blind visions.

i got the scoop on randy!!

it all started last week. i arrived home from work around 9:45pm. Kathy, the forty-something (not a senior, right?!) who lives across the street was smoking a cigarette. by the way, i think it's a requirement upon moving into central park trailer park that you be a smoker. my friend chris, upon hearing about my new living situation, took one look at me and said, "oh. i get why they let you move in. you just have to be slowly losing your mind." so maybe it's that, AND and you have to be a smoker. fuck, losing my mind makes me want to smoke so i suppose it makes sense.

anyway, kathy walks over and procedes to chit-chat with me. that's what people call it, right? chit-chat? shooting the breeze? yeah. so we start talking, and i decide i ought to light a cigarette too because this might be my big chance to get the goods on randy and the other 28 households in this 'hood. tom, kathy's next-door neighbor, joined us by lighting a cigar and stepping out of his tiny porch into the street. i started by casually asking, "so. how do you guys like living here?"

guess what?
it worked.

first off, i found out you don't want to fuck with the lady that lives in the far corner of the court. apparently, she has tried to have kathy evicted 3 times in the last 3 years for various benign reasons, one of them being a suspicious black stray cat who appeared to have formed a fondness for kathy's front yard. also, this corner lady (they couldn't remember her name) once asked Dot, the gal who lives right behind me, to trim her bushes because she couldn't see whether or not randy's car was home. whoa. looks like randy's got an admirer.

so there's that.

and then...there's tom. the cigar guy. he's in his early 60's, drives a cadillac, prefers cigars to cigarettes, and is an avid opera enthusiast. according to kathy, when she has her morning cigarette, she can hear tom singing opera in the shower. she says, "he's really good. like a professional. haven't done it much lately, have ya tom? how come?" he had no real reply to this question. the guy didn't have much to say about anything except for his new neighbors - a family with 2 CHILDREN!!! that's right. the verdict is in. at age 28, i am not the youngest in the court. who knew?! anyway, i guess tom's pretty irritated. i got this impression when he looked me dead in the eye and said, "it's a SENIOR-living trailer court". he didn't have an antagonistic tone, and the statement seemed to exclude any irritation he may feel about having me, a haggard, but young-ish person across the street. i guess the guys just isn't into children. at least he's got his opera. and smoking.

finally, after holding it in for at least twenty minutes, i asked, "so what's randy's story?".

apparently, i was wrong about randy being a wizard. bummer, since i thought it would've been pretty cool to learn how to cast spells on some of my co-workers, but oh well. more appropriately, randy is an old partying, harley-riding, black-eye giving biker. the dude even has metal posts in his legs from some hurrendous motorcycle accident that happened in his more virile years. this explains for the slow, deliberate pace he takes when he walks from his porch to curse the giant van i look at every day. this also explains his understanding nature when 2:00am rolls around and i decide it's time to relieve my high school years at the top of my lungs. i went to the sturgis bike rally once, back in 2000. some of those dudes are nuts, but i'm sure we can all agree on one thing: you just don't call the cops on your neighbor.

so that's the update.

oh. and i discovered an amazing vietnamese sandwich shop about 10 blocks south of me. for $2.95 you can indulge in what is, quite possibly, the most amazing bahn mi sandwich i've ever eaten. they have about 20 sandwiches on the menu and i intend on making my way down the menu as the months pass.

ah, 82nd. the line between crisp and stale. win and fail.

it's just a little too symbolic for the way my life is these days...