ONCE I LEFT a note for my neighbors. Their garbage was piled up two bags high, two across on either side of their front door, and the smell hit me every morning as I opened my front door. It was starting to seep under my door, too. I couldn’t smell it all the time, but I knew it was there, hovering like an invisible force field. I was afraid one day I would wake up and be trapped in my apartment forever, a captive of irresponsible youth, a victim of mismanaged testosterone.
I tried knocking on their door, for a few days in a row, but they either weren’t home or were passed out from a late night or a long day making money for people richer than themselves. I didn’t want to be that neighbor who left nasty notes, so that when we saw each other in the elevator we could barely stand to share the same air while the floors ding slowly in front of our faces—counting off, when will this ride end? That seemed like something a cranky old lady would do.
But the smell: like old coffee grounds stuck in the filter, raw meat left out and gone bad, and dirty sponges on the day you decide to throw them away. It was the bottom of the garbage can, the corner where things catch and mold, every day in front of my door.
And then there was a pizza box, too, tiny bubbles of grease spotting the bottom of it. I imagined dried, old cheese stuck to wax paper inside the box. When they balanced the box on top of the bags one evening, like that last bucket atop a sand castle, that’s when I cracked.
“Please take out your garbage,” I wrote. “It smells. And it is unsanitary. This is New York! There are rats everywhere!” I underlined “rats” three times. I almost drew a picture of a rat, but I thought that would be too cute and I wanted to be taken seriously. “It is not fair to the rest of us.”
I didn’t sign my name, but a few hours later I opened my front door and the garbage was gone. My note had been returned to my door, and on the other side someone had written, “What garbage?”
I’M AT THE FRONT of my apartment, my knees clamped to my chest, head resting on the door, listening for hallway noise. It’s after 5:00 AM. I think I’ve been waiting for two hours. I’ve just checked my computer; there’s no one left online but a handful of men I’ve seen before, one of whom I dated briefly, and another whose profile name is MastaGangsta. I don’t need a master. I just need someone who will show up.
And then I hear it: the elevator opens on the floor. He’s here. He must have gotten in the building, he’s sneaking up to surprise me. I knew he couldn’t resist my juicy red lips, even if the digital photo doesn’t do them the justice they deserve.
I stand up, brush myself off (there is dust on my legs from the floor), tighten my robe around me. Fingers through the hair, tidy those curls. I hear the footsteps come closer. Time for business. I open the door, light up my face, bite the inside of my lower lip to keep that light steady. Hold the door frame. Steady now.
I peer down the hallway. It’s the one who shuffles, paper bag in hand. The quiet one. He’ll do.
SO MY NEIGHBORS stopped talking to me after the note, cold stares at the floor in the elevator. They never hold the front door for me anymore when my hands are full with groceries. I am forced to drop the bags, dig my keys out, open the door, jam it with my foot, shove the bags inside, stagger on the street like a drunk.
Before that they had been pleasant young men during the day, even though they were crazy and loud late at night. All those parties they have. And they never invite me to even one of them. Not like I would come.
But still, it would be nice to be invited.
“I NEED YOUR HELP,” I say. Blurt, like it’s an emergency, which it is. Which it isn’t. I want to reach out and grab him and pull him into my apartment. Kidnap him.
“What?” He looks up, pushes his hair out of his face. “Did we—did something happen?”
“I saw a rat. In my kitchen.”
He looks disgusted, not at me, at the rat.
“A big one. Gray with a huge tail. I think he’s under the sink. I could hear his tail knocking over bottles. Dishwashing detergent.”
He tightens his hands around the paper bag he is holding. Looks behind him. His white moon cheeks and watery blue eyes made him seem frail and gentle, like he wouldn’t know what to do with a rat if he caught one, that the rat would more likely know what to do with him. Just my luck. The late-night *.
“It would just make me feel better,” I say. I suck on my lips. “I’m all alone in here.”
He reaches in the bag, pulls out a can of beer, cracks open the top.
“Yeah, OK, I’ll take a look,” he says.
ONCE AFTER a big party where they made a dent in their front door, I left a note that said, “You are loud. You are the loudest people in the world. Why do you need to be so loud? Don’t you know that other people don’t like noise? Please shut up shut up shut up.” Everything was underlined. Every single word.