Paper Thin Walls
“No? Well anyway, so strange. How was your night?…Oh yeah? What did she say? No! Nooo!” she squealed. “She didn’t. What a bitch! Seriously, you shouldn’t have to deal with that sort of crap from a manager. At least you get good tips. At least the lady customers like you…Tonight was a pretty slow night for me…”
The muscles in Jessica’s jaw started to tighten. This was bad, very bad. “I’ll never get back to sleep,” she stressed. Her toes curled. Her hands gripped her pillow. Her eyes focused on the red numbers of her digital clock. 2:36, 2:37, 2:38.
And Stephanie kept chatting away. Jessica learned that Stephanie was desperate to be put on the schedule for a weekend night. Right now Thursday was the closest she got, and her best tip night. She had a crush on a barback who tonight was wearing skinny black jeans and an old looking Dead Kennedy’s t-shirt. “It’s all meant to be, if he’d just break up with that Betty Page-looking girlfriend,” she said.
2:45, 2:46, 2:47…
Jessica was ready to cry. She told herself, “Here I am. I work my ass off. I pay like crazy for this apartment. I got in bed on time at 11:00 pm, and still, no matter what I do, life still doesn’t work out. Things still don’t go smoothly. Do I ask for too much? Is it really too much to ask?”
Stephanie continued, “Yeah, so I don’t know. I talked to my mom yesterday out in North Carolina. Ends up my brother just knocked a tooth out getting into some fight at a football game. You remember Bobby right? He’s blonde, tall, I thought we stopped by your bar one night over his last spring break.”
Then Jessica, realizing just how depressed she felt, tried to shift her perspective. God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference, she told herself. While alcoholism didn’t run in the family, her mom had had a ceramic plaque of the mantra in the kitchen where she grew up. Tonight it inspired her to change the thing she could.
Stephanie paced into her bathroom and said, “Yeah Chris, I don’t know.”
“Yeah Chris, I don’t know,” Jessica yelled back.
“Oh my god!” Stephanie hollered.
“Oh my god!” Jessica squealed.
“There’s a girl on the other side of the wall repeated everything I say!”
“Everything I say!”
Stephanie stood akimbo at the wall in question. “Shut up!”
Jessica still lying down but almost giddy, responded, “Shut up!”
“You shut up!”
“You shut up!”
“Bitch!” Stephanie growled.
Jessica tried to reason with her. “Look. My bed is backed up to your bathroom. I don’t know why this has never happened before. I totally would have liked to meet you under better circumstances, but could you please be quieter in there tonight?” Too rational, too late.
“Could you please be quieter in there tonight?” Stephanie retorted.
“I should have asked in the first place. I’m sorry. I’m just exhausted and feeling crazy and desperately need it to be quiet.”
“Yeah, you should have asked first. But now you’ve done it.” Stephanie was quiet for a moment and then Jessica heard Stephanie put something heavy down. Then the music started.
A shrill electric guitar riff shook the wall behind Jessica’s head. Then Axl Rose’s voice screeched through the dry wall.
Jessica began to cry and called 3-1-1 to report a noise complaint. The woman operator diligently took down her information, while trying to appease her with a somewhat sympathetic and somewhat wooden tone. But really, there was little the operator could do. “Police have up to 8 hours to respond to a noise complaint and each complaint must be validated by an appointment with the Environmental Protection Agency,” she explained. This was Jessica’s big guns. Calling in a noise complaint to the city should have been the big guns. But no. Jessica was powerless—struck by a wrong decision like a hammer to the temple.
At 3:47 Stephanie turned off the music. “I’m going to sleep now. You be quiet over there.”
Jessica didn’t say anything in return.
October 13th, 2009 at 9:12 pm
It’s fun to read your stories which are often quite the unusual topic!