Installment One

This first post may be a little lengthy, but I think it will be useful to give you some perspective about where I am in my life right now. That way when the Shawn Stories start poring in you can empathize that much more.

As most of you know, Hal and I broke up in February. I left our diminutive Chelsea apartment, tucked between the pj’s and the gay ghetto, and moved to Astoria, the most ethnically diverse zip code in the country. I do not brag about that. Being skinny, blond and gay, I tend to stick out in the land of over weight immigrants who drive cabs and eat… god knows what. I know, I sound racist, but you all know when you’re in a neighborhood where the other people don’t look like you, you get weirded out. So do I . Anyway, I found this apartment through a broker and when he showed it to me, it was in my price range, close to the neighborhood I wanted (could afford) and it seemed to get good light. So I took it. And thus the Shawn Stories begin.

Hal used to tell me that he didn’t believe in bad luck, and I tend to agree, but let me tell you there must be some bad ass karma in this apartment. Seriously.

The first thing I noticed upon moving in was that it was filthy. No apartment is ever clean enough for you when you first move in… you scrub the cabinets, disinfect the fridge and the toilet and so on, but until it’s your undies on the floor, it’s someone else’s filth and that’s gross. So I cleaned like a madman, and in doing so I discovered one travesty after another. First off, the hair. Everywhere. Of every ilk. Multi-colored cat hair. Human short and curlies. Beard hair. The list goes on and on. In their haste to rent the apartment, they not only failed to sweep or vacuum, but in fact painted over the hair so that it is literally embedded in my walls. (I keep thinking of Craig T. Nelson in Poltergeist screaming “You moved the headstones, but you LEFT THE BODIES!”) The worst was when I went to clean the fridge and found pubes in it. I don’t even know how one gets pubes in their refrigerator, but there they were. OK, so I could deal with that, right? Suck it up with the dust buster and move on.

Then I discovered the stove. Most stoves have four burners on top, surrounded by a piece of metal we’ll call a “range” for lack of a better word. This “range” lifts up so that one can “clean” underneath. Apparently, the previous tenants didn’t get that message. I knew something was amiss when I started scrubbing said range and it bounced. No range should bounce; it should drop clumsily into place with a satisfying clang. But this bounced. So I lifted it up. Mistake number 1. To my surprise, there were several inches… inches… of food detritus. Grease, chicken, peas and noodles are usually not a bad combination, but not here. I touched it. Mistake number 2. My finger literally sank. Mistake number 3. I stayed. So I don the rubber gloves and get to work. Several hours, three toothbrushes and a can of comet later you could give birth on that range. Actually, I think someone had.

I left that night (still living with Hal at this point…comfy!) and began to think I may have stumbled upon a disaster in the making. Little did I know. When I left the new apartment rain was in the forecast so I closed the windows. Upon returning the next day I discovered that my neighbors (and by neighbors I mean everyone else in the 60 unit building) cook with curry. Yummy, spicy, can’t get the smell out of your nose hairs curry. This was cleverly hidden by the broker when he showed me the place. The bastard opened the windows! The floors, doors and walls permeated with it and I sank to the floor in fear. I would be that guy… that guy on the train that smells like curry at 9 in the morning. Seven months in and I still haven’t effectively covered the smell. If anyone has any ideas, I welcome them. I’ve tried candles, incense, oils, bad air sponges, tears and sweat. Nada. It’s curry all day, curry all night and curry in between. Alu Motu Gobi anyone?

I decided at this point to just continue my cleaning so that I could quickly get out of what was slowly turning into an Israel v. Palestine type environment in the Chelsea apartment. When I first saw the bathroom, I thought… “sink, toilet, tub…yep, it’s a bathroom.” It has black tile on the floor and brown tile on the walls, which reveals questionable taste but a practical sensibility. Tile is easier to clean after all. I did shudder at the sight of the tiny sink, but one takes what one can get. So I start the scrubbing. The toilet was surprisingly new, albeit insanely uncomfortable. Rather than perching ever so delicately while doing my business, I sit on what feels like a slab of cement with a hole in it. And my feet don’t touch the floor. But it was clean and christened. I moved on to the sink/vanity where I discovered that the vanity was wasting away to nothing. Years of water damage had finally done the pressboard beauty in and it was crumbling faster than my sanity. I scrubbed it as thoroughly as I could without destroying it and made a mental note to ask the landlord about replacing it. I moved on to the tub. The tub was honestly one of the selling points of the apartment. It is a narrow, but deep, bear claw tub and I happily thought of all the bubble baths I would sink myself (and countless boys) into. I threw some Comet in there and started scrubbing. Next, the black tile. I was looking forward to seeing what the black beauties would look like when clean so I saved this until the end. I grab the broom, start at the back and realize I should probably sweep under the tub too. I’d never had a bear claw tub before, so this was a first. I stick the broom under the tub expecting to hear the gentle “whish” of the broom when I hear… “kcccchhlllk.” “Kcccchhlllk?” I think to myself. I get on my hands and knees to see what is under there. Mistake number 4, if you’re keeping count. Apparently, the water damage spread to the wall behind and underneath the tub, to the point where the wall… fell apart. Literally, you could see straight to the wooden support slats that were probably older than me. The tub is only about two inches off the floor, so I thought “Well, if the wall has disintegrated, where did the plaster go?” So I stick my hand under tub. Mistake number… oh, you get the idea. I touched… something… and quickly removed my hand, took a deep breath, and laid down on the floor to get a closer glimpse. As my head collapsed to the floor in disgust, I let out a whimper and closed my eyes. Surely I couldn’t be seeing what I was seeing. Could I? I opened my eyes and yes, there it was… a pile of dust and debris so ancient and so voluminous it was likely to contain the remains of Jimmy Hoffa. I wasn’t really sure what horrified me more… the fact that it was there, or the fact that it had obviously been there for so long. Who on earth could live in this filth? There were toys buried in the dust (and of course a condom) so whoever it was had a kid around at some point, probably accidental. So given everything that was going on in my rapidly dissolving relationship, and what I had encountered in the apartment thus far, I cried. I admit it, I broke down in tears and cursed god for bringing this upon me. I cried for a while, then put back on the rubber gloves and went to work. Something is wrong with blogger at the moment so it won't upload the picture of what I found underneath my tub, but when things are working again I'll post it.



I left Queens that night in despair. I trudged to the N train, which seemed to be further away than I remember (and still feels that way to this day) and waited. And waited. One of the glorious things about my area of Astoria is that the subways are actually elevated. This is great on those scorching hot days, because at least you get some fresh air. But you can imagine winters, and I’m so not looking forward to it. The more painful aspect of the elevated trains is that the brilliant design team who put them in place failed to connect any sort of audio line from one station to another, so if there’s something wrong with the train and you’re on the platform you have no way of ever finding out. I waited for forty minutes, went downstairs to the token booth where a freshly written dry erase sign said “NO TRAINS TO MANHATTAN.” Delightful. I now had to walk a long ass way to the nearest train to get back to a tense apartment after having dug through piles of pubic hair filled plaster dust. This did not put me in a good mood, and it was not a fun evening.

Upon my return the next day, I was hopeful that I had finally conquered the demons in this apartment and that I was slowly moving towards a peaceful domicile. Then I went to the bathroom to see the fruits of my labor from the night before when I noticed that something was… different. Where there used to be a window was now just a gaping hole in the wall of my bathroom. Sometime during the previous night’s storm my bathroom window blew out, fell onto the bathtub and shattered into James Frey’s book. (A Million Little Pieces…stay with me.) The hours I had spent sweeping and mopping the black tile goodness and carting away debris was all in vain. Not only was there glass everywhere, but it had rained into the bathroom and all sorts of fun stuff found its way in. I’m lucky no bird decided to take residence in my absence. I called my super Hilmy (nuff said) who said that he would be out the next day to fix it. I swept up the mess, and decided it wasn’t worth mopping again until Hilmy had come in and put a window where there ought to be. (Extra credit if you name that movie.)

Moving day. It’s pointless trying to describe the flurry of stuff going on that day, and I get tired even thinking about it. The move itself went surprisingly well, and my friend Gary is a superhero for coming to my rescue in an emotionally bleak moment despite being an hour away and entrenched in a movie. The movers were polite and even assured me that I would be happy in my new apartment. Sadly, the top left leg of my desk was broken (but useable) and I see that as a perfect metaphor for this apartment. Nice to look at, but there’s always the possibility that it will fall apart. (Why that’s a perfect metaphor for me!)

First night. I went to a poker party with Gary, just to be out and about and feel somewhat ok, but of course you can’t run forever. I came home, prepped for bed and stared at the insanity of my life in boxes once again, this time each box packed with memories of a lifetime with someone. I unpacked our – my – sheets, made the bed and tried to sleep. I am a light sleeper, and I admittedly am very sensitive to noise and light. I quickly discovered that there were going to be some sound issues in this apartment. My upstairs neighbor had apparently learned to walk on hot sand because he used his heels at every opportunity, and he was not a small fellow. In all honesty, my lighting fixtures shook when he walked. (He has since moved out. More on that later.) My downstairs neighbor, on the other hand, has an affinity for video games. Hey, I’m not one to criticize, I’m a huge video game fan. At a decent hour. At a reasonable volume. So we’ve got Stompy McStomper upstairs and Bangladeshi downstairs. I’ve taken to calling him that because his tricked out Dodge Neon (replete with spoilers) has that lovely moniker written on the windshield. I felt like I was the meat in a hell sandwich. (Stompy has left. Bangladeshi has honored my request to keep it down. There is good in the world.)

As you can imagine, there is much more to come, but this is absurdly long already. It’s amazing how all these memories come back so readily. Please comment! I would love to hear your reactions to all this stuff.

Check back in soon for Installment Number 2.

Now it gets interesting.