I yelled at a woman today. I walked out of my apartment and yelled down the three stories as if I were yelling right into her face. I yelled, "I am A WRITER and I am trying to write A STORY."
As it is Wednesday, there is a new story over at Ribcage and it is called The Purple and Black. There would have been two stories, probably--if I didn't have to yell at a woman today.
Somebody told me that they have loft apartments, even two bedroom apartments over garages in Celebration. That they build the garages disconnected from the houses with these nice apartments above them so that the owners of the houses can offset their mortgages renting them out. That even though you'd have to deal with renting from a private owner, you'd have complete privacy, living in your own little building that just so happens to have cars driving into and out of it once a day. This guy also told me that utilities are usually included and that you can nab one for $900, even in a town so creepily nice as Celebration.
Now that we're working in Celebration and now that I yelled at a woman (the second woman we've yelled at in three weeks!)this is sounding like a pretty good living arrangement to consider.
The story about the woman is that I was trying to finish my Ribcage story today--a longer, different story than the one that I ended up posting--and past the music coming out of my stereo, I hear a car honking. And honking. And honking. I'm thinking, Just get the fuck out of your car and knock on your friend's door you lazy bitch because at this time, I'm thinking it's just somebody picking someone up. But the honking goes on for about thirty minutes.
Let me explain where I write my magical stories. I write them at my computer that is right beside the window that is overlooking the street where this stupid woman is honking her horn for thirty minutes.
I didn't yell at her yet though because her piece of shit car didn't have a very strong horn and the music coming out of my stereo could mostly drown it out.
But then she started with the motherfucking whistle. Thirty minutes of a car horn and then she has a whistle.
I turned the music off.
In between blowing the friggin' nickel plating off of that whistle, she was screaming "WHOSE CAR IS THIS?! WHOSE CAR IS PARKED IN FRONT OF MY GARAGE?!"
She blew that whistle and screamed those words from 7:00pm until 8:30 and somewhere in that hour and a half I yelled at her.
You see, these stupid apartments have stupid little garages that you have to buy for something like $80,000 to get yourself a reserved parking space. Now, this woman in her old t-shirt and silly shorts with her beat up car obviously didn't own her garage, but had most likely worked out a rental agreement with the actual owner.
There is proper procedure for the situations in which somebody may park in your silly garage space. It's that you call the overnight guard who will contact a tow truck company and that's that. She did this, so you know.
But then she continued to walk around blowing her whistle (of which I'm sure she keeps on her as a rape whistle and I could say so many things about that, but all I'll say is that there's a certain type of woman or girl that needs a rape whistle and this woman wasn't it.)
She actually walked through the halls of all the buildings on the street screaming and blowing that damn whistle. When I heard her daughter scream to her that they should break the car's window, I decided that I could no longer write my story. That I had to watch this ridiculous woman exclusively until the situation was resolved. That if either her or her daughter laid so much as a finger on this stranger's SUV, I would call the police on them. The police would shut them up, but it was still a little early to call for a noise complaint. So I would wait for them to do something to the car.
When they started stopping everyone in the parking lot to yell, "Do you know whose car this is?!" I stepped outside. Immediately, the woman's eyes shot toward me, even though she was three stories down and all the way across the street.
"Is this YOUR vehicle?!" She screamed.
"I don't own any vehicle!" I screamed back. "I don't need a vehicle, as I am a writer. I am a writer and I'm in my apartment trying to make my living over you and your damn whistle!"
"I make a living TOO!" She screamed. "When I come home from work, I need a place to park!" She was standing in an empty parking space, which I assure you is quite rare for this street. An empty parking space that was only TWO spaces over from her reserved garage space.
"What's that behind you?!" I shot back. "Park your car in that empty space, call a tow truck and you'll have your damn space back in the morning."
"NO! It's my space!" She whined. "I'm sorry that you're a writer, but maybe you can go write something about this! It'd make a great Seinfeld episode."
"But you know what would be even better than that? If I could just go and finish the story I was already writing before you started screaming through the parking lot for two hours."
Then the guy that owned the car came out and I watched her berate him for another twenty minutes.
I held my phone, waiting to call the police.
She was right though. It DID make a great story. Not a great Seinfeld episode though, as Seinfeld hasn't been produced in five years, the stupid bitch.
is a photograph I took for the Ribcage prequel book that will never be. A photograph I took in New York for my planned New York novel filled with photographs of New York at eye level and I am sticking it into a New York novel filled with photographs of New York, mostly taken at eye level.
