Patio Update: Breaking the Fourth Wall

If you know my friend A.T. - and if you're from Sacramento, there's a better-than-average chance that you do - you know a few things about him. You know he loves the color orange to a level that borders on unnatural. You know that his booming radio/carnival barker/game-show host voice can be heard anywhere up to including three quarters of a mile from his present location. And you also know that it's impossible to NOT meet A.T. if you walk anywhere within about a half-block of him. People are drawn into his orbit like so much helpless space debris, powerless to resist being dazzled by his infectious extrovert nature. He will make eye contact. He will say "hi" to you, no matter who you are - man or woman, young or old, Republican or Democrat, it matters not. And from that one simple syllable, you will find yourself - unable to really explain why - having made a new best friend and adding him to your Facebook list, your MySpace list, your cell phone address book, and likely making plans to go out clubbing with him over the weekend to introduce him to your OTHER friends. He is a force of nature, a pied piper of social networking.

So it really should have been no surprise to me when, after A.T. arrived at my apartment to stay a few days with me, he was already on a first-name basis with CGWI before, literally, he had even gotten in my door.

After all my months of chronicling her adventures - viewed and heard (by no choice of mine) from this patio - I had never even spoken a word to her. This is not the A.T. way. I knew that her name was Kayla from the wonderful high-volume arguments with her thick-headed ex. A.T. knew this, now, from introduction. I knew that it seemed strange to me that she was able to get away with all the fights, the open-window THX-quality sex, and, most curiously, the endlessly yapping little dog in a complex that, to my understanding, doesn't allow pets, all without reprisals. A.T., between his car and my welcome mat, had found out the reason why.

Her father OWNS this complex.

NOW it all makes sense...

While I've never met Daddy Landlord personally, he and I have a history. When I first moved into this place, five years ago, it was because my friend Theresa worked for this man, a man who owns two or three complexes, in addition to other holdings, and she knew that there was an apartment open here. I turned out to be eternally indebted to Theresa for this, because I fell in love with the coincidentally handicapped-accessible unit, and it's turned out to be the best place I've ever had. There was a bit of a problem in my first months here, though, and that centered in my oft-drunk apartment manager, a chronically blunt lady who takes no crap but dishes it liberally if any of her numerous and varied rules are broken. I've seen, for example, her have cars towed at 1:00 in the morning on a Friday night for parking in the office parking spaces - an office that's closed all weekend so no one would need to use that parking until the following Monday anyway. When I first moved in and had friends over visiting on my patio (my friends are not quiet), she stumbled over and scolded me like a child on the need for silence right in front of them.

This manager (who seems to have stopped the drink in the past couple of years, I feel the need to add, as I applaud her doing so) is very aware of all the goings-on in her complex. Creepily so. Anytime anyone would come to visit me, she'd appear from the nether before they could reach my apartment and ask who they were and who they were coming to see. One could see this is a bonus - and in my glass-half-full way of thinking, I tried to - as it meant security was always going to be top-notch in my new home. But her obsessions went beyond visitors and spread to me. I found this out when Theresa - who had to deal with the manager on the phone on a daily basis for her job - would relate to me how Rental Unit Hitler would relay details of my life, from what time I came home to how I had boxes stacked up just inside my front door to how I'd remodeled the closet (added a hanging shelf unit so I could reach my stuff) without permission, etc. She had opinions on my friends who visited. She had opinions on my housekeeper and the exact amount of time she spent in my apartment, which clearly wasn't enough to be doing the job properly so she must be ripping me off. Yes, the irony of my blogging on my neighbors is not lost on me, here. But back then, knowing that she was watching every detail of my life - and griping about it - was getting on my nerves. As were some interactions I had with her when I was not yet used to her near-complete lack of social skills. I made these feeling known to Theresa.

One day Theresa's boss was griping about this manager, and how she had angered a real estate inspector who was supposed to be writing something up on this property, and Theresa decided to mention my problems I'd been having. Daddy Landlord, caught at the exact wrong moment, went ballistic. He got on the phone, called the complex, and started screaming at the manager, telling her to leave me alone, stay out of my way, etc. As he didn't want the manager to know that Theresa had said anything, he decided to tell her that I had called him and complained myself.

Wow. Thanks.

I found this out when Theresa called me a few minutes after at my office to warn me, and to apologize for inadvertently setting all this off. Now, suddenly, I - a guy who goes ridiculously out of his way to avoid conflict with anyone - had a major problem with my apartment manager, who now thought that I was ratting her out and trying to get her fired. To say I was stressed for a while was to understate most impressively.

But the good news in that front is that, with time, all that faded away, and I've had nothing but a great relationship with my manager ever since, having learned her personality and how to deal with an accept her (and which buttons NOT to push), and she's been nothing but a help to me in the past four years. But I learned, through my conversation with Theresa that day, what a terror her boss could be, how he often flew off the handle and started yelling at people, and what an unpleasant guy in general he was, per her opinion.

And now I knew that CGWI was his daughter. Suddenly, her daddy issues that I'd heard of through her loud outdoor phone calls all made sense.

So last night A.T. and I were relaxing on the patio, sometime after 1:00 AM, after the rest of my company had gone home. As we talked, we heard people approaching. It turned out to be CGWI, her current boyfriend, and another (very attractive) girl. Their volume and manner suggested they were just coming home from a night of drinking. As they passed, CGWI spotted us, stopped, turned, and, friendly-as-you-please, said hello. Once more, the A.T. spell had proved irresistible, and now, after one brief conversation with him, she thought of him as an old friend. She let the others go on to the apartment and started talking to us. She mentioned that the other girl had just moved in with her - this, by the way, was my final evidence that she was not, as reported, planning to move out anytime soon (and why would she? It was clear now, due to her father, that she had no reason to and certainly wouldn't be getting kicked out). She started talking about her dog, in fact, and hoped that I wasn't one of the people that the dog had bothered. I, of course, lied and said that I wasn't. She said that a neighbor lady had even moved due to the dog (not much question, I guess, about which one of them was going to lose THAT fight, huh?). She told me, at that point, that her father owned the complex, and I wisely decided not to mention my story concerning him and how much of a prick people seemed to think he was.

She then, out of the blue, asked if we played poker, and said that they play at her place every Wednesday night. She said she thought she'd seen me playing poker on my laptop from her window once (she hadn't). Her boyfriend is apparently quite addicted to it, and she's gotten quite good herself. And she invited us to come join them when they play. I, of course, did not mention the fact that she lives on the second floor, but she picked up on that pretty quick, and added, "Or we could come down here". A.T., of course, thought this would be a great idea, and told her so. This, of course, being A.T. She went back upstairs after saying good-bye and giving the poker invitation again.

So, thanks to A.T.'s mysterious Jedi powers, I have now finally met CGWI. I'm amused by how different my personality is from A.T.'s. I, the introvert, avoids eye contact with neighbors and doesn't feel the need to ever meet them. A.T., my social opposite, could never imagine not meeting all his neighbors and making friends with them. He's moving into an apartment complex next week, and I guarantee by the end of the week he won't be able to walk through it without getting a "Norm!" response on a daily basis. He is the very definition of a people person, an enviable state of being.

Of course, now the fourth wall has been broken here, and suddenly I'm faced with the possibility of the people who are the untouchable terrors of the complex coming to MY place to hang out? How would this, I wonder, reflect on me and the people around me? What if CGWI and the new beau start screaming insults at each other in my kitchen, or sneak off to my bathroom for absurdly vocal carnal knowledge? Or, better yet, what if the immediate worst-case scenario that came to mind once she began speaking to me comes to pass:

1) A.T. befriends her, bringing her into my life.

2) She gets just close enough to find out about my blog and looks it up and reads it.

3) She finds out that I've been detailing her life and love-sounds for the world to enjoy.

4) She calls daddy, and I find a not-surprising eviction noticed taped to my front door?

Time will tell. One wonders, though - is cozing up to the daughter of the owner a mistake, or a smart way to guarantee continued residency, an armor-plating from any future apartment manager complaints of my actions?

Yes, time will tell.

I mentioned that her new roommate is really hot, right?