Somebody. Something. Somebody! Something!

i’ll never let you be

Who were they?

I don’t even know their names. I just got their last names from the mailbox. The man told me his name once, but I forgot. I was too embarrassed to ask again. He lived with his wife or girlfriend.

Most of what I know about them I observed indirectly. They lived directly below me. They were loud people. I heard plenty.

They fought. A lot. Usually in the evening when I had friends over, our conversations would get interrupted by their arguments. I always heard him screaming at her. She sometimes said things back to him, but her voice was never as loud. A few times, their fighting was so bad that it would wake me up in the middle of the night. He would scream “SHUTUPSHUTUPSHUTUPSHUTUP” and she would murmur something in response and he would freak out all over again.

Sometimes I would see them as I entered my building. He would smile and say hi. She would ignore me.  They never had any guests over. Sometimes they came home late at night, presumably after a night out. They didn’t dress particularly well. Sneakers and comfortable clothes. Nothing flashy. Graying hair.

He was a musician. Many evenings he would play drums (or maybe it was her) around 5:30 or 6PM. He used to sing scales while playing the piano, but he hadn’t done that in many months. 

Sometime last fall or summer, they wrote a song together. It was written over several weeks. It started with them singing with acoustic guitar. There were only two lines. Then they recorded it and added a drum beat. I thought it was a silly song with very cliche lyrics and an uninventive melody. I never thought it could mean anything sinister.

“Don’t turn away from me. I’ll never let you be.”

Sometimes she would sit outside in the building’s walkway and talk quietly on the phone. The only time I heard him on the phone was a few months ago. He was very angry with the person on the phone. At the time, I thought he was on the phone with his manager or producer. Something had gone wrong. Something about money.

About two months ago, one of them got into the habit of opening the door to the back yard (the door always made a lot of noise) and throwing a ceramic flower pot against the garden wall. It went on for about a month. It made a huge pile of broken glass on the garden floor. I thought it was a therapy technique assigned to them by their therapist. But one day it stopped and the pile of glass was cleaned up. Mostly.

It wasn’t all bad. One night I remember hearing them laughing unstoppably together. He was making her laugh. He would say something again and again and she would laugh like crazy.

The last thing I ever heard from them was on last Wednesday morning. One of them started playing the drums around 8 AM which was unusual. Then Saturday the smell started.

The police had come to the apartment after the super found them. Apparently they removed the bodies and sealed off the apartment for further investigation. Double suicide. They put plastic bags over their heads and inserted a tube connected to a helium tank.

His shoes are still sitting outside the apartment door. 

It still reeks here. This damp, stale, rotten smell. Gas produced by bacteria decomposing human flesh. Thick air that you don’t want to put into your lungs.  Their apartment door is sealed off with a sheet of plastic and tape. The smell still wafts into my apartment windows. I keep on thinking that that’s all that is left of them. Rotten flesh that is smelled by their neighbors.

bacteria and enzymes

After the heart stops beating, the body immediately starts turning cold. Each hour, the body temperature falls about 1.5 degrees Fahrenheit until it reaches room temperature.

At the same time, without circulation to keep it moving through the body, blood starts to pool and settle. Rigor mortis sets in about two to six hours after death.

A few days after death, the bacteria and enzymes that live in the intestines start the process of breaking down their host. The pancreas is full of so many bacteria that it essentially digests itself. As these organisms work their way to other organs, the body becomes discolored, first turning green, then purple, then black.

If you can’t see the change, you’ll smell it soon enough, because the bacteria create an awful-smelling gas. In addition to smelling up the room, that gas will cause the body to bloat, the eyes to bulge out of their sockets and the tongue to swell and protrude.

(Source: science.howstuffworks.com)

neighbors

Monday morning I left early for work. The smell was still there, getting worse. I thought about the rotting meat. I joked to myself that someone probably died in here. Or at least a dead animal. But no. That’s crazy.

When I opened the front door, a few big black flies were swarming in front. Buzzing loudly.

At noon, my friend texts me. Someone called the super. He checked out the smell. He entered the back first floor apartment, suspecting a leak. He came out covering his nose and mouth.

“Be careful,” he told my friend. “There are dead people in there.”

“Dead people?”

“Yes, two dead people.”

the smell continues

I left the house early on Sunday. Bike tour. The smell was still there. Inside the building. Someone really has a garbage problem. 

I came back on Sunday evening, tired and sweaty. Another hot day. Maggie, the girl who lives in the front studio on the first floor, was sitting in our walkway with a friend. Maggie wants to go back to Vermont because Brooklyn is not green enough. She asked me if I complained to the landlord about the smell. I told her my boyfriend was supposedly on it. She laughed at my joke about my boyfriend’s procrastination.

My friend, the vegetarian, said it smelled like rotting meat.

I had nothing to say.

the smell

The smell started on Saturday. June first.

My friend and I entered my apartment building after a long hot day of exploring the city. It smelled something like old garbage. Or poop. Did the sewage pipe break?

I was a little embarrassed. I apologized for the smell. It didn’t permeate my second floor apartment so we forgot it soon after that.

It was the first hot week of the summer, so we hadn’t installed our air conditioner yet. That night, I went to sleep with my windows open.

I woke up at 3 am. Same as I do every night. Struggling to fall asleep. I noticed the smell returned. It was wafting in from the windows facing the back garden. I was sure it was a broken sewage pipe.

It’s a nice feeling when a place becomes familiar. It’s familiar to me despite this neighborhood not really being my own. (This is where middle to high income white people land to procreate.) Despite the fact that I barely recognize myself.

Despite the inevitable growth of my waistline and a surprising willingness to believe in the potential positive effects of anti-aging eye cream (it used to be such a joke). And how three beers is getting to be too much.

This tree. I know why it’s like this. It fell down during Hurricane Sandy. No one’s moved it yet and it kind of looks cool.

In the morning, there’s always a trail of sticky liquid that leads to a big pool of liquid near each trash can. I’ve never met them, but it must be the bottle collectors making their early morning rounds.

I stopped walking by this place because I realized that no one else walks here and that there must be something wrong with it. They always walk on the other side of the street. But tonight, without thinking, I walked by my place and realized how much I missed it. Everything stayed exactly the same.

valentine’s day

i decided to not freak out about valentine’s day like i did about christmas.

so i bought him a tiny card that had a flower on it. and all i wrote on the inside is: “maybe we’ll just always be happier than ever.”

and that’s it.

now i worry about the grammar of that sentence. does that even make sense?

well, i already sealed the envelope. they must have invented envelope sealing for over thinkers like me.

er. i also bought a backup present. just in case.

hey, i’m feeling sort of crazy

like the female friend of the guy i spent seven months convincing that it was ok for me to touch his penis, that it was ok, i liked his brain the most, that he said the cleverest cynical self hating things, that i connected with him because i hated myself and the world too— i think i am going finally follow her tumblr

not crazy enough to follow his tumblr though

i saw a comedy show today. it wasn’t funny. it was so sad. i cried at the end. it was a 1.5 show of the saddest, commonplace, tragic, truthful, comedic through irony story ever. i made my secret crying face because i was among like 100 other people. it looks like a monster. a tear rolled down my cheek.

the last time tears came out of my face was when i watched Romona and Beezus on an airplane from india to london. four months ago. before that was 5 months ago when i thought the guy i spent 7 months convincing liked the girl whose tumblr i will follow today. before that, 1 year and 2 months ago, i got raped. before that, 2 years and four months ago, my best friend betrayed me.

i guess i am getting better at crying.