Just East Off Main

4 a.m. and the cat belts out another ballad on the balcony for whoever is coming home late from work. It pleases him, his voice—his audience of unsuspecting east end dwellers. It’s the full-moon fueled spring-tour. Sausage sings the blues! He perches himself atop the railing outside my bedroom and if his latest love song doesn’t drag me out of slumber, perhaps the early bird rummaging through the bin below will. I slide open the window and throw a growl at him which only resembles his medley. He stops, looks at me with irritation. I have interrupted his show--his worldly expression. I turn back…and he waits…waits…until that moment when I am almost back…just about there…and he starts up again. Renewed vigor.

These days I live on the other end of the neighborhood to which I initially moved. I only lasted a year. My neighbors there scared me to death. Their domestic disputes were as in vogue as the johns parked out back. Never really a stranger to the city, nor sheltered enough to think monsters only exist in fairytales, each night in bed I still anticipated their attack. They would scratch their way through my walls. I’d wake to the lot of them, all staring down at me with their black eyes--claws as hands, lifeless smiles--a carefully inserted rubber tube draining me silently of blood….

Fate had it I survived, and now dwell in a…humble building, some twenty-odd years old, just east off Main St. There are four of us: my roommate, her Kitty, and good ole’ Jezebel--always eager, and always so giving! Just down the stairs and outside the front door awaits a haven of markets, restaurants, bars (just one worthy of mention; of course) and coffee shops… so much coffee that it will rot your gut until you give birth to your very own bean farmer. Those smoking crack in the alleys add to the finish and are there to fulfill whichever addiction hasn’t yet been satisfied. It is eclectic in nature. All the countries of the world on one eighteen block stretch.

Six stories tall, mine is the fifth. The top floor consists of two penthouse suites, both with huge patios overlooking the distant downtown core. We are not far. Ten minutes away? Once you cross the bridge, any one of them, just a left on Broadway and east for a bit until you pass Main. You will see it…The Wylland Estates. On your right… the street with all the big, looming trees.

Suite 527. We are the corner-end, one of those big trees hanging above our balcony, above the garbage directly below. In the evening, we get the last bit of the sun’s rays… stretching out as far as they can to give us some loving. This is the end of the building where most noise complaints are directed. If we are home, chances are our music is loud and echoing past all the other apartments. The boys and their girlfriends above us, the constantly exchanging occupants to the left of us, the karaoke crazed couple one floor down and to the right of us, the sports enthusiasts across from us, and, of course, us two plus the cat…all compete for ownership of the corner. Jezebel remains a silent witness. Together we all share an understanding. If the party keeps you up, it acts as an open invitation to join...your first beer on the house. Sometimes the parties will merge and the cat will run away and hide.

Somehow though, Suite 527 has not once received a single complaint. Ours have always been re-routed around us, perhaps to the hot deck above us, which by now has been hit with dozens of eviction warnings. We, as far as our landladies are concerned, have a halo protecting our 990 square feet. We are angels, of course--pure and innocent (and holier than thou!)

I have heard many things…. Raccoons fight the alley cats and once in awhile the skunks. The homeless converse about our garbage. The thirsty beg for water. The drunk beg for mouthwash. The children race on their bikes. The man runs after them for his wallet. The police scream surrender in the middle of the night. There have been fights and quarrels. There have been screams, people laughing, people cheering, people crying, people banging and people banging around. One man in the building across serenades us neighbors with a loud burp each night, routinely timed to go off just before the 9pm cannon.

And then there’s Chichu… a lone being on the quietest of nights, breaking the peace with his gabble. The sound travels throughout the neighborhood, in between the buildings; down the alleys and past the other cats perched atop their balconies, rehearsing their very own songs. It finds me, and I follow my muse up the drive. It leads me home--crawling, in a drunken stupor, overworked daze, or just relentless anticipation for the future.


Ldm