JustMattHenry.com: gossip, life and humor

i’m walking back from the wholefoods with dessert items in my non-plastic bag (which is why i’ll never shop there again) and i find cops surrounding Logan Circle.  so i ask what’s going on and they say the pope is coming through.  and i say, okay, so…see ya.  i thought maybe i might go and watch just so i can say i saw the pope and people are already lining up around the circle in their lawn chairs with their dogs waiting to get a glimpse even though the cops have no idea as to what time he may be (holy) rollin’ through.  and i think maybe i might take the pooch out there to watch the parade, but then decided no.  i will not give him the satisfaction of thinking i’m one of his devotees.  and i feel my absense will be more effective.  plus i have to wash my walls of floor to ceiling windows…until i go out there to do just that and realize that there are some construction mexicans  (new word:  constrexicans) redoing the wood railings around the balconies over looking the courtyard, so i think i better wait until they are done because i’m sure they will just make my windows dirty again.

instead i shall write about why i think one of my neighbors is a murderer.  here’s why:

first of all, because of my dog, most of my neighbors hate me.  i know for sure at least one does.  so i’ve never made the effort to get to know any of the people who live on my hall.  honestly, i couldn’t tell you who lives on my hall.  i’ve passed many of them in the hall and they all look like strangers to me.  i don’t think i’ve seen the same person twice.  until just recently.

i’ve never really known who lived in one unit across the hall.  i thought for the longest time that a paraplegic lived there cause that’s who lived there when i first moved in oh so many years ago.  but i haven’t seen him (or anyone) come in or out of that apartment in years.  so he’s either fallen out of his wheelchair and decided to live a life on the floor of his condo or he’s moved or a quiet-like-a-librarian lady moved in.   so i just have no idea who lives there.  and then, yesterday i’m coming in from walking the pooch and just as we round the corner i see a heavier older bearded white guy jiggling his keys in the lock to that apartment.  and the pooch goes ape shit.  now she only barks up a storm at sketchy lookin’ peeps, like homeless people (and by homeless i mean black) and latino men in small groups.  i don’t know why she does this; i did not train her to do so.  she just does it and i’m assuming its some sort of act of protection for me.  so, i say hi to the beard, noting in my head that it’s not a good sign the pooched targeted him as she only targets “dangerous” people–or what my mom deems dangerous.  again, it’s not my doing.

he’s says nothing and i turn into stephanie judith tanner and i’m like, how rude! even though the pooch was not, i was trying to be neighborly.  when getting off the elevator, i always wish anyone riding with me a good day or night.  it’s just being polite.  but he just stares at me like…well, like he’s either thinking “so you’re the asshole with the dog” or “one by one, i’m killing everyone in the building and you’re next!”

so then, and this is where it gets creepy and i did NOT dream this.  so last night at about five thirty in the morning i hear someone knocking, but not like knocking on a door would sound, but like if you knocked on a window and i get up and i think, that’s weird.  i’m on the third floor and if someone really wanted to break in, they could scale the large bamboo out in the courtyard but i don’t think they’d knock on my sliding glass door first.  then i hear it again and the pooch hears it too.  and then, from the light coming under my front door, i see a shadow pass by.   i peek out my little eye-peek hole thing but the hallway is clear.  so i think my mind is playing tricks on me, or i was dreaming and the pooch is paranoid and i think maybe a glass of nice cold crystal light will help.  so then, as i pass by the door on the way back to my room, i notice at the very bottom crack of my door, someone is standing in front of my door.

i’m SERIOUS!  i know what the light under my door looks like when no one is standing on the other side.  there is a sliver of unbroken light shining under the door from the lighted hallway.  and there was someone standing there.  i swear.   and there is no door directly across the hall.  so why someone would be standing in front of my door and not their own…i don’t know.  unless they want to murder me.   so i go over, turn on the light in the foyer and peep out the peek-hole thing and of course no one is there because he knew i was on to him.  i double check the bolt and then uneasily head back to bed.

so then this morning, once again coming back from walking the dog, i pass by the apartment that may have a dead paraplegic or librarian in it, and the door is open and standing just inside the doorway staring out into the hallway is the beard!  just standing there.  and the pooch barks and he does nothing so i hurry along to the safety of my place  and close the door behind me.  and i’m like, dude, what the fuck!  quit fucking being creepy!

and i did not say hi this time. no ma’am.   let’s all just hope he doesn’t try to kill me.