Player Hater

I moved into a new apartment about a month ago, and so far I don’t regret the move. The new pad is a lot bigger than my old place, it’s got a backyard garden area, and it’s convenient to many downtown destinations. I’m really quite happy with it, but I’m still getting used to the neighborhood. Every area has its own unique attractions, be it Charles Street in Beacon Hill, the restaurants of the North End or Back Bay’s ever-festive Commonwealth Avenue mall. Likewise, my new locale is a vibrant, bustling community offering everything a savvy young professional like myself could want, be it an eight-ball of crack, a couple of hookers or a dark, trash-strewn alley in which to enjoy either one.

There are upsides to living in a seedy neighborhood. For one thing, the abundance of pimps means that you never have to worry about ho’s getting out of line. I know this is true because a few weeks ago I was awakened at 4 am by a pimp reprimanding one of his employees directly outside my bedroom window. I could only hear the pimp end of the conversation, but apparently he had a problem with her productivity—a classic management dilemma. At one point he said, “I don’t care if you lookin’ sexy, you out here to make money!”

There was subsequent debate over how much money was to be made and so on, and eventually I began wondering if I would be kept up all night by this here playa’. I’d never dealt with this scenario in Beacon Hill, so I wasn’t sure how to proceed. Should I call the cops? Should I poke my head out the window and say, “Excuse me, Mr. Pimp? Would you mind keeping it down a bit? Trying to get a little shut-eye, thanks!...I’m sorry, I don’t know anyone named Joe Mama.”

Until my recent encounter, I’d always thought of pimps as fur coat–wearing individuals who drive money-green Cadillacs and wear platform shoes filled with goldfish (to reference the seminal film I’m Gonna Git You Sucka). But this pimp was just scary and probably wasn’t even wearing a comical hat. If I were his ho’, I’d be looking around for a new hustler with better people skills.

Having a lot of prostitutes in the area also makes me feel guilty whenever I’m driving around looking for a parking space. The other night I got home around midnight and ran into a traffic jam because of a drug deal going down at the end of the street. (I’m assuming that the guy in the car and the guy standing at his window were not exchanging recipes for delicious chocolate pudding.)

So I was stuck sitting there as scantily clad ladies strutted past my car and stared at me. You know you don’t live in the best part of town when you find yourself thinking, “I wish they’d hurry up with that drug deal so I could get away from these hookers.”

At least the prostitutes don’t bother me personally, which is in stark contrast to my upstairs neighbors. The people several floors above me like to party. That’s OK—I enjoy getting drunk and screaming as much as the next guy. But on a recent Saturday morning at about 3 am, roommate Scott and I were eating late-night mac and cheese and watching Old School for the 300th time when a sudden downpour erupted outside. This downpour was extremely localized; in fact, it was hitting just one of our chairs outside. Yes, some cretin upstairs was standing on the fire escape and urinating all over our things. Worse, we couldn’t get outside to take action because the deluge was directly in front of our door.

For a moment I contemplated grabbing an umbrella, braving the storm and climbing the fire escape (an idea that I can only attribute to my having consumed excessive quantities of beer at the Beantown Pub earlier in the evening), but fear of getting leaked on kept me inside until the last drop had fallen. At that point we rushed outside and screamed obscenities toward the upper floors of the building, which didn’t change the situation any but probably aggravated our neighbors who hadn’t peed all over the patio. But if my friends upstairs are reading this, I’ll have you know that we’ve wired the fire escape with 110-volt AC current, and if you pee on our chairs again you will be electrocuted through your johnson.

My neighborhood might be the model for Liberty City in Grand Theft Auto 3, and my fellow residents might think my backyard is a bathroom, but I’ve now got a bedroom that’s big enough for me to approach the bed from either side, and that’s pretty sweet. ∂