KNUCKLES

SO what do I do after posting my last BLOG  installment (over a week ago), wherein I’m trumpeting about how much I looooove to write?  I stop posting.  Now see here, I do have something of an excuse for this and while it’s nothing I wish to burden everyone with, it has to do with a deadline for another writing assignment which just might lead to actual, honest-to-Goddess printed publication.   Rule of thumb for this writer:  Real-world publication (as opposed to cyber-world) always comes first. 

And I’ve also had a bad cold, but that just sounds whiny.  Anyhow, HERE I AM BACK ON THE BLOG SCENE.  Let the rejoicing commence.  

APARTMENT BUILDING DWELLING:   It can be interesting.  We last left off with my husband’s rich and multi-dimensional poem RICHMOND HALL, with its numerous depictions of the myriad curious characters who we once shared a building with.    Many of you were kind enough to send in your queries and after careful consideration, I have decided to contemplate herewith a neighbor-woman who we used to charmingly refer to as ‘Knuckles’.  (Not to her face, you understand.)

Knuckles was a lady, perhaps in her late 70’s.  So her name wasn’t really Knuckles, of course.  I’m getting to that.  Seems like she was probably a spinster, but who knows. Coulda been widowed or maybe the guy (or gal) ran for the hills.   Kept herself neat as a pin.  A tallish lass – kinda gangly, like a farmer’s wife or something - whatever a farmer’s wife is.  Sturdy yet brittle.  Short, fuzzy grey hair.  Sometimes wore glasses, not all the time.  Same with the bright pink lipstick, sometimes.  Her clothes were old-fashioned and girlish in a bizarre way.  She dressed herself up like an oversized Shirley Temple doll or some shit.  Well, anyhow…

When I moved in with Chris in the summer of 1996, he had been living in the building for nearly 16 years and already had a bit of reputation for playing his stereo really, really loud.  Not every night, but often enough.   But a lot of the folks who lived in the building at that time were somewhat elderly and on the deaf side, and it didn’t really matter so much.  Not so with Knuckles, who lived on the same floor and merely one thin wall away.

On the day I brought my piano out of storage and into Chris’ apartment,  I remember seeing Knuckles hovering in her adjacent doorway looking nervous as the instrument was being traipsed up the 3 flights of marble stairs by two tiny (and extremely skillful) Korean piano-moving dudes.  I think I tried to say hello to her but she wouldn’t make eye contact with me.  Just before she ducked into her apartment and shut the door, I could hear her muttering tensely: “A piano.  Tsk.  Tsk.  A piano.  Oh, oh, OH...A PIANO.”  Like I was bringing in a casket filled with sewage.  

I would soon get used to the fact that Knuckles would never speak to me or look at me directly.  Chris was her sole contact person in Apartment 3B.  Hey - fine with me, lady…

Knuckles starts earning her nickname right off the bat.   When we play music too loud, she raps sharply on our living room wall.  And yeah, sure, it’s kinda understandable.   We do our best to accommodate her and lower the volume.  But soon there’s a new development. 

One mid-morning, as my man and I were enjoying ourselves and each other in the boudoir (not very loud, mind you, completely reasonably.  No screaming or headboard-slamming or anything like that), we realize that Knuckles is now rapping on our bedroom wall – that same insistent, sharp rap that she uses on our living room wall for her stereo complaints.  It takes us a few seconds to realize what the hell that noise is.  We stop and listen.  Rap rap RAP… Rap-rap-rap-rap-rap-RAP.  

Okay, you wanna talk TURN-OFF?  This old broad is now a couple of slivers of dividing wall away from our BED…actually - our HEADS ?? - and she is BANGING on the wall while we’re having a little happy pre-noon nooky?  You have got ta be fucking KIDDING me! 

So this gets me riled.  Maybe it’s because the landlord from my last apartment turned out to be a complete freak and I’m still a little sensitive.  But in any case, I am now pounding the wall right back at Knuckles and yelling: “UNLESS YOU’RE FUCKING DYING IN THERE AND YOU NEED AN AMBULANCE, YOU BETTER CUT THE SHIT, LADY.  ONE KNOCK FOR AMBULANCE, NO KNOCKS FOR  SHUT  THE  FUCK  UP!  GOT IT?!” 

Chris tells me to calm down, but he’s laughing: “Don’t let her bother you, she’s all pent-up.”  Ok, whatever.  But then it gets out of control.  Yes, she still raps and knocks when we play the stereo.  But soon she starts doing it when we’re CONVERSING.  Or laughing at a movie.  Or when I play the piano.  She’s a shut-in, is ALWAYS at home and is obsessed with keeping us quiet.  She just bangs the shit outta that wall all the frigging time, but ALWAYS and ESPECIALLY when we’re having sex.  Doesn’t matter what time of day or night it is.  Knuckles The Wall Nazi is always on duty:  NO SEX FOR YOU!

One afternoon we’re getting cozy and all is pretty peaceful but then the phone rings.  Chris answers it.

Chris: “Hello?”

Knucks:  “Yes, this is the Girl Next Door.”

Chris: “The Girl Next Door?”

Knucks: “Yes, you know me.  The Girl Next Door.”

Chris: “You mean my neighbor right here in the building? The woman that always bangs on my wall?”

Knucks: “Yes.  The Girl Next Door.”

Chris: “Ummm…Ok?  And why exactly are you calling me?”

Knucks: “Please don’t start in again.  I can hear you.”

Chris: “Excuse me?”

Knucks: “I can hear you starting up again.”

Chris: “Let me get this straight.  Because I think what you’re saying is that you OBJECT to me making love to my wife?” (We weren’t married yet, but it sounded good, I guess.  Stronger bargaining point, the WIFE thing.)

Knucks: “Now please.  Don’t speak that way to me.”

Chris (voice raising):  “You listen to ME, Miss.  I pay rent for this apartment.  It is absolutely insane the way you carry on and it is none of your business when or where I make love to my wife, aside from the fact that it is completely OUTRAGEOUS that you would think you have the right to BANG on my walls at all hours of the day and night…”

Knucks (gasping): “Oh, oh, oh.  Don’t speak that way.  Don’t!” 

I can’t resist piping in at this point and I shout from across the room:

“YOU BETTER HANG ON TO YOUR  PANTIES THEN,  SISTER, BECAUSE WE AIN’T EVEN GOT STARTED YET!”

Chris cuts this short, tells Knuckles she should invest in a pair of earplugs.  He’s even helpful about it - “They got 'em down at the GENOVESE…”  before gently hanging up on her. 

She stops her shenanigans for the rest of THAT evening, but by the next morning she is up to her old tricks again.  We do our best to ignore her.  Then one day we come home from shopping.  Chris is behind me, I’m already inside putting bags down and I  hear Knuckles opening her door to speak to him privately. 

Knucks:  “Please keep it down tonight.  My hand hurts.”

Chris: “Excuse me?”

Knucks: “My hand.  From knocking because of all your noises.”

Chris: “Oh.  Hmmmm.  Well, are you just using the one hand?  Because maybe if you switch off and use the other hand now and again, you won’t wear the one hand out so bad.”

Knuckles: “I DO use both hands.  They BOTH HURT.”

Chris: “Aw.  Well, do you have a wooden spoon or even just a regular stick?  Take a nice walk up to Forest Park one of these days and pick yourself out a nice STICK.  And then use THAT.”

Can anyone in their right mind EVER question why I adore this man?

Anyhow, all told Knuckles flew the coop about a year after I got there.  It was a magical year, for sure.  Chris got the whole scoop from her (if you can call it that) a couple of days before her moving van came.  Seems she was going out to Nevada, to be in the middle of the desert.  Weird non-story:  Some relatives were shipping her out there or some damn thing. 

Chris: “So you’ll finally be happy!  You’ll be out in the middle of nowhere.”

Knucks: “Yes.  I’ll be where it’s QUIET.”

I always thought Knuckles’ departure from Richmond Hall to be mysterious and even kinda eerie.  Did she really go out to the desert to live alone among the sand dunes, armadillos and scorpions or whatever it is that crawls around out there?   I can almost picture her bumbling around in her frilly Shirley Temple outfit, painstakingly negotiating the barren wilderness, knocking on some poor unsuspecting nomad’s tent in the middle of the night to complain about the NOISE.   I wonder if they’ll be as charitable to her as we were.  (We were charitable, weren’t we?  My guilty Catholic-girl upbringing makes me wonder about that, too.)

So there you have it, BLOG pals.  A Heart-Warming Yuletide Tale, from me to you. 

A quick note to you all – firstly, to wish you a most beautiful Holiday Season and a wonderful, healthy, marvelous New Year.  And a huge THANK YOU to everyone who private-messaged me with regard to missing my BLOG posts this past week.  I feel overwhelmed and so grateful to actually be missed!  Wow! 

To paraphrase everyone’s favorite Icon of Winged Holiness:  “You like me!  You really like me!” 

  And I like yooz, too.  Merry Christmas!