my upstairs neighbor

• Mucous Guy: He gets a lot of messages from girls left on his answering machine, but I think one is his sister. He and his friend/s piss like racehorses every fifteen minutes, and oddly enough, in quick succession. He hawks up mucous as often as he pisses. He showers at some point in time between 2200-2300, when I do. In fact, he's always in the bathroom when I am, no matter how brief. It's odd.

  When he has people over, say to watch a basketball game, they get drunk and pound the floor, but it doesn't last long.

  I knocked on his door once. We live in an old building, and his sink was overflowing into mine. It was late, maybe 2300. He had a chain lock on his door, looked nervous, and wore a Beaver College sweatshirt.

• Motorcycle Guy: I've since moved (twice), and have a new upstairs neighbor. He drives a black SUV and a Suzuki motorcyle. Approximately once a fortnight he takes his shirt off to work on the bike, which gives me something better to look at than vi.

  I haven't noticed any company over, and his schedule seems erratic. He showers in the evening sometimes, and is home during the day once in a while. I have no idea what he does for a living. He was home for most of the Thanksgiving weekend, alone. I've heard him singing in the shower, and I think in his closet, because I was in my closet at the time. It wasn't discernible but it was kind of high-pitched and amusing.

  One night I heard him playing Enya, loudly; the other night it was progressive house (my favorite, actually), and he had it cranked. Typically the principle of the thing would have me pissed off, but given that it's my favorite kind of music I didn't mind. Hee.

  It's oddly comforting when he's home. I should mention that I've never met him, and wouldn't even be able to recognize him up close. Oh, I'd wager that he's gay, but it's only speculation.

I'd heard her upstairs more than a couple of times, but I'd lived in my apartment for three months before I found out what she looks like. Her name is Shelly, it turns out. I was installing that cheap Saran Wrap window insulation and needed a hair dryer; she answered the door with a drunken smile and finally allowed me to borrow hers.

When I returned it a few hours later, she was still drunk, and seemed to honestly not remember me borrowing it. She smiled and introduced herself again. She was cute, but I was involved. And sober.

Three times this past year I've called 911 because I hear yelling and stomping above my bedroom. Sometimes I hear just her, and I figure she's on the phone, but the times I've called 911 there was a male voice up there as well.

Since then, whenever I've seen her in the hallway, she always looks drunk and a little confused. About a week ago I heard her yelling "Go away" through her door to some guy, and since I was on my way out anyways, I stopped in the stairwell to see what happened.

The guy took a couple of minutes to get the message and come out to the stairs himself. We had a terse conversation. He had his shirt unbuttoned like he'd been expecting something up there, but to be honest, he wasn't the least bit attractive. He explained that she had drunk a lot of rum recently, which didn't surprise me, and that he'd come over with a six-pack of beer, because he doesn't like to get drunk himself. And other stuff like that. I've noticed that guilty people will try hard to defend themselves before you've actually accused them of anything.

The kicker was that when I returned from my errand, I heard this guy talking to his roommate from behind the door of his own apartment, just down the hall from me. About how he could see the hatred in my eyes (which was probably true; I'm not fond of men who try to take advantage of drunken women), and how I was probably the guy that called the police and had him put in jail for several days (which I didn't know had happened, but I'm glad in retrospect), and at least four or five times about what a cocksucker I was. I shrugged it off and went in through my own door. I made sure the latch was secured, just in case.

So what does a guy do in these situations? Yeah, the girl is clearly alcoholic. I don't even know what she does during the day while I'm at work. She still yells and stomps a lot, but if I only hear her voice then I let it go. I won't hesitate to call the police again if I think she's being threatened or hurt.

It's just one of those lousy situations where there's really nothing you can do to make it better or worse. I'll bet the action heroes in movies never have to worry about things like that.