Confrontations

Part of embracing my dudeness involves doing things that adult dudes do.

Last night at 3:30am, my next door neighbor gets on the phone and has a very loud conversation. Thanks to the walls of this building being paper-thin, I'm able to hear his beautiful Spanish quite clearly.

"OH COME OOOOOOOOOON," I say at the wall.

"Paquito conchillo se jabla."

"DUUUUUUDE! It's 3:30 in the f*(#!#g morning!!"

"Con queso el dorado chile vamos ahora."

So I did what every frustrated New Yorker does at this point.

I tapped on the wall.

TAP.

TAP.

TAP.




"Ocho sinco sies con Santa Maria."

Maybe he didn't hear me. Okay. You wanna play rough???

TAP.

TAP.

TAAAAAAAAAAP!!



His reply:

SLAM

SLAM

SLAAAAAAAM!!

As if to say, "Ey mang! I hear choo! Chut up!"


For some reason this filled me with dread. I pulled the covers over my head, cranked up the white noise app on my tired iPhork and rolled over.


I decided I needed to confront him about this. Oh sure. I could have done the immature thing and given him a massive taste of his own medicine. But if my years in therapy taught me anything, it's that now we handle things like adults. We do not do things like scared little boys anymore.

Now, by "confront" I don't mean "throw down" (although I did make sure my beard was fluffed and I wore my construction worker coat to make myself look as imposing as possible). What I mean is give this guy a face to associate the nebulous "next door neighbor" with. After all, if he SEES me, he'll be more likely to acknowledge subconsciously that a real person actually lives in the room next to his.

But one must also take into account that he'll probably be none too happy to see me. How does one navigate so treacherous a mine field?

The thing is, I'm a ridiculously considerate neighbor. I have so successfully applied the Golden Rule to apartment living that people either don't know I'm there or they think the walls are so thick they can be as loud as they want.

I don't want to hear them at 3 in the morning, so I make sure they never hear me. That's why all parties at Studio Forty-Fork always end well before midnight. Because what if my neighbor has to get up early tomorrow? I wouldn't want to be kept up all night if I were in his shoes.


I knocked on the door to his apartment. It took him forever to answer.

When he opened the door, I was met with a massive CLOUD of cigarette smoke.

"Jes?"

He crossed his arms and leaned against the door frame. He looked pissed.

"Hey, I'm from next door. Listen..."

"Jes?" He said.

"I just wanted to say, I'm REALLY sorry about last night. It was late and the walls in this stupid building are so thin that I--"

"I wus beein quiet, mang. I was on de phoneg. I wussin' makeen inny noiss."

"I know. I know. I'm saying I'm sorry--"

"I am always bee-een as quiek as I cang mang. I wus jus on de phoneg. Why joo gatta tap tap TAP on my wall like that mang?"

"That's what I'm trying to say. I'm SORRY. I could tell I pissed you off and I was all--oh shit, I pissed him off (threw that in for added "buddy-buddy" effect! Sorry Mom!) and I shouldn't have done that. I won't do it again."

".........oh."


It worked. I knew it would. The ol switcheroo! The tried and true "It's not YOU. It's ME. I'M the bad one! Can you ever FORGIVE me??"

This guy was expecting the Alamo. Instead, he got San Jacinto'd. And he didn't even know it.

"So no hard feelings, right? I swear I'm not gonna blast my music to get revenge, okay! Ha ha ha!"

"Uhh...Okay. Jes. That's okay. Jes. Jeah mang. Iss okay."


I realized something through this. Even if he does occasionally keep making noise at stupid hours of the night, I can thank the good Lord above for something even more precious:

That billowing cloud of cigarette smoke somehow manages to stay on his side of the wall. And considering how miserable the last apartment was because of cigarette smoke, that is no small blessing.

And besides, if he doesn't shut up I can always call 311.