Bystanding
Bystanding
A knock on my door, again. I was in the middle of a Zoom yoga class, although the heaping basket of clean laundry and the stacked, mountainous landscape of dirty dishes made it difficult to perform an effective sun salutation. I knew who it was, and suspected I knew why he was knocking. It was likely the same reason he knocked the day before. I didn’t want to go through the whole song and dance again, but I knew he knew I was in there. I could have told him I was busy, but I figured the fastest way out of this interaction was through it. I wiped my face with a bath towel before I opened the door to obligingly listen to my housemate, Craig, make his complaint — the one I’ve heard so many times, I could recite it back at him as he spoke.
When Craig moved in, I liked him right away. He was intelligent, jovial, and seemed to like me right back. We shared some similar cultural touchstones from childhood, and our humor aligned nicely. So, what if he talked about himself a lot? After all, I always seem to attract the extroverted, chatty types. Without them, I’d barely talk to anyone. He had charisma and thought I was smart and funny. So, I listened to him which, to my socially deprived psyche, seemed like the cost of admission for someone to pay any attention to me.
“Do you hear that motherfucker snorting up his nitrous hits? Listen!” We both were quiet until we heard the hiss. Though a hallway and a door separated us, we both knew the sound from bygone parties we’d attended in our respective youths: intoxicating gas filling the lungs of our housemate, Seth, by way of a balloon. The next step, we knew, would be Seth holding his breath, thus allowing the full effect of depriving his neural networks of oxygen while introducing a prolonged dose of a dissociative anesthetic. The goal was a euphoric, lightheaded feeling. But never in my wildest party days had I ever witnessed (however indirectly) this much nitrous oxide being consumed.
If it was a workday, Seth would trundle off to Best Buy at the same time I’d leave for the office. But on the weekends, Seth would sit in his room all day, huffing gas, only leaving to use the bathroom or get a snack. The only sound other than the inflating balloon and his deep breathes were his computer blaring movies or motivational TED talks.
Back in the hallway, Craig was appalled. “I told the landlord that I wanted to live here long-term, that I wanted a nice and quiet place to stay. He was happy about that; that way, he didn’t need to have to find another goddamned tenant for a long time. Now, I’ve been here what, three, four months — and I have to go? We’ve got a little bitch next door huffing nitrous all day and night. And I’m getting the boot?”
Craig was, indeed, getting the boot. One day, he pulled me aside to tell me that our landlord, Nigel, was evicting him. “I’ve been here three months. This is Marin. I can’t afford shit here. Where am I going to go?” I was taken aback by the first feeling that wound through me upon hearing of his imminent departure: relief. I was perplexed. I’d never had any sort of run in with Craig. In fact, he was kind and would sometimes knock on my door to present me with a delicious plate of food he’d prepared.
But he was chatty! Chatty to the point where I’d dodge around a corner in order to be able to use the bathroom before I got caught in a conversational web so sticky, I’d soon be dancing from one foot to the other. He also smoked a lot of weed, clouds of which I had to maneuver around in the early morning as I got my lunch from the fridge on my way out the door. Once, I made the mistake of lingering in the saturated hallway too long while I made sure I had my keys and wallet; I got a second-hand high. That morning was a drag since I had to trudge through a few hours of the unwanted effects while talking on the phone to customers. It was lunchtime before my head cleared completely. I meant to say something to him, but always fell under his spell as he relayed another rambling story about work, or how Nigel was doing him wrong.
Back in the present, another sharp crack and release of gas. Another balloon filled, and then emptied into Seth’s lungs. Craig looked pained. “Give me his room and kick his sorry ass out.” He then reiterated this sentiment by arranging the words around slightly for two full minutes, like he did during every conversation. I stood there, nodding until I felt like one of those little bubble-headed dogs on a dashboard. I wondered how much sympathy I’d have to show him before I could excuse myself, shut the door, and go about my business? I also wondered about myself: why do I feel so obligated to listen to this shit again and again? I’d recently rejoined my gym after 18 months of Corona virus-induced loafing and had been signed up for this Zoom class for days after I’d assessed how stiff and inflexible, I’d become during a year and a half of pandemic living. During the class, I was exceedingly glad I was ensconced in the privacy of my own room since my limbs simply weren’t going where they were supposed to. I felt very indignant about it, and very middle-aged. Still, I would rather have done ten more aggravated downward dogs than listen to the pained litany that waited on the other side of the door.
I’d taken to avoiding Craig in the kitchen, which is tough because he’s an avid cook. But after a long day at work of listening to people complain about their trash service, I just couldn’t take another diatribe about how unfair his treatment was at the hands of our landlord. Between Craig, listening to the world news every day, and my customers haranguing me with their problems, I was experiencing what I’d heard called “empathy fatigue.” I just couldn’t care anymore about other peoples’ problems. As a temporary fix, I avoided whatever complaints I could. After work, I would sneak into the pantry, take my sandwich fixings, and sneak back to my room to assemble a meal in peace, luxuriating in the quiet solitude. Alas, that wouldn’t stop Craig for long. Since he didn’t run into me in the kitchen so much anymore, he discovered he could knock on my door to provide updates to the latest chapter in his woes — woes that sounded very similar to the ones from the night before.
“Don’t listen to that guy…” Nigel said. “He’s been complaining to everyone in the house since he moved in. It’s been getting back to me from,” he paused, “various sources. He fills the recycling cart with beer cans every week, lies that they aren’t his, and causes trouble with the other tenants. Besides, the new owners are moving in and want his room. There’s nothing anyone can do.”
I couldn’t decide whose side was I on, though both teams lobbied hard and continuously for my support. Whenever I returned home from wherever I had been, Craig would accost me and launch full force into his story. Likewise, Nigel would call me on the phone during my lunch hour with his own grievances. I didn’t know who to be outraged at. Why did I need to be outraged at all?
Back to Seth and his sad tale. One Sunday morning, he was up bright and early projecting liquids out of both ends of his body, a state of affairs which lasted for a few hours. I was aware of this shitty state of affairs due to the thin wall between my bedroom and bathroom. Thus, my pillow is essentially three feet away from any ass that happens to be sitting on the toilet, separated only by a plank of wood, drywall, rat droppings and a wisp of insulation. In fact, I’m so privy to each fart, belch, poop, and stream of urine that graces the toilet bowl next door, I’ve more or less tuned them out. This time, however, I could hear him quickly wiping up his stray effluent with the disinfectant wipes we keep on the toilet tank. When nature called me, I used the upstairs bathroom in order to be courteous — and also to avoid the stink.
When I had spoken to Nigel about Seth’s troubles, Nigel revealed that he and Seth’s dad had agreed that Nigel would act as a kind of den mother for Seth, “keeping an eye” on the young man, and reporting any aberrant behavior back to the paternal figure. Nigel had been a drug counsellor in a hippie commune way back in the day, and I suppose he drew from that experience. But Nigel wasn’t doing so great a job since all Seth seemed to do when he wasn’t working was drugs. When Craig and I would call Nigel over to hear the huffing through the door, he claimed not to hear the inhalations. It was like denying that there was a hole in the roof when everyone else was pointing at the puddles of rainwater on the floor.
Get Zoe Larsen’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
I got home one evening, and Craig met me in the hallway. “He’s been in there all day, sucking on that nitrous.” No need to tell me who “he” was. We listened in the darkened corridor and, sure enough, we heard the telltale sound of the balloon being filled and emptied twice within the span of a minute. If he’d kept up that pace for the entire workday, that meant he’d inhaled dozens of little nitrous cartridges. Craig knocked on Seth’s door. Once, twice, then a flurry of heavy raps. From within, a muted yet clearly irritated voice mumbled, “what do you want?”
“Open the door, dude.”
“No, go away.” His voice was small and flat. It sounded like he was answering from some faraway place.
“Seriously, open the door. We’re worried about you.”
“Get the fuck out of here.”
I didn’t know what to do. Was he in real danger? Was he having a mental health crisis? Did we need to kick down the door? Should we just sod off? Craig was so persistent and decisive, whereas my thought processes ran more along the lines of really hoping we wouldn’t find an asphyxiated corpse the next day. I was also very aware of my not wanting to look like a fussy busybody. I was, at the age of 44, concerned with looking uncool when a young man’s health might be in danger.
I was relieved when Craig took charge again. He pulled out his phone. “I’m calling the police.” A moment later, he spoke into the phone. “My roommate, he’s in the next room. He can’t open the door and shit. We don’t know what the fuck. We think he’s fucked up on too much nitrous, but we don’t know what’s happening.” After several surprisingly tongue-tied false starts, he handed the phone to me to explain the situation. I wasn’t much more effective, stuttering and stammering through the call to the extremely efficient and professional operator.
Afterwards, I stood around awkwardly, wondering when I could excuse myself to go to bed without looking like an insensitive clod. But really, I was finished. It was midnight, and I needed to be at work at 8:00am. I couldn’t stand there anymore, couldn’t listen to Craig talk anymore, and I was out of empathy for anyone — especially Seth. I called it a day, leaving Craig waiting out in the cold for the cavalry to arrive.
Hours later, in the deep night of 3 o’clock or so, I was lifted halfway out of slumber to hear Craig leading someone down the hallway to Seth’s door. Whoever that someone was wore heavy boots and carried a radio that chirped snippets about local altercations in progress. When the officer spoke, I realized she was a woman. She knocked heavily on Seth’s door, just as Craig had earlier in the evening. Nothing. I wondered if she would kick the door down like on TV cop shows. Would Seth be unconscious? Would I trot out and offer my assistance, since I’d recently taken a Red Cross CPR class? But then a familiar irritated mumble from within the room provided enough proof that Seth still resided on this earthy plane. The officer said that, since he was alive and didn’t want her help, she wasn’t able to do much of anything. With that, she departed swiftly into the darkness of the early hours.
The next day, I called Nigel to tell him what happened in this hotbed of a rental property. “He did WHAT!!” he exploded over the phone.
“Well, we were concerned about Seth, and Craig thought we should call the police to make sure he wasn’t dead.”
“Jesus Christ, I’ve had it! I want them both out of here.”
Within a few minutes, he had marched over from the butler’s suite where he resides in the back yard and knocked on Seth’s door. Naturally, I stood inside my bedroom door, pressing my ear against it like I’ve done so many times during countless dramatic episodes in this house. This time, Seth opened up right away.
Nigel’s voice was solemn. “Hello, Seth. Listen, in light of recent events, I’m sorry but I’m going to have to ask you to leave. You have to be out thirty days from today. And you are not to ingest any drugs while you are on these premises, or you will be removed immediately.”
“Um, okay.” Seth closed the door.
And that was that.
Nigel told me to call him right away if anyone gets up to any shenanigans. To my astonishment, I haven’t heard any more whippets since that night.
