My brother and I recently moved into a duplex on the outskirts of St. Paul. We live above a family of four. We share doors in the front and in the back. Two weeks after moving in I still had not seen a single person of this alleged “family,” although I could occasionally smell their cooking. A heavy smell of garlic would flood the bathroom occasionally while I was showering. The potency of the aroma was… incredible. I left those showers clean, refreshed, and with a strong urge for marinara sauce (either to consume or dip myself in, I was unsure.)
Sometime during the third week of our residence, my brother meets me in the kitchen.
“Have you met the people downstairs yet?”
“No.”
“They’re Weird.”
Apparently he had been bumping into them every single time he went “out back.” This confused me because there was nothing “out back” but a small patch of grass and a gravel parking area.
My brother (and I) had occasion to go “out back” only in order to re-enter the house on the other side. Our laundry is located in the basement, and although it is not shared, the entrance to it is on their side. This means you have to exit the house, walk to the other door, re-enter the house, possibly bump into an exiting Weird, and go downstairs.
But what on earth a family of four would be doing “out back,” (allegedly all together at once,) was a question that confounded the mind.
Within fifteen minutes of this conversation I met three of the four Weirds.
I was carrying more empty boxes down into the basement laundry room. I bumped into Mother Weird and the Weird son coming out of their place.
“Hello!”
“Hi there! You must be Eric. We met your brother Chris yesterday.”
“Oh ok, cool.”
“Nice car!”
“Ah! Yes, thanks.”
I hate talking about my car.
At this point the son, probably around 17, big and tall with glasses and a buzz cut, says:
“YEAH. That’s a NICE ONE.”
His cadence is quick, but his voice is thick and dull. Hearing it was like being hit in the face, out of nowhere, with a pillow. SURPRISE. I didn’t know whether to laugh or panic.
“My daughter loves your car.”
Not knowing how to respond in the friendly nonsense conversation way, I respond awkwardly:
“Well! Don’t uh… tell her not to steal it because… it’s the only car I have! … Ha.”
Mother Weird just looks at me blankly as we stand in awkward silence, within 24 inches of one another in the doorway. I thought I had won the Most Inane Usage of The Faculty of Speech Award, but then she responded:
“If she stole it she’d have to get a job!”
The forced laughter quickly dies. Then:
“So you like Evanescence?”
To answer Yes would be to lie.
“Uh, … yeah. Sure.”
“I told my daugher about the big poster you have. She loves Evanescence. She’s so jealous.”
We’re in kind of a strange area here because I have no idea where this woman got her information. So I smile, bid them farewell and continue downstairs.
Coming back up I meet Father Weird and the son working on the son’s bike. I walk over to introduce myself.
“Having bike trouble?”
“Mmmmreyeahh… what do you know about bikes?”
“Nothin’.”
“Damn!”
It’s not going well.
“My name’s Eric, just moved in upstairs.” We shake hands.
“Jon. That’s a nice car!”
“Oh. Thanks.”
“Yeah here’s mine,” he says, gesturing to the large conversion van in the gravel lot. It is maroon, with a raised roof and a shredded, peeling window decal in the rear for a personal transportation company.
“They gave me this while the other van is in the shop.”
“Ah! I see.”
“Yeah, right now I’m making about ten an hour which is nice, you know, driving people back and forth, but it’s not great. I’ve been doing it for quite some time now but really I’m hoping to get involved in a sales job here pretty soon, hopefully make some more money…”
His son is the spitting image of him, except Weird Sr. has a goatee and a bit more girth.
“… yeah, hopefully, that’ll be nice. What do you do?”
“I’m uh… a software engineer.”
“Oooh! Bet you make some good money?”
This conversation has taken a turn for the innappropriate, and I hit the Eject button.
“Well, you know. Bosses will never pay you what you’re worth. It’s how they stay in business!”
“AIN’T THAT THE TRUTH!”
I back away smiling and retreat upstairs. Later I see Father Weird ride/wobble-on-by down below in the yard. His unseen son yells at him:
“YEAH WORKS REAL WELL DAD — YA STUPID.”
Days later, I again come upon Mother Weird and the son outside. Allegedly there is a Daughter Weird, who remains alluringly aloof. I greet them as I proceed downstairs to deposit some boxes of junk. The mother stops me, saying:
“Did your brother talk to you?”
“Um, no. What’s up?”
“Well we just wanted to tell you, you don’t have to be quiet.”
“Oh? What do you mean?”
“You don’t have to be quiet. Don’t worry about us.”
“Well we aren’t going to be rowdy or anyth…” I start to reassure her, but am cut off.
“You have to live too! Don’t worry about it.”
“We aren’t really loud peop…”
“It’s fine, don’t worry.”
This back and forth sort of “You don’t worry.” “No you don’t worry.” conversation went on even longer before I decided mentally ok this is odd, why are we arguing about this, and furthermore, why do I give a fuck? She’s giving me free reign here.
“Ok, cool. I won’t worry about it.”
I then meet the son, who is coming out the shared door. The previous evening I had heard the plink-plunk of someone pawing with dull lust at an acoustic guitar, coming up through the duct. I say hello and inquire if he was the artist behind those unique melodic stylings.
“Nah, no, I’m not much of a GUITAR GUY. THAT’S MY SISTER.”
“Oh? What are you into?”
“COOKING.”
“Nice.”
“Yeah. I’m a CHEF AT A RESTAURANT.”
“Ah! What kind?”
“ITALIAN.”
“Mmm, good stuff. Maybe I’ll have to come by sometime.”
“YEAH. Yeah, that would be GOOD.”
Indeed.
Later:
“Hey, did you tell the neighbors downstairs that I liked Evanescence?”
“What? No.”
“You didn’t tell them I had a huge Evanescence poster?”
“No, why the heck would I do that?”
“Dunno.”
Fast forward now, almost two months later. The air has turned cold, and there is less chance of running into the Weirds outside in the gravel lot. I had gone downstairs with a basket of laundry earlier, only to forget to carry a pile of newly-purchased underwear down as well. Returning back down and outside, large wad of underwear in my hand, I see Father Weird coming out of the shadows in the gravel lot near the maroon van.
“Hey there!”
“Hello! How’s it going?”
“Not bad, just got back from a sales meeting.”
“New job?”
“Well, yeah, possibly. It’s a kind of multi-tiered sales group.”
Oh no. I’m about to get invited to join into a pyramid scheme, I think. This will now be the third time in my life someone has tried to get me involved in one of these Enterprises of Damnation. I freeze like a deer in headlights, unable to react.
“Hey!” Jon says, as if the idea is just coming to him, “your brother, Chris is it? He’s in sales isn’t he?”
“Yes.” It’s true. He works for Comcast.
“This is something he might be interested in.”
For no explicable reason I ask “What’s it… about.”
“It’s air purifiers. No more than twenty pounds.”
(He pantomimes what I take to be a ‘twenty pound cube’.)
“They clean the air, they are a thunderstorm in a room.”
This is the selling line, the golden phrase he has taken from the meeting. Unfortunately for his awkward sales pitch instead of getting visions of freshness and rejuvenation, I get the opposite: a vision of a room with soggy carpets, peeling paint, and ruined electronics spattered with mud and wet leaves.
“The smell of air after a thunderstorm! In a room!”
“Heh!”
“Before the smog rolls in.”
We share a laugh. I make sure not to drop any underwear on the deck.
“So you just started this?”
“Well I need to save up some… capital, before I can get started.”
Groan. The buy-in. You poor, soon-to-become-poorer man.
“Have to buy your own initial stock, huh?”
“Yeah, exactly.”
We enter the house on the shared side. I walk down the stairs with my underwear. He calls after me:
“So I’ll be in touch.”
“Oh yeah?”
“About the thing.”
“Right!”
Maybe I can buy one for the bathroom to keep the garlic smell at sub-noxious levels.
