part 7

It helped that the apartment was above the bakery in the middle of downtown. On quiet nights voices would echo and bounce from empty building to empty building. Storefronts, dead, bleak...uncomplaining. There were midnight football games played in the streets. Asphalt bruises and drunken grins. And there were always people at the house.

The permanent residents were Norm, Jen, Crispy and Eric the estranged. Up until now you haven't met Eric. That's because he had been banished for being crazy. I had liked him but was wary after the madness.

He had been dating a girl named Melissa who was living with my friend Martina, whom you will meet later. In passing Melissa had mentioned that she thought a certain model in a magazine looked sexy with his nipple pierced. The next day Eric showed up where she worked. His head was freshly shorn and he had a brown paper lunch bag. Silently he sauntered up to her, placed the bag in front of her and left the store without a word. Opening the bag she found it was full of trimmings. She was beginning to see. When the end finally reared above them, he had driven his car repeatedly into her house. After that he disappeared.

The names and faces that travelled through there were many and though I feel as if I would be cheating you by not telling you about them, a good number play very small parts in this story. Some have no part at all and exist solely for color. Such as Good Looking Frank, who wanted to be in the mob. Or Eskimo Dave who was a jerk but not an eskimo. He was one of those guys in high-school who probably nudged you by your locker and said, "Hey, see that girl over there? I did her. Yeah, we did it." Angry Pete told us he was a hare krishna, then he told us he was a rasta. He told us he was a Hell's Angel too, but the Angels found out and began hunting him down. Only a fool pisses off the Hell's Angels. There were others too, like Harry who owned a half-wolf. The thing could almost clear the 10' fence surrounding their backyard when he jumped. But I'm not gonna tell you about them.

I mention all these people, so that you can feel the atmosphere, charged with potential, dripping with excess, containing nothing....and everything.