As of this weekend, two of the three are now vacant. Thumper is out. Probably wore his dick off. And now The Steak Mutilators are gone. They probably bought a house with, no doubt, a nice patio that can accommodate a huge BBQ grill.
That leaves just the upstairs neighbor Senorita Corazone Solitario.
I call her The Senorita. It's not her real name. It's Spanish for Miss Lonely Hearts.
Remember in "Rear Window" when Jimmy Stewart and Grace Kelly are "spying" on the neighbors, they see the sad lady who pitifully pantomimes having a suitor and then when she does go to the bar across the street she only finds more heartbreak and sorrow? That's my Senorita.
She sits on her porch, smoking her GPC cigarettes since that's all she can afford. She's on welfare of course. The kinda welfare so many in these apartments seem to have miraculously found. Some from family, some from the government. Some, perhaps, from selling certain aromatic smoking herbs?
She has a plastic rainbow-colored pinwheel decorating her porch. No doubt her apartment's interior is similarly decorated in cheap plastic and distressed pressboard. Oh, and the room must be resplendent with knick-knacks. Oh so many knick-knacks, so little room.
She had a gentleman caller about a year ago. He approached me one morning asking if I could retrieve a bottle of mosquito repellent which had fallen from her porch onto my patio.
He was a thin black man with white blotches all over his face. Some skin condition like what Michael Jackson swore he had, or maybe he was in the process of wiping off his clown make-up? Yes, I think that's it. He was a circus clown who worked as the entertainment at some after-hours rave club downtown. Probably looks all Cirque du Soleil when he's all done up. Unfortunately for The Senorita, loving a clown can only end up one way. In tragedy. We all know that.
But that does explain why she squeaks slightly when she walks. Once that red nose gets caught up there, it's a bitch to get out.