Bottled Yellow Liquid
I’ve made it to Thursday afternoon with mixed progress.
The good: I got a package box for the lobby that seems to be working okay for Carmen’s “system” or whatever the fuck his life
entails. Delivery people now have a place to throw his packages without clogging the hall, and I just have to hope I’m not
enabling a drug-smuggling business.
I’ve also booked an exterminator for the basement. Soon this place will have a few less residents.
The bad: I posted to Slack days ago that the electrician was coming and we’d need tenants to let us into their apartments,
and the results were dire. Only about half of the residents acknowledged that they’d be able to, while many more just straight
up ignored me or asked me random shit like if the electrician can install an air conditioner while he’s around. (Nope!) My
favorite reaction was from Lorna Frank (Fancy Widow), who replied to my message with: Everyone needs to stop feeding the geese because it only emboldens them, before seeming to log off for good.
The neighborhood geese are well-known assholes, so I’m pretty sure nobody was willingly giving them food, but I digress.
Carmen is the worst of them. His response to my message was simply: NO can do!
Of course I have a key to his place and can let myself in with proper notice, but I just know he’ll go crying to Irene if
I pull something like that.
Now the electrician is here, and I’m going back and forth through the floors, knocking on doors and begging people to let me in.
I try knocking on 1A a second time. “Hello, Norm! We’re here for the scheduled electric inspection.” Still no answer. 1A Incel
didn’t acknowledge my note, yet I’d held out hope since he never seems to leave the building.
Worse still, the weird funk in Norm’s corner of the hallway is only getting more pungent. Jamie, the electrician I’ve been
dealing with the past hour, scrunches his nose in agreement before he taps something into his tablet that’s outfitted with
a giant “war-proof” case before saying, “Another one who’s ignoring you, then?”
“Guess so.” It’s nice working with Jamie because he’s such a dickhead.
This evening, he’s already stomped his dirty shoes through my place and Irene’s (uneventful, unless you count Ernest excitedly
smelling Jamie’s ankles). The first resident to let us in was Uniform Family (they had a giant puzzle in the middle of the
living-room floor that warmed my cold heart). Divorced Dad also let us in but ignored us entirely, retreating into his bedroom.
His place was all dark leathery furniture and a framed Flames jersey (like he’d adopted a ’90s sitcom idea of bachelor life
before thinking too hard about it). Most recently, we got let into Fighting Couple’s suite. The guy (Marcus Johnson) pretended
to read on his couch while watching us out of the corner of his eye, and the girl (Janine Chen) emptied a dishwasher. Slowly.
The place was very basic: candles that were overly perfumed (to cover the hot dog smell?), framed “couples” photos (the type
the media puts out when he murders her), and art prints from a big-box store. It started to feel like we might all be NPCs—which
could explain a lot.
And now I am forced to consider these people the good tenants.
Because everyone else has left me in the dust. After all their complaining during the fire alarm, apparently we’re all just happy to do nothing and let this place burn to the ground.
I try knocking on Norm Olivers’s door for the third time, because after this I’ll have no choice but to approach Carmen’s place, and his hostile response to my Slack post does
not have my hopes up for a peaceful interaction.
My knuckles find a more desperate pace. I know he’s in there; he never leaves.
Right as I’m giving up hope and mentally preparing myself for Carmen’s place across the hall, Norm’s handle jiggles. I start
at the unexpected motion, a surge of excitement flooding through me, followed by a sense of dread.
Norm only half opens his door, leaving the safety chain intact. He’s sporting giant headphones, a dandruff-y rolled-out-of-bed-but-not-in-a-cool-way
hairdo, and a freaked-out expression.
“Hi, Norm.” I give him my best professional smile, which makes him flinch an inch backward. “We’re just here to check the
outlets.”
He abruptly closes the door.
For a second I’m left blinking at it, wondering how I managed to scare him off that fast, but then it opens fully a second
later, and I realize he was undoing the chain. “Oh, right. I, um, forgot.” He turns away, shoulders rounded as he retreats
into the suite. “Come in.”
I follow tentatively behind him, focused solely on the back of his head. Ignoring the concerning strength of the smell.
Given that Irene hasn’t been on top of maintenance for a while, it’s quite likely that nobody has entered this suite in over
five years, other than Norm.
Anything could be in there. Honestly, the smell might be even more of a red flag than I’ve been giving it credit for. Maybe it’s hearing random phrases from Jane’s crime shows all this time, but Norm does seem to have the right kind of profile for a guy hiding a body in his bathtub.
He’s probably six feet tall, but it’s obvious he’s trying to make himself smaller by crouching low. Like he wants to disappear,
or he’s afraid of being seen.
He takes a seat in a flaking pleather desk chair whose yellowed foam is trying to escape through the many cracks. He turns
to face the giant monitor on the desk that’s covered in almost half a dozen glasses and bottles with varying amounts of liquid
in them. He clicks his mouse. “I’ll be here if you need, um, anything,” he practically whispers, face red, before he crouches
down, obscuring himself behind the chair’s back.
I take in the rest of the place. There’s an old living-room set featuring pink fabric with a golden wheat pattern that I’m
pretty sure half the nation’s grandmas were issued in 1996. A bowl of potpourri sits at the center of the coffee table, almost
as a joke, because the sour odor is making my stomach curl.
The desire to open a window overwhelms me. I search for some access to fresh air—then notice the sliding door to the patio
has cardboard duct-taped across it, lest sunlight or anything joyful penetrate. Or to keep people from seeing the horrors
that happen in here? Suddenly I feel a bit more grateful for the presence of the dickhead electrician.
Jamie clangs his toolbox down behind me and starts setting up shop in the corner near the ancient wall heater. The contents
of the china cabinet in the corner rattle with his steps—flowery plates and tiny teacups and a bunch of porcelain trinkets
shaped like wild birds and other shit that doesn’t fit the guy.
There’s nothing on the kitchen counter. No shoes lined up by the door.
The throw pillows arranged on the sofa are so plentiful I doubt anyone has sat on it recently.
I’m not convinced this guy ever leaves the chair he’s currently perched on unless it’s to accept takeout or take a shit.
I glance his way again; behind the chair, I can make out the top of his head and his rounded neck protruding as he leans over the monitor.
He’s playing some “walking in a field with a bow and arrow” game.
I’m actually pretty worried that he’s got a glass bottle half full of pee right next to his computer. Or, more hopefully,
apple juice.
Another unfortunate whiff of that odor hits my nose. It very hard to pin to one thing, and just when I think I’m getting used
to it, a slightly mutated aftershock of the stink rolls in.
As Jamie moves to check the outlet above the kitchen counter, he announces, “Wow, I see what you meant about the odor in here.
I couldn’t smell it from the hallway, but this place reeks in the kitchen.”
My stomach drops at the same time that Norm stiffens. I point to the back of Norm’s head before pressing a finger across my
mouth indicating to Jamie that he needs to shut the fuck up. I thought by giving this guy a heads-up he could act normal in here, not broadcast it like a sports announcer.
“Oh, don’t worry,” Jamie dismisses me. “My cousin is a gamer, and the guy can’t hear his own farts with those on.” He motions
around his ears to indicate the headphones that engulf Norm’s head, at the same time I notice Norm crouch farther into his
chair, his knuckles going white against the armrests. He’s not holding his controller anymore.
“You think this guy has a dead rodent in his fridge?” Jamie continues.
We might be in the lair of a serial killer, and here Jamie is, goading him. Again I try to shut Jamie up by cutting him a
shitty look. I twist my head back toward Norm, but he’s holding his remote again, the buttons clicking like he’s deeply immersed
in the game. Maybe I imagined his reaction before, and he really can’t hear us.
I step closer toward the kitchen, experimentally sniffing at the air (a bad decision).
Jamie has a point, unfortunately. The fridge is definitely the source.
It looks perfectly clean from the outside.
My eyes snag on a curled sheet of paper posted on the door, a Canadian Pizza Unlimited magnet tacking it down for dear life.
It’s a letter of some kind. I step closer, keeping one eye on Norm. It’s the logo on the letterhead that that caught my attention.
What is Norm doing with a letter from Westmore Communications, aka my workplace?
Norm’s chair creaks and I practically jump out of my skin, stepping back from the fridge. He lets out a huff as he tugs off
his headphones and rakes his hands across his forehead.
Without warning, his head turns and he catches me staring at him.
I should be the one startled, but his expression is like a lost baby deer. Then suddenly, it’s like he snaps back into himself,
into this world, and looks down at his body like he’s seeing it for the first time.
“Mona, come here a sec,” Jamie calls. He’s moved on to the hall leading toward the bedroom.
I tear my eyes away from Norm and move down the completely barren hallway to where Jamie stands near the fuse box on the wall.