written 9-11 may 1999 by muppet
i think i may never be able to answer the door again.
first, a little explanation...
i started writing this story down yesterday, while it was fresh on my mind. i wrote a lot, i mean, a whole lot -- and then the story got better, while i was still writing it. so i took some time to recuperate, and wrote some more, hoping to get it all down while it was fresh, because it's all worth telling. since it had started out as an email to inform those who weren't here of the incredibly strange things they'd just missed, netscape mail served as the composition medium. i was three paragraphs from the end...
and then it just disappeared. whoosh! no sound, no beep, no strange behavior leading up to it, no sluggishness, no warning of any kind. it was just there one second, and completely gone the next. netscape doesn't keep these messages in a temp file, only in memory, so there was no hope of finding the story's remnants anywhere. i hadn't saved as a draft, because i usually don't write things so long, and the mailer has never crashed on me like this before. besides, my compulsive habit of hitting <CTRL>+S to save things while i'm working has no effect, because unix netscape very stupidly maps all the normal <CTRL>+whatever shortcuts to <ALT> instead. there was no core dump from which i could salvage the remains of the tale. completely and irrevocably gone. and i was so close to being finished...
by this time i couldn't bear to write it again. and besides, the house was full of people, collected to celebrate graduation from UK, and who'd heard over the last thirty minutes or so that i had a good story, and they wanted me to tell it. of course, i wanted some way to capture the story while it was fresh, without having to type all the shit down again... so i pulled out the two-track (the Fitch Mobile Recording Unit, circa 1982), set it up by the computer, and started telling the story to the packed house. the house honestly was full --- ben in the phone seat, rob to his left, and chris on the end; neal on the other couch, under the lamp, craig to his left, and matt at the end; courtnee in the cushy green chair, thun on the ottoman, space alex on the floor, and eventually, john also on the floor between alex and ben; andy stood next to the thermostat, and i stood between him and matt, poised to act out the necessary parts. you can hear all the voices on the tape, with some james brown in the background. one day, i shall transcribe the tape, but it's rather chaotic and hard to follow --- full of def comedy jam-style laughter and whooping and hollering, and several moments reminiscent of one point in jerry springer's too hot for tv! when the disgusting fat dancer does a split and pops out of her clothes, and the guys in the front row appear to be blown back by the shock wave with wide eyes and expressions of sheer terror. i rather wish we'd had a video camera, instead.
but something tells me the story may never be finished --- she came to the door again just now; craig got his wish, his chance to send her away.
anyway, here it goes....
i like to play my guitar on the front porch of the house. this is not a new thing. we had a good front porch on the house on waller, except for all the traffic noise. last spring kristian and i sat out on that porch playing guitar, writing songs, and talking shit until the wee hours of the morning. we even had a kind of acoustic practice out there the summer of '97, in the afternoon, the day that kristian and neal showed the kernel of the memphis beat to me and andy.
i don't know what it is, i just like to play outside. it's even better here in the house on cramer, because i can go out on the porch, sit in the sun, and play as long and as obnoxiously as i want without disturbing everyone inside and making too much noise for them to hear the tv.
so, saturday, yesterday, the day of the UK graduation ceremonies, i went outside to play my guitar on the porch. nothing unusual. i paced around on the red wood, hacking on my unplugged strat, ignoring the rest of the world. neal told me later, "you were jammin' today, stompin' your feet and shit." eventually, i wound up leaning against the banister, basking in the sun, with my hair shading my face and keeping me from going blind. i think i stood there for several minutes. somebody walked by, on the other side of the street, by the church. i didn't pay much attention. a song had gotten stuck in my head...
so, i went inside to my room, plugged the guitar up to my little POS peavey and its attached poor man's speaker cabinet[1], and hit `play' on track three of taildragger's anywhere, nowhere, "take me to blame". my stereo's pretty loud... around the second verse, there's a knock on the door... i think, "oh, i've got the stereo too loud and they can't hear the tv..." so i duck the volume knob on the stereo to zero really quick, and open the door to see what the knocker wants.
it's craig. (seems like craig is the only one who ever knocks on my door. and he doesn't live here.) he says, "someone's here to meet you."
that's odd. who's here? maybe chase's finals are over already and he's come back to visit his parents? maybe jessica came back into town? no, craig has met these people, knows they're my friends, and would use their names. this is odd. maybe elysse took that road trip or something... i put down the guitar, and walk toward the door, and craig mumbles something about "big hair." now amy teeple comes to mind... maybe she's come to visit?
i walk out of my room, and glance at the living room... [at this point, the little image of the floor plan should be useful...] i'm still in the little alcove just outside my bedroom door, and i look straight out into the living room --- neal sits on the great big wooden couch, by the wall, reading the "rolling stone"; andy's in the big green chair, with courtnee on his back; he's intent on the tv, as is alex, who's sitting on the floor next to the ottoman at andy's feet. they're playing NBA basketball on the playstation. craig is standing next to me, at the end of the old, long, gold couch that used to be in my mom and dad's living room. everyone is dead quiet.
i see no visitors.
so i turn to the right and walk toward the front door, thinking the mystery guest must be out on the front porch. the dark green front door stands wide open, as it has all day, with the storm door shut. there's no one there. craig says, "back here, behind you..."
so i turn around, and survey the room from a different angle. and then i see her... sitting in The Phone Seat[2] at the far end of the long gold couch. this image has burned itself indelibly on my brain, as have several from this bizarre evening. allow me to describe in full: dirty, oversized jeans, cut off and frayed at the ankles, slightly belled. dark green, loose fitting, long-sleeve, knit shirt. legs crossed. very out of place, the bare feet clad in elegant, sandal-like, three-inch platform heels made of thin straps of patent black leather or vinyl or whatever. hands clasped pensively in the lap, clutching at a bic lighter and a hardpack of marlboro reds, or mediums, or whatever it is in the red-and-white box. wide, crazy-looking, faraway blue eyes, staring from sunken eye sockets painted up with some kind of pale red makeup that made her look like either a raccoon or someone who's been beaten about the face with The Ugly Stick.
and the defining feature: massive, unruly, and above all, large curly hair. think of Sideshow Bob from The Simpsons, and you'll get the idea. great big tendrils that aren't quite stiff enough to be dreadlocks, not frizzy, not really all that long, but just huge. if it were wiry it would be a freakin' twelve inch 'fro!
and i look at her and realize i don't have the first clue who this person is.
yet she's sitting there on my mom and dad's old couch like she should be here or something.
...and just stares at me with the deer-caught-in-headlights look.
so i wait a few moments, expectantly, thinking this visitor will notice that she now has my undivided attention and can inform me of the reason for her visit. no. nothing. silence. awkward, painful silence, broken only by the electronic cheers from the electronic audience at the video basketball game that hasn't stopped to notice the tedious tension filling the otherwise oppressively silent room.
finally, i can't take it anymore, and say something eloquent, like, "uh, hi." still, nothing.
craig chimes in, "she said she saw you on the porch, and wants your autograph."
now, with the ice broken, she comes to life, and speaks in a surprisingly high-pitched drawl. "yeah, i saw you playin' yer guitar. are you in a band? i wanted to git yer autograph so i can have it when you and yer band git all famous."
okay... this is not the first time i've been asked for an autograph. indeed, it was usually a friend asking as a joke, or someone who'd just bought a cd, like the guys in richmond --- but never has anyone come into my house unannounced and asked me for an autograph. i mean, she didn't even know the band! she had just asked craig only moments before, "does a rock star live here? i saw a rock star on the porch. is he in a band? can i meet him? i wanna git his autograph." he said that he left her on the porch to get me, and she just let herself in. but i didn't learn this until later. at this point, i'm still just standing here thinking it odd that i, of all people, have a fan.
so i look around for something on which to write. there's a pad of notepaper on the coffee table that came with a computer game. got that. now i need a pen... atop neal's PC monitor sits a pair of after-dinner mints, his wallet, and the Dilbert pen that my mom gave me for graduation last year. so i walk over to the computer table, and set the notepad on the level part of the back of his trinitron monitor and uncap the pen. now she has risen from the couch and crossed behind me to my right, between me and the door, and peers over my right shoulder to see what i'm going to write on the paper.
what i'm going to write on the paper... what i'm going to write on the paper... what am i going to write on the paper? i don't know this person at all... so something personal will not do. i jot down "As of Yet" in great big letters, thinking maybe she'll go buy a cd, and then write my name, as usual, backwards[3]. then for some strange reason, my brain says, "she doesn't know who you are, put your last name, too!" and i write my last name, pausing for a second to remember how to make a backwards lowercase `g'.
and she looks quizzically at the paper... "what's that say?"
"that's my name."
she reads aloud slowly... "sscooott... air.... ing... tun..."
i'm kinda impressed that she pronounced it correctly the first time. most people don't. i'm also stricken by the impression that i'm talking to Phoebe on Friends...
anyway, i tear the sheet off of the pad, and hand it to her. she mumbles, "thanks," and then starts folding the paper almost compulsively while she rambles for a moment... "i'm married... but my husband, he don't like me much. i thought he was gonna kill me. i gotta find a place where i can keep this and he won't find it."
suddenly i feel it might have been a bad idea to put my full name on the piece of paper... the piece of paper she has now folded from about 5"x9" to the size of a quarter and is now laboriously stuffing into the fifth pocket of her ragged jeans. the jeans don't fit well. her belly hangs out a little from under the green shirt, which i now see is rather unfortunately short in the midriff.
"do you live here?" she continues...
"yeah," i mumble, trying not to say anything more than i have to. then comes another really awkward and painfully long silence. finally, i realize i must ask the obligatory response question... "do you live around here?"
"yeah, i live right over there --- " she points out the front door, vaguely to the left --- "in that building right there. you know where the barber shop is? we live on the first floor, me and my husband. he's gonna kill me when i get home."
okay, again with the pretty picture of domestic violence... and i realize she's pointing almost directly across the street. on the far corner of the intersection of Cramer and Hanover stands a building with a frame shop, The Upper Kut Beauty Salon, and a few apartments. she lives about thirty yards away. how nice. my neighbor is a lunatic, and her husband will probably want to kill me.
and finally, she just says, "well, i guess i oughta go...." and turns and walks out. as she goes, i notice a large tear in the back of her jeans, from the base of the crotch, along the bottom of the seat, to the left side seam. and i realize i've seen this woman walking (actually, shuffling) around the neighborhood before.
...
and there's a pregnant silence in the house. finally, before she's even out of earshot, the pent-up laughter spills forth from all present. "who the fuck was that?" "scott's got a fan!" "ooh, man, she wants you!" neal has an expression of pure glee on his face as he just points at me and laughs. he does this several times over the next few minutes. craig tells me how she just let herself in, how bad she smelled, and how surreal the experience was. andy says, "i'm thinking, `well she just let herself in and sat down, she must be one of his friends. wow, scott's got some ugly-ass friends!'" neal and craig agree that they've seen this woman around the neighborhood, usually with a couple of kids in tow.
yes, it was weird. but it's over. shake it off, go about your business. you're a rock star now, rock stars sign autographs. ah, if only i could take myself seriously thinking things like that, but i can't. i'm no rock star. "ignore him, jabba, he's no jedi.
so i go back to my room, pick up the guitar, restart the cd, and play along for about a half an hour. finally, the weirdness of the event is just too much for me, i have to tell people about this. so i put down the guitar, go out to my PC, open up netscape, and start to write an email to chase and kristian and kaeff and elysse, my fellow musician friends who can appreciate a good strange autograph anecdote.
all this while, people are making plans for the evening. it's about 8pm right now, and ben and john, and i think alex too, just graduated from UK. they're all coming back in town from louisville for a celebration of sorts, which will happen here because we have the most sitting space.
courtnee leaves for matt's place, to continue planning the evening's festivities. neal leaves to go get some food from Wendy's[4]. craig, po'ass, unemployed craig, leaves to go get food at his house over in the ghetto. i'm still sitting at the computer, writing; andy and alex haven't moved for the last three hours, still playing NBA basketball.
a few minutes after craig leaves, i'm getting to the part of the story where i've found the pen... and there's a knock on the window in the front door. ah, good, the guys are here... and so, i go to open the door and let them in. only, it's not matt and ben and the rest of the posse...
it's Sideshow Bob.
and there's a long pause. maybe thirty seconds... seemed like about three minutes. all kinds of things flitting through my mind... "oh shit... uh, how can i get rid of her?" Psycho Killer / Qu'est-ce que c'est / fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa fa far better / Run run run run run run run away ...
and she says, "can i come in?" as she walks in. i'm kinda stunned, standing in the doorway still, now looking at the back of her, saying to myself, "uh, i guess you already did..." she looks really scared, with wide eyes and very furtive behavior. i'm starting to get worried... i ask, "are you okay?"
[and now, let the parade of non sequiturs commence!]
"my husband, well... i love him, but he don't like me very much. he says there ain't no Babylon. there's a Babylon, isn't there?"
[andy bit himself. alex threw the ball out of bounds. i just stared.]
the thoughts start running through my head at a million miles an hour, in all different directions, creating a massive interneural traffic jam so terrible that no net thought actually occurs.
i can't piss this woman off. i know there's a religion or cult that believes in Babylon, but i can't for the life of me think of anything except H.P. Lovecraft. hell, i'm just a hopeless, cynical agnostic. i'm not thinking this woman is a crackpot just because she has views not held by most people... i'm thinking she's crazy because of the way she stares at me with those faraway eyes. she looks really scared and really crazy. i don't want to piss off a crazy woman who knows where i live. this is bad juju. appease her and get rid of her, this is my new plan. now, how to do this is beyond me... but i start by avoiding all questions. "uh, that depends."
she looks blankly at me for a moment, maybe disappointed, maybe just... breathing. "can i sit down?" she asks, as she shuffles past me to sit gingerly in the old brown chair in front of neal's PC. as she bends over she exposes a hell of a lot more crack than i expected or wanted to see. now she's looking at the computer monitor. she moves very slowly, almost like a kitten circling a ball of string before playing with it. "i ain't never used no computer before," she drawls with a laugh. "i don't even know how to turn it on." she bends over and inspects the keyboard at a distance of about three inches... "`on'? i can't even find the `on' key!"
[i didn't bother trying to explain that it was already on. something told me the idea of `power saver mode' just wouldn't be an easy thing to explain at the moment.]
and then she looks me in the eye and asks, "do you have a joint?"
zap! straight tot he heart of the matter! "no," i say, trying my best to imply that we don't do that sort of thing around here and might appreciate it if you'd leave. [i'm alarmed at the frequency with which complete strangers ask me for marijuana. i don't understand! do i look like the kind of person who carries joints around at all times?]
this does not deter our space cadet. "i don't have one, either. i could use one right about now. my husband's gettin' all toked up right now. he hates me, because i'm stupid. he's gonna kill me when i get home." there's another awkward silence... should we call the cops on her husband or something? is this an honest cry for help? and why the hell does she need a joint, anyway? she seems pretty damned baked already...
and then she jumps tracks again. "will you play me some of the music from your band?"
hey! now here's an idea! she knows i play on the porch, so here's the chance to get her out on the porch --- that much closer to having her outside and gone. so i go grab my guitar from my room --- noting that the clock says 9:36 --- and suggest, "well, let's go out to the porch!" and i come out and she's already moved from the chair by the door to the swivel chair in front of my PC! no! that's the wrong direction! dammit! so i go into the practice room to get another pick, still saying how we should go out to the porch. she says nothing, and doesn't move. when i get back, i say, for a third time, let's go to the porch. she just shakes her head slowly, with puppy-dog eyes. ah, says my brain, she's afraid her husband will see her. well, honestly, the way she describes him, i'm kinda afraid he might see us as well.
so i resign to playing in the living room for a few minutes to appease her. ...and draw a complete blank. i don't want to play anything that could be considered romantic, and playing a hard rocker seems just as bad an idea... so my fingers fall into kristian's guitar part on "fictional man", at about half speed.
i'm stalling. trying to think up new ways to get rid of her. this is not going well.
to make matters worse, she's sitting in the chair where i had just been writing a long email message about the first time she was here. and each time she absently swivels back and forth, her elbow comes a little closer to nudging the mouse --- which would disable the screen saver and expose the netscape mail composition window detailing how much her initial visit disturbed me. and, finally, she hits the mouse, and there it is. but, thankfully, she's too computer illiterate to think to read it... i suppose. wow, wouldn't that be awkward? i keep playing, hoping she'll watch me and not look at the monitor...
this short minute seemed like forever. andy said later he was wondering when i was going to change to the next part of the song... "he just kept playing the same two sections over and over and over!" to be honest, andy and alex have been no help through all of this. they haven't turned around, haven't even stopped playing video basketball... well, they've stopped playing well, and they certainly aren't concentrating on the game... i look to them for inspiration, but see only the backs of their heads.
out of the blue, she says, "i don't see how you do that.... how you play the guitar."
again, another statement to which there is no conceivable response... "well, i just... move my fingers, you know..."
but she's already moved on to the next thought. i'm sitting on a short table by the stairs, directly across from her where she sits in my swivel chair in front of my PC; i've crossed my legs to support the unplugged stratocaster on my right thigh. in the same slow and deliberate fashion as she inspected the computer's keyboard, she leans over and stares closely at my elevated right shoe... "tan... converse..." she drawls, slowly, describing my footwear. then she sits up. "i don't own no white shoes. we got hardwood floors, so my socks always get dirty... i just threw these on," she says, motioning towards the out-of-place fancy platform heels.
and she switches channels again: "are you married, scott?"
unfortunately, i reflexively answer truthfully. "no." then, trying to fill the impending awkward silence, "you don't make it sound too fun."
she sits back further, and i see her, eh, ample, flaccid belly poke out from under her shirt... and realize that the top button of her jeans is unfastened. and i shudder...
"oh," she continues, "i want a joint. i could'a had one, but i hadda go and open my mouth. my husband hates me. i love him, but he just don't like me. it's because i'm a loser. i can't prove none of my theories to him. i told him my daughter had an abortion. she's ten years old."
augh... mind... grinds... to... a halt... andy coughs loudly, and bends over double in his chair. i can only stare in disbelief.
[and, of course, that was the only theory she mentioned.]
maybe something more happened here... i can't really remember. she said so much in so short a time. maybe this is when she said something about her husband completely hating her daughter's father, calling him a junky and a loser. just more stuff that makes me really nervous.
and finally, alex, hopped up on tons of caffeine and utter aggravation with this insane woman, comes to my rescue. "hey, scott, don't we have to go to matt's?"
i'm still stunned, not quite getting the picture... "when?"
"NOW."
ah! comprehension! "you're right! i forgot all about that!" so i get up and toss my guitar into my bedroom, hoping it will indeed land on my bed. and i turn back, expecting her to have risen in preparation to leave. no. she sits tight.
and i look at andy and alex, expecting andy to have taken the hint, wound down the game and gotten up to "leave," but they haven't moved. andy thinks she'll take the hint and leave. alex thinks she'll take the hint and leave. even i think she'll take the hint and leave.
she just sits there.
"oh, my husband's gonna kill me."
now alex is really pissed. "why don't you call the cops?"
"we ain't got no phone." she smiles with that one. i wonder if we should use our phone, but then i realize i don't want to deal with her at all...
"do you have to go?" she asks...
"yeah. it's, uh, matt's birthday." [it was the best i could summon. matt's birthday was actually last wednesday.]
"can't you just stay here?"
"no," i lie, "i gotta drive!"
"can you take a date?"
a date? can i take a date to matt's? she doesn't even know what the hell we're doing there! (hell, even i don't know, but i'm willing to leave no matter what...) my mind fills with the vision of ben's super-tiny living room, which has no couch now that john moved out. the other night we managed to squeeze nine people into that tiny room for matt's birthday and a marathon bond deathmatch. i can't imagine more than that, so i say, "no way, their place is, uh, really small."
sure it sounded crazy. but, she's crazy, so it ought to make sense, right?
and i look at alex, all confused now, and ask, "do they even have any furniture?"
andy can't take it at all now. he turns off the game, and wanders in to the kitchen. however, the kitchen doesn't have a door that he can close, so he wanders past again, stonefaced, and enters the bathroom. i can see him in my mind, shutting the door, then crumpling to the floor in tears of laughter. [he later said, "no, i didn't even have to go, i just went in there 'cause i could shut the door!"]
now i'm standing by the thermostat, leaning against the wall... close enough to the other rooms that i could duck inside if necessary. alex is still sitting in the floor, and can see Sideshow Bob only from about the chest up.
she obviously doesn't want to go home. "well, can i stay here?"
"no," i say firmly, incredulous that she would ask such a thing, "that wouldn't be a good idea."
"i won't steal nothin'. i promise."
"no."
"i'll be real quiet. i'll just go home in the morning," she pleads.
in the morning?!?! aren't you in enough trouble with your husband already without staying out all night?!?!?! i can barely think straight. "no, we don't want to disturb anyone."
"nobody won't know i'm here. i'll be real quiet. i'll just go crawl in yer bed and spank my booty 'till you get back."
[i think i was too shocked to laugh at this point. i don't know how alex could stand it. i was also in severe mental anguish, envisioning my sheets getting dirty at the hands of this foul creature.]
[i still can't believe she actually said that. every time i tell the story, the listener reels in disgust and laughter. on the tape of the conversation the pandemonium following this statement overpowered the two-track's compressors...]
i'm in shock. alex comes to the rescue again. "no, you can't stay here. other people live here, and they would be upset."
"would they be upset?" she repeats...
"yes."
"do you live here?"
"YES," he lies, vehemently. he has a fire in his eyes. only this makes her retreat.
another long, strange pause. i try to regroup myself to kick her out, but i can't think.
she looks a little pensive, wringing her hands, holding them clasped at her crotch. "i have a birthmark," she claims.
oh no, no, just look away... Don't look at it, Marion! No matter what happens, just keep your eyes SHUT!
and my mind recalls another disturbing picture... as she left on her first visit, i noticed a large hole in her dirty jeans, stretching from the crotch around the seat of the left leg to the outer seam. oh, no, please, no... my heart sinks to new depths of despair...
"i have a birthmark," she continues, persistently. "it's real pretty, which is odd, 'cause i'm so ugly." you got that right, sister. "wanna see my birthmark? look... look..." she insists.
...and i reluctantly turn my head.
oh, how i wish i hadn't.
for, sure enough, she had pulled on her baggy, hiphugger jeans until the hole in the back was now in the crotch. my eyes unwittingly followed her pointing fingers to the hole, and i saw things... a mole... a slightly discolored spot that appeared to be either a birthmark or a sore or something... and i saw that she was wearing no underwear... and that she was clean shaven... and i saw that she had indeed given birth to at least one child. she even pulled it open a little way for me.
that was a sight i really didn't want to see.
[maybe you understand why i think alex was a lucky motherfucker for not being able to see her from the chest down.]
and now i'm the deer caught in headlights. i can't move at all. yeah, i'll be having nightmares.
she looks at me, then tilts her head to the other side and looks at me again. "you mean you were just out there innocently playing your guitar on the porch?" what the hell?!?!? what, am i guilty of playing a siren song or something?!? this is just too much.... i nod my head to affirm, because i can't speak. she immediately takes on a disappointed air. "i guess i was thinkin' somethin' else, like it was meant for me, 'cause i have the number of the beast in my birthday."
[just when i thought i couldn't be any more dumbfounded....]
suddenly, she hops up, and stands next to me, on the other side of the corner, leaning against the wall. "i'm gonna stand here just like you." cripes, i feel like i'm dealing with a three-year-old.
in her platforms she's just as tall as i am, looking me directly in the eyes (but her hair makes her about 6'1''), and her face is about three inches away from mine. i can smell the marlboros on her breath and the body odor and other aromas that begin to make me more than a little queasy.
she whispers, "do you have a girlfriend?"
now, a moment of clarity strikes me --- ignore thine instinct, and lie, motherfucker, lie like you've never lied before! lie for your life!
"yes."
and the spell is broken. crestfallen, she slouches a little, and takes a step backward, only to trip over alex' luggage. she stumbles around, mumbling again about how her husband is going to kill her.
andy has emerged from the bathroom. safely out of her view, he mimes laughter, pointing at me with a wild face of hysteria. this doesn't help.[5]
sometimes i think my friends only keep me around for comic relief.
anyway, she's almost completely deflated now. she stumbles around the living room like a balloon spewing out its air, complaining some more about her husband, and finally leaves without a word. whoosh, just like that.
i follow her to the door. before she's even off the porch, i lock it. i see her step down, but she doesn't walk down the sidewalk... she cuts across the driveway to the left, and through the neighbor's yard. how disturbing... i extinguish the porch light, and turn off the lamp and the computer monitor. andy turns off the bathroom light and the kitchen light, and we just lay low for the next few minutes, swapping incredulous exclamations of "did you hear her say [insert random quote]??!?" "`spank my booty'??!??!" and "what the hell just happened?!?!"
a few minutes later, craig drives up, a little confused by the completely dark house... "okay, i've been gone for twenty minutes, where the fuck did they go?" as he opens the storm door, andy yanks open the front door and cries, "get inside!" and slams the door again behind him...
neal returns about three minutes after craig. he can't believe it either. i tell them about the sightings and the non sequiturs, and they can't believe it... we talk about the crazy stuff that has happened to us, even getting back to crazy antoine, the ineffectual and unintelligible janitor in boyd hall a few years ago...
a little more time passes, i eat my dinner, and start to add more to the email chronicling the evening's adventures. people show up... the email editor crashes... i get the two-track and record the telling of the story, realizing not very long after that i've left out several parts...
and the next day i'm afraid to go outside. i play guitar on the back deck, i pace around the back deck while talking to my sick mother on mother's day.... and eventually, i start to write the story down again. neal and craig are watching tv, i'm writing at the computer, and everyone else is out for the afternoon.
this must be the catalyst, for Sideshow Bob shows up AGAIN. this time, i refuse to answer the door. i tell craig he now has his chance to send her away, as he wished the night before. he balks. finally, after about a minute or so, she still hasn't left, so he goes to the door, taking every measure to ensure that she can't let herself in again. she asks if i'm home, but he says "he's working." she wants to know if she can hear our music, and craig points her to the local music stores. she asks what kind of car my girlfriend drives. [further proof of craig's claim that she's watching the house...] craig improvises a little -- "she doesn't have a car, he always picks her up." she wonders if she's offended me somehow, and craig delicately but firmly suggests that dropping by uninvited is a rather bad taboo. [for the record, that's not the taboo. the taboo is more along the lines of insanity and flashing.] she says she wants to show me the necklace her kids got her for mother's day, and craig suggests she spend the rest of mother's day with her kids instead of here. finally, she gives up -- craig claims victory as she wanders away.
we're rather worried. this woman is clearly not normal. she's become fixated rather quickly, and seems very spacey. if her home life is really this bad, then i'm really worried for her kids... i feel compelled to call social services or something.... but is it my place? i guess someone should...
.....
craig is trying to find a new job. he had a good interview this morning, and stopped by the house this evening at about 5 to wait around for neal to get home. (andy is out of town.) neal was uncharacteristically late coming home, and i never get home until about 6.
and, as if you hadn't already guessed it... she came by while he waited on the porch. craig actually ran around to the back of the house when he saw her, and watched from the back deck through the kitchen window as she knocked on the front door, and waited, and finally gave up and left.
i guess it's not so bad that we have to move again this summer...
9-11 May 1999
this story is so huge, it has footnotes...
this is the song that doesn't end
it just goes on and on my friend
some people started singing it not knowing what it was
and now they'll go on singing it forever just because
this is the song that doesn't end...
yes, ladies and gentlemen, sideshow bob has returned, on numerous occasions. i mentioned above that she returned on monday. i messed up the story a little. turns out she talked to him for about fifteen minutes, then went on her merry way. then about ten minutes later, craig saw her heading his way on the return journey, at which point he ran behind the house and waited for her to leave. a mere technicality, of course.
and aside from seeing her walking down the sidewalk as i drove home on tuesday, we haven't had to deal with her for a few days. we were all thinking craig had won the day.
kristian and mary ann came down from edgewood this weekend to celebrate andy's graduation with a chemistry degree after all these years, except, andy is out of town and didn't tell us when he was coming back. he's still not back. but, since they'd traveled all this way, we decided to have a night of it anyway, celebrating in his honor, and eating the cake neal had made for him (blue icing, representing sifl & olly's blue screen, and a pair of socks donated by kristian).
being the old fogey types, those that have to get up early, everyone else crashed around midnight; kristian and mary ann stayed on the hidaway bed in the practice room. craig crashed on the couch (and slept through everything). i, always the insomniac, stayed awake in my room listening to my discman until the wee hours --- consequently, i knew nothing of the evening's happenings.
around two AM, kristian and mary ann awoke to the sound of someone rapping, a not-so-gentle tapping, tapping at our green front door. (my apologies to mister poe...) kristian got up in time to see a barefooted person with really large hair, carrying a red plastic Solo cup (the universal standard issue party cup), leaving our front porch. the mysterious caller fit the description of sideshow bob. kristian grew very alarmed. some time later, the knocking began again. someone paced around the front porch for a half an hour, knocking on the front door at three distinct times. kristian and mary ann made every effort to make absolutely no sound, and no attempt to answer the door; they assumed that the knocker the second time was the same as the first time (who by all rights appeared to be sideshow bob), but never actually looked, for fear of being seen. the house had been completely dark since midnight --- except for the christmas lights in my room, which would only have been visible to someone who'd walked around the side of the house. who knocks on the door of a dark house at two or three in the morning!??!
many people are now urging me to call the cops, maybe to get a restraining order against her, or maybe just to tell them that we fear for her children. i don't feel right calling the cops on someone just for knocking on my door and making me uncomfortable. i don't really feel it's my place to go to the authorities for her kids, because we only suspect something is amiss. (of course, we seem to have strong grounds for suspicion...) so here i am, playing the part of hamlet and hoping the whole problem will just go away and resolve itself...
Sun May 16 16:03:10 EDT 1999
yea, i'm skipping work today to see The Phantom Menace....
i may be off the hook somewhat... at least in terms of possible death at the hands of sideshow bob's maniacal husband. as you may recall from reading the massive text above, in her first visit sideshow bob came by to ask for an autograph, which i wrote out and handed to her, and which she then folded into a really small square and stuffed into her jeans' fifth pocket. well, i got home from the store last night and neal had found something by his computer --- a piece of paper, folded up, in front of his PC speaker, hidden behind the mouse. when he unfolded it, what to his wandering eyes should appear but the fabled autograph! we don't know how it got there. we're all pretty wigged out because it actually did go into her pants, but i never saw her take it out....
but at the very least, her crazy and violent husband (if he actually exists) does not know my full name...
Thu May 20 10:06:57 EDT 1999
craig jynxed us by noting on thursday that sideshow hadn't come by in a while... "looks like she got the message."
my, but wasn't that speaking too soon. i went off to a party last saturday night ("didn't get drunk, got in a fi-ight..."), leaving two hours late after being completely sucked in by Tammy and the T. Rex, which is one of the funniest and worst movies i've ever seen. anyway, i left at midnight, and returned at almost five am, to find craig asleep on the couch with the television on --- on the t.v. was "the north american slimdown '99", an extension of "the great american slimdown" that we thanked in the CbS... but that is another story in itself...
what i didn't know until the next morning, is that andy and craig had had a visitor at about 3 am. actually, there was a knock on the storm door at 3 am, andy looked up and saw who it was, laughed, then woke up craig, and went to answer the door. craig looked up and said something to the effect of "are you kidding me?!?"
of course you know who it was --- sideshow bob. she was wearing a nightgown. i don't know the whole story, not having been there, but the gist of the story is this... her friend is an "escort." her husband had given her friend a ride home over three hours ago and hadn't yet returned. she wanted to use the phone. andy let her in. she dialed, waited a moment, then hung up without saying anything. apparently she asked at some point if i was here, which i wasn't. and she left without further incident, after a stay of about 2 minutes.
i guess we won't be able to move away too soon...
Wed Jun 2 23:57:22 EDT 1999
