Noise Through The Walls (DS1)

It was about 1994 and I was moving on from John. I was going to a gig at a bar on top of a highrise at the Uni. I sat with some aquaintences, Nen and his friend Dan. Dan started to flirt with me, he bent a paperclip into a croude ring and put it on my finger. I thought this was cute, and he seemed to have a good sense of humor and liked that I had a horse and pets.

Our first date was my brother's wedding reception. I don't remember the wedding itself. I was excited that I would have a sister, something I've longed for.

Dan and I became inseperable. He was working at the time at a drive through, and I'd give him a rose instead of paying.

Some people told me that they didn't like him and that they saw bad signs in him. I didn't see anything, so I was confused why they would say such things. I asked what they meant and they wouldn't say anything, as if it was blatently obvious. It wasn't.

I mean, his sense of humor was dorky and self-flattering and sometimes obnoxious, but that described 99% of all guys I'd met. It Just seemed normal.

We'd stay up all night and eat tortillas and watch (old) Dr. Who and Red Dwarf and infomercials till dawn broke, things were very simple and straight foreward compared to John. I wasn't stunned by his intellect and knowledge, he was a pretty straight foreward guy.

Someties he'd make up weird anecdotes to puff himself up, but I didn't mind. One was something about him working in a pharmacy and a woman had an asthma attack at the front of the store and her lips were turning blue and so he ran to the back of the pharmacy and vaulted the counter and grabbed some ventalin and administered it to the poor, semi conscious woman and saved the day. He saved the day a lot, but I didn't care, it just seemed to be a cute harmless quirk.

At the time I was living on 107th Ave, a nasty part of town with lots of drugs and crime. I was very fed up with the landlords, who had installed screen windows in such a way that it would take an Exacto knife to enter my apartment, and I had an ex, Brian, that had been stalking me. He kept climbing up on the hood of my car onto my patio and trying to get in my place that way. In that area, the police didn't care.

I had neighbours that would have loud, obnoxious parties with plenty of shouting, fighting, banging around and lots of loud sex. Frequently I'd hear women, their girlfriends, I assumed, shouting back at them and the banging and sex would ensue. Calling the police on a late night noise complaint was futile, it didn't matter in that area.

I was working to the East at the new College as a lab assistant in the Biology lab. The lab job was great, in addition to taking care of the animals, I got to do cool things like hatch praying mantids, and stay late drawing and painting specimens. It was the best job I'd ever had, I could set up the class, go fro a swim in the pool and come back in time to tear down the lab and set up the next class and go to my own class. In addition I was  doing a diploma in Psych to get closure on John's death. I thought I was handling it pretty well, it was 2 years ago. Dan came to my work and I let him in the lab. He wanted to "move another step in the relationship" and move in together. I told him I'd think about it. Something made me a little apprehensive. He seemed to nag about it a lot.

Everyone said not to do it. No one would explain why. I didn't get it. One friend, who I'd been crushing on for years, warned me away from him. I told him if this is a jealosy thing to let me know before I made a real commitment. He said it wasn't like that.

One night the fighting and partying was much louder and more intense than other nights. I put my pillow over my head but it still didn't muffle the sound. I tried the police again. The tired dispatcher said the would send someone out, but "it might be a while". I knew by then that meant no one was coming. Somehow I managed to drift off.

The next day I was finishing an old guitar for a fixer upper that someone had given me, the laundry room was a great place to do woodworking as long as I wasn't too loud (the irony was not lost) and I cleaned up the shavings and sawdust after. The landlord came in the laundry room and asked if I'd heard any strange noises last night. I told him that it was the same as every weekend, shouting and sex and banging, same as I'd told him before. I guess they went too far that time, turned out that one of the brothers had OD'd on coke that night and died. It was hookers they were bringing in the apartment, and something had gone wrong.

This was bad. The death was too close, too close to John and I couldn't stand it. The next week when I was staying late painting in the lab and Dan came by and brough up the topic of moving in together I said "Ok, let's get a house in Rossdale, I always wanted to live near the Folk Festival." And so it began.

We rented a little 2 story wartime house just a block from the Folk Fest Entrance. It was going to be awesome. Things were looking up.