My host is away today on business. Often, when he is working, he leaves in the afternoon and I have the place to myself for writing, audiobook listening and rest.
The apartment is on the second floor of an 8 unit row, one of a handful around a court well-manicured and shaded by a great maple, the largest of its kind. The unit is a two-story affair. The ground floor is accessed on a sidewalk, the door easily kicked in, the bay window flat—PIGZ or thugs are in in seconds in residual High Trust U.S. Gay.
The second floor is accessed by a concrete stoop and 12 wooden stairs covered by a steeply peaked and shingled access-way roof—a wonderful place to defend with a blade or the fish bat inside the front door. These stairs rise to a three foot wide deck walkway which is covered and kept dry. The single door unfortunately opens inward from an inset, with no storm door. Though this door is easily kicked in, it cannot be rushed orrammed like the ground floor front door. Also, since steps can easily be heard on the wood stairs and decking, one could open the door and tackle the lead PIG and take him to the concrete walk 12 feet below as a crash pad, or just shove him to his ruin and turn and get hosed down by his GROGBOT enforcement mates.
If they get in there is the fish bat in the kitchen. The kitchen, where I sit at a bistro table with two chairs behind the window with miniblinds closed [here on the sill are stacked card decks, dominoes a Holy Death vigil candle, Chi-Com purple sweet potato MRE pack complete with saluting Chi-Com soldiers, pens and a whiskey bottle] has a fridge, plenty of cabinet space, a crappy electric stove, a tiny coffee pot, crockpot for bachelor gruel which I make: chicken and lentils yesterday, chili [1] today...and lots of beer glasses and mugs.
The kitchen opens into a hallway to the left and the main room to the right, through a four foot slant open doorway, which leaves intruders liable for ambush from the Man Cave room to the left adjacent to the kitchen, where the gladius, guitars, photography equipment and books are.
The restroom is straight ahead in the hallway, to the left next to the hot water heater and furnace cutout. To the right of the bathroom door is an angular hollow pillar with shallow towel closet, which breaks up the entire apartment nicely and should frustrate intruder field of fire. John Wick would like this feature.
The large main room to the right, running from the kitchen wall to the back deck, if a woman lived here, would feature a dining set under the chandolier [must be French, can’t spell it] in the front portion, is instead occupied by a sketching table with lamp, art supplies and music equipment.
The area that would be the adjoining living room decorated with girly shit, plushly furnished, and a would have a large screen TV, has instead a bed to the right and an open space with some weights to the left by the doorway that goes to the back bedroom and furnace cutout. The available empty space for sparring and shadow boxing and even stick work in this loft condo is about that of a boxing ring if it were L-shaped.
The back bedroom to the left, has two very large closets for storing swords, guns, archery equipment, camping gear and prepper supplies. The room is furnished with an inflatable bed of high quality that is very comfortable, an old dresser for the host’s clothes and a footlocker for this hobo’s east coast equipment cache, which is empty except for: a 40 year old pair of jump/parade boots, a waterproof hoody, boot cleaning and polishing gear, winter gloves, a hand crank radio light, a folding hand saw for disposing of unsuccessful intruders and my westward migration clothes: big ass pocket pants, long underwear, heavy socks and teamsters shirt to wear on the train.
The library in the man cave has a shelf with 30 books for my Plantation America research. The library itself is the most eclectic and odd—and useful from a pulp fiction perspective—I have encountered.
Once while waiting for a ride outside in this white bread area—with narry a Kang within miles—I had the cops called on me. So I stay strictly inside.
The back of the apartment has two sliding glass doors with slat blinds that give onto a wooden deck that is covered, where we sit, drink beer and speak of many things. The entire back of the building is covered by a 75-year-old stand of pine and cedar, that entirely shield the back decks from sun and prying eyes and wave softly in the gloomy nights.
The neighbor downstairs is a laid-back auto mechanic with an anti-Karen wife, with a daughter of imaginative wonder, who plays on the grass with toy horses the size of Jack Russel terriers and carries the declawed cat around the area to tour the trees, gaze at the squirrels and birds from closer, and even pretend he can fly as she sings to him.
There is no light in the spare bedroom, which is perfect for this nocturnal hoodrat, who likes to wake to the soft evergreen filtered morning light, take his vitamins, return to sleep, and then wake again when the school children beyond the pines begin to caper and peep on the playground.
To write at night or in low light—such as now with thunderclouds blotting out the sun—I sit, here, in the well-lit kitchen, lit with ceiling light as I prefer, rather than risking a lamp in the back room that might trigger an eye seizure. While writing there, I use the foot locker as a charging station for this laptop and sit against the wall on the bed with my back supported by a rolled up camping pad.
These past 21 years we have called one another Brother and meant it—I’m so glad to have such a staunch friend; such a bachelor as will enjoy the chili that bubbles now on the counter, for which certainly The Colonel would order The Captain to flog me behind the barn. I go now to spoon the grease off the top and drink it for breakfast at 1:02 P.M., so that it won’t give him heart burn.
Thanks for the berth, Brother.
…
Post Anthropological Notes
-1. Laboriously spent two hours removing the meat filling from 8 cans of beef ravioli for this delicacy. The weight of dough was 4 in 5 parts, with half of the remainder sauce.
