Across from the guy downstairs: Scream

Remember the three-part series I did about the guy that lives downstairs? Well, this is the three-part series on the family that lives across from that guy.*

Across from the guy downstairs lives a single mother with a special needs toddler. To no fault of the child, the toddler screams all day. All day.Long sustained screams.

The single mother also screams. All day. She screams at her twin 17-year old boys for not going to school, for not having jobs, for getting a girl pregnant, for leaving the fence open, for coming home, for not coming home, for things that I can’t understand…you get the picture.

The two boys are biologically the same age, but physically look like one is older than the other. The older looking twin is as thin as a rail. He only wears wife-beater tank tops, I suppose to show off his arms. Not that they are muscular. I believe Michelle Obama has pythons compared to his itty bitty arms. He doesn’t wear a shirt to show off all his jail house tattoos**. This boy is already a father and regularly calls his Baby Momma. I know this because he only calls her when he’s standing outside in the middle of his backyard. I believe he does this so he could scream at her at the top of his lungs, without interrupting the screaming that is already happening inside.

The first time I came face to face with this twin, I was walking toward my car and he was just coming toward the building. I did a quick full body scan and looked him square in the eyes. He quickly turned his face to spit on the ground and kept walking past me.

Gross.

Scary.

But, hey, it’s buy one gross and scary and get the second gross and scary free. Luckily, his twin is gross and scary in the circus kind of way.

The other twin boy is smaller that his brother. He looks 14 in age. And although he is always fully dressed, his clothes are insanely big on him. I understand the fashion, but this is literally pants-on-the-ground. He actually cinches his pants under his butt, around his thighs. The seam that marks where t-shirts fall on a man’s shoulder really hang below his elbows. It’s as if he’s a regular sized man in Shaq’s clothes.

His voice is still changing. I know because he…no he doesn’t scream…he sings, well, no, he raps all day. He raps loudly. He likes to rap under the staircase that leads to my apartment. I imagine because of the echo. So, his middle-of-puberty voice that sounds like a loose snare drum is amplified throughout the hallway, throughout my home.

All this happens downstairs. All day, everyday.

Until last night. When downstairs came upstairs.

I’ll tell you all about it in my next entry, “Across from the guy downstairs: Scream 2”

*Note: Although it is not necessary to read “The guy downstairs” series from back in January to understand this new series, you may find the background information helpful.

**You know, jail house tattoos: a spiderweb, a skull and crossbones, a couple of names, all scattered throughout, where ever there is space.