Everybody Needs Someone...
"Everybody needs someone ....
"Everybody needs someone to Love Thaam. Everybody needs someone
to love them." Every morning as I left my back door onto the
porch , there he was crooning. I thought he might scare the
birds away but he attracted them instead. It took me 2 years of
chucking quarters at them to get them to go away. Well he
brought them back and they were pooping everywhere once again.
Even in his apartment, they sure were. The man left his window
open all the time with boxes of corn flakes and cat food sitting
on the ledge. If it was not bird shit it was cornflakes I was
cleaning up. This man loved birds so much that he carried a dead
sparrow in his pocket. "Hello this is my friend" he would say as
he held a bird in his palm. with its neck dangling to and fro.
Man, talk about bird brained.
One day I came back from my trip from Jersey to find that my
battery was dead. Someone broke in and played car. You know
turned the head lights on, turn the wheel, vroom vroom noises,
the whole works. Nothing stolen, just well hidden. See I thought
someone had stole my bracket for my leaf-springs. No, but I did
find them a year later stuffed under my seat. The man killed my
battery and left my hydraulic jack in the rain. It seized. He
just got in, flashed the lights and wipers and said ok!
If it was not bird shit or corn flakes it was broken railing
posts and empty beer cans. For there was my other neighbor who
kept mixing pot and alcohol. Not good. For next thing he knew he
was punching moving cars. In the front grills. In one of his
visits to the seventh floor, Joe the singing bird man would sit
in the hallway and communicate with him through the closed door.
Every morning for a week. See Bill was gone that week and was
not to return for another three. But that did not phase Joe from
not having these conversations. " I know you Might not like me,
but you could talk to me." But Joe did have some friends, I
think? One morning through my door I heard two voices, I think,
planning their days intinary. The one said to the other or
himself, that they should become freedom fighters for the day.
Free themselves, or himselfs, from reality that is!
"Everybody needs someone to Love them" and sharp left kick and
he is into the girls apartment below mine. He has been
serenading these girls from outside their window now for a week.
He thought it was time to make his move. They just put their
hand on his forehead and just pushed back and slammed the door.
Crazy maybe, but harmless.
We were sitting in Bills kitchen when Niagara falls hit. Drips
were falling on our heads and hands. The cards were starting to
stick togethor. We looked up and seen traces of yellowish brown
line streak across the ceiling exposing every joint between
sheet rock. Then came the rain, cubicles of water fell through
dividing his kitchen into sixths. We knocked on Joe's door. We
asked him to turn off the water.
"But mister, I am paranoid of water."
"Can you just turn it off !"
"Once I was walking through a park, and it was only raining on
me."
"Yeah, but can you turn the water off."
"I am paranoid of water"
"Come down and you can see the water falling."
"I don't want to fight you mister"
"No just come see the water, I already invited you to have a
beer"
"No mister, I am afraid of water."
Then he was gone, apartment left for the birds. The biggest and
most expensive apartment in the joint, bird shitted. Out lived
his usefulness and his Veteran checks. Off to sunnydale farms.
Just another insurance check collected for the landlord. In came
the second hand white wash and the new neighbors. Rent raised
and money saved on renovations, Land lord was doing well. But
what about Joe? He served his purpose. Fought someone else's
battle and lost his own. Battled the tenancy levels of the
state. Endowed the landlord full of property claims. But what
about Joe? He just wanted someone to love him. That's all.