Elvis Has Left the Building .. So Who Does that Arm Belong To?
Here is a good way to start a Sunday morning: You don’t. You sleep till noon and get up only to transport yourself to the living room couch.
Here is a less than ideal way to start a Sunday morning: You wake up to the sound of your frightened housemate yelling, “I’LL CALL THE COPS! I’M CALLING THE COPS!!!!!!! GET OUT!!! GET OUT!!!” Even worse, if you are my housemate, you wake up at six something in the morning to the sight of a strange arm poking through our kitchen window and you nearly choke on your toothbrush and super-whitening toothpaste in shock.
And I’m tucked in bed, in my room, sleeping. I had heard the knocks and the rustling of the blinds earlier but I figured it was just Z waking up way too early again and for a while, I considered getting up to tell her to stop moving so noisily – wear padded gloves and slippers or something and to please tell Mother Nature to move the position of the sun so I wouldn’t have to put up with it shining directly into my room every morning. But I figured it would just be easier to bury my head under two blankets, a pillow and think of all the sheep you could count in
“Who’s that?! What do you want?!!” Z yelled out to the strange arm, her own arm gripping a firm toothbrush. Don’t come any closer or I’ll brush the plaque out of your teeth, motherfucker she might have added.
A thief or a cat burglar might have instantly jerked his arm away at being detected but this Arm persisted in trying to reach our (locked) kitchen door knob. “I’m …..sch….sch…schtrying to gettshhh… in…uh….into…my house………I…uhm…schneedsh….your…your..
hh….helpsh…”
Funny, the last time we checked we only had two pairs of arms living in this unit. At this point, I don’t know whether Z opened the door or looked through the window but she caught a glimpse of the guy that came with the arm – he didn’t have a shirt on, his eyes were bloodshot and he was bleeding from a cut on his face. She had never seen him in her life. “This isn’t your house, dude, this is MY house. Go away!!”
“I……needshhhh…yerra……shhhhelpshh!” Mr. Arm slurred.
“My what?!”
“Yerra……….shhhelllpsh……your….a…a…a..assis…….tance…your help. I need…to…..uh……my house, get into my house.”
“Then what are you doing trying to get into mine?!”
“I…… uh.. can’t get … into my house…..Won’t you…you…help?”
“You can’t get into your house because you’re trying to get into mine. Dude, go away!!”
And Mr. Arm slurred something along the lines of balcony, of how he needed to get onto our balcony to get into his house. But of course, even if there was some magic portal on our balcony leading to strangers’ houses, he wouldn’t need to go through our house. There was a public access stairs (for everyone living in the building) to get up there… “I’m……I’m….uh...baaaaaaad.”
“You’re what?! You’re bad?!!!! I’m calling the cops!”
“No! No!” said Mr. Arm, “I’m…..baaaad….uh…I’m M*****…real….real estate…agent……I….I’m….yerra…neigh..bour. I.. live… downstairs..”
Wait a minute, he’s a bad real estate agent called M****** and he lives downstairs? “If you live downstairs then what are you doing trying to get into my house? Go downstairs, use the stairs, this is my house- you live downstairs!”
“But…but…I’m …….balcony..”
“Are you drunk?” Z asked.
“Yesssh….” Mr. Arm slurred and then suddenly perked up and boomed, “NO! I’m not….sh…drunk..yessh…no…yessh…NO!”
Ok, probably just crazy then. “Go away or I’m calling the cops.”
“Fine, no, fine, no I”LL CALL THE COPSH!!!” declared Mr. Arm and then at someone else (possibly invisible), he yelled, “Call the cops! Call the cops! Call the cops!!!!!!!!!!!!”
This was when I came bursting out of my room, “What’s going on?” Zher and I stood huddled in the living room as we watched the silhouette of Mr. Arm/ Mr. Bad Real Estate Agent/ M***** still standing outside our kitchen window. We discussed calling an adult until we realized wait a minute, don’t we qualify as adults? Oh, shit……
Mr. Arm disappeared from our kitchen window and we thought we had seen the last of him until I heard him coming up the stairs which led to our balcony. Thankfully- he headed for the unit next to ours – A** the rocker, guitar-player single mom and to our surprise, she let him in.
So here’s the story according to A** - Mr. Arm is really called M*****. He’s not a real estate agent but he does live downstairs. Despite his proclamations of being “bad”, A** insists that he’s “usually such a nice, sweet, quiet boy” who helped her a lot while she was going through her divorce. Apparently, he had meant to say “I’m feeling bad” because yes indeed, he had waaay too much to drink after getting into a fight with his big brother (who he lives with). “He’s just drunk, girls,” A** assured us, “He really is usually a sweet boy..”
And so the neighbours say about most serial killers.
Later in the day, the girlfriend of Mr. Arm’s brother, S** came to apologize on his behalf (Mr. Arm was still passed out on A**’s couch). “Oh god, I’m so sorry, some people just can’t handle their drinks.” They had even left the door open for him. Apparently, this wasn’t the first time Mr. Arm had spooked the neighbours and embarrassed himself while drunk. At their last place, he had accidentally crawled into the neighbor’s apartment and passed out on their couch.
That must have been a less than ideal way to start a Sunday morning: Waking up to a drunken stranger passed out and taking up all the space on your living room couch.
And he wasn’t even cute.
Ha..ha…ha…
