When I Dip, You Dip, We Dip

Last night, when I was struggling to fall asleep and writing this blog post in my brain, I was planning to start off by noting (bemoaning, even) the elevated percentage of weirdos in New York City. But in the sober morning, that’s not exactly what I want to get at.  More accurately, there’s an elevated percentage of extreme people in the city—many of whom are not exactly weirdos—and it’s those extremeos that make this city great.  Being a happy New Yorker depends on embracing the extremeos and, if you want to get self-analytical, maybe even admitting that you’re a little extreme yourself. And just maybe that’s why you keep renewing your lease rather than moving somewhere more moderate.   

  

Living here, you start to develop an immunity to all types of people, along with all types of germs. Though still as judgmental as ever, I find myself a bit more accepting—willing to shrug things off and engage the extreme.  Last weekend, I sat listening to a woman scream about her crack pipe on the G train, waiting a full 20 minutes before thinking to switch cars.  This morning, when a surprise rain storm hit on my way to Williamsburg, I graciously accepted the offer to share the umbrella of a short Indian man wearing a suit and green Crocs.  And while I declined his subsequent offer to get dinner, I appreciated the gesture.   I’m reading Just Kids by Patti Smith, who struck up a conversation with future lover Robert Mapplethorpe on the Lower East Side, going against her suburban mother’s familiar refrain to never talk to strangers.  These things pay off (or, they don’t, and things get really bad).  

Apartment buildings in NYC are microcosmic of the city at large: you happily inhabit your space, trying your best to ignore the goings-on of those who live in similar quarters above, below or adjacent.  I have an airy, Texas-sized  apartment two blocks from Trader Joe’s, so  I happily ignore the downpour of less-ideal things going on around me.  As of late, though, my building is getting more extreme, and I’m not sure whether to ignore, embrace or make waves. 

The building and the hardware store underneath are owned by Steve, a sweaty Irish bruiser who, if he were better looking, would fit right into The Departed. Steve is an elusive landlord who does little by way of building maintenance (read: the stairs are filthy and he won’t let me on the roof), but really I can’t complain.  The apartment building has four units, one on each floor. The one directly above ours is inhabited by three boys about our age who work in sports in Manhattan.  Though not the boyfriend material I was hoping  for (convenience factor!), their only real offense is that they have a basketball hoop in their kitchen that can be loud at teacher bedtime.  Strangely, they also have five TV’s, but that really only offends my energy-consciousness.  Again, I can’t complain. 

But the bottom floor and the top floor are getting extreme.  As I was walking up the steps a few months ago, a woman with dark bangs crowding a shrewd face popped her head out of the first floor apartment, looked around suspiciously and beckoned to me.  We’d never spoken before. 

“Is everything okay?”

She rolled her eyes and shared—roughly—the following: 

“I just want to tell you girls: The man on the top floor is a maniac. He’s sick.  We’ve been feuding for years, and I’m trying to get him evicted.”  

Huh. This is less easy to ignore. This, I think, qualifies as extreme. Until now, the only things I’d really noticed about the top floor apartment was the cigarette smoke floating through the air shaft and the loud Spanglish screaming occurring at odd times of day.  

“Um, what do you mean?”

“He never lets his mother out of the apartment.  He leaves piles of rotten food on my doorstep.  And, have you noticed the napkins on the steps?”

I thought about it; I had seen some occasional napkins, but chocked it up to normal trash.  “Well…I guess I have…” 

“I put those there to cover up his piles of spit.”

“Excuse me?”

“He uses chewing tobacco, dip, and spits in the hallways to piss me off. So I keep napkins ready to cover it up—as a warning to other people. I want him to know I know, but I don’t wanna clean it up.”

That makes sense, I GUESS.

I didn’t really know what to say back. This news both is and isn’t a big deal.  I asked if she thought we were in any real danger and she responded with a vehement no.  I thanked her for the disclosure, went upstairs and relayed it as best I could to my roommates.  We agreed it was weird, disgusting and extreme but, what could we really do?  Clearly she’d already complained to Steveo and the situation didn’t warrant doing the worst thing about New York City: searching for a new apartment. 

Months passed, and I was reminded of this conversation only when I saw the tell-tale napkins bearing warnings of spit below and alerting me that things in my building were far left of normal.  

As I was walking up the steps last week, though, I saw the following sign, taped up in glaring red tape:

Grammatical errors aside, that is extreme.