Our neighborhood is definately going down the crapper.
I was woken up this am before my alarm by some dude who locked himself out of the building. Now, this isn’t just some dude, he’s the building’s resident dealer. Our landlady knows this and has been trying to catch him for weeks so she can evict him. Anyway, I suppose dude had trotted down the street at some ungodly hour this am to make a sale, forgetting both his jacket and his keys. can we say “Bonehead”?
So what does he do? First, he wiggles the door, to see if it’s open. He is the one I gather, who usually puts a rock in the corner so that it doesn’t close properly. This time this morning whoever left for work or was coming home got wise to it and kicked the rock away. (I know I always do, I don’t want some random thief or whatever coming into the building, no way!) Granted, because of our position right above the door, it wakes me immediately. I don’t think anything of it at first because the door is opening and closing all night – but it continues. He jiggles, he whistles, he implores passing strangers for the use of their cell phones, all of which I can hear clear as day even though my window is closed. I roll over and mumble my displeasure at the freak whining under my balcony.
My alarm goes off, and J’s goes off and he turns his lamp on because that’s what people do when they’re going to get up from work. I’ve barely got my eyes open when dipshit buzzes us. Trust me, this is NOT a sound anyone wants to hear first thing in the morning. Granted the guy is probably freezing, but I have a hard time summoning and kind of sympathy for him. If it had been me I’d have either contacted the landlady and begged forgiveness for waking her, or hopped down to the 24-hour restaurant an hour ago to get some hot chocolate and wait until I knew people would be awake, but no, this guy is not normal. He has to get back inside because he knows he’ll have another ‘customer’ soon. So we ignore it the first time, thinking he’d get the picture, but no, he does it twice more.
I slap on my robe and poke my head over the deck and tell him to stop fucking buzzing and he whines about how cold he is – which I can see since he’s wearing short sleeves – but I tell him no. I don’t know him from Jack the Ripper thankyouverymuch if it’s urgent he can call the landlady. (It’s true, I’ve never seen him before!) J, peeved now that the guy’s giving me attitude calls her for him.
So our landlady drags her poor self out of bed and lets the fucker in, much to his chagrin. I’m sure he didn’t want her to know about his outings anyway. Then there is silence for and we think its over.
But its not.
Someone is outside now, yelling to our cold dude to be let in. Lo, if it isn’t his customers. J, out on the balcony with his morning smoke tells them to please not yell since people are still sleeping and the guy pulls attitude. Says he lives in the building and would J mind if he let him and his friends into the building. J says no, that he doesn’t know who they are and if it’s important he can call the landlady. Obviously he doesn’t live here and certainly doesn’t want the attention of the landlady, so he gets mouthy with J instead. Bad idea.
“You don’t like me, do you?” he says and J, blowing smoke, replies;
“No, I don’t,” and comes inside to call the landlady.
Our buzzer goes again and it’s just after 5am. I’m ready to march down the stairs and punch all three of their faces in, but from the strung-out glitter in their eyes I’m sure none of them’d feel it anyway.
Our landlady lets them in, but tells them its the last time. J tells her to call the cops, but she already knows they won’t send anyone because “there aren’t enough personnel to keep up with all the requests and complaints.”
Ten minutes later and they’re leaving and the cocky fucker buzzes our apartment again. At the glass doors I watch one of them finger me as they climb into a white car with no licence plates.
J predicts they will be back in two-three hours and he’s livid.
When we moved in the worst people here were the college kids who drank too much on a Friday night. Now we’ve got orange lights outside so junkies can’t shoot up and dealers and pimps are moving in and then out once they’re busted. J wants to speak to our local MLA who’s set up shop down the hill, because we don’t want this crap, especially if we’re going to have the kiddo with us.
Especially not if we’ve potentially got a repeat of this incident in our future.