I conveniently work in a job which allows me time off for summer rocking, which I was doing but minutes before writing this thought, as I do now. I was busy cleaning up my nest, putting away trinkets and viddles that had crept their way softly from their homes and needed to be returned. When I hit the newspaper stack, it was time to make a trip outside to the dumpsters, located just downstairs from me. So donning a pair of mesh shorts from my prestigious alma mater, and nothing else but a house key around my neck (I had been scathed by the white heat of being trapped outside in not much more than a loin cloth before), I made my way downstairs with a bag of papers.
Of course, as soon as I got to the proper floor, the bag decided being carried by me was not worth it, and he tore himself in half, dumping newspapers everywhere. After staring at the mess for a moment, wondering if it would by some chance of fate, move itself into the trash, I saddled up an armful and made my way to the “door which never opens from the inside.” I greeted the door with my usual suppliance and live goat sacrifice, but alas he would not budge. Now normally I would kick the door with my heel, very hard in one spot, a trick I learned as a happy accident from a fit of rage. [It is worth noting that in the history of the universe there have been very few happy accidents which resulted from fits of rage. The exceptions of course are the discovery of the United States, the smashing of the atom, and finding the trick for opening this fucking door.] But my trick would disturb the car, which I believed to be just on the other side of the door. Further, I was suspecting it may have been my landlord, in which case, I wouldn’t want him catching me kicking his fucking impenetrable door in. I had a suspicion that it was not he, an eastern European Mafioso type with a mysterious construction business, who was outside, given the music selection coming from the vehicle. Andre 3000. You know, that non-threatening black guy whose CD seems to be oddly obsessed over by white suburban housewives? What’s better is that it was one of his delicious slow jams, the kind of track that drips gravy in your ear. Given that this was probably not the musical choice of the iron rock with the boxer’s nose who claims to own my building, I gave it a light kick and I was able to pop the door right open.
I was met by the front half of a large SUV, an Escalade or some other such paragon of rap music stereotyping fame. It was a charcoal blue, and through its windows I could see a fellow sporting corn rows and a Jamal Crawford jersey, back to me, taking a piss on the ivy and weeds which graced the bottom of the opposing building. Noticing that it’s driver’s side door was also ajar, I peeked to my right to find another such gentleman, this one much larger, with a baseball hat to the back and a pair of thin, Intelligentsia glasses on his face, taking a piss on my building, the puddle creeping ever closer to my sandal adorned foot. I, slightly under the influence of an inhalant, moved forward unfazed, between the glasses-wearer and the pimped ride, to my trash can, opened the lid, and dumped the goods. As I moved back, I crossed paths with the driver, as he and his mate were returning to the car. He looked at me, key around my neck, dangling into my chest hair, which chases down my sternum into a sea of rippling abs, and said, “’Sup player?” To which I replied, “Not much.”
I sidestepped around the pool of urine, which was now attempting to cross the alley, and headed back to the door to my building. Darting in, I waited for the car to leave before I made another run, mostly on account of the fact that to get around the piss puddle I would have had to crawl under the car. As the engine revved and the vehicle pulled off, the sweet sounds of Andre 3000’s tortured love melodies drifted softly away, fading right along with the moment when I lost my innocence forever.