11812 Barcelona Lane, room #252, was my address for the first ten years of my adult life. The city of Chaldea, within which I lived, sat just below the cool air of the northeast-states, and just above the dry of the southeast— In the summer, my room was so hot that I would sweat to the point of shriveling if I were to sleep beneath a blanket; in the winter, I’d have frozen without one. The building’s air conditioning would work maybe a month or two out of the year, if we were lucky. The walls were thin, and the doors groaned on their ancient hinges, On the second floor of that detestable complex, my dingy studio rotted.
The neighbors and I made no attempts to socialize. We hid our faces and turned them to the ground when we passed each other on the narrow staircases, which creaked as if the whole building could crumble from a simple step. Every resident was just as haggard and impoverished as the next; but animosity spread through the building, like vines up a wall. Maybe the heat and cold got to us, or the scent of unseen mold beneath the drywall, but we hated each other, without a real reason to do so. None of us could afford anywhere better to live, and I think that made the situation worse. We were trapped together for the foreseeable future; at least that’s how it seemed at the time. We all suffered through the same unfortunate lives, thinking in our heads that we were somehow better than the others— those poor sons of bitches who lived downstairs where the mice slink in the walls, or those above where the wind breaks between the windowpanes. I’m better than them, because the only exclusive issue I have is the leakage from my sink and the faulty washer. Each resident thought the same thing, supplementing their own issue in place of mine; we never spoke about these mutual feelings, but they were known by all. A neighbor might as well have been an alien; their room, another world. I think in the time predating the events of this story, I only ever spoke a line or two to any of them: “Excuse me, sir/ma’am,” as I squeezed through the hall, ducking my head below the low-hanging lights, or, “I apologize,” if I bumped them in doing so. That was just how we operated for years and years; until some newcomers moved into two of the vacant apartments; one directly above my room, the other underneath.
We— all the tenants, I mean —knew they were coming; one doesn’t miss moving trucks outside a building such as this one. All of us had been living there for years at that point without anyone coming through, so having anyone new appear was an oddity; especially when two appeared at the same time. It was unheard of. The foremost question on my mind then, and likely yours now, is, “Why, after seeing the state of the building, would these people move in?” Well, that’s simple enough, if you have any prior knowledge about the economic situation within Chaldea. The reason I, my neighbors, and the newcomers moved into such a decrepit complex, was the price. Nobody who signs their lease is under any false belief that the place is any more comfortable than it seems, despite the quite decent sales job the owners perform— but the alternatives aren’t great, especially those in the budget of young people and expats. The newcomers happened to be the latter.
By the time I first interacted with either of them, several months had already passed since their moves. Every time I had seen someone new settle down in the complex, that had been more than enough time for the entrapment of their situation to settle in, and for the behavior of the other tenants to rub off. But, for the man who moved in above me, that wasn’t the case. One day, after returning from work— I’m an auto-mechanic, but that’s fairly irrelevant to the narrative —we chanced to enter the building at the same time. I’d never seen the man before, and that’s why I recognized him immediately as one of my new neighbors.
“Hello, sir,” he said, holding the door open for me. When he did, I found myself almost stunned; a gesture such as that hadn’t been acted out within that buildings’ walls for years up until that point. Common courtesy generally left us long ago, and I hesitated to accept his offer. I did, though, managing to mutter a, “Thank you,” as I passed, doing my best to avoid eye contact and further conversation, but he didn’t catch my signals.
“You wouldn’t happen to be Mr. Brown, would you?”
“I am, yes.”
“I thought so! Some of your mail occasionally gets tossed in with mine— I noticed your uniform matched the logo. I live right above you, so I suppose they get the first digit messed up.”
I had been greatly concerned at his knowing my identity, but that somewhat dissipated after his explanation. Only somewhat.
“I’ve kept all of that mail. Would you like to come over to pick it up, or shall I bring it to you?”
Tired from work and this rare conversation, I instinctually spat out, at a volume that was regrettably loud, “No, no! I’m… quite busy now. Perhaps another time.”
“Oh, alright then. Well, I’ll be in my room all night, if you change your mind. Room #352, of course. Just knock.”
At that, he went upstairs, and I kept walking alone. When I entered my apartment, I locked both the latch and the chain.
The interaction stayed on my mind all night, and into the next day. I had no reason to decline the offer; I needed the mail. Only those community conventions kept me hesitant. It sounds ridiculous looking back on it now, but those unspoken rules of the complex demanded great respect. Nobody spoke to each other; and especially, nobody invited anybody into their rooms; would Lysander offer Pericles in for tea? As much as we had in common, and as much potential friendship laid dormant, nobody broke those rules. Until that man, and until myself.
The next night following our interaction, because of the want for my possessions, and a curiosity for what might happen after shattering convention, I wound up at the man’s door. Up the creaking and musty staircase, I trudged for the first time, expecting to see a hall filled with cobwebs or piled bodies; but it was identical to mine. Peeling yellow walls, dark brown wainscots, and the constant smell of water damage. Not an inviting setting to most, but in me, it brought about a partial relief.
Just as I would to my own door— they were in the same spots in their respective hallways —I grabbed the handle, almost forgetting to knock. Thunk. Just one tap of the knuckle was all I offered; so quiet as to not be discernible from the typical bangings that sounded off and on throughout the night and echoed through the shoddy walls. Being already past midnight, I was hoping that maybe the gesture would fall unheard, and I could use the excuse of, “Well, I tried!” to head back to the safety of my room, but the newcomer was unfortunately either extremely astute in his hearing, or not yet accustomed to the usual sounds of the night. Just as my hand touched the wood, a rustling from inside marked his excited answer. He answered the door with a smile on his face, and beckoned me inside.
“I knew you’d come around! Your, ah—” he gestured the mug he was holding towards a stack of paper on a table, “—your mail’s over there.”
I stood in the doorway, looking around his apartment, not registering his words. It was very normal; in fact, it made mine look abnormal. Where he had wooden, padded chairs with hand crafted, twisting legs, I had stained, uncushioned hand-me-downs; his walls held all sorts of superb paintings, all numbered and signed; only plain wallpaper showed on mine. His kitchen glowed in the light of fragrant candles; all the metal open to air was polished and silver, where mine rusted. It was a shock that such a room could exist in such a grossly decrepit building.
I gathered my mail after a time, and afterwards looked around saying nothing, taking in the room’s simple elegance again, when my host said, “I was hoping you’d stay for a drink?” My answer internally was what you might expect from me, but my mouth ignored the decision, and said, “Oh, ok.”
He opened a bottle of wine; a nice red; and said, “You’re the first neighbor to visit since I moved; I’ve been saving this for the occasion.” He poured two generous glasses and handed one to me. I hated wine, but on a night where my comfort zone had been already decimated, I took it without complaint and drank. Then, I said, “People here aren’t very welcoming.”
“I noticed. That’s why I go out of my way to greet everyone I meet.”
“So, it wasn’t just me?”
“No, but you’re the first to take me up on my offer; though I suppose that’s probably not because of my friendliness.” He laughed and looked at the now bagged stack of mail sitting at my side.
“Sorry. It’s just the way things are around here.” I couldn’t help but smile a little.
That single glass of wine felt bottomless. While we drank, we talked about a great deal, and when I left, I left well acquainted with the man, who I discovered was named Giovanni Robson. He was a Canada man, just come down from Toronto for work; his accent didn’t differ much from most north-easterners I had met, so I suspected nothing until being told. 32 years old, never married, never owned property, and never visited the states prior to his move. If some hesitancy didn’t remain in me then, I would have admitted on the spot, to his face, that we were quite similar men. But that wine wasn’t enough to force something like that out of me. I intended to leave with nothing but a firm handshake and a nod, but Giovanni, before I could leave, said, “Nice meeting you, Mr. Brown. Maybe come again another time?”
Following the trend of the day, my body still acted of its own accord. “Of course. Thank you very much for the drink, and for keeping my mail safe.”
“It’s no problem at all. Have a good night.”
“Yourself.” I nodded again, put my hat on my head, and left.
Giovanni and I would become friends in the future, but I wouldn’t place the starting point for that relationship then, nor in our subsequent few meetings in the weeks to follow; all the time I still refrained from committing my full consciousness to our interactions. My prior decade of isolation restricted me from doing so, even if I wanted nothing else but to. Someone with many friends could never really understand the feeling; talking to someone in the intimacy of their home, to one unaccustomed to the act, could not feel more initially strange. No comforting words can snap someone out of it; the only thing that can thaw that ice is to keep talking, and we did. The next time I came to his home was two weeks later— after that, one week, so on and so forth, until we chatted almost every day. I felt like a new man, and that sentiment wasn’t entirely wrong. His attitude had thoroughly rubbed off on me until people at work and in locations that I frequented took notice. My new openness spread, and soon it didn’t stop at just Gio; as I had come to call him. Instead of just passing by other tenants in the complex, I started to look them in the eyes; or even speak to them on some occasions. Not yet starting full conversations, but general greetings such as, “Hello”, “Nice day today,” and the like. One day, a few months after my first interaction with Giovanni, one of those greetings chanced to fall on the other previously mentioned new denizen.
Unlike Gio, this new tenant wasted no time in their adaptation. We met in the same way that I met Gio, both returning from work at the same time. It was a rainy day, and I saw him coming from a cab, holding a bag above his head to shield himself from the water; I held the door open, and as he approached in his half-jog, I said, “Hi. How about the wea—” A vitriolic side eye glazed over me as he passed, stopping the words in my throat. Instead of walking through the open door I held, he opened the other, ignoring me with every part of his body but the eyes. I don’t know how else to say it, other than this; I was appalled. Just a few weeks before, I wouldn’t have felt a thing after such an interaction; but I had changed. It stung. Later that night, I couldn’t help but vent those feelings to Gio.
“—and he just walked right by me! Like I wasn’t even there! My uniform got soaked, and he just walked right by me!”
“Well, I…” For the first time ever, I noticed Gio hesitant to state something on his mind.
“What is it?”
“That’s more or less how you seemed when we first met.”
I thought about that for a moment. “You’re right.”
“With that being said admitted, you have two directions you can take this.”
“And what are those?”
“You can either reciprocate that disrespect and let him soak next time; or you can do as I did with you and force him to be your friend. Though you won’t have an excuse as good as mine was.” He laughed heartily, and we kept on drinking our wine.
A few minutes of tipsy chat went by before I brought the subject back around. “What do you think I should do if I try again to make friends with him?”
“Well, that’s hard to say since I haven’t met the guy… come up with some reason for meeting. Whatever you choose doesn’t really matter, as long as you wind up in a conversation. It’s easy from there. Go with what feels right.”
Though I’d never met the man before that very day, it didn’t take long until our next meeting. I only had to wait for the next morning.
I had to come up with an excuse for our meeting; Gio had an infallible one, having my mail. I didn’t hold any such ace.
I didn’t even know fully myself why I wanted so badly to meet the man; it went against a decade of learned behavior.
“Gio, why, other than the mail, did you offer me into your home that day?”
“Why not? I think its perfectly natural to want to find friends. That’s just human nature. Even if the person is standoffish at first, I’ve come to find that to be an act most of the time— It was with you.”