I returned my electronic garage door opener today. Just walked up to the new building manager and handed it over. So I guess that you could say that now I’m truly a pedestrian. Though at the same time with that one little gesture my whole world got that much smaller because if you were to add the square footage of my overpriced parking space to the square footage of my overpriced apartment I had almost what’d be considered a decent amount of combined “living” space. Not that I really spent that much time hanging around the parking lot. That is other than the time it took to actually pull in and park or those few cold mornings where I’d have to sit there staring off into space as I warmed up the car.
Yet less than ten minutes after I handed back the opener and told the new manager that I’d no longer be needing it, he taped up a sign in the lobby advertising the availability of my former parking space as apparently he seems to be more on top of things than the last building manager was. Though it’s probably too soon to tell and besides it’s only been three months since the old one skipped town after havin’ been discovered embezzling the quarters from the laundry machines, sexually harassing certain male tenants, accepting dubious and questionably gotten merchandise in lieu of the rent and chargin’ massive amounts of overtime to the owners, citing all night plumbing emergencies that never happened.
However to be totally honest I’m really not the one to be talkin’ to about the former manager cause I never really cared much for the man as I always felt that there was a certain amount of weaseliness about him. Yet I gotta admit that he did rent me a parking place and thankfully never tied to throw the moves on me so I can’t really talk too much shit about him. Not that those kinda endearing qualities usually stop me from talkin’ shit, it’s just that I don’t really care enough about it all to bother thinkin’ up some more snide remarks to say.
Although on the other hand after I told the new manager that I didn’t need my parking spot any longer cause I had just recently totaled my car, he actually looked concerned and asked if I was Ok. So yeah obviously he’s new and hasn’t been around inner city dope fiends, crackheads and petty criminals, ya know, like all the tenants that live in his building, long enough to get truly jaded. But I’m only too sure that if ya give ’em a month or two he’ll probably be evicting deadbeats without a second thought and embezzlin’ like a seasoned pro.
Of course now that I’ve gone and had a near death experience, and no I’m not talkin’ bout eatin’ in the cafeteria at the rehab that I work at – hell I ain’t that insane, I’m starting to consider moving outta this neighborhood again with the idea that maybe I deserve to live in a less stressful, more life enriching environment. One where the excrement on the sidewalks isn’t from humans and the dogs that dwell there aren’t trained to maim people for a living. Why I even perused the rental section in this Sunday’s newspaper, only I had ta bypass the used car classifieds because I’m still in mourning and probably will be for a while. Hell I even went so far as to circle a few possibilities and just might make a couple-a-preliminary phone calls come tomorrow and maybe if all goes well take a bus to go look at a few of the better prospects.
Besides I think someone moved into the dead guy’s apartment next door because last night around two in the morning when I was playin’ music there was this feeble pounding on the wall. So either I got a new neighbor or there’s another crackhead takin’ up his right to immanent domain on a empty vestibule or whatever in hell it is that they claim when they move in and squat illegally and I really don’t feel like puttin’ up with that kinda abuse or worse breakin’ in a new neighbor.
But ya know I do gotta admit that it was a tad easier writing my check for the rent this month without havin’ to include the added price of a parking space. Not that what I’m givin’ them for this dump is in the least bit reasonable; it’s just that the combined amount that I was payin’ really sucked and now it only slightly sucks!
Yet even in the short time that its been since the demise of my car I gotta confess that there is something to be said for the sense of liberation that comes from not havin’ to worry about material things because you don’t have them anymore. So I guess you could say that I’m sorta like those Zen monks forsaking material wealth because I seem to be slowly losing all my possessions, albeit sometimes begrudgingly, and the added bonus of not having to bankroll them either just adds to the spiritual payoff, if you catch my drift.
Though as far as this moving deal goes the word on the street is that I may not need to move outta my neighborhood right now as just last Friday when I was walkin’ back from Jack’s Liquors I overheard a couple-a-crackheads and they were talkin’ about Mexico’s congress votin’ in legislation making it legal for the possession of narcotics for personal use. And the way that these dope fiends were talkin’, well, it was like they was gettin’ on a plane for Mazatlan the very next day. So hopefully if this keeps up I may not have ta move cause all the crackheads and junkies’ll be headin’ south to the border and my neighborhood will be empty except for the winos and the three other people in my building that don’t use dope.
A car alarm suddenly goes off echoing outside my window and ya know I’m glad that I don’t gotta worry about my car anymore. Because even with the security gates and electronic doors it wasn’t the folks outside that I was worried about, it was my neighbors. And all they had to do was take the elevator downstairs and open the side door that leads to the garage and then there they were in a brightly lit room away from the elements with all the time in the world to strip it down to the chassis and roll the tires out through the lobby and down the street to the dope man in the alley.
But maybe when everybody moves to Mexico all of this will change!
