to a live show with
some friends. When I arrived home, close to midnight, all the lights
were on upstairs, and there appeared to be a ton of guys just hanging
out. They were listening to Hendrix, which was fine with me, but the
volume was up so high that I could hear it clearly, word for word, even down in
my suite.
I wasn't going to do anything, though. I didn't want to earn myself a killjoy reputation. Friends told me later
that I should have read them the riot act that night, just to set a
precedent, but I was 20, and small, and not in the mood to be fierce.
4 am rolled around before "The Star Spangled Banner" (Jimi-style)
signaled the end of the partying day, and voices on the front lawn
indicated the departure of the madding crowd. Bottles clanked into
boxes in their kitchen overhead, and apparently, they both passed out
shortly thereafter. I breathed a sigh of relief and settled into
a coma of much-needed rest.
The next day, I was overtired, to say the least. I griped to a couple friends
about it, but everyone had a party now and then, right? Right. I
figured I would be a grown-up, and allow them the freedom to live however they wished.
This was clearly a mature and measured response -- a response fit for my new independent life.
I spoke too soon. Much, much too soon.
That party was the beginning of a long stream of nightly events at
Jason and Todd's. Their apartment seemed to be the preferred location
for drinking, yelling, and watching movies in Surround Sound for a lot
of fairly agitated young men.
Every damn night. A consistent nine on the Richter scale. No let-up.
It was always guys, from the voices. They seemed to be unable
to connect with the kind of women who liked hanging out in squalor and chaos. Jason was also a pretty heavy smoker in a house
that was advertised as 'smoke-free' (I'm allergic and asthmatic) and
they seemed to have a dog, even though pets weren't allowed (the dog
didn't bother me, except for incessant barking when they would leave the apartment).
Anything I'd
felt good about with my new place was slowly slipping away, giving rise
to an awful sort of despair.
I tried different methods of sleeping through the activity upstairs,
including earplugs and a pillow over my head. The most successful
remedy seemed to be the following: I would put on music in big stereo
headphones, and drown out their noise with more peaceful noise of my
own. The CD I favoured most was one that my dad had left me when my
parents helped me move in.
I didn't have a stereo until he went and
bought me a little one that day, in his dad-ish, indulgent way.. He
brought me a CD from the car to get me through until I could afford to
build a collection. It was called Meditations At Sunset; my favourite track was the first one by Finzi, and was entitled 'Ecologue For Piano And Strings'.
It started very quietly and optimistically (much like things had
with Jason and Todd) then erupted into this crashing finale that could
cover over even the most raucous CCR singalongs overhead. It was my
little musical metaphor, and I can recall several nights of crying as I
turned it on, usually after 3 am, completely tired out of my skull. In
retrospect, I can see that the pathos of the piece played into my
emotions a little more than was healthy. But again... I was 20.
Pathos
was par for the course.
One night, it all got to be a bit much. They seemed to be screaming
at one another in a completely nonsensical way, from what I could tell.
Not necessarily arguing or anything like that... just the total
and utter absence of volume control. I was getting ready for midterms,
and sleep deprivation could not have been less a part of my
scholastic plan. I gathered all my courage, threw on my sweats, and
headed up to their door, via the laundry room.
I knocked hard once. I
knocked hard twice. Nothing. I tried yelling through the door. Nothing.
So I went around to the front door, by this time fairly enraged, and
proceeded to ring the doorbell more times than was probably
appropriate. Much swearing came from within, and Jason appeared in the
doorway, swaying gently, a glass of something in his hand.
"Hey." His greeting was genial and his eyes brightened at the sight of my pajamas.
"Jason, you guys need to turn it down. This is like, the millionth
night in a row, and I haven't complained, but it's mid-terms, and I
need to SLEEP." I tried to keep my tone level, but it was hard, since
Jason was now leaning on me, breathing whiskey into my face.
My
rationality was slowly, surely slipping away.
"Oh, yeah, yeah, totally. You want to come in for a drink?" No, I
totally didn't, thank you very much. I think if they'd been occasional
partiers, I might have joined them now and then, just to hang out and
have some fun. But the behaviour was so pathological at this point, joining in
held little appeal.
"No, thanks. Just please turn it down." He promised that they would and
I went back down to my place to try and conk out for the night. I could
hear them talking above me, and the conversation went something like
this:
"(muffled)....chick downstairs?"
"Yeah, she goes to the U. She's pretty young."
"Dude, invite her up!"
"(muffled)....pissed off at the noise. She doesn't want to (muffled)..."
"Turn it up! She'll have to come back up and tell us to (muffled)"
"Yeah, Jase...I mean, any good party needs a chick to (muffled). I mean, we all could (muffled)."
Oh... my... gosh.
The volume went up on their music, according to
the suggested plan, but I stayed right where I was, shaking like a
leaf, and blasting Finzi's 'Ecologue' through my headphones.
The next day, I started looking for a new place. Within a week, I'd
made plans to move to a tinier basement suite a few blocks away, below
an old woman. She was staying with her daughter at this point, but
she'd refused to let her children sell her house, or rent her upstairs
to anyone for the time being.
She wanted her things left intact, and
they were looking for a nice, responsible young woman to live
downstairs who wouldn't abuse her absence. That was me. In the end, it
turned out that my new landlords even knew my grandparents. It couldn't
have been more perfect and I felt amazingly capable for having solved
my big problem, all by myself.
When I gave notice to my landlady, she was upset.
'I like to get rid of the bad tenants and keep the good,
Meaghan... I'd evict them, and you could stay on." But I
didn't want to be there... I didn't care who lived upstairs. The
whole arrangement had been ruined for me. And I certainly didn't want to be
held responsible for their eviction, either... who knew what kind of ill
will that would breed?
I didn't need some Damocles' sword of partyboy retribution hanging over my head!
The night before I left, I went to stay at a friend's house, even
though things seemed quiet upstairs for once. I just couldn't bear to
be there anymore. Before we went for the evening, though, I set
my stereo to play U2's 'Desire' on repeat, at an
uncomfortable 8 on the volume dial. Let them see how it was!
We
giggled, and ran out the back door to her car. And it was still going the
next morning, but they didn't say a word about it when they said
goodbye to me. I even got hugs. Weird.
I moved with some help from my relatives and friends, and settled
into my new spot with an incredible feeling of peace. It really was
wonderful, and remained so for the two years I lived there. It was
cramped, but it was quiet, and I would be the only thing around
there making noise. Actually, from that year onward, I've preferred to
be the loudest thing in any of my environments.
A few months after I'd moved out, I bumped into Todd on campus. He
seemed happy to see me, so I figured everything had turned out okay. They knew I'd had problems with them, but apparently, he
felt no ill will. I asked him how things were going, back at the house
of horrors.
"Oh, we totally got evicted. Jason was smoking all the time and we
got ratted out by the neighbours and stuff for the parties." I showed
no reaction on my face but pity.
"Oh, wow... yeah, your parties were a bit out of control. Where do you guys live now?"
"We both moved back home." He sighed at this reality. "We couldn't
find another place in our range open at that point in the school year."
"Oh... is that cool?"
"No, man, it sucks. My mother is unbelievable. She's so pissed I'm
home again. She just follows me around the house whenever I'm home,
lecturing me, and asking me questions, and checking in on me. I feel
like I'm in trouble all the time."
"That sucks...sorry to hear that." I was now fighting the urge to smirk.
"Yeah... like, do you know how terrible it is to not feel welcome in your own home? To have these circumstances you can't control?" He looked so pathetic as he spoke, but my heart was thumping with joy.
"Not anymore..." And with that, I walked away, a huge grin spreading across my 20 year-old face.
10:18:35 PM 
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